Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

 

This story wasn't how I imagined it. It is a dark novel, about the cycle of violence and aggression: Heathcliff eventually becomes like the man he hates, by being brought up with beatings and anger he in turn unleashes it on everyone else.

It tells of how love can become a catalyst for hatred.

So many of the characters are utterly unlikable! Cathy is selfish and foolish and obstinate; Heathcliff is brutal and vengeful and psychotic; Hindley is spiteful and venomous and a drunkard.  

 

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

Anthony Trollope wrote this satirical novel as a reaction to the financial scandals of the 1870s in Great Britain.  It is an archetypical Victorian novel, featuring the two big Victorian obsessions - class and women.
It took me a long time to read - it is Trollope's longest novel, but it was enjoyable!
I loved all the disreputable characters. I took an instant dislike to Felix - who basically spends everyone's else money and is a cad! One of my favorites is the seductive Winifred Hurtle, who, they say -- and I love this detail! -- shot a man in Oregon!

The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe Series Book 1) by Raymond Chandler

Set in 1930s Los Angeles, then a sleepy town controlled by the mob as much as the police, The Big Sleep is a non stop action thriller. Chandler’s first book is a classic and would help redefine and reinvent the mystery genre.
Chandler wrote this back in 1939 and it reads like an American classic detective novel should! The dialogues are just perfect!
 

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

 
Having read Flaubert's parrot I supposed to ought to read the novel that inspired it.
The book is about Mme. Bovary's thoughts of "If only X would happen, THEN I could be truly happy" and finding out that is simply not the case! I think I need to learn from her mistakes! 
In spite of the sadness of the book, I loved the descriptions of the Normandy countryside which are very vivid! 

Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie

Dracula by Bram Stoker

This classic horror story is actually told through a collaboration of journals, letters and papers.  The different viewpoints told via each journal create suspense which suits the gothic tone of the novel.
Although a classic, there are some flaws the novel does not explain - why is Dracula obsessed with Mina and the second half, where is there is less Dracula himself, is less gripping than the first half!

Crooked House by Agatha Christie

This book contains no Miss Marple or Poirot. But I really enjoyed this story as it has interesting characterization and well-crafted plot. Infact this was one of Christie's own favourites! It is a dark story! 

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Having the read the blurb, I expected the book to be something it wasn't, but once I had got over my preconceived ideas I really enjoyed this book.

It is a gentle book which moves slowly to tell the plot.
It is a perfect Autumn book as the main character spends a lot of her time walking in the woods!
The writing is beautiful - poetic and also witty at times. I liked the descriptions of the English countryside.
One of Warner’s better tricks is that you can’t really be sure if she’s introduced a supernatural element or not. Everything that happens subsequently can be explained without resorting to infernal pacts. Everything can be explained as a rationalization of Lolly’s rebellion.

Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec

 

The book is set in an apartment block in the XVIIth arrondissement of Paris where, chapter by chapter, room by room, an extraordinary rich cast of characters is revealed in a series of tales that are bizarre, unlikely, moving, funny, or (sometimes) quite ordinary stories based on the people, objects or paintings in the room. . 11 rue Simon-Crubellier has been frozen at the instant in time when Bartlebooth dies where people are frozen in different apartments, on the stairs, and in the cellars, some rooms are vacant. Each chapter is set in each room (thus, the more rooms an apartment has the more chapters are devoted to it). In each room we learn about the residents of the room, or the past residents of the room, or about someone they have come into contact with. The idea of failure is a common theme.


 

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

This has been recently dramatised on the BEEB - I didn't really enjoy the TV adaptation, I much preferred the book (although it is not my favourite Christie!)


IT is not a usual Christie mystery, more a John Buchan style ripping yarn with light-weight espionage and a heavy emphasis on adventure. I suppose a grown up famous 5.

There are many twists and turns. The start is a bit slow but I did enjoy the end!

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson

  

This is a delightful fairy tale  set in a between-the-wars London that is a mixture of 1930's unemployment and a 1920's glamorous and free-wheeling lifestyle where  a man gets to prove his manhood by punching another on the nose

It's a fun lighthearted easy-to-read frivolous novel.

Nothing much happens - so as such it lacks substance, but enjoyable none the less.

The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

    

This the story of Little Nell and her Grandfather and the characters that they met.

I loved the way Dickens is able to create such a vast and intricate web from such seemingly disparate pieces. The imagery and description in the novel that truly sets it apart. There is a wide cast of characters which resembles  the profusion of old curiosities in the eponymous shop’s window. I loved Kit and the kind school teacher as well as the villain the Daniel Quilp.

The grandfather’s addiction to gambling is still a curiosity in some respects, although repeated  up and down this and many other countries, in betting shops, casinos and gambling dens every day of the week which makes this book still relevant today.

I found he tactic of introducing Nell and her grandfather via an unnamed narrator who wanders straight out of the story afterwards confusing but apparently it's a common feature of Victorian fiction

Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie

This was one of the best Agatha Christie books I have yet read. Nine people at a bridge game, one murdered, four suspects and four above suspicion who investigate.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Tom Sawyer's Comrade by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

 

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the first of Mark Twain's novels and is an American classic novel. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it!

It is a historical fiction giving readers a glimpse of the laid back town's life in the mid to late 19th century and is basically a satire of the customs and superstitions that Americans practiced and believed during that time.

I enjoyed the shenanigans that a young, mischievous boy got into.

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

This tells the story of Griffin, a scientist who creates a serum to render himself invisible, and his descent into madness that follows.

The book is pretty slim and Griffin spends most of it bullying people!
I didn't really enjoy the story - I found the characters uninteresting. 
The plot lacked any real tension.
Griffin himself didn't inspire fear, loathing or even pity. 
There was lot of effort trying to explain what it would be like to have an invisible man in our midst but this left the plot underdeveloped.  

However, it makes you ask the questions what if we gain what we always wanted , what does think the world of an outsider? what are the consequences of what we do?

'Salem's Lot by Stephen King

I don't think I would have picked this vampire novel if we weren't reading it for our book club.

Stephen King is excellent at building suspense and developing a sense of foreboding.
I liked the way the novel dealt with the mystery of the town more than the creepiness of the vampires. 

However overall story was a little slow at parts and I wasn't as carried away by the narrative or the characters as I would have liked. And it felt a little long!

After Dark by Wilkie Collins

    

This is a collection ofsix short stories mystery, suspense and romance revolving around a portrait artist who must temporarily stop his work to rest his damaged eyes.
 I like the descriptions of atmosphere and personality.
But I didn't find all six of the short stories equally compelling and some of them were rather slow

 

French Leave by P.G. Wodehouse

We read this for our book club.  It was based on typical Wodehouse humorous misunderstandings, but was not as good as the Jeeves story.  I felt nothing very much happens to the main characters, I got a bit in muddle with who was who and the plot twists are predictable. 

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Hercule Poirot Series Book 1) by Agatha Christie

 

 I do love an Agatha Christie as I never can work out "whodunit" until the big revel.