Reviews and Comments

Why is everyone referred to as "M. [Someone]" in this book? I don't know what this... salutation?.. means.

This was my first Agatha Christie ever, and the only comparison I have to make is to the Sherlock Holmes stories. I enjoyed it. I think I was getting used to Doyle's writing by the end of the Holmes stories, because I could pick up on a lot of the clues by then, but with this I didn't clue on to much at all. I wonder if that will change as I read more of Christie's work? What I will say, though, is that Hastings is a bit whiny and petulant compared to Watson...

This is, without exception, the single worst book I've ever read in my entire life. And now that I've seen there's a movie adaptation coming I feel like I need to scream my thoughts into the digital void.

This book gets hailed as one of the masterpieces; one of the greatest novels ever, but in actuality it's terrible, and it's terrible from the start. I stuck with this awful story right through to the end, because I thought, "If SO MANY people rave about this book, there must be a reason, right?" Wrong. And I felt ripped off that I DID commit to its ending, when the ending is really only the ultimate climax of its awfulness and depravity. The best I can imagine as to why people like it is that perhaps this might be a lot of people's first experience at magic realism, and maybe THAT'S why they like it? But it's not even good magic realism. The entire story is depressing with zero redemption; it's full of death, rape, incest, suicide, and infanticide (which is particularly awful). It is also bleedingly obvious that it was written by a man, as evidenced by all these macho men borderline ****ing their way through the story (and not always consensually) and all the women fawning over any of the aforementioned men whenever they're near them.

This book, as I've said, has zero redemptive features. At all. Let me be clear, it's not that this book didn't live up to the hype I had built up for it; it didn't live up to any measure of "good". It smashed through the floor of my lowest respect, and then kept plummeting right up until the last page. I hated this book so much and thought that it was so bad that once I finished it I didn't donate it or pass it on; I actually threw it in the bin.

This book is truly awful, and I fail to see how anyone can LIKE it, let alone love it enough to recommend.

I've wanted this book for so long. It's utterly fascinating to see what other shots came before and after some of the most iconic and famous photographs of the last eighty years, and to hear some of the backstories that go along with them.

It's silly, funny, and engaging.

Mmmm... good. A huge number of short stories, ranging from the serious to the silly, and just as big a range of artists as well. Worth it!

I purchased a huge (digital) collection of Hellboy from Humble Bundle a while back. While there's a fair chunk I already owned in print, this is one of the collections I am yet to buy a physical copy of.

I don't have enough experience of spy novels to know if this is, in fact, "one of the greatest spy novels of all time". It's good, and an enjoyable read. Full of plots and counter-plots.

The good thing about these novels is that they're not especially long. This one clocks in at around 240 pages, which makes it easily digestible and nothing drags on. le Carré's writing is good; he seems (to me) to reserve the right amount of space to talk about anything, knowing when to elaborate and build metaphors, and when to throw something else into sudden and sharp focus.

Anyway... Looking Glass War next!

I should have anticipated this really, given that this was a novel set in Asimov's Robot universe; it's more of a murder mystery (with robots) rather than a Robot story. That being said, it still plays with themes of ballooning populations, limited resources, fear of superior technology that could replace you, and interplanetary civilisation; which are all very Asimovian themes, and definitely make me keen to see where he takes this series in the next book. So I guess I'll need to get that next book now.

A great collection of Asimov's short stories. And his prefaces to each story are quite interesting insights to his writing and thought processes.