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Written by a doctor, this book takes you to Addis Ababa in the early 60's and ends up there as well, not without a long stay in America.

The story certainly brings us out of the usual European or North Ameican settings. Very touching, although the story is claimed to be fictional, being written by a famous doctor, you cannot help but think that there might be quite a few autobiographic elements included. As many books written by technical experts, this one tends to lean heavely on sentimental lyricism but given the nature of the intrigue you easily forgive the author for it.

Pas mal, le décor est grandiose, pour ne pas dire grandiloquent, mais vraiment on a souvent du mal à ne pas s'endormir...

Even if it was only for the language. The way Herron sets the scene and looks at the world have no equivalents. English is not my native language but it seems to me that he pushes it to its limits to make it say something that normal usage cannot carry.

And for those who do like a spy story this is even better than Le Carre.

Fascinating explanation of how we came to be about. If only for the detour he makes on how bats can fly around it's worth a read.

Formula based book.

I know that many of us men are not totally blameless, but all men are rapists? hmmm

Predictable from chapter 2. Well written but boringly following the formula. Read at the beach when it's hot and you feel lazy.

Very long (640 pages) novel and I have to admit that I rarely got bored. All the more surprising to me as the subject matter and the characters do not represent cherished values for me. The main character comes from Kansas (which, sorry to say, for me is more associated with red neck mentality and values), he is married and has a son. The novel is essentially the story of that marriage, another subject that normally would bore me to death. But the writing is vivid, not telling a linear story and goes on to reflect on the nature of art in the 21th Century with considerations on the impacts of social media algorithms on people interactions. But you have to no let yourself be impressed by the wall of text that is each page, very few paragraph breaks give you the chance to take a breath.

Not quite the level of later works but definitively Herron.

Good read.

One of the worst book I've ever read. If you want to know a lot of totally meaningless details about each character, then take a look. Absolutely no depth to the characters, they seem taken out of some children book. The novel is long, on top of that. Believe me, read something else.

Nothing very special about the intrigue itself. It's located, mostly , downtown New York, just an ordinary doctor caught in a strange situation.

But the plot is very good, keeps you on your toes the whole while, no gaping hole that I could find, follows a logical line that carries the story to a satisfying ending.

One of the cities that have been on my "to see" agenda for a long time but never had to opportunity to concretize.

The novel is reminds one of Philip Kerr but if that was Wake's model he missed the mark by quite a bit. Where Kerr's work reveals a deep knowledge of Berlin and long research on the history of that period, Wake's work remains shallow at best, both in it's description of a city that has the reputation of being one of this planet's jewels and in his depiction of historical circumstances back then.

Easy to read but not very rewarding.

Written in the fifties, a book about a lesbian relationship in pension school.

Apparently un-publishable back then as it would have caused a scandal. Not very sure why as her writing is highly poetic (you can read a quote in the book's description here) .

At the time this author was pushed to Gallimard by Simone de Beauvoir, not published in it's original form but in a very edulcorated formulation...

It's a long book (715 pages) that tells of the saga of many characters in India from the beginning of the century to the 60's. English (as opposed to most latin languages) is difficult to turn into something beautiful but Verghese somehow achieves this in his writing. The problem is that he takes on too many characters and it's not long before you get a little lost and as a result it becomes difficult to root for one character in particular. He also uses a lot of native language sentences and words which certainly doesn't help. But a nice book nevertheless.
Apparently another book of his is much better: Cutting from Stone and I'm planning to have t look.

A bit long in the tooth but a relaxing read if you don't have anything else to do...

But turns out was one of his first unpublished. Not very good, felt like something written by a insomniac teen....