*contains epic spoilz* Therese Raquin by Emile Zola (Penguin Classics 2010, RRP £7.99, pp.208) Reader, picture the scene….you’re in nineteenth century France, you’re married to your sickly cousin, and you’re depressed. As with most vague, existential depression, all you need to cure it is sex with a hot man. That friend of your husband will do [...]
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Yes, I’m attempting to review Les Miserables, in around 1000 words. I’m going there. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo translated by Norman Denny (Penguin Classics 2003, RRP £10.99, pp1232) I think the thing I loved most about Les Miserables, apart from the fact that someone managed to make a musical out of it, is that Hugo persistently [...]
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For a stuffy old guy, M.R. James sure knows how to scare a girl. Collected Ghost Stories, M. R. James, (Wordsworth Classics 1992 RRP 2.99 pp647) When I was small I had, like most imaginative children, serious issues with going to bed. I was afraid of the dark, so I always had a night-light, which [...]
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(Never Let Me Go, Mark Romanek, UK, 2011, 104 minutes) It is hard to fully evaluate a film, when you’ve read the book. Even if crucial parts are missed out, your brain automatically fills them in for you, and as long as it all looks right, you’re happy. However, if you find yourself on leaving [...]
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**Contains epic spoilers** Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro, (Faber and Faber 2005, RRP 7.99, pp304) In the past of anyone who loves literature, there is usually a truly great English teacher. Mine was called Mr Lakin, and every time I think of Kazuo Ishiguro, I think of him. He taught me The Remains of the [...]
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On the Road by Jack Kerouac (Penguin Modern Classics, 2007, RRP £7.99) WARNING- This book will make you want to travel. It will make you want to get in the car and drive dizzyingly fast, not stopping until the wheels fall off, night and day, through sleepy towns to bustling cities. It will make you [...]
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Arthur and George, Julian Barnes, (Vintage 2006 RRP £8.99 450p) Warning…if you, and I hope this applies to all my readers, are the sort of person to abhor a miscarriage of justice, then reading this book will almost certainly cause you to utter a silent scream that you secretly hope will reverberate back through the [...]
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A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Penguin RRP £7.99 Following last year’s horrific film, A Christmas Carol has now become so ubiquitous that it has even inspired a Sony advert. Is there no limit to the bloated monstrosity that Christmas has become, I hear you cry. The answer to that, as I struggle through angry mobs of shoppers on [...]
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(The Lottery and Other Stories, Shirley Jackson, Penguin Modern Classics, 1949, RRP 9.99, Gothic Tales, Elizabeth Gaskell, Penguin Classics 2004, RRP 10.99 & The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter, Vintage Classics 2006, RRP 7.99) If, like me, you dragged yourself out of bed this morning and were greeted by a scene not entirely un-reminiscent of the [...]
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The Castle, Franz Kafka (Oxford World Classics 2009, RRP £8.99, 336p) Sometimes I have this dream that I’m trying to get somewhere, urgently, but I never make it past the train station or airport. I don’t know where I’m going, just that it seems impossible to make any progress. I move sluggishly, as if through [...]
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