The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith

The fact that it took me almost a month to read this book is a sad representation of how little I am reading these days. But it will change over the summer, I promise! And then child number 2 will make me nearly completely illiterate, but there's still time for that as the due date is December 5th...

The Talented Mr Ripley is an absolute delight despite the fact that it's quite dated and, can one say "Orientalist" in its depiction of Italy? There are pretty laughable mistakes in the Italian sentences, the stereotypical descriptions are a bit over the top at times, and the depiction of Italian society is a bit superficial at the very least...

Yet the book is compelling, the reader wants Ripley to escape justice and have a half-decent life, and one is bound to think about how easily he would get discovered in the 21st century...

Middle England - Jonathan Coe

A rare Jonathan Coe book that I didn't enjoy, and yet one that I think serves an educational purpose (at least for non-British writers).

The characters that I loved so much in The Rotters' Club, and that I still enjoyed in The Closed Circle are back for a third time and, at this point, it's just a bit much: with age they've lost a lot of their charm and too many of them have turned into allegoric representations of the sections of society they belong to.

While some of the new characters that are introduced are interesting enough, most of them are rather one-dimensional. The themes discussed are so widely covered in the media these days, and in rather similar ways, that they don't really add anything new. And the ending of the book is not one of the typical chaotic and rocambolesque ones that Coe usually goes for, but rather a flat one that reminds the reader of a cheap romance.

Yet, for someone who doesn't live in the UK and knows little about the current political landscape, this book can be a really good introduction to Brexit and the awfulness of the current political discourse in Britain.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

If only the student who gave me this book as a Christmas present had submitted an essay all year (though he actually was one of the best students I've ever had, and I hope he got his act together for his exam!).

Despite taking place mostly in the narrator's own flat, this book is so clearly a "New York book". The plot is so disturbingly believable that I wondered whether the author hadn't gone through similar periods herself (maybe not quite a year's worth of drugged up oblivion, but a few weeks).

It's very well-written and (in a twisted way, obviously) pleasant. Yet it raises so many questions about our society, access to medicines, self-medication, depression etc., and a number of the answers are fairly cringeworthy...

Summer Crossing - Truman Capote

Apparently Capote was rather unhappy with this novel(la?) and that was one of the reasons why it wasn't published during his lifetime. Man, did he have high standards...

Summer Crossing is not exactly the best book of the 20th century, but that doesn't mean that one cannot spend a couple of enjoyable hours reading it. Again, this is a typical "New York book", inclusive of holidays in the Hamptons, inter-class romance, parties, garages etc.

It's not going to change your life, and it surely didn't change mine, but it can be good company on a lazy (early) summer afternoon.

Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi

Is it bad of me to say that I didn't particularly enjoy this book?

As far as the graphic aspects of graphic novels go, I wasn't blown away by the visual aspects of Persepolis.

And as far as novels go, the personal story of Marjane is extremely interesting (though I suspect not too dissimilar from that of a lot of people in a similar position in the 1980s), but I didn't learn much that I didn't know already about the big historical issues that frame the book.

At times the book appears to me to be a bit too raw, but maybe that's because it is ultimaltely written and drawn through the eyes of a young woman still trying to find her way into the world.

The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark

I struggle to believe I didn't even know who Muriel Spark was until about a year ago (in case anyone needed further proof of how far behind I am in terms of English Literature 101!).

Like the other books by Muriel Spark that I have had the pleasure to read, The Girls of Slender Means is witty, accessible and deep. The fact that the lives of the main characters remind me of my years as a student on a tight budget makes the book even more endearing to me.

As usual, one of the big strengths for me is the way in which Spark paints the lives of common people with an ironic (and at times slightly surreal) take. Because of the size of her books and the themes covered, Spark very much reminds me of Beryl Bainbridge.

The book also achieved something seemingly impossible: it made me like (at least the fictional) West London!