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Book Reviews
This is an ever growing collection of notes and remarks about books I've read, collected on a roughly monthly basis. I do not include all the stuff I read: most practical things, like travel guides, computer manuals, science textbooks… this sort of book is left out because it is of limited interest to most other people. But almost all fiction I read is (or will eventually be) included, as well as the occasional work of non-fiction, if I think it's a worthwhile read or possesses some general interest.
A word about the one-liner “ratings” at the end of the entries. Most should be pretty obvious; it's also obvious that the whole thing is thoroughly subjective, a highly personal affair: take them with a pinch of salt. A “Highly recommended” is reserved for the best books and it means King Thomas liked it so much that he thinks anyone who hasn't read that particular book should try to do so at his or her earliest opportunity.
There is just one higher accolade and that is a LICHTENBERG. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-99) was a German physicist and an accomplished writer. Among his satirical works is a famous collection of aphorisms, witticisms. puns and bon-mots called “Die Sudelbücher”. To promote the sales of this collection he invented the following slogan (Sudelbuch E, 1775-76): “Wer zwei Paar Hosen hat, mache eins zu Geld und schaffe sich dieses Buch an.” (He who has two pairs of trousers, turn one into money and acquire this book.)
Books October 2006
- Katharine Sim: Desert Traveller (E)
- Leila Aboulela: Minaret (E)
- John Irving: A Widow For One Year (E)
Books September 2006
- Sebastian Faulks: Human Traces (E)
- Richard Preston: Brown's Britain (E)
- Anthony Simpson: Who Runs That Place? (E)
- Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln: The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (E)
Books July and August 2006
- Toby Faber: Stradivarius (E)
- Lionel Shriver: We need to talk about Kevin (E)
- Jeremy Paxman: The Political Animal (E)
- James Clavell: Whirlwind (E)
- Guillermo Martínez: The Oxford Murders (E)
Books February 2006
- Virginia Woolf: Orlando (E)
- Bryan Magee: Confessions of a Philosopher (E)
- William Raeper and Linda Smith: Brief Guide to Ideas (E)
Books January 2006
- Alain-Founier: Le Grand Meaulnes (E)
- Bob Dylan: Chronicles (E)
- Ian McEwan: Saturday (E)
- Richard Webster: Why Freud Was Wrong (E)
Books December 2005
- Carlos Ruiz Zafón: The Shadow of the Wind (E)
- Colum McCann: This Side of Brightness (E)
- John Banville: The Sea (E)
- Jasper Fforde: The Jane Eyre Affair (E)
Books November 2005
- Paul Auster: Oracle Night (E)
- John Banville: The Untouchable (E)
- Piers Morgan: The Insider (E)
- Philip Roth: Portnoy's Complaint (E)
- Katie Price: Being Jordan (E)
- John Banville: Athena (E)
Books September 2005
- Ian McEwan: Amsterdam (E)
- Iain Banks: Walking on Glass (E)
- Carson McCullers: The Ballad of the Sad Café (E)
- Iain Banks: Whit (E)
- Paul Auster: In the Country of Last Things (E)
- James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (E)
- John Fowles: Daniel Martin (E)
- John Noble Wilford: The Mapmakers (E)
Books July and August 2005
- Henry Thoreau: Walden (E)
- Max Frisch: Stiller (D); I'm not Stiller (E)
- Patrick McGrath: Asylum (E)
- Daniel J. Boorstin: The Image (E)
- Ian McEwan: The Comfort of Strangers (E)
- Elias Canetti: Masse und Macht (D)
- Ian McEwan: Atonement (E)
- Mitch Albom: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (E)
- D.J. Taylor: Orwell; The Life (E)
- Mark Tully: No Full Stops In India (E)
- Alexander McCall-Smith: From the Full Cupboard of Life (E)
A few memorable books from the first half of 2005
- Martin C. Strong: The Great Rock Discography, Vol 7 (E)
- Elias Canetti: Die Blendung (D) [English title: Auto-da-fé]
- Douglas Kennedy: A Special Relationship (E)
- Freya Stark: The Valleys Of The Assassins (E)
- George Orwell: Keep The Aspidistra Flying (E)
- Paul J. Nahin: Time Machines (E)
- Harper Lee: To Kill A Mockingbird (E)
- Albert Camus: The Fall (D)
- V.S. Naipaul: Half A Life (E)
- Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita (E)
- William Golding: The Lord Of The Flies (E)
- Siri Hustvedt: The Enchantment of Lily Dahl (E)
- Mark Richardson (ed.): The Travels of Ibn Battutah (E)
- Siri Hustvedt: What I Loved (E)
- Paul Auster: The Book Of Illusions (E)
$updated from: Book Reviews.htxt Thu 27 Apr 2017 10:06:48 thomasl (By Thomas Lauer)$