Twisting reading: "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn

Dear reader, surely you have read Gone Girl? Everyone else has, it seems, which makes writing this small review largely redundant except as record keeping. But maybe there is someone still out there unaware of this publishing phenomenon, which pops up in all sorts of "best books of 2012" lists (admittedly sometimes in the crime/mystery/thriller category). Assuming there is such a person, I will endeavour not to spoil, though to talk about this book without talking about the twists and surprises it delivers is not an easy task.

Inter-connected (?) reading: "A Possible Life" by Sebastian Faulks

Sebastian Faulks is a master of his art, no question. His range is famous; why, he recently even wrote a James Bond novel, dutifully in the style of Ian Fleming, Devil May Care. For me, he is in that select group of must-buy novelists, and he has not so far disappointed. I thought his last novel A Week in December was superb, one of the best state-of-the-nation books I have read. So when I saw A Possible Life displayed in Nottingham Waterstones, I grabbed it from the shelf.

Wow reading: "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman

The author of this rather good blog was the one who talked me into reading this book. In fact, I suspect it was part of a larger plan to convince me of the merits of the graphic novel, to which, in standard British fashion, I have been rather sniffily resistant. Neil Gaiman (British, actually) usually authors graphic novels, one of which, World's End, I was prevailed upon, by the self-same Tayebot, to read and, truth to tell, very much enjoyed (though never wrote up on this blog, you will note). American Gods is not graphic, at least not in the literal sense, but a 635-page conventional paperback novel - though "conventional" is certainly a misnomer from a content point of view. Anyway, perhaps the missionary idea behind getting me to read this was that I would thereafter ineluctably be drawn to take the graphic plunge for real. You never know, I've already been checking Amazon... 

Remorseless reading: "Iron Curtain" by Anne Applebaum

Let's start by clearing up a couple of small things which might arise from the full title of this book: "Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56". 

First, the expression "Eastern Europe" is used, as the author explains, in its "political sense", i.e. to encompass those countries of Central and Eastern Europe which fell under Soviet sway in the postwar period. It does not include countries we would now define as Eastern European, but which were in Applebaum's reference period part of the USSR (Ukraine, the Baltic States, Belarus and co.). Second, in reality, even with this clarification, the title is a bit misleading, as, for reasons which are again explained, the book concerns almost exclusively Poland, the Former GDR and Hungary, though doubtless many of their experiences were shared elsewhere.

Where have I been?

Oh dear! The last post on this blog was posted over six months ago. What happened? Did I stop reading books?