Book Reviews

There are reviews on the internet of just about every book published, certainly all of those below. What I try to do is to relate them to my own experiences and explain why they are significant to me. So these are personal reviews and personal ratings. 

Sadly, I am no longer adding much to this list because since my diagnosis I am unable to read fluently.

Key to ratings: 5*** wonderful and hope to read again, 5* wonderful, 4* enjoyed it a lot and would recommend, 3* enjoyable/interesting, 2* didn't enjoy, 1* gave up. 

Amis - Lucky Jim (4*)
Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale (4*)
Baring-Gould - Yorkshire Oddities (3*)
Baring-Gould - A Book of Ghosts (3*)
Baring-Gould - Curiosities of Olden Times (2*)
Barstow - A Kind of Loving (4*)
Barstow - The Watchers On The Shore (3*)
Barstow - The Right True End (3*)
Bennett - Writing Home / Untold Stories (4* / 4*)
Blackmore - Lorna Doone (4*)
Bonington - Ascent (3*)
Bradbury - Eating People is Wrong (2*)
Braine - Room At The Top (4*)
Brandreth - Have You Eaten Grandma? (5*)
Brierley - A Long Way Home (4*)
Bronowski - The Ascent of Man (5***)
Bronte - Agnes Grey (3*)
Bryson - One Summer / Little Dribbling (4* / 4*)
Bryson - At Home (4*)
Byatt - Possession (5***)
Byatt - The Children's Book (4*)
Charteris - The Brighter Buccaneer (2*)
Clark - Civilisation (3*)
Cooke - America / Letter From America (4* / 3*)
Cohen with Cox - The Planets (5*)
Crane - Making Of The British Landscape (2*)
Davies - A Very Peculiar Practice (3*)
Deacon - Twenty Worlds (1* or 5*)
du Maurier - Rebecca (5*)
Drabble - The Millstone (4*)
Evans - The Mighty Micro (3*)
Fleming - From Russia With Love (3*)
Forster - Georgy Girl (3*)
Gaita - Romulus, My Father (4*)
Garner - Everywhere I Look (5*)
Golding S - Life After Kes (3*)
Golding W - Rites of Passage (3*)
Gosling - Sum Total / Personal Copy (3 to 5* / 3 to 5*)
Xiaolu Guo - Once Upon a Time in the East (5*)
Haig - How To Stop Time (4*)
Hanauer - Biology Made Simple (not rated)
Hardy - Tess of the d'Urbervilles (4*)
Hartley - The Go Between (5*)
Hattersley - Goodbye To Yorkshire (4*)
Hines - A Kestrel For A Knave (5***)
Holroyd - Lytton Strachey (5***)
Humphries, Mack and Perks - A Century Of Childhood (3*)
Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day (5*)
Jack - The Country Formerly Known As Great Britain (5*)
James - Unreliable Memoirs (5*)
Johnson - This Boy / Please Mr. Postman (4* / 3*)
Jones - The Establishment / Chavs (4* / 4*)
Kavanagh - The Perfect Stranger (3*)
Kay - This is Going to Hurt (4*)
Kingsnorth - Real England (4*)
Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness Of Being (2*)
Kynaston - Histories of Post-War Britain (3*)
Lee - Red Sky At Sunrise (trilogy) (5*)
Lewis - Out of the Silent Planet (3*)
Lively - Treasures of Time (4*)
Lively - A House Unlocked (4*)
Lively - Moon Tiger (5***)
Lodge - Quite A Good Time To Be Born (1*)
Obama - Dreams From My Father (2*)
Opie - My Very First Mother Goose (5*)
Orwell - The Road to Wigan Pier (4*)
Packham - Fingers in the Sparkle Jar (4*)
Phinn - Road To The Dales (4*)
Plath - The Bell Jar (5*)
Pritchett - A Cab At The Door and Midnight Oil (3*)
Pym - Quartet In Autumn (4*)
Rushdie - Midnight's Children (5*)
Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye (5*)
Sandbrook - Histories of Post-War Britain (4*)
Shute - A Town Like Alice (4*)
Sillitoe - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (4*)
Sillitoe - The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (4*)
Simsion - The Rosie Project (4*)
The Secret Barrister (3*)
Theroux - The Great Railway Bazaar (5*)
Thubron - In Siberia (4*)
Wells - The World Of William Clissold (3*)
von Daniken - Chariots of the Gods (2*)
Waterhouse - Billy Liar (4*)
Waterhouse - Mondays, Thursdays (2*)
Wyndham - The Chrysalids (5*)