Master Georgie
by Beryl Bainbridge
"When Master Georgie - George Hardy, surgeon and photographer - sets off from the cold squalor of Victorian Liverpool for the heat and glitter of the Bosphorus to offer his services in the Crimea, there straggles behind him a small caravan of devoted followers; Myrtle, his adoring adoptive sister; lapsed geologist Dr Potter; and photographer's assistant and sometime fire-eater Pompey Jones, all of them driven onwards through a rising tide of death and disease by a shared and mysterious guilt."This is the first Beryl Bainbridge I've read, and it's a lot better than most of the 'classic' books on my list. Quite short, a bit odd, it follows a group of people all connected by family or events, describing life in Liverpool and the Crimea with six vignettes set between 1846 and 1854. Enough to encourage me to try another of hers in future.
Golden Hill
by Francis Spufford
"One rainy evening in November, a handsome young stranger fresh off the boat in New York pitches up at a counting-house door in Golden Hill Street: this is Mr. Smith, amiable, charming, yet strangely determined to keep suspicion simmering. For in his pocket, he has what seems to be an order for a thousand pounds, a huge amount, and he won't explain why, or where he comes from, or what he can be planning to do in the colonies that requires so much money."I borrowed this book on the recommendation of the friends who were with me at the festival. I read it within the weekend, and it's wonderful. Such a relief to find a good book written within the last few years. They (the friends) told me that they usually buy The Economist magazine's books of the year, and this is one of them.
The Secret Adversary
by Agatha Christie
narrated by B. J. Harrison
"Tommy and Tuppence, two young people short of money and restless for excitement, embark on a daring business scheme. Their advertisement says they are ‘willing to do anything, go anywhere’. But their first assignment, for the sinister Mr Whittington, plunges them into more danger than they ever imagined."One of her earlier efforts I believe, and utterly unrealistic when viewed through the lens of the 21st century when well-meaning amateur sleuths are unlikely to get approval from government mandarins to track down murderous traitors. Our happy-go-lucky heroes also emerge from significant periods of imprisonment by the bad guys with their financial resources intact, ready to hop into a cab or a train at a moment's notice. Small gripes, I admit, but distracting. Perhaps you didn't need any cash in those days, just a plummy accent and a convincing manner.
Gravity's Rainbow
by Thomas Pynchon
"Set in Europe at the end of WWII, the novel's central characters race each other through a treasure hunt of false clues, disguises, distractions, horrific plots and comic counterplots to arrive at the formula which will launch the Super Rocket."Reader, I couldn't do it. It was too difficult, with all the tens of characters introduced without any context, no points of reference, no narrative path to follow, and no discernible plot. I got halfway through and realised that I'd have to put in the same amount of effort for the whole of the second half, and it wasn't worth it. I should have known when I read somewhere that it was comparable with literary masterpieces Moby Dick (couldn't finish it) and Ulysses (not even going to start).
Mrs Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf
narrated by Juliet Stevenson
"A June day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway –a day that is taken up with running minor errands in preparation for a party and that is punctuated, toward the end, by the suicide of a young man she has never met."There are many, many people, mostly women that I'm aware of, who cite Virginia Woolf as one of the leading forces in their lives. It doesn't look like I'm going to be one of them. I'm pretty sure I read The Lighthouse a long time ago and thought it was OK - same with this one. It's not bad, and Juliet Stevenson is a fine narrator, but I won't be bothering with VW any more.
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