Moon over Soho - Ben Aaronovitch

61%
12.05.13

I got this out of the library at the same time as Rivers of London, on the off-chance that I'd like the first one enough to read the second one without having to hunt around for it (or, gasp, pay for it). Well, I did enjoy the first one, and this sequel was fun and inventive too - but slackly structured, not very exciting and frankly rather confusing. I might wait to read the rest.

(My excuse for the unprofessionally borrowed-from-Amazon cover is that my usual Google Books source failed to offer a hi-res version. If you look really carefully, you might be able to see "Convent Garden" in the picture and wonder, like me, whether this is a deliberate mistake or a real one they're passing off as deliberate...)

Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch

67%
06.05.13

Gory supernatural detective thrillers aren't my usual read of choice, but I kept coming across this and it intrigued me. And indeed it is a rollicking good story, gritty yet funny, and set in a strangely plausible London of mysterious, compelling characters that aren't quite human. But the plot does get a bit tangled in on itself and the ending seems to have been confusingly rewritten to anticipate a sequel.

Black Powder War - Naomi Novik

66%
19.04.13

"So, there are these books. They're about the Napoleonic wars. With dragons. Talking dragons with vivid personalities. They're really good. Yes, really." It does sound a bit improbable that this series will be anything other than standard historical fantasy - and it's true that the plots are a little slow - but they're so well written and researched that you do get swept up in this appealing alternate reality.

Thursdays in the Park - Hilary Boyd

44%
13.04.13

Late-blooming love is rarely examined in modern fiction but it is badly served here. Self-absorbed middle-class Londoners cocooned in their privileged world are annoying enough without the poor quality of the prose to mire it further. Any book that includes a description of a "glass-fronted dresser painted in National Trust Woodlawn Charm blue" needs a decent edit, quite frankly.

Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

69%
31.03.13

The incomparable Sarah Waters - reinventing the historical novel while referencing its ancestors (a whole load of Richardson, a bunch of Dickens, perhaps a little Gaskell). Her exploitation of the first person narrator's limitations enables fine plot twists and her rich storytelling makes you drop everything else and swallow the unlikely events and coincidences. For the first three-quarters, at least. After that the story seems to get dragged into its own detail, slowly spooling out to an inevitable conclusion that seems oddly lacklustre. But even that final quarter is more accomplished than the majority of books I've read recently.

Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald

53%
20.03.13

Astonishingly modern in style and content (sex! alcoholism! mental illness!) and at times beautiful in its descriptions, you still can't get away from the fact that it's self-indulgent, hard-going and, obviously, not nearly as good as The Great Gatsby.

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor

73%

17.03.13

I'm not a great fan of tragi-comedy - there's nothing very funny about tragedy. But this rather wonderful story succeeds in being both wry and devastating in its dissection of old age - its loneliness, its small joys, its humour, its social embarrassments - and that in fact, this is the stuff of life at any age. Some say it's depressing, but the complexity of character and plot in such a short novel, combined with the beauty of its writing and power of its final pages, rather makes it oddly uplifting, the sort of book that sticks in your mind.

NB: Oddly, I wasn't too impressed by another of Taylor's novels, 'A Game of Hide and Seek'.

Wonder - RJ Palacio

69%
27.02.13

You can read this in a couple of sittings while you're in bed with the flu (as I did) and yes, it is ever so slightly cheesy and preachy. But on another level, it's a surprisingly complex exploration of the nature of appearance, identity, friendship, growing up, even parenthood. It's wise, funny, engaging, quirky, and the narration from a variety of kids' viewpoints gives it a further level of insight. There's even an extensive quote from The Magnetic Fields and yes, if Steven Merritt were to write a book, it would probably be a little like this one.

The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson

55%
23.02.13

I know this is an international humorous bestseller but it just seemed underwhelming to me. It's an emotionally detached fable about a man who accidentally influences 20th century history, handily unencumbered by romance or self-awareness. Lots of political history cleverly hidden in the narrative but I don't think I'll remember much about it tomorrow.

And if you're going to the trouble of translating something, can't you make the title grammatical?

The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry

48%
10.02.13

In which characters are cruelly buffeted by the winds of fate and subsequently either die young and tragically or live long and miserably. Yes, we know that in Catholic Ireland some priests were of dubious morality and some women were treated unjustly but it all seemed too far-fetched and metaphorical to gain any emotional involvement from the reader.

The Perfume Collector - Kathleen Tessaro

55%
23.01.13

I say I prefer literary fiction but the Booker shortlist remains unread on my shelves while I devour the chicklit I've won on Twitter. This was an uncorrected proof of a novel that hasn't yet been published so for once I'm at the cutting edge. The novel itself, not so much. The prose style is accomplished but the plot and characters a little confusing and inconsistent - for example, why does the main character not realise what's clear to the reader from the start? But she did have the same birthday as me, which illogically inclined me more favourably towards her, despite her 1950s upper class dialogue not quite ringing true. Good enough escapism.

The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson

62%
04.01.13

An entertaining hurtle through the nature of psychopathy, padded with insights into some aspects of "the madness industry". It's the sort of book that you read very fast, while boring whoever happens to be near with fascinating soundbites. It's also the sort of book that, on reflection, seems patchy, never getting to the heart of (or indeed anywhere near) the central hook: whether psychopaths actually run/ruin the world. The copy-editing was equally patchy, despite the long list of acknowledgements at the back.

Skios - Michael Frayn

55%
01.01.13

I'm keen on Michael Frayn but not so keen on farces, which is a pity because Frayn is regarded as the master of British farce. I just can't be doing with all those mistaken identities and misunderstandings and ridiculous coincidences but if anyone can move them from the superficial to the philosophical, it's Frayn. Well, maybe. There's nothing really deep here, unless it's so deep that it's buried beneath the comic awkwardness. There's nothing noticeably insightful but it's diverting enough - for a farce.

The House of Silk - Anthony Horowitz

57%
28.12.12

As is suggested from the fact that I haven't reviewed any Conan Doyle, my knowledge of Sherlock Holmes is gained entirely from the screen, not the page. I do have collected works on my Kindle but there are always more tempting books to read. So I can only judge the merits of this "official" spin off as it stands. Horowitz is a respected writer, and his style and period details convincing enough. The content has been toughened up for modern tastes and there are some annoying self-references but, as historical crime fiction, it does the job.

Blood and Feathers - Lou Morgan

56%
15.12.12

A quirky take on Paradise Lost, readable enough, with some decent fight scenes and a lovingly invented vision of Hell. Under-edited, though - it needs more appropriate placing of humour and better signposting to clarify what is going on, with which minor characters, and why, as I had no idea in many places. Great cover.