カテゴリー: Fiction British

“Fingersmith” Sarah Waters (2002) Review | Girls in crime and in love

★★★★★ She was sent to pose as a maid, but their relationship becomes more than that, a lot more. It feels like many books in one; Victorian London, girls, crime, and love - girls in crime and in love.

🔽 log 🔽
Fingersmith
Sarah Waters, 2002
582 pages
Read in 2020.10
check on amazon.com

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

I actually watched the Korean film The Handmaiden first.
I watched it when I was heavily pregnant so it's a bit blurry, but I was astonished to a point that I had to look for the original book.

A family of thieves sends their girl to a rich family, for her to be a maid of the naïve gentlewoman aiming for her eventual inheritance, but slowly their relationship becomes more than that - a lot more.
In the film her uncle collects paintings, ukiyoe, which suits the film as it's set in Korea, but in the book in Victorian London he collects words.

So naturally I kept comparing it to the film, which is always an error because films tend to be more dramatic or exaggerated, but the madness is definitely there in the book.
It feels like you're reading many books, because there are quite a few twists and everything builds up so well; the girls, the crime, and the love.

Also the historical background is intriguing, it depicts different lives in the backstreet in London, that's one reason it feels like you are different many books in one.

At first you think one is tricking another, but oh no you are wrong, but wait it's changing again, now what, oh what is going on NOW.
I don't want to spoil it but you'll see what I mean by this - she's not just a pearl, she's what she's made herself to be but now with pride.

🔽 Related pages 🔽
“The Paying Guests” Sarah Waters (2014) Review | But who manipulates who

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Fingersmith

2026-03-08

“When We Were Orphans” Kazuo Ishiguro (2000) Review | Tender memories, are they?

When We Were Orphans 
Kazuo Ishiguro, 2000
Read in 2025.7
check price on amazon.com

✔ China, Japan and the war
✔ Nostalgia and unreliable memories from childhoon 
✔ Friendship between British and Japanese in China


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ Nostalgia, it is the big theme in this book. Christopher and Akira playing innocently in their childhood in Shanghai. Full of fun and tender memories. But are they?


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
It's a book from Ishiguro, so the writing is beautiful, that's given.
Nostalgia, it is the big theme in this book, full of fun and tender memories.

Christopher and Akira playing innocently during their childhood in Shanghai. After growing up to become a detective in England, though through some slow confusions, Christopher finally decides to take on a mission, the reality, of the disappearance of his parents.

Ishiguro doesn't explain things in a chronological order. 
How much is real, how much is carefully made up? 

He goes wondering around the city of Shanghai blindly without a solid clue or valid understanding, as he is wondering around in his memories.
Beautifully written.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

When We Were Orphans: A Novel

2026-03-05

“Small Worlds” Caleb Azumah Nelson (2023) Review | Tender feeling of understanding and belonging


Small Worlds
Caleb Azumah Nelson, 2023
256 pages
Read in 2025.05
check price on amazon.com

✔ South London 
✔ Childhood love story and coming of age 
✔ Father son relationship


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★★ Very poetic. His big world is loud and violent, but not his small world, it's a place of love, tenderness, freedom, family, dream and grieve. It leaves you with a great feeling of understanding and belonging.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Very poetic.
From a quick glance of the cover, you don't expect it - immigrants, Black, south London, music, you'd expect something loud and violent. 

Loudness and violence are there, but it's the big world they lived in.
While in his small world, it's a place of love, tenderness, freedom, family, dream and grieve.
He is in love with his childhood friend, he struggles in his relationship with his father who seems to be closed up, it's the story we all share, but the story is told in a mix of rhythm and tenderness.

It leaves you with a great soft feeling of understanding and belonging.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Small worlds

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Small Worlds: THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Small Worlds: THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

2026-03-05

“Piglet” Lottie Hazell (2024) Review | Will you break the perfect life?

★★★★★ Your fiancé tells you he has betrayed you. 2 weeks to your wedding, will you break the perfect life you have created, or will you cling to it? A woman struggling with the expectation of others and her own. Girl, we hear you.


Piglet
Lottie Hazell 2024
Read in 2025.7
check price on amazon.com

✔ Female rage
✔ Life in London as a young woman with career 
✔ Food


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A book about female rage. About trying too hard and about creating life based on others. And eating.
It's a story of a woman who is about to get married, so the tension is at its peak when he confesses his betrayal, what now? 
The need to show you're up to their expectations, because you carefully fabricated that image. And godforbid she lives the life of her own lower class family. It's all represented in the food and eating.
Look at me buying good stuff from waitrose. Look at me cooking and baking fancy stuff.
Very real, it's what womanhood is today.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Piglet: A Novel

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●

Piglet: ‘If I owned a bookstore, I’d hand-sell Piglet to everyone’ New York Times Book Review

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Piglet: ‘If I owned a bookstore, I’d hand-sell Piglet to everyone’ New York Times Book Review (English)

2026-03-04

“Fanny Hill Memoirs of a woman of pleasure” John Cleland (1749) Review | One of the most banned books

Fanny Hill
Memoirs of a woman of pleasure
John Cleland, 1749
UK
176 pages
Read in 2024.5
check price on amazon.com

✔ One of the most banned books in history
✔ Life of a woman of pleasure in Victorian England
✔ Female lead, somehow encouraging

🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ One of the most banned books in English literature. She's not only a mere woman of pleasure, but she gets rich! A free and lively woman who gets rich, yeah an enemy of the decent society.

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
One of the most banned books in English literature.
It took a while to properly start reading it, but for me it's excessive.
That is the point of this book as it's said to be the first pornographic novel, but, less descriptions would have made the book more interesting, to me, but obviously that would reduce the charm and the meaning of this book.

One of the critics says the writer is a homosexual, because of the obsession with the description of male bodies, yes it's obsessive compared to that of female bodies.
Well, it was written centuries ago so it must have been shocking, that the women find pleasure without any regret or shame!
Normally these femme fatale stories end with the woman regretting her past, or getting punished.
Take Lolita, she is made to be happy by settling in the countryside as a wife (while Tanizaki's Naomi continues with her life style, that's what makes Tanizaki great)
Here, Fanny does not regret, but not only that she even gets rich, such a bad ass enemy of the (patriarchal ) society.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Immortal Classics) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Memoirs Of Fanny Hill

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Fanny Hill. Memorie di una donna di piacere (Italiano)

2026-02-28

“Gabriel’s Gift” Hanif Kureishi (2001) Review | Rock and London

Gabriel's Gift
Hanif Kureishi, 2001
196 pages
Read in 2020.06
check price on amazon.com

✔ Father and son 
✔ Rock n roll in London


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★☆☆ A little book about boyhood, growing up, London and rock'n'roll.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

A little book about boyhood, growing up, London and rock'n'roll.

I wanted the brilliantness of My Beautiful Laundrette, but here there's only the ode to pop culture and music.

It's a fairytale, of a modern and urban, specifically London, family life seen from a boy's perspective whose parents were living rocknroll lives knowing rocknroll people back then. 
Which, in itself perfectly likeable if you are into it, just that I'm not familiar with that vibe.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Gabriel's Gift

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Gabriel's Gift

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Il dono di Gabriel (italiano)

2026-02-26

“Killing floor” Lee Child (1997) Review | Jack Reacher series

Killing Floor
Lee Child, 1997
525 pages
Read in 2025.02
check price on amazon.com

✔ Jack Reacher series 
✔ Hard boiled, action, police, crimes 


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ Jack Reacher series. Explosion of adrenalin. Murder, violence, good women, all the cool elements but not much story, but maybe that's not what's expected in the "hard boiled" - it's an action movie in a book.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

The first book of Jack Reacher.
It was recommended by someone ages ago, and didn't realise it was that Reacher.
I think it's better in movies/TV, it's got actions, excitement and adrenaline.

Killing and violence and good looking women. But not much story, not much tangling up of people's melodrama, that I always seek and love.
The only interesting character was Finlay, the chief detective who actually had a story to tell.

Good ol' hard boiled action thriller, that rightly Tom Cruise played.
It's not that it's not good, it's just not my type, but maybe it gets better as it develops.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Killing Floor (Jack Reacher) Mass Market Paperback

Amazon.co.uk (UK)

Killing Floor: The first Jack Reacher novel in the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling thriller series (Jack Reacher, 1) Paperback

Amazon.it (Italy)

Killing Floor: 1 Mass Market Paperback


Zona pericolosa Paperback – Big Book

2026-02-26

“The Dream-Pedlars Parade” Mark Bowsher (2025) Review | Darker sequel

The Dream-Pedlars Parade
Mark Bowsher, 2025
594 pages
Read in 2025.04
check price on amazon.com

✔ Young adult series
✔ Adventure of a not so confident boy
✔ SF, magical, coming of age

🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ Second Myrthali book. The first was more physically challenging and about finding his stronger self, and the second is more about doubting, the scenes are darker.

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Second Myrthali book.
The first was great, and this second one is even better.
As it was suggested, this is certainly darker, and it makes sense as Krish has grown up since his first adventure.
The first was more physically challenging and about finding his stronger self, and the second is more about doubting, the scenes are darker (also literally, it's the endless nighttime) and the protagonist more mature.
Must say, I simply love that his partner came back!

I love the fact that the story background subtly challenges the "typicalness" - his own race (though importantly, this is not a story of "a journey of an Indian boy" it is a "journey of a boy who wants to save his mother") or that disability of some characters are clearly stated, and it quietly challenges the gender stereotype, as well as other stereotypes like age or ability, without making it about it.

It's full of imagination, I'd say more than the book 1, it is rather long-ish being over 500 pages, but doesn't feel like it, it's full of thoughts and actions... and well, we'll all have to wait for the book 3!

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Dream-Pedlars' Parade: Book 2 in the exhilarating Myrthali series

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●

The Dream-Pedlars' Parade: Book 2 in the exhilarating Myrthali series

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●

The Dream-Pedlars' Parade: Book 2 in the exhilarating Myrthali series

2026-02-26

“A Pale View of Hills” Kazuo Ishiguro (1982) Review | slight malice of “normal” kind people


A Pale View of Hills
Kazuo Ishiguro, 1982
183 pages
Read in 2025.02
check price on amazon.com

✔ Memories of the post war chaos of Nagasaki
✔ Struggles of mothers 
✔ Mother daughter relationship


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★  Ishiguro's stories always have some subtle sarcasm and slight malice of seemingly "normal" kind people. Here you get some madness. It's quiet but it squeezes out our bad intentions we'd like to hide.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
His debut novel. Actually they just released a Japanese film based on this book as I write this post.

As always his books are both so Japanese and so English at the same time and there is nobody else in the world who can write with this mixed sentiment.
His stories are always slightly twisted with a hint of evil of ordinary people.
Here there's a small madness of Sachiko and her daughter always hanging in the air, while everyone else is perfectly polite, but all slightly selfish. Brilliant, I mean that's how we all are, aren't we.
The struggle of loss and the post war, past and present. Women with regrets. Women trying to close their past, Etsuko trying to come to terms with her past.

True, like Etsuko the narrator says, memories are not reliable. Her memories are vague, for her sanity, to comfort herself. And what is wrong with that, she hurt herself enough, she struggled enough.

A book by Ishiguro, always a pleasure to read. They are quiet, but they squeeze out who we are deeply inside.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

A Pale View of Hills Paperback

Amazon.co.uk (UK)
A Pale View of Hills: Kazuo Ishiguro Paperback

Amazon.it (Italy)
Pale View of Hills Paperback - English


Un pallido orizzonte di colline Paperback

2026-02-25

“Hunted” Abir Mukherjee (2024) Review | Keep reading keep chasing

Hunted
Abir Mukherjee, 2024
468 pages
Read in 2025.05
check price on amazon.com

✔ Unusual friendship to save their kids
✔ Organised terrorist attacks using kids 
✔ Thrilling and gripping


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ It demands you to keep reading. Kids "seeing wrong people" and become extremists. A Muslim dad whose life turned upside down but would still run, to save his daughter. Adrenaline full throttle. A page-turner.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Action movie type of book.
Parents chasing after their each of their kids before police catch them as they're "misled" to join terrorist actions.
Police officer who is also a mother also joins the chase from her own perspective.

Probably the most interesting character is the father, Sajid.
A Muslim dad whose life turned upside down but keeps running for his daughter. 

But I was right to pick this as a partner of the long flight. A page-turner.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Hunted: A Thriller

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●

Hunted: Discover the new pulse-pounding, twist-packed thriller

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●

Hunted: Discover the new pulse-pounding, twist-packed thriller

2026-02-25

“The Paying Guests” Sarah Waters (2014) Review | Love, crime, manipulation in secret

The Paying Guests
By Sarah Waters, 2014
595ページ
Read in 2024.3
check price on amazon.com

✔ 2 women in love and in crime
✔ Gripping suspense 
✔ Life in London after the war


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★★ As expected, it's gripping, exciting, and a great storytelling. A woman lives quietly with her mother falls in love with a beautiful young wife of the tenant, they're in love in crime, all in secret.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
As expected, it's gripping, exciting, and a great storytelling.
The story is more straightforward than Fingersmith, but definitely not less curious.
It has all the good female characters.

After the war a woman now lives modestly with her mother, they decide to rent out a room but she falls for the young beautiful wife. And yes we'll have a crime scene and it all goes wrong.
They're in love but who manipulates who? But is it manipulation or true love?
They find a tiny corner in the hostile society where they love blindly.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Paying Guests

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The Paying Guests: shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●

Gli ospiti paganti (Italiano)

2026-02-23

”Animal Farm” George Orwell, (1945) Review | Have we learned? No

Animal Farm
George Orwell, 1945
124 pages
Read in 2024.4
check price on amazon.com

✔ Classic fable on politics
✔ Every time you read you learn something new 
✔ Russian revolution and totalitarianism 


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ Classic of the classics. I knew more or less the content but was surprised how short it was. It's short, with clear messages, but have we learned? No.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

The classic. 
It's more or less as I expected but much shorter.

With a very clear and obvious message, it would be easy for even younger readers to understand. 
This edition had a lot of explanations like a textbook, which compares the characters with the historical figures.

Do we learn? No, we don't, we keep making the same mistakes.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Animal Farm: 75th Anniversary Edition

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Animal Farm: New Edition of Orwell's Brilliant Political Satire (Polygon Classics) 

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●

La fattoria degli animali (Italiano)

2026-02-20

“Klara and the Sun” Kazuo Ishiguro (2021) Review | Artificial Friends, are they friends?

Klara and the sun
Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021
307 pages
Read in 2024.5
check price on amazon.com

✔ Dystopia, life with an AI friend 
✔ Challenges concepts of family and friendship 
✔ Sad, heart breaking


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ As always his stories are sad. Not too dramatic but subtly and surely sad. Artificial Friends; are they friends, or pets or toys? Surely not just things?


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

As always his stories are sad. Not too dramatic but a bit sad.

Artificial Friends are there, maybe a bit like pets, puppies, except they are things, regardless of their intelligence. 

A lot happens around her but we only see it from her point of view. 
So we're not able to see the intention behind the actions from human. 
Are they selfish? 
Maybe not so much, it's just how things are, and for us how things will be soon. 

She has her mission and asks the Sun for guidance and eventually in order to pursue she is willing to be violent simply because that is her mission. 
So is she a threat? But really, it seems like she's the only one to remain innocent, or "human"

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Klara and the Sun: A GMA Book Club Pick: A novel (Vintage International)

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Klara and the Sun: The Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year 

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Klara e il Sole (Italiano)

2026-02-19

“Otherwise Pandemonium” Nick Hornby (2005) Review | My first Hornby

Otherwise pandemonium 
Nick Hornby, 2005
64 pages
Read in 2024.5
check price on amazon.com

✔ 2 short stories
✔ 90s kids 


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ Small book of 2 short stories. 2 very different stories but I liked the second one with the mum. My first Nick Hornby.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

2 short stories.
I think it's the first Nick Hornby book.
It's entertaining, the first one is a bit of Sci-fi but I preferred the second one, "Not a star" where a mum finds out her son's secret but the family is eventually alright and she actually appreciates the effects it brought.
Nice little stories.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Otherwise Pandemonium (Pocket Penguins)

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Otherwise Pandemonium (Pocket Penguins)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
--

2026-02-19

“Tokyo Redux” David Peace, (2021) Review | Catching “Shimoyama disease”

Tokyo Redux
David Peace, 2021
480 pages
Read in 2024.5
check price on amazon.com

✔ Historical fiction based on the real unsolved case
✔ Post war Japan between domestic and US politics 
✔ Mystery from a point of view of an American occupier Japan


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★☆ A fiction based on postwar Japan's most mysterious unsolved case from 1949. Nostalgic and mysterious like Japan and hardboiled-cool like America. You too will catch "Shimoyama disease".

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
What is “Shimoyama case”?
It’s a fiction based on Japan’s most mysterious unresolved case from 1949.

It’s full of masculine romanticism, throughout Japan’s Showa era, basen in Tokyo that everyone fantacises.

Nostalgic and mysterious like Japan and hardboiled-cool like America.

As they say, you catch “Shimoyama disease”.
The writer is not Japanese, but precisely because of that it is good and is such a page turner, I now need to find the other 2 of the trilogy.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Tokyo redux 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Tokyo Redux

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Tokyo Redux (English)

2026-02-18

“Pride and Prejudice” Jane Austen (1813) Review | How to humiliate a rich guy and marry him

Pride and Prejudice 
Jane Austen, 1813
367 pages
Read in 2025.01
check price on amazon.com

✔ Classic love story that's constantly referenced
✔ Jane Austen's masterpiece on womanhood 
✔ Love story and class struggles


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★★ How to humiliate a rich guy and to marry him in the end. What a girl. It's such a classic that it's difficult to find a love story that's not influenced by this.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

The classic of the classics.
The story is well known, but it is true the humour in the dialogues makes this the "best loved book"
So very English, both in the lifestyle and humour.
The characters are lively, the story simple but curious and anyone can easily engage with it.
It's so iconic that it's now difficult to find any love story that has no reference to this book.
I should also watch the movies properly one day.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Classics) Paperback

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●

Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen (Penguin Clothbound Classics) Hardcover – Illustrated

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●

Pride and Prejudice Paperback – English edition


Orgoglio e pregiudizio - Paperback

2026-02-16

“Robinson Crusoe” Daniel Defoe (1719) Review | Classic of classics

Robinson Crusoe
The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
Daniel Defoe, 1719
384 pages
Read in 2024.6
check price on amazon.com

✔ Classic story for children and grownups
✔ Victorian Englishman's sentiments 
✔ Adventures on a remote island


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆ Classic of classics. Mr. Crusoe is so English. He's tidy, proud and concerned, and determined to make this barbarian land his home (English style home, of course) 


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
This was a period I was reading as many "classics" as possible, and here it is.

It's amazing how English the protagonist is. 
He's so well organised and no compromise to make the island his (English style) home, and he doesn't hide to show how proud he is.

This is supposed to be one of the first story written as if it was a biography in spoken English, and indeed many thought it was a biography, a diary.
Because of the historical background you cannot get away from the discriminations but within the boundary he made a sincere friend of Friday.
Today's reader would be uncomfortable, and when recommended to kids I hope there's a note mentioning it.

Whether you like it or not, you'd have to conclude that it is a great story, written 300 years ago, and still read today.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Robinson Crusoe: The Original 1719 Edition (A Daniel Defoe Classic Novel) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Robinson Crusoe

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Le avventure di Robinson Crusoe (Italiano)

2026-02-15

“Amsterdam” Ian McEwan (1998) Review | So dark so English

Amsterdam 
Ian McEwan, 1998
224 pages
Read in 2024.6
check price on amazon.com

✔ Friendship and rivalry
✔ Booker prize winner


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★☆☆ Two middle aged men who had loved a same woman, and their friendship, if you can call them "friends". So dark so English.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I think I got it from someone, that's why I had it in Japanese.
Not a long story, of 2 middle aged men who had loved a same woman, and their friendship, if you can call them "friends".
So dark and so English.

It'd have been different if I read it in English, so it's my fault I put less stars.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Amsterdam: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner)

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Amsterdam: Ian McEwan

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Amsterdam (Italiano)

2026-02-15

“Afterlives” Abdulrazak Gurnah (2020) Review | A beautiful story in a violent environment

🔽 log 🔽
Afterlives
Abdulrazak Gurnah, 2020
288 pages
Read in 2024.7
check price on amazon.com

✔ Colonialism in Africa and world war
✔ Love story and friendship 
✔ Nobel prize winner


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★★ A beautiful story in a cruel and violent environment; war and colonisation. They must cling to little happiness or sadness that are their own. By a Nobel prize winner.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

A beautiful story told in a cruel and violent environment; war and colonisation. 

It's a reminder that people's loves get messed up by the external horrible business of war, like African lives affected by wars that are happening in Europe, "nothing to do with us" 
But importantly, their lives can continue they can have little happiness or sadness that are their own, they must cling to them.
And a little magical and personal relationships with the coloniser and colonised makes the story hopeful, despite the violence that's surrounding them.

BY THE WINNER OF THE 2021 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Afterlives: A Novel 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Afterlives: By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Afterlives: By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021

2026-02-15

“White Teeth” Zadie Smith, (2000) Review | Love letter to London
White Teeth
Zadie Smith, 2000
464 pages
Read in 2024.7
check price on amazon.com

✔ Modern classic
✔ Life in multicultural London
✔ Family and friendship

🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★★ Love letter to London that’s disappearing. We all have different opinions, skin colour, age, roots, culture, education, faith, or lack of any or all of it, but we try to survive this thing called life as a community.

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

The most talked about book ever since I arrived in London, for over 2 decades now.
And only now reading it.
Somehow I thought it be more, coarse or rough, but it was surprisingly heart warming and this really is the London I loved, the mess and how Londoners coped.

But I lived mostly in Islington, more clearly a Turkish area, but it is what you’d seen even in 2003 when I arrived, then slowly disappeared, or put under the carpet.

We all have different opinions, skin colour, age, roots, culture, education, faith, or lack of any or all of it, and it’s ok you are not the same, or not in agreement, but we try to survive this thing called life as a community.
The struggle to survive as a community, as a component of something big and messy, it’s the fun, it’s worth it.
```
🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

White Teeth: A Novel

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
White Teeth: The iconic, award-winning modern classic celebrates its 25th anniversary

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Denti bianchi (Italiano)
```
2026-02-15
“The spy who came in from the cold” John Le Carré (1963) Review | The classic spy novel. Stylish
The spy who came in from the cold
John Le Carré, 1963
464 pages
Read in 2024.7
check price on amazon.com

✔ Classic spy novel
✔ Cold War
✔ Coldness, exciting

🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★☆ It’s stone cold and stylish and stylised, but has the human struggle of the protagonist. And of course clever.

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
So this is the famous spy book.
And I admit I have almost zero interest in this genre it didn’t draw me into it as much as it should or could but it was a good story that you van easily imagine it being made into films.

It’s stone cold and stylish and stylised, but has the human struggle of the protagonist. And of course clever.
```
🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold: A George Smiley Novel (George Smiley, 3) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold: John le Carré: 61 (Penguin Essentials, 61)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
La spia che venne dal freddo (Italiano)
```
2026-02-15
“An Artist of the Floating World” Kazuo Ishiguro (1986) Review | Japanese sentiment
An Artist of the Floating World
Kazuo Ishiguro, 1986
UK
206 pages
Read in 2024.7
check price on amazon.com

✔ Early Ishiguro
✔ Japanese sentiment after the war
✔ An old man’s struggle to face the change of the society

🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★★ Remembering the past, remembering the regrets and hoping for a bright content future. Classic Ishiguro here, perfectly capturing the Japanese sentiment. Elegant.

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Remembering the past, remembering the regrets and hoping for a bright content future.
Classic Ishiguro here, with an old man as the protagonist, perfectly capturing the Japanese sentiment.

He revisits and reviews his life as he gets old, old enough to have others around him die, and slowly sees his mistakes of being too nationalistic, though that was the norm, and for his daughter’s sake he acknowledges the mistakes.

Slow and elegant and all you expect from Ishiguro.

Nobel prize winner
```
🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

An Artist of the Floating World

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
An Artist of the Floating World: As heard on BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Un artista del mondo fluttuante (Italiano)
```
2026-02-15
“Dracula” Bram Stoker (1897 Review | Unexpected female empowerment
Dracula
Bram Stoker, 1897
352 pages
Read in 2024.8
check price on amazon.com

✔ Classic horror and monster novel
✔ Female empowerment

🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★★ Who doesn’t know Dracula? But so the threat is in the town and awakens intelligence and sexuality in women, and men go out to destroy. Definitely playing with female sexuality and empowerment.

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The classic of the classics, who doesn’t know Dracula?

The entire novel is written as if it were collection of diaries, notes and letters.
In a way surprisingly to me that it was full of pure adventures, good guys chasing the bad guy to save woman.
But it is the woman who became the victim because of the men’s heroism and she saves their asses.
Also if you read between the lines, it’s sexual, or bisexual even. Dracula likes the blood of young beautiful women, but he also imprisoned Jonathan and attempted to attack him also.

So, the threat is in the town and it brings about the awakening of women to their intelligence and sexuality, so the 4 men go out to hunt. That’s one way to look at it but certainly it’s playing a lot with the idea if female sexuality and empowerment.
```
🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Dracula (Penguin Classics) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Dracula: Stoker Bram (Penguin Classics)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Dracula (Italiano)
```
2026-02-15

“Black Narcissus” Rumer Godden (1939) Review | Nuns slowly go mad

Black Narcissus 
Rumer Godden, 1939
258 pages
Read in 2024.8
check price on amazon.com

✔ Nuns in the Himalaya
✔ Controversial novel about nuns
✔ Tension within the convent and with the locals


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★ Nuns with good intentions in the isolated hills out of Darjeeling, which used to be a harem. If that doesn't promise the hysteria and darkness. As expected they slowly went mad.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Nuns with good intentions in the isolated hills out of Darjeeling, which used to be a harem.
If that doesn't promise the hysteria and darkness, I don't know what does. 
As expected they slowly went mad.

It's in a way stereotypical, how can they dare to go out to someone else's back garden to preach, when the locals have been living perfectly fine. 
How could the women, with different tempers expect to live peacefully, when they're not welcome.

It's the dark side of living in Darjeeling hills, as the young General said, people go mad when they stay too close to the mountain Kanchenjunga, God.

Sexual tensions, the struggle between white supremacy and Christian philanthropy, the end of British Empire.
And it did make it into a rather successful film and series.
In the final days of the Imperial rule, some British also thought it was good and made a film out of it, too. I must watch it.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Black Narcissus: A Novel

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Black Narcissus: Now a haunting BBC drama starring Gemma Arterton (Virago Modern Classics Book 158)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Narciso nero (Italiano)

2026-02-12

“The History of Mr. Polly” H. G. Wells (1910) Review | Life started late

The History of Mr. Polly
H. G. Wells, 1910
Herbert George Wells
318 pages
Read in 2024.10
check price on amazon.com

✔ Novel about midlife crisis
✔ Written by Wells, the father of SF
✔ Awkward comedy that’s encouraging

🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★☆ Midlife crisis. Mr. Polly was tired, he wanted to change his life but too tired to try any more so he decided to end it all… that’s when his good life really started.

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

It was mentioned in the mid life crisis book (my review here), and yes it is exactly about that.

You have a boring life, you don't make decisions but things just get decided and time passes and one day, you want to end it all.
You want to "change it" but you are so tired that you just want to end it - but THAT is when the life starts again. 

The first half of this book is boring to read because his life was boring, but weirdly when he tries to end it the words in the book also gets more exciting and enjoyable, just as he enjoys the view of the countryside - then comes the tranquility of life, satisfaction, of letting it all go.

It was worth reading the boring bits because that is life, it's unpredictable.

Also worth knowing that the author is actually a popular SF writer.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The History of Mr. Polly

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The History of Mr. Polly

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
The History Of Mr. Polly (English)

2026-02-10

“Absent in the Spring” Agatha Christie (1944) Review | A mother’s struggle


Absent in the Spring
Agatha Christie, 1944
Mary Westmacott
UK
Read in 2020.04
check price on amazon.com

✔ Written as Mary Westmacott
✔ Female struggle as a mother
✔ Travel journal from Baghdad


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★☆ It's the struggle we all go through, especially if you are a mother, imagining that you are a victim. I sacrifice my life for the family, I prepare everything for you so you don't have to make a mistake.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Agatha Christie writing as Mary Westmacott.
I didn't really know about this when I read it, though it's not a crime story, the brilliance of her writing is there.

On her way back from Baghdad, she thinks back about her family.
It's the struggle we all go through, especially if you are a mother, imagining that you are a victim.
I sacrifice my life for the family, I prepare everything for you so you don't have to make a mistake.
Her husband is kind so he lets her do her way, that is, do what she thinks he wants, which is, what he really wants.
But that, is her happiness.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Absent In Spring

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Absent in the Spring

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Absent in the Spring: A Captivating Historical Novel of Self-Discovery by Agatha Christie, Written Under the Pseudonym Mary Westmacott―Perfect for Summer Reading (English)

2026-02-07

“Mrs. Dalloway” Virginia Woolf (1925) Review | Stream of consciousness

Mrs. Dalloway 
Virginia Woolf, 1925
240 pages
Read in 2024.10
check price on amazon.com

✔ Stream of consciousness
✔ Female struggle
✔ English literature classic

🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★★ In the room nothing seems to be happening, but in their heads their worlds are turning. Things that happen in the day seem like unrelated but they are within their consciousness. Story about her mind ready to explode.

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
My first ever Virginia Woolf.

As expected it was a hard read, in terms of the timeline it happens all in a day, but in the meantime the main characters think and remember a lot - ”Stream of Consciousness”.

It's very internal, this is continuous flow of what they are really thinking while the time passes, and what they think is a lot more than what it appears in the very English society.

Nothing really happens in the day, but a lot happens in their heads, a big storm.

(warning; revealing a bit of the plot, but I assume it's well known after 100 years)
Clarissa is on the verge of falling apart, she's physically unwell but holds it together, very well aware of potential mistake of letting go the man she truly loved but also her duty as a wife. and Septimus, who had little to do with the party until his name is mentioned, had been at the verge and he eventually crosses the line.

By showing his death and his tension that was accumulated to the point of death, the book shows the nervous environment, or the consciousness of Clarissa, of what seems to be a boring, pretentious evening.
Definitely must read more of her books.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Mrs. Dalloway: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Mrs Dalloway Virginia Woolf (Wordsworth Classics)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
La signora Dalloway (Italiano)

2026-02-06

“Our man in Havana” Graham Greene (1958) Review | Spy novel all tangled up

Our man in Havana
Graham Greene, 1958
UK
256 pages
Read in 2023.07
check price on amazon.com

✔ Weird spy novel
✔ British comedy
✔ Family


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆  You're in Havana during the Cold War, you are a boring ordinary man who sells vacuum cleaners but somehow you become as a British spy. Soon things go out of hands, for the government. Exhilarating, fun read.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Strange little spy comedy novel that's also a perfect story.
You're in Havana, Cuba during the Cold War, you are a boring ordinary man who sells vacuum cleaners but somehow you become as a British spy.
To keep up with your daughter who spends all your money in creative ways, you don't want to lose the income but it all goes haywire.

It's both unbelievable and believable, some misunderstanding here and exaggeration there, who is there to deny his reports? I mean why not have fun while they are at it, let the man ridicule the authority and get away with it.
His love for his daughter, what else would you need if you have her?

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Our Man in Havana

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Our Man in Havana (Vintage Classics)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Il nostro agente all'avana (Italiano)

2026-02-04

“Frankenstein” Mary Shelley (1818) Review | A lonely unwanted creature

Frankenstein
Mary Shelley, 1818
Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus
UK
224 pages
Read in 2020.12
check price on amazon.com

✔ The most famous horror monster story
✔ The author wrote the best horror story among friends 
✔ Written by a woman


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★★  Mary Shelley had a bet with 2 men to see who'd write the best horror story, thus this world famous horror story written by a 18 year old girl. But it is not about how evil the monster is, it's more a sad story about this lonely unwanted creature.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

One of the most famous horror stories is not only about horror.
And it must be specified, written by an 18 year old, a teenage girl, Mary Shelley.
While on a holiday, she had a bet with 2 men, a poet Byron and a writer Polidori, to see who would write the best horror story - what a luxurious game.

It's poetic, it's sad, it's I'd even say beautiful, painfully beautiful.
It's about two men, who both regret the monster's existence - one is the creator and the other the monster himself.
The monster is monstrous simply because that's his nature, not his willing. 

If you are only used to the movie or cartoon versions of it, it's definitely not as you fancy the story of Frankenstein to be.
It's not pure evil, it's not that simple and it's not really about how monstrous he is either.; it's more a sad story about this lonely unwanted creature.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Frankenstein

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Frankenstein (italiano)

2026-01-26

“The Diary of a Nobody” George and Weedon Grossmith (1892) Review | Very awkward

The Diary of a Nobody
George and Weedon Grossmith, 1892
176 pages
Read in 2022.01
check price on amazon.com


✔ British humour
✔ Mundane life of middle class in London 
✔ Awkward British comedy


🔽 Review summary 🔽
★★★★☆  Comedy written 100+ years ago but still very British, the awkwardness, pretentiousness, and he really tries to show his dignity but everything goes wrong, so awkward.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

One of the books I randomly picked up, and it turned out to be a book of British comedy of a man who lived in Holloway, where I also lived for a while, though it was written over 130 years ago.

It's very British, the awkwardness, pretentiousness, and he really tries to show his dignity but everything goes wrong, so awkward.
You can't help but feel sorry for Mr. Pooter, the Mr. Nobody, and be charmed by his gentleness.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Diary of a Nobody (Wordsworth Classics) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Diary of a Nobody

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
The Diary of a Nobody (English)

2026-01-26

“Unfinished Portrait” Agatha Christie (1962) Review | Christie without mystery

Unfinished Portrait
Agatha Christie, 1962
UK
Read in 2022.05
check price on amazon.com


✔ Written under her pseudonym, Mary Westmacott.
✔ Female struggle as a mother
✔ Less famous side of Agatha Christie


🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★☆ Her wish to go outside, into the unknown world - that's something she must suppress because she's a wife, a mother. A wonderful storytelling, a story of her mind, by one of the greatest.


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Agatha Christy that doesn't involve murders or crimes - in fact she used her pseudonym, Mary Westmacott.

The book is about about the inner emotions of the sensitive protagonist who is now thinking to commit suicide.
After a happy childhood with her family, she was supposed to have a happy family life with her husband.
Her wish to go outside, into the unknown world - that's something she must suppress because she's a wife, a mother.

A wonderful storytelling, a story of her mind, by one of the greatest.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Unfinished Portrait

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Unfinished Portrait

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Ritratto incompiuto (italiano)

2026-01-25

“The Midwich Cuckoos” John Wyndham, (1957) Review | Uncomfortable
The Midwich Cuckoos
John Wyndham, 1957
UK
240 pages
Read in 2022.12
check price on amazon.com

✔ Weird Science Fiction from the UK
✔ Strength of a community
✔ Family

🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★☆ In a quiet town all women got pregnant, but the babies only like each other, with their bright eyes and unusual senses. Uncomfortable, feels too real.

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Recommended by a friend, so no knowledge of the story or the author, and it was subtly weird.
Maybe I’ve never really read sci-fi books consciously, so I can’t really compare with other books in the genre but it is a mild but certainly worrying sci-fi.

In a quiet town, one day they all fell unconscious, when they woke up women were pregnant, all at the same time.
Soon the babies are born, not looking like their parents but like each other, with their bright eyes and they become worryingly strong, smart and connected to each other.
Who, or what are they?
What do we do? What is the right thing to do? How do we stop?

It’s uncomfortable and definitely worrying because it feels too real.

Once upon a time, our enemies were aliens or some obvious external factors.
Good ol’ days.
Now we need to he scared of us humans.
```
🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Midwich Cuckoos

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The Midwich Cuckoos

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Il villaggio dei dannati (italiano)
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2026-01-21
“Caledonian Road” Andrew O’Hagan (2024) Review | Dark reality of London today
Caledonian Road
Andrew O’Hagan, 2024
UK
657 pages
Read in 2025.11
check price on amazon.com

✔ Today’s London for rich people
✔ Power struggle and corruptions
✔ Crimes

🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★☆ People come with hope for a better life, and soon enough realise there is no such thing. London is a place for rich to rule. The money, the power, the evil. And what is the shared feeling? the loneliness.

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

If anyone asks what today’s London is like, I’d say read this book.
It has all the problems the city is experiencing in the last few years.

People come with hope for a better life, and soon enough realise there is no such thing.
London is a place for rich to rule, it’s something we ordinary people have difficulty seeing, but it’s always in the background.
The money, the power, the evil.
And what is the shared feeling? the loneliness.

This sense of “us” vs “them”.
We the people, they the evil things.

An exciting book that contains a lot of aspects of today, traditional rich, Russian rich, rich kids, rich kids who are Eco warriors, young gangs, illegal immigration, the class struggles – it depicts different points of view from different class and communities.

Lastly it was nice to read a story about Islington where I lived for more than 10 years, it’s a big borough with all the essences of London.
```
🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Caledonian Road: The Sunday Times bestseller

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Caledonian Road: The Sunday Times bestseller

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Caledonian Road (English)
```
2026-01-21

“Jane Eyre” Charlotte Bronte (1847) Review | A woman who says no

Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte, 1847
UK
624 pages
Read in 2026.01
check price on amazon.com

✔ Classic English literature
✔ Strong female character, feminist icon
✔ Love story

🔽 Review summary 🔽

★★★★★ Has all the juicy stuff, mainly romance, but it has the themes of coming-of-age, feminism, religion, gothic, class, race/colonialism, anything. She's a woman who says no. How dare.

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

It's always pleasantly surprising to find many of the classics are entertaining, but then, it does make sense, if it was boring or merely difficult, it couldn't have been loved for centuries.

Jane Eyre has all the juicy stuff, mainly romance, more romance-y than I had imagined, but it has the themes of coming-of-age, feminism, religion, gothic, class, race/colonialism, anything that reflects the life in the north of England in early 1800s.

You can easily imagine why there was a huge criticism when it came out - a woman who doesn't obey? A woman who says no? All with her plain childish looks? How dare.

But today we of course see it differently.
She's a cool independent woman, she doesn't want her man to shower her with expensive stuff, she wants an equal relationship, only when she's sure that she can also be helpful, does she accept.
She knows how to forgive, she knows how to be useful in practical ways, and she grows and glows.

The matter of the madwoman in the attic is also an interesting point.
Pretty clearly a typical racist view of the time; indicating her to be of the mixed race, thus a black woman, therefore she is irrational and violent, must be kept away from the white civilisation.
Also the madwoman haunts Jane, but Jane doesn't seem particularly to hate her, despite everything she represents and does?

Gripping, and surprisingly entertaining with difficult themes tangled up.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte (Penguin Classics) 

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Jane Eyre (italiano)

2026-01-19