Get your own Free Homepage
Get your own Free HomepageWhat I thought of various books I've read
A superbly structured book set out as a series of letters. It isn't very often that this device works as well as it does here. The recent star-studded film based on this book did a very good job. If you enjoyed the film you'll love this.
I am a huge fan of Graham Greene's work, which is fantastically readable without being pap. The plot of 'The Quiet American' skips between the start, middle and end of the story & sets a tale of ideology against a background of the Vietnam war. A masterpiece of storytelling.
Possibly a little bit dated, but masterpieces of short storytelling. John Wyndham wrote science-fiction that was clever and wasn't easy to pigeon-hole. In this collection he tried his hand at everything from Horror to comedy. There is also a reading of Kubla Khan that is, on it's own a masterpiece.
An intricate plot that is as mindbending as it is funny. A book that needs rereading to pick out all the details & work out what happenned, but still a joy from the very first pages. (The sequel 'The long dark teatime of the soul' is also very good and probably a gentler way of introducing the characters.
Rudyard Kipling's first collection of stories, they are mostly very short (only a few pages long) but they demonstrate very clearly the genius this young man possessed for short fiction. Written when he was less cynical (and less jingoistic) the stories veer from unreadable (the army stories) to the finest stories ever crafted (The gate of 100 sorrows).
It amazes me that in America (and in schools in the UK) there seems to be a fixation with 'Catcher in the Rye', which is a poorly written & condescending book. On the road is so clearly autobiographical it is a wonder he bothered to change the names. It takes Joyce's free form and applies it to a plot. A brilliant book about disallusionment with friends.