tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87352531414800133792012-02-16T21:29:13.110+01:00Why not read reviews of old books? There are plenty of reviews of new books but they are not necessarily the books that most people read.Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.comBlogger361100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-57000715718726542922011-07-22T22:38:00.006+02:002011-07-23T19:30:34.376+02:00

First of all this is a great story. The plot keeps you guessing until the very end. The story opens just after the end of the 1st World War, is set in north London, and visits Middlesex and Buckinghamshire - country areas being enjoyed by working people for the cost of a railway ticket. There is quite a bit of bus travel too in London. But that is just my own personal slant on the story. The

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-81323921552246159312011-03-26T22:00:00.002+01:002011-07-23T19:37:05.780+02:00

Have you heard of the film Bhowani Junction, made in 1956, starring Ava Gardner? The story was from a book by John Masters. There is a review of a biography of Masters by John Clay referred to on this blog http://www.bookride.com/search/label/biography. (Look for a piece dated June, 207) Masters' books were popular in the 1950s and 1960s which was when I read several of them. He wrote a series

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-52455280575663386122011-01-23T12:12:00.003+01:002011-01-27T09:49:00.543+01:00

Desmond Bates, a university teacher of Linguistics (about describing languages rather than learning them) retires early because of deafness. The story is mainly about his relationships with three people. First, with his wife who with a female friend developed an interior design business. Secondly, with his father living alone in the former family home and getting increasingly frail and

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-68987234911330566662010-12-22T18:57:00.002+01:002010-12-23T08:00:48.349+01:00

In 1975 at Kinshasa in Zaire, Mohammed Ali met champion George Foreman in a fight for the World Heavyweight Championship. Could Ali regain the title against the undefeated Foreman? I had forgotten who won this fight in the heart of the continent of Africa - where most of America's black people have their roots. Mailer, very often referring to himself as Norm, shows an insight into boxing and the

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-52552747980048331722010-08-27T18:41:00.007+02:002010-11-23T23:21:02.606+01:00

It is a great method of finding authors I would not otherwise choose or even come across. Summer visitors bring their holiday reading and then leave it behind for me to read. Thanks to Nick and Pippa for the following enjoyment. Captured by Neil Cross.        Where is it going? So you read on! Gets worse. Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel           Why doesn't Brodeck get a proper job? you

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-26003618758280285832010-08-12T20:05:00.001+02:002010-08-14T21:55:51.731+02:00

The punishment taken by Arkady Renko, Police Investigator is beyond reason. He walks into situations that Chandler's Marlowe didn't even get near. Arkady is the same policeman met in Gorky Park, an earlier book by this author made into a film. (Review and details at IMDB.com) It is a great read. You feel the chaos and the cool of the New Russia. A 'blitz' is a televised chess competition played

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-89330128559358309492010-05-26T18:35:00.082+02:002011-01-19T09:29:21.831+01:00

Image of Papa Doc via Wikipedia with attribution and thanks to PikiWikiIsraelThe photo is of Papa Doc at his installation ceremony as Haiti's President for Life in 1963. My thanks to copyright holder Pikiwiki Israel for allowing free use. The earthquake in Haiti in January this year was a colossal tragedy: 230,000 dead, 300,000 injured and a million people homeless. Amongst the early

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-35161201318508183492010-05-03T23:21:00.006+02:002010-05-21T09:29:34.977+02:00

Image via Wikipedia The retirement to a small flying club in Tasmania was John Pascoe's choice. He had been an international airline Senior Captain  The choice could be compared to an international golfer retiring as the pro at a small golf club in the Shetlands. People come for lessons, get the hang of the skill and off they go flying their own fairways in the sky. This facet of the story made

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-26168974756697301542010-04-06T09:41:00.059+02:002010-05-08T20:33:49.424+02:00

Image of Jill Dawson by Tim Allen The Great Lover by Jill Dawson, 2009, Hodder and Stoughton centres on Rupert Brooke through the eyes mainly of a young maid at The Orchard Tea Gardens near Cambridge with the poet regularly lodging nearby. The casualness with which Jill Dawson allows Brooke and cronies to spurn the law and convention feels real. But can you imagine a clique of academics as the

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-77461550198377657392010-03-29T18:21:00.003+02:002010-04-20T09:16:25.006+02:00

I first read this book and others by Hardy on working visits to Siguenza, Spain in the time of Franco. The coolness and shade of the Dorset countryside: its woods, shady paths and umbriferous hedgerows were havens on the brightly hot and dry afternoons of a Spanish summer. Re-reading recently, in winter after many years, was entirely different. I was surprised how handy woodland is for an author

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-78457303685107713652010-03-02T08:30:00.008+01:002010-05-06T17:44:27.911+02:00

From an e-mail sent by Pippa Hall - with permission "I have just finished a Julie Myerson book called Lost Child that I am fuming about as she irritated me all the way through. It's about her son who gets hooked on dope, quits school and does all the things that don't feel right to them and their world - and it runs alongside the research she is doing on a Suffolk family who lost 5 of their 8

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-84817863713312988942010-02-15T12:04:00.004+01:002010-04-20T09:18:34.031+02:00

Image via Wikipedia attribution to Palmtree3000A story of two schoolboys in Ecuador, one a 15-year-old British ex-pat the other the son of  a wealthy Ecuadorian family who lives with his uncle. They challenge each other by telling preposterous stories with Fabian's stories a form of bragging about his family. Fabian lives with Uncle Suarez in a gated compound and on visits there Anthony enjoys

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-76244869248667752582010-01-06T08:26:00.013+01:002010-04-20T09:20:11.343+02:00

'Herbert Strang' is the one name for two men who from 1903 for forty years wrote books for boys. Each page of this book has a title referring to the content below it on the page. I didn't even notice this until I had nearly finished the book. You don't look at the space at the top of each page, do you, when you read? It is usually an empty space. But not in this book. Once I found this page

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-83148773305733068592009-12-14T13:43:00.004+01:002010-05-01T20:18:36.051+02:00

Image via Wikipedia with attribution to unknown sourcethe Creative Commons  Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 An effete old geezer, art historian no-less, after the death of his wife from cancer goes back to visit scenes from his adolescent life. He rents a room with Miss Vavassar and copes with the jealousy of the other lodger, a retired major, wouldn't you guess? Our lonely old widower relives in his

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-72262111871137952282009-12-01T22:02:00.005+01:002010-05-01T20:20:41.302+02:00

A strange, frustrating style at first which takes some perseverance. It ended up more rewarding than I had begun to fear. Reported speech from characters with lots to say! The main character is such a precise, moral person that he eventually finds he has murderered somebody - but in mitigating circumstances! When he finds out more about the man he has killed, he feels that he had much in common

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-91918630457865586622009-11-23T16:37:00.011+01:002011-01-19T09:35:00.961+01:00

The title's 'daughter of the desert' was Gertrude Bell, an ironmaster's daughter from the North-East of England. The book itself was a birthday present from my daughter, Pippa. We are both interested in Gertrude's life and achievements having first met her in a novel based around the Cairo Conference, 1921 when she met with Churchill, T.E. Lawrence and others to negotiate the governance of

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-81544685080228788672009-10-02T09:21:00.001+02:002009-10-02T09:21:25.988+02:00

The memorable film 'The Day of the Jackal' was based on one of his books of the same title. This article reminded me of it. Would anyone like to write a review of this famous 'non-new book'? And send it to halvenon@englishwordhelp.com directly or through the pages of the NON-NEW BOOK REVIEW blog.con referencia a: Frederick Forsyth: 'I lost £2.2m in a share fraud' - Telegraph (ver en Google

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-22808208232500828712009-09-25T17:43:00.027+02:002010-05-01T20:26:00.507+02:00

Richard II pub. Bliss, Sands & Co, MDCCCXCVIII (1898) Richard II banishes two nobles: Mowbray, the Duke of Gloucester and Bolingbroke, son of his uncle, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. They have been bickering and accusing each other of treason. While Bolingbroke is in exile, his father John of Gaunt dies and Richard II tries to take over Gaunt's estates. It is John of Gaunt, Duke of

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-34863453044458773592009-08-25T12:29:00.006+02:002009-08-27T13:19:33.410+02:00

If Goldilocks had entered our house on a particular day in early August this holiday summer she would have found all six bears out (probably at the bear beach). If she had lain on our beds she would have found herself lying beside a non-new book left there by its absent occupant and current reader.Junior Teenage Bear was reading THE HOST by Stephanie Meier (pub 2008).Senior Teenage Bear was

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-40472866039687803952009-07-10T18:42:00.017+02:002010-05-01T20:27:48.688+02:00

The first book of a marvellous series of 20 historical novels based on British records of actual events involving the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Excellently described elsewhere, these books are ones that I often return to. They are full of incident, character, the social and intellectual attitudes of the times on land as well as sea, and using the language of the times. O'Brian's

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-33571194276711199522009-06-24T20:26:00.001+02:002009-06-25T18:49:27.734+02:00

A family of MacDonalds leaves the Highlands in 1779 lead by Calum MacDonald headed for Cape Breton. Their descendants spread across Eastern Canada. In the 1980s one of the red-haired clan loses his parents in a remarkable episode when they are returning home across frozen water at night. He is brought up by his grandparents. The story brings out the reputation of a hardy set of redheads capable

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-60412248255034514112009-06-15T16:22:00.020+02:002010-05-01T20:30:05.859+02:00

This is an enjoyable read even if you don't have much interest in the Cold War and how the ice melted in great power relations through perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) in the Russia of President Gorbachev. This is because the book is largely dialogue: a kind of courtroom questioning. Whether Barley, the charming Englishman, is being grilled about his integrity by

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-84116777580749629132009-06-04T18:55:00.005+02:002010-05-01T20:31:39.652+02:00

So, as you probably guessed that Andrew and Natasha's wedlock does not happen. Natasha is able to nurse the wounded Andrew on a journey out of Moscow and he forgives her for her escapade with Anatole Kaguine but dies in her arms, of course. Peter Bezukov goes through a period of depression, at one time consumed by a plan to personally shoot Napoleon, but rediscovers his good nature while

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-83712954675150406432009-05-27T20:05:00.018+02:002010-05-01T20:33:58.821+02:00

The photo of the first page of Volume II, Everyman's Edition, pub. Dent shows BOOK SIX. Don't worry, this is Tolstoy's presentation of his story not the publisher's. The story of Volume II: Prince Andrew Bolkonsky`s wife, the 'little Princess', dies in childbirth on the day her husband returns from the war, where he was severely wounded. (The tragedy occurred in Volume I but I didn't mention it

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-64181182750953738952009-05-04T12:22:00.022+02:002010-05-01T20:35:36.526+02:00

In the opening scenes, set first in St Petersburg, the fashionable capital with its elaborate manners, and then in Moscow, a more provincial city, we meet members of five families. Incident involving members of these families occurs throughout the trilogy. Andrew Bolkonsky, handsome and dashingly eager for glory; Nicolas Rostov, immature, a delight to his sister and parents, Peter Besukov,

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-3588806723471519582009-04-16T19:45:00.004+02:002010-05-01T20:42:49.510+02:00

Stalin, Bulganin, Kruschev, Molotov, Beria, Yezhov, Mikoyan, Zdanov, Zhukov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov and so many others are associated with mass murder in the name of a cause, but in the end in the name of one man's egomania. The size of the author's research task on Russian documents must make the book a research epic (720 pages). He managed to do it all in 5 years from Kremlin archives to

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-20117774089882948462009-03-20T10:18:00.015+01:002009-04-14T19:06:49.870+02:00

The reluctant police lieutenant Mario Conde, "The Count", is given 3 days by his chief to solve the murder of a Cuban returnee (from the USA) whose body was found on a beach. Set in Havana, the atmosphere of loyal friends and their enjoyment of eating and drinking together is an effective one amidst the decay of the city under Castro. The Count is a reluctant policeman, always thinking of leaving

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-84289816797700393282009-03-09T18:38:00.009+01:002010-05-01T20:48:05.681+02:00

The Colour of Blood, 1994. Set in a communist country possibly an amalgam of Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Poland, before the end of the Cold War. Cardinal Wem survives an assassination attempt but is kidnapped the same night by what are perhaps a group of Roman Catholic rebels. Do both State and Church rebels have it in for him? There are mysterious cars following other mysterious cars. The

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-88970378246847907822009-02-20T09:26:00.015+01:002010-05-14T23:10:47.276+02:00

There were cricket professionals as early as the eighteenth century. Knole House in Sevenoaks, Kent had one or two on the staff. They have long gone but the cricket square is still there in the grounds at Knole. The grounds are undulating meadowland in a park with great old trees and a smarter garden close to the house. On one visit there with family by car (my family, not the Sackvilles) we had

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-78460722206114338102009-02-18T19:00:00.008+01:002009-03-04T08:57:21.933+01:00

One Shot (A Jack Reacher novel) by Lee Child, copyright 2005Jack Reacher is the writer's stock character, a Frederick Forsyth type of hero, a former military policeman, officer, currently living loose, without permanent address (I can't thing why - a loose cannon image perhaps?). Anyway, he is big, aggressive and a know-all to boot but somehow it works. Luckily I found I was reading a large print

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-64412956447494821762009-02-06T17:22:00.031+01:002010-05-01T20:54:24.177+02:00

There are two interwoven stories: that of Inman and that of Ada. They meet and fall in love just before Inman goes to fight for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Ada, on her own after her father's death, waiting and yearning for Inman's return, meets Ruby whose practical skills help them both to grow food and endure the demands of wartime. They farm Ada's plot of land together. Meanwhile, Inman a

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-30838184552747310912009-01-02T12:59:00.010+01:002010-05-01T20:55:30.261+02:00

Night Soldiers by Alan Furst This is a great read. It begins in a small town on the Danube in Bulgaria in the 1930s where local bullies don Fascist Uniforms and kill a young man. His brother, Kristo, involved in the fight with the bullies, now has no future in the village and is recruited by an agent of Soviet Russia for training as an undercover communist agent. The methods used are cruel and

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-50920595522908000372008-11-03T17:17:00.018+01:002010-05-14T23:16:08.446+02:00

A Fool's Alphabet by Sebastian Faulks, 1992, pub. Vintage. Guess how many chapters in the book. The first starts with A for Anzio, where the soldier to become the father of the main character, Pietro, is wounded (Second World War) and is nursed by Francesca, subsequently Pietro's mother. Phases of Pietro's life are described going through the alphabet to another location for each chapter. For

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-7129823468657818762008-10-18T20:18:00.004+02:002010-05-01T21:01:29.078+02:00

Image via Wikipedia; public domain Saturday by Ian McEwan, 2005, Vintage Books First sentence: Some hours before dawn Henry Perowne, a neurosurgeon, wakes to find himself already in motion, pushing back the covers from a sitting position, and then rising to his feet. I was enjoying this book so much right from the start that I rationed my reading so that it would last longer. Set in London just

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-27865618664831549942008-10-09T22:24:00.005+02:002010-05-01T21:02:35.631+02:00

The Longest Crawl (2006) Bloomsbury. It´s a pub crawl from the Scillies to the Shetlands in one month: the Turk´s Head to the Baltasound Hotel. First sentence: I grew restless this evening, and walked through the lanes by starlight for a drink in the next village with my friend Bob. After a dull start it got better. At first I did not like the personality that came through the early pages but

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735253141480013379.post-40796142951506293472008-10-06T23:04:00.001+02:002009-01-03T09:24:36.637+01:00

Brian Moore; The Mangan Inheritance, Published 1979. Flamingo Press. This is not the first book of his that I have read. My son told me to read this author some years ago.'The doorbell.Mangan went to the front door, looked through the peephole, then unlocked.' (first sentence)There was no dramatic confrontation at this door opening, but there is a highly dramatic one in a derelict ruined castle

Halvenonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07067722445845819187noreply@blogger.com0