nocto

Loved this. It's on the Booker Prize shortlist; it had the longest odds when I first looked but now I've read it the odds have shortened. At least that's how it looks from here.

Fabulous family story dealing, as the title implies, with mothers; the beginnings and the ends of lives, and the complications in between. Fabulously readable from the first page. I liked the changing viewpoints, long sections to start with and then muddling up as the story got more involved. I didn't like some of the characters very much at all but loved their story.

I read The Secret River recently which I also liked and which is also on the Booker shortlist. I'd back this one over it I think, but they are both worth a read. I don't think I'll manage to obtain the other four or read them before the winner is announced though!

Borrowed.

I think this takes me back up to date in the Mary Russell series. I'll be waiting for a new book. (Though I'm also very pleased to find that King's latest gives her other sleuth, modern day Kate Martinelli, an overdue outing.)

I didn't find this as all consuming as the last couple of books, but enjoyed the foray to 1920s San Francisco. Sherlock Holmes meeting up with Dasheill Hammett was a lovely touch and the sort of thing that's made this series worth reading. King has breathed new life into Holmes for me.

Purchased on 24th August 2006.

Great book. A fast read but one that's likely to stick with me for a long time. The story is about William Thornhill, born in London in 1777, and transported to New South Wales as a convict in the early nineteenth century; and in a wider sense also about the awful treatment of the aboriginal people of Australia by the settlers.

Very well written; quite weighty but also easy to read. I'll be on the lookout for Grenville's other books.

Borrowed.