Metronome — Tom Watson

This was a very interesting premise that had me hooked, but ultimately felt unfulfilling.

The author is very effective in creating a post-apocalyptic near future world, but it's only used to create a kind of 'locked room' scenario. The story in the end is a domestic psychological drama, with all the post-apocalyptic scenario being largely irrelevant — and completely unresolved.

The story is very slow for the first two thirds of the book, but that's fine, because the writing, scene-setting and main character are very engaging.

Then in the final third, things suddenly start to happen, but in ways that feel jarring. The story leaps into something more violent, even with a touch of The Revenant, but it didn't carry me with it. Things felt out of character given what we'd seen in the first two thirds, seeming unconvincing.

So a key learning is how it's necessary to build up tensions in a character earlier that may snap later to change them, and cause vastly different actions.

Also, if you put so much into building the world, such that it is a main character itself, there needs to be some arc for it too. I can't quite put my finger on what was missing here and will be thinking about it a while.

Commonwealth — Ann Patchett

Patchett is such a good writer that you know this is going to be masterful. In this she explores some really interesting ideas, with brilliantly real characters.

Agent to the Stars — John Scalzi

An amusing story that zips along.

American Wife — Curtis Sittenfeld

This is a fictionalised autobiography of Laura Bush, wife of the former US president who we'd all expected would be the most ridiculous US president ever. How naive we were.

I didn't expect to like it, because I really didn't want to be expected to empathise with George W Bush and family, or hearing their self-justification and aggrandisement.

But given the reviews, and some recommendations I tried it.

And it was superb.

Such tight writing, with a very skilled way of getting you to be close to the highly-convincing characters while being able to see through their privilege and self-delusion.

Highly recommended.

High Rise — J G Ballard

This is often listed as a classic, and there's much to be entertained by. For a while.

But for some reason (maybe I just wasn't in the mood?) I felt it drag as it went on.

Pachinko — Min Jin Lee

I love an epic family saga, and this delivered in spades. Highly recommended.

Foxglove Summer — Ben Arronovitch

I'm still really enjoying this series. This one was a change of pace, taking the main character out of his usual habitat in London, and deep into the countryside.

4 3 2 1 — Paul Auster

This confused me a lot at first, as I simply bought it on the strength of the author, listened to the audiobook and so didn't get any view of the blurb before starting.

The idea turns out to be that it follows four different parallel lives of the main character. So you'll first listen to version one of childhood, then version 2 of childhood and so on for 3 and 4, then version 1 of early adulthood, etc. The sections are just separated as 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, then 2.1, 2.2 and so on. So it seems to be chapters but with the same character names doing wildly differing things and jumping back in time!

Once I'd figured out what the hell was going on I loved this. I often wish we could explore the parallel universes from key divergent moments in our lives and the world. So the thought experiment in this fascinated me.

And, being Paul Auster, it was brilliantly written too. Highly recommended.

A House for Mr Biswas — V S Naipaul

I started this, but after getting a third of the way through I've put it to one side. Not forever, just until the mood hits me to pick it up again.

It's such a big book. Such a slow unfolding of the tale. And that would be fine, but the main character is a bit of a jerk. I didn't really want to invest so much time in him right now.

But this novel has so many accolades that it must just be me. I'll try again one day.