A Suitable Boy (1993)
Although the earliest of the works, I only got round to reading it this year. This was partly because I was deterred by its size. It is reputed to be the longest novel ever written in the English language. The paperback edition I read was 1,349 pages long. Other editions have even more pages. It took the author almost ten years to write. Because of its size and the number of characters, this is not a novel for reading just a few pages at a time last thing at night. Nevertheless, despite its length, A Suitable Boy reads very easily, thanks to Seth’s flowing style and humour. It is set in India shortly after Partition,  in the period leading up to the country’s first election following independence. The title refers to the search by a mother for a suitable husband for her daughter for whom there are a number of potential suitors. This, however, is but one theme in a saga involving the affairs of four families. The writer addresses a host of issues that were of importance at the time (several of which remain so), including arranged marriages, sectarian animosity, the caste system and land reform. Not only is this a truly great novel, it also provides the reader with a fascinating insight into Indian society and history at a critical time for the country.

An Equal Music (1999)
This is the story of a love affair between two classical musicians, written with great sensitivity and poignancy by a writer who clearly is himself a lover of, and highly knowledgable about, music. Another masterpiece.

Two Lives (2005)
When he was seventeen, Vikram Seth left India to come to England to continue his education. He went to stay with his great-uncle Shanti and great-aunt Henny who lived in Hendon. Theirs are the two lives of the title of this biography. Shanti was Indian and Henny a German Jew. They met in Germany, where Shanti had gone to study dentistry in the 1930s. They were not famous people but they lived through some terrible times. The book encompasses the India of Shanti’s early life, Germany before and during the Second World War, the fighting in Africa and Italy, the Holocaust and post-war Germany and Britain. It is written with great affection and is a moving family memoir. I do, however, think it could have done with some vigorous editing in that too much of Henny’s correspondence is quoted and, frankly, some of it is rather tedious.

Photo: Kate Atkinson. See below.

The Brass Verdict (2008) by Michael Connelly
See the review in my blog of 24th June 2009.

Aimez-Vous Brahms… (1959) by Françoise Sagan
I came across this book whilst clearing out my mother’s house. Françoise Sagan was a popular French novelist who died in 2004. This was her fourth novel and is only 129 pages long. It is about a middle-aged woman in a long-standing affair who becomes involved with a much younger man. Even though it is so short, I still found it tedious. This was the first book by the author that I have read and it is likely to be the last.

The Shape of Water (1994) by Andrea Camilleri
This is the first in a popular series of novels, translated from Italian, featuring a Sicilian detective, Inspector Salvo Montalban. It is an enjoyable mystery, written in a low key, and I may well read another in the series.

The Interpretation of Murder (2006) by Jed Rubenfield
The author is an academic lawyer at Yale University and this is his first novel. It is set in the USA in 1909 and is a mixture of fact and fiction. The factual context is the visit to that country at that time of Sigmund Freud, accompanied by Carl Jung, to give a series of lectures on psychoanalysis. The fiction is the former’s involvement in solving a murder and an associated mystery. It received very good reviews and was one of the UK’s best-selling novels in 2007. Whilst it is cleverly plotted and carefully researched, the central conceit did not really work for me.

The Mission Song (2006) by John le Carré
Anyone who is familiar with this website will know that I am a huge admirer of John le Carré. This story of an interpreter out of his depth in murky African politics did not disappoint. It is written with a lighter touch than some of his work.

Case Histories (2004) by Kate Atkinson
This is the second novel by Kate Atkinson that I have read. The first was Behind the Scenes at the Museum which was the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year, an impressive feat for a first novel. I thoroughly enjoyed both books. She has an original style and is able to blend tragedy with dark humour. Unlike the earlier book, Case Histories is a detective story but it is quite different from the norm. The central character, Jackson Brodie, a private detective, is very likeable and features in two further novels. I look forward to reading them.

The House of the Spirits (1982) by Isabel Allende
We had had this book at home for several years but it did not appeal to me. I only decided to read it after seeing that The Times had included it in its list of the 60 greatest books of the past 60 years. The author is Chilean and is related to the former president of that country, Salvador Allende, who was deposed in the 1973 coup led by General Pinochet. This was her first novel and is set in a South American country which, although unnamed, is identifiable as Chile. It is a family saga, covering three generations. It is a magnificent work and deserves the recognition it has received.

Russian Hide-and-Seek (1980) by Kingsley Amis
This was another book that belonged to my mother. It is set in England fifty years after the country has been colonized by the Russians and concerns a plot to bring down the government. I have read and enjoyed several of Amis’s novels but this was not one of them. I found it neither amusing nor interesting.

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The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (2008) by Kate Summerscale
This is a thoroughly researched account of a notorious Victorian murder case that involved Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard, the most famous detective of the time. The case inspired the classic English country house murder story. The book won the prestigious Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction in 2008 and was named as the Book of the Year in the 2009 Galaxy British Book Awards. Whilst I enjoyed it, I felt it succeeded more as a social history than as a narrative of the actual events. Nevertheless, well worth reading.

A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) by Khaled Hosseini
I enjoyed this even more than Hosseini’s first novel, The Kite Runner. Indeed, I think it is the better book. Like its predecessor, it is set in Afghanistan, and is an epic and often harrowing tale of the lives of two women enduring their plight in that country’s recent turbulent history. It has been a huge international success and was the novel that most impressed me of the ones I read last year.

Don’t Look Back (2002) by Karin Fossum
I so enjoyed the BBC Wallander series last year that I decided to read one of Henning Mankell’s novels. Unfortunately the only ones that seemed to be readily available at the time were those on which the TV series had been based. It was not, however, a massive leap from a Swedish policeman to a Norwegian one, Inspector Sejer. Although it was well written, I did not find the book gripping and am a little surprised at Karin Fossum’s considerable popularity. Perhaps this was not a particularly good example of her work.

A Most Wanted Man (2008) by John le Carré
One of my favourites of the year. See the review in my blog of 24th June 2009.

I’m Not Scared (2001) by Niccolò Ammaniti
A disturbing story, seen through the eyes of a nine year old boy who gradually discovers that his world is not what it had seemed. It is a superbly written short novel that maintains its tension to the end. The 2003 film of the same name, with a screenplay by the author, is very faithful to the novel.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) by Milan Kundera
This is widely regarded as a twentieth century classic. Having struggled to read it, I can but wonder why. To me it was unbearably tedious. Probably, I simply don’t appreciate postmodern literature. I am sufficiently old-fashioned to want well-drawn characters and a structure to the plot. I much preferred the 1988 film version.

The Ghost (2007) by Robert Harris
I read this on holiday in a very short space of time and it was, indeed, hard to put down. It is a first-class, intelligent political thriller. Don’t be misled by the title. It is not about the supernatural; the hero is a ghostwriter hired by a former British prime minister to complete his memoirs. If the Blairs have read this, I don’t think they would have enjoyed it.

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A Most Wanted Man (2008)  is le Carré’s 21st novel and, for a man who will be 78 in October, the author is showing no signs of diminishing powers. The book is typical of his oeuvre in that, although it could be pigeon-holed as a spy thriller, it is so much more than that. Like Absolute Friends (2004), it is concerned with Islamic terrorism and involves well-drawn characters caught up in a world in which they are plainly out of their depth. There is a lot of dialogue and comparatively little action, but the book is nevertheless riveting. It is very apparent that the author is angry at the West’s conduct of the so-called War on Terror. Moral indignation and cynicism are rarely far from the surface.

Rating ****

The central character of The Brass Verdict (2008) is Mickey Haller, the defence attorney from The Lincoln Lawyer (2005), an outstanding legal thriller. Michael Connelly’s usual hero, Detective Harry Bosch, also appears, but in a somewhat peripheral role.

For me, the best elements of Connelly’s thrillers are the clever plotting, the smart dialogue and the sustained pace of the  narrative. Here, although the novel gets off to a brisk start, I felt that it got rather bogged down in the middle, particularly in the section on jury selection, and was generally not as exciting as it might have been. The dialogue was up to the usual standard but, although the plotting was intricate, the story was implausible in certain key respects. Having said that, there was probably sufficient here to satisfy most of the author’s many fans.

Rating ****

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The majority of Connelly’s novels feature Harry Bosch, a detective with the Local Angeles Police Department. There are 14 in the series so far. He also writes stand-alone novels. I am a relative newcomer to this author and have, so far, read six of his books, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed. They are, in order of publication:

• Blood Work (1998)
• Angels Flight (1999)
• City of Bones (2002)
• Lost Light (2003)
• The Lincoln Lawyer (2005)
• Echo Park (2006)

Four of the above are Harry Bosch novels. The two stand-alones are Blood Work and The Lincoln Lawyer.

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Tom Wolfe is a modern American Dickens who paints vivid pictures of sections of American culture and society on a large canvas. His three novels are:

The Bonfire Of The Vanities (1987)

A biting satire of 1980s New York. A masterpiece.

A Man In Full (1998)

The themes here are race relations in the Deep South, dirty dealings in the worlds of real estate, banking and local politics, and the obscene contrast between the super-rich and the dispirited poor. A brilliant novel.

I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004)

A naïve country girl wins a scholarship to a top American university in this somewhat flawed but nevertheless highly entertaining novel.

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The Dwarves of Death (1990)

Although this is the earliest of Coe’s novels that I have read, fortunately it was not the first as I may not have progressed to the others. It is a humorous murder mystery which, although entertaining, is modest fare in comparison with his later work.

What A Carve Up (1994)

A funny and clever satire on Thatcher’s Britain of the 1980s. Winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.

The House Of Sleep (1997)

This is in essence a comic novel, two of the set-pieces being exceptionally funny, but it is also deeply moving. A clever prize-winning novel. My favourite Jonathan Coe book.

The Rotters’ Club (2001)

A funny, satirical, yet compassionate story of intelligent teenagers growing up in 1970s Birmingham.

The Closed Circle (2004)

The same characters as in The Rotters’ Club but twenty years older. Perhaps less amusing but more cynical than its predecessor. The teenage innocence has evaporated.

The Rain Before It Falls (2007)

A short novel in which melancholy replaces Coe’s customary humour. A beautifully written book.

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I have read 15of le Carré’s novels and still have a few to go. Two that I have not yet read are regarded as among his best. These are The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1963) and A Perfect Spy (1986). These omissions are the result of having seen the outstanding Martin Ritt film of the former, starring Richard Burton, and a BBC serialisation of the latter. My memories of these have faded with time and I may well get round to reading the novels.

Another of le Carré’s books which has been serialised on television was the excellent Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974), with Alec Guinness as George Smiley, probably the author’s most memorable character, who appears in several of his books. In that case, I had read the novel before it was televised. If there is anyone out there who has not yet discovered John le Carré, this novel is a good place to start. It is the first of a trilogy, so the pleasure can be continued with The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley’s People (1980).

Of the le Carré novels I have read, there are only two which I did not particularly enjoy. One was his second novel, A Murder of Quality (1962), which I thought was ordinary and The Tailor of Panama (1996), where there was a distinct change of tone and style. Single and Single (1999) is an enjoyable read but a minor work.

Of the novels not previously mentioned, I thoroughly recommend the following:

• The Looking Glass War (1965)
• A Small Town In Germany (1968)
• The Little Drummer Girl (1983)
• The Russia House (1989)
• The Secret Pilgrim (1991)
• The Night Manager (1993)
• Our Game (1995)
• The Constant Gardener (2001)
• Absolute Friends (2004)

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