What I've been reading

A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara

"Four college classmates - broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition - move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma."

A very long book but utterly enthralling, albeit very harrowing in places. I can't remember reading anything where men's friendships are given this sort of attention. Women do feature too, and not just as ciphers or outlines, but it's the men who lead the story and provide all the colour and interest. I wondered whether the author was male, but she is a woman. The only criticism I have is that Jude's past, revealed gradually throughout the book, is too bleak, too extreme, too cruel, and its messages too often repeated.

The Thursday Murder Club
by Richard Osman

narrated by Lesley Manville

"In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case."

Probably because of the celebrity author, this has become a best-selling book and now a TV adaptation is on the way too. I think that it is fair to middling, not bad, but not that good either. My main problem is that there are too many murders making it complicated, which means that there were too many characters for me to keep track of. It's clever, but a bit too clever. I'm not tempted to read more of the books in the series, but I wouldn't be surprised if the TV version is better.

Double A-side (High Fidelity)
by Nick Hornby

"Do you know your desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups? Rob does. He keeps a list, in fact. But Laura isn't on it—even though she's just become his latest ex."

I enjoyed this book mostly because the author is about the same age as me and includes loads of references to the culture and music that was going on in the early nineties, a time I remember with some nostalgia. He also writes in a non-standard way that doesn't irritate me (for a change), and the characters seem real and mostly sympathetic. So a thumbs up from me for this one.