J. Le Carre, The Honourable Schoolboy
J. Baggini, Welcome to Everytown
P. Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
N. Davies, Vanished Kingdoms
S. Larsson, The Girl who played with fire
S. Larsson, The Girl who stirred the hornet's nest
J. Le Carre, Smiley's People
P.G. Wodehouse, Summer Lightning
I've only a couple of months before this record is going to become a lot more slender. I appear not to be using it to work through the great canon of literature, but some outstanding genre fiction. I've only recently picked up Le Carre, but he is excellent. Either of the two would have done, but a choice had to be made - Smiley's People was a bit too obviously structured at the end, while this was a self contained gem, packed tightly with detail, well drawn character and a great (and complex) plot. It had a good end too, though my favourite bits were elsewhere. An honourable mention too for Baggini's book about ordinary Britain, which is a useful corrective to the metropolitan view - did you know that, on average, households spend more on their cars than on their mortgages (and this was before interest rates tumbled)?
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