Get it hereI recorded a couple of chapters of this, so was quite keen to hear the rest of it when it was finished. I was very impressed with what I had read, and was even more impressed with the whole thing.This is a novel, in that there are some connecting characters, but really, its [...]
Get it here.I am a big Jane Austen fan, but have never read this novella for some reason – perhaps I have always regarded it as a piece of juvenilia. It is fair to consider this an immature work, compared with her later novels, but an immature Jane Austen is still worth ten ordinary novelists [...]
Get it here.In ‘Something New’ Wodehouse has Joan Valentine, the female writer,say of the magazine she works for: ‘It’s a horrid little paper–all brown-paper patterns and advice to thelovelorn and puzzles. I do a short story for it every week, undervarious names. A duke or an earl goes with each story.’ One week, I suspect [...]
I saw a video of a Rube Goldberg machine the other day, (called a Heath Robinson contraption in this part of the world), and was reminded of the plots of P G Wodehouse. Perhaps it was the other way around. Anyway, bear with me.The point is, there are number of objects, the behaviour of which [...]
Get it hereI saw the film based on this book back in 1988, when I was 20 years old. Perhaps you remember it: Julian Sands got to plant the most romantic kiss in history on Helena Bonham-Carter. The fact that Julian’s career didn’t quite reach the highest of heights may well be put down to [...]
Get it here.A very entertaining romp – which starts slowly, and builds up to a great conclusion. I had expected a light, sword-play filled pot-boiler, and was quite surprised when the first few chapters seemed to suggest a philosophical novel, pondering the nature of political power. This deeper aspect reappears at odd moments in the [...]
Get it here. Well – has the emperor got new clothes, or no clothes? I don’t know. Perhaps its a skintight bodystocking. Its hard to read this book with an open mind. It has become such a tribal piece of literature that it seems that you can either claim it as the greatest novel in [...]
Get it here.A real surprise. I expected Agatha Christie, and got P G Wodehouse with added death. Very funny in places, and written with the touch of an angel. And all the clues are there, if you want to solve the riddle yourself. But there is a lot going on besides the mystery, including a [...]
Get it here.A can’t really give a brief outline of the plot without giving it all away – and a great deal of the effect of the story derives from the surprise ending.I have read some Balzac, but had forgotten how beautifully he writes – he can take a long time to get to the [...]
Get it hereAt first I was fairly sure I would not enjoy this book. It starts slowly, but I could not work out why – Mr James writes very well, but I felt it lacked something. At the start of chapter four I realised what it was: dialogue. Because when it starts, things really start [...]