London Reader
Book reviews across all genres
31/07/20: Sarah Waters – The Little Stranger (2009)
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This 500-page novel, shortlisted for the 2009 Booker Prize , initially frustrated me. I don’t like to give up on books, but for 200 pages I...
15/06/20: Luke Haines – Post Everything: Outsider Rock and Roll 1997–2005 (2011)
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A sequel to Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Part in Its Downfall (2009), this second volume of Luke Haines’ recollections covers Black Box Record...
26/05/20: Luke Haines – Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Part in Its Downfall (2009)
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“I am none of the following, but have been described variously as: the pioneer of, the godfather of, the man who invented, the butcher of, ...
13/05/20: Dean Karnazes – Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner (2005)
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“Just as a race-car driver pushes his vehicle to the limit, or a pilot tests the ‘edge’ in an experimental plane, I wanted to see how far ...
04/03/20: Joan Lindsay – Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967)
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A masterpiece. On Valentine’s Day, 1900, the girls from an Australian boarding school go on a day trip to the ominous Hanging Rock – a nota...
25/02/20: Bernard MacLaverty – Midwinter Break (2017)
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The slow-motion disintegration of a marriage. He drinks too much. She seeks spiritual enlightenment. A retired couple, they are in Amsterda...
30/01/20: Neal Stephenson – Seveneves (2015)
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“But this was how the mind worked. The mind couldn’t think about the End of the World all the time. It needed the occasional break, a romp ...
02/01/20: Lawrence Block – The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep (1966)
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Slightly underwhelming thriller about a man’s quest to retrieve a stash of hidden gold. Evan Michael Tanner travels through many countries ...
03/12/19: Steve Toltz – Quicksand (2015)
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“Humanity’s common goal is to die with dignity and dignified in that context is defined as dying in our own beds, but what if you have a wate...
08/11/19: John O’Farrell – Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter 1979–1997 (1998)
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“Only in Britain are people criticised for attempting to make something ‘a political issue’, when surely everything is a political issue.” ...
26/09/19: Christopher McDougall – Born to Run: The Hidden Tribe, the Ultra-Runners and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen (2009)
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Brilliantly uncategorisable book about ultrarunning, the Tarahumara people of Chihuahua, Mexico, and a 50-mile desert endurance race that ...
08/09/19: Lawrence Block – A Stab in the Dark (1981)
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Matt Scudder is a troubled ex-cop with a drink problem. He’s hired to find out more about a murder that took place nine years ago, previous...
15/08/19: Haruki Murakami – What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007)
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Gently philosophical meditations on being a runner and a writer. Murakami listens to the Lovin’ Spoonful and ponders the meaning of tackl...
08/08/19: David Thomas and Helen Krasner – Travels with Cookie: Narrowboat Cruising with a Cat (2014)
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The author learns that he has terminal cancer and decides to fulfil his lifelong ambition to buy and live on a canal boat. He does this wit...
31/07/19: Gavin Boyter – Downhill from Here: Running from John O’Groats to Land’s End (2017)
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“What better way to celebrate a country than by passing a continuous strip of it under your feet, literally feeling the entire terrain of a...
14/06/19: David Quantick – Go West (2018)
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This short novel is an entertaining romp that deals with the world of forged antiques. The plot escalates into something fairly involved an...
09/05/19: Steve Toltz – A Fraction of the Whole (2008)
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A long (700-page), shaggy-dog story of a book that stretches from Australia to France to Thailand and back to Australia, this covers three ...
10/04/19: Penelope Lively – Heat Wave (1996)
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Middled-aged copy-editor Pauline was once cheated on by her husband. She now sees the same thing happening to her daughter. This is a cle...
05/04/19: Deborah Levy – Early Levy: Beautiful Mutants and Swallowing Geography (2014)
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This is a bind-up of two short, early novels. Beautiful Mutants (1989): A bunch of seemingly unrelated characters often given nickname...
01/04/19: Helen Krasner – Midges, Maps & Muesli: An Account of a 5,000-Mile Walk Round the Coast of Britain (1998)
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“I wasn’t particularly interested in fulfilling an ambition, nor did I want the great feelings of achievement people thought I must be seek...
26/03/19: Nicholson Baker – The Mezzanine (1988)
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It was interesting to read this classic after working through much of the author’s other work. His first book, The Mezzanine is an astoni...
22/03/19: Tony Hobbs – One Pair of Boots: Land’s End to John O’Groats (2000)
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I was very keen to read about a journey from Land’s End to John O’Groats (a.k.a. the LeJoG), but this wasn’t quite the account I was hoping...
13/03/19: Phoebe Smith – Extreme Sleeps: Adventures of a Wild Camper (2013)
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This was free from the Totteridge & Whetstone book exchange – the wonderful “Leave one, take one” scheme run from the waiting room on t...
04/03/19: Deborah Levy – Hot Milk (2016)
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“I was beginning to understand Ingrid Bauer. She was always pushing me to the edge in one way or another. My boundaries were made from sand...
26/02/19: Lauren Elder with Shirley Streshinsky – And I Alone Survived (1978)
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Back cover: “Lauren Elder set out in a light aircraft in company with the pilot and his girlfriend. It was going to be a joyride, sightseei...
22/02/19: Deborah Levy – The Cost of Living (2018)
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“The writing life is mostly about stamina. To get to the finishing line requires the writing to become more interesting than everyday life.....
19/02/19: Karl Pilkington – An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington (2010)
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The tie-in book of the first Sky TV series of the same name. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant send their friend Karl to witness the Wonde...
18/02/19: Deborah Scaling Kiley and Meg Noonan – Albatross: The True Story of a Woman’s Survival at Sea (1994)
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“I opened my eyes and felt the sting of salt water. I waited for my vision to clear. When it did, my stomach contracted. A cold sword of fe...
13/02/19: Stuart Stevens – Malaria Dreams: An African Adventure (1989)
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“You would have to be out of your mind to go anywhere with Stuart Stevens, but when the travel is only mental, he is the perfect companion:...
05/02/19: Maurice and Maralyn Bailey – 117 Days Adrift (1974)
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M and M hit a sperm whale and their boat sinks off the Galápagos Islands. They drift for nearly four months in their raft and dinghy, survi...
01/02/19: Cheryl Strayed – Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found (2012)
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“Foot speed was a profoundly different way of moving through the world than my normal modes of travel. Miles weren’t things that blazed dul...
26/01/19: Richard Mabey – The Unofficial Countryside (1973)
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Now regarded as a pioneering classic of psychogeography, but written before such a thing was fashionable, The Unofficial Countryside remai...
20/01/19: Anne Scott – 18 Bookshops (2011)
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I love books and I love bookshops, so it’s difficult to say why this account of 18 “significant” bookshops seems so uninvolving. Perhaps it...
16/01/19: Steven Callahan – Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea (1986)
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“Sailors may be struck down at any time, in calm or in storm, but the sea does not do it for hate or spite. She has no wrath to vent. Nor ...
11/01/19: Dion Leonard with Craig Borlase – Finding Gobi: The True Story of a Little Dog and an Incredible Journey (2017)
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I picked this up at the “donate one, take one” book stall in Totteridge & Whetstone tube station. Dion is an ultramarathon runner. Wh...
07/01/19: Joe Simpson – Touching the Void (1988)
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This remarkable and moving memoir details Joe Simpson’s 1985 climb of the 6,344-metre Siula Grande in the Andes. He was accompanied by his ...
03/01/19: Raynor Winn – The Salt Path (2018)
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Raynor Winn and her husband “Moth” have financial and legal problems that cause them to lose their home. Moth then receives a diagnosis for...
26/12/18: Tim Parks – Rapids (2005)
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Fascinating novel that keeps you guessing. The plot details the relationships between a bunch of holidaying kayakers and their instructors ...
20/12/18: Sebastian Junger – The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea (1997)
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Turned into a successful film starring George Clooney , The Perfect Storm details the drama of the Andrea Gail , a Massachusetts swordfish...
18/12/18: Iain Broome – A Is for Angelica (2012)
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A novel about a man who spies on his neighbours and keeps files on their activities. We learn that he does this to help cope with a persona...
30/11/18: Will Self – Junk Mail (1995)
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Excellent anthology of essays, interviews and other ephemera. In the introduction, Self explains that the book was originally intended to ...
26/11/18: Howard Jacobson – Pussy (2017)
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Prince Fracassus, heir a fictional Republic named Urbs-Ludus, is a thinly veiled Donald Trump and this short novel parodies the US presiden...
22/11/18: Vera Caspary – Laura (1943)
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A hardboiled, noir-ish thriller. Detective Mark McPherson investigates what he considers to be the murder of Laura Hunt by looking into the...
01/11/18: Jez Butterworth – Jerusalem (2009)
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This sad and funny state-of-England play offers a snapshot of the life of Johnny “Rooster” Byron, who lives as a small-town drug dealer and...
30/10/18: Matthew De Abaitua – Self & I: A Memoir of Literary Ambition (2018)
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Fascinating. Matthew De Abaitua worked as Will Self’s live-in assistant in a remote Suffolk cottage. Self acts as an inspiration and sort o...
20/10/18: Mark Mason – Walk the Lines: The London Underground, Overground (2011)
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Mark Mason sets out to walk every tube line overground, passing all 269 stations from Acton Town to Woodside Park. It’s a good idea for a...
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