Category Archives: Outtakes

Notes on the Man Booker prize 2015

Posted on October 23, 2015 by drewsmith28

ONE of the Amazon reviewers of Marlon James’s winning Brief History of Seven Killings said that: “If you are interested in Jamaica, corruption, sex and killings, this is a must read”. My problem is I am not interested in that … Continue reading →

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Murder bag by Tony Parsons (Century)

Posted on June 4, 2014 by drewsmith28

Lee Child – see below – also writes the endorsement on Tony Parson’s departure into the crimo genre. “Tense and human”, he says. Welcome to the field of nastiness and violence, Tony. Parsons can write. I have followed his work … Continue reading →

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Killing Floor by Lee Childs (Bantam)

Posted on May 24, 2014 by drewsmith28

“I was arrrested in Eno’s diner. At twelve o’clock. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee”  I read somewhere someone saying they would automatically buy a new Lee Childs book as soon as it came out. That was their reading … Continue reading →

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Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal (Vintage)

Posted on May 6, 2014 by drewsmith28

Edmund de Waal pronounces in his prologue that this story could almost tell it itself. Yes and no, Edmund. To anyone whose family were part of the same exodus from Odessa to Vienna to Paris as Russia, as then was, … Continue reading →

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Mistress by James Patterson (Arrow)

Posted on April 9, 2014 by drewsmith28

I was curious to read something that was really popular, a best seller to compare with other books here. Does popularity equal literature? Does it matter? Are readers the ultimate accolade? So I turned to the “world’s bestselling thriller writer” the … Continue reading →

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Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown)

Posted on February 5, 2014 by drewsmith28

  I should post a reservation about BIG books in general. Both the Booker listed Kills and the winning Luminaries are substantial door-holders, so is Donna Tartt’s Goldfinch, fewer pages but denser type, smaller margins. Such expansiveness demands more time, … Continue reading →

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Jim Crace and the new religionists

Posted on January 23, 2014 by drewsmith28

JIM Crace has a knack of creating brooding invisible forces that help create a framework beyond the obvious. In his Booker listed Harvest the prime protagonists hardly speak for themselves at all but just infect the narrative with a sense … Continue reading →

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Stoner by John Williams (Vintage)

Posted on January 20, 2014 by drewsmith28

SO, 49 years on the mid west university of pre world war 11 wins the Waterstone Book of the Year. Well crafted, of a period, but grey and dull and as fusty as a check academic jacket, as is all … Continue reading →

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Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (Granta)

Posted on January 15, 2014 by drewsmith28

HAD Eleanor Catton’s precocious first novel The Rehearsal been shortlisted for the Booker Prize alongside her weightier winning tome the Luminaries, it might have been interesting to see how it fared. Academic as a question perhaps but relevant maybe. In The … Continue reading →

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