It's so interesting reading opinions on well known books. For what it's worth, in my opinion:
Wuthering Heights - miserable over-complex tosh. (My daughter disagrees)
Pride and Prejuduce - fantastic but the BBC Colin Firth version is alsmost as good as the book (My daughter disagrees- she thinks Elizabeth Bennet is too whiney and Mr Darcy is complete knob)
DNF Woman in White
A Gentleman in Moscow and A man called Ove - both overhyped average books.
When it comes to Shroedinger's Butler, I remember liking it but not read it for years. Maybe a reread is due. Not read any other by Ishiguro.
I've actually managed to finish two this week, which is a huge achievement for me lately.
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The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith
I have read (and in the case of some of the books re-read) the Strike series and it remains one of my favourite detective series. I was so excited to get this (I listened on Audible with the excellent Robert Glenister narrating). The previous one, Troubled Blood, had been my favourite so far and my expectations were high.
Once I knew about the plot, about a toxic fandom, I realised there was going to be a lot of JKR’s personal experiences at the hands of Twitter in it. It is also a pretty hefty tome (not that that is particularly apparent on Audible but the 32 hours duration is a considerable time investment.
The story is based around a cult cartoon on You Tube, and the fandom that has grown around it, specifically a fan-created game. The fandom has become toxic and the creator Edie Ledwell comes to Cormoran Strike to help with an anonymous fan who is harassing and threatening her online. When Edie is then murdered and her co-creator Josh is left for dead, Strike and Robin throw themselves into discovering the identity of the mysterious fan. As with all the Strike series, the plot is dialogue heavy, which I like, with a lot of characters to keep track of. A lot of the dialogue is in the form of Twitter exchanges and Private chat rooms, which took a while to get used to on Audible, and I can see how it would work differently on the written page.
It was a good story, but possible got a bit overlong. I could live with that though. I like the interactions between Strike and Robin, and though I am happy for her to be free of horrible gaslighting Matthew, I missed his nonsense drama a bit. I like the new characters that have come in as the agency has grown, especially office administrator Pat, and can see the potential in the next books for new relationships to develop.
I will definitely look forward to the next one in the series.
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Engleby by Sebastian Faulks
Sebastian Faulks is a new author for me, and I went into this book cold, not really knowing what I was getting into.
It is written in a rambling first-person monologue that took me a while to get into. Once I had got used to the style, I did kind of enjoy it, but it is a disturbing story of how Mike Engleby descends into mental illness and commits a terrible crime.
It starts with the long monologue about his childhood, his "good luck" at achieving a scholarship to a private boarding school where his suffers hideous bullying, before becoming a bully himself and then going to Oxford where he becomes obsessed with a young female student who subsequently goes missing.
He becomes a journalist and lives his somewhat dysfunctional life, but there is continued doubt as to what happened to the missing woman.
I actually found the last section the most interesting, when Mike is in the psychiatric hospital, talking about how his life is after a decade or so as an inpatient.
An interesting book, but I can't say it is one I particularly enjoyed. Quite disturbing.