The Unspeakable Skipton Pamela Hansford Johnson

 An anti-hero  centre stage . Hardly any likeable characters  but worth a read  for the period setting and ( self-imposed) desperation of his life

Yasunari Kawabata : The Rainbow

 An understated Japanese novel set after WW2. don't mention the war...more to it than at first seems

Burnt Sugar ... Avni Doshi

Good , although as usual, not as good as the reviews suggest. Difficult to like the narrator at first. 

Mothers and daughters ...!

Beasts of England --Adam Biles

 this divided us,  one found it got better and better  , a couple thought it OK but too scatter-gun in tis targets and one disliked it .

How often do we disagree with the book reviews ---Often !

Hua Hsu - Stay True

 A divided jury- Two liked it  - one a lot , the rest  were indifferent to the narrator. Some interesting points about history and memory and about his relation with father . From page 174 I liked it  but it is only 192 pages long!

Jo Browning Wroe - A Terrible Kindness

 A remarkable, moving and memorable opening ....then a rather predictable cliche of a tale of growing up.

As though she had two ideas at writing class and stitched the together.

The Cellist , Jennifer Atkins

 One of us liked it  , most did not. Interesting attempt to portray two people whose art gets in the say of love  (or can they not love so sublimate it to Art) . A conversational style as though ghe character is talking to us