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25 Jan
6:16am, 25 Jan 2024
84,153 posts
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Diogenes
Two of the very funniest books I’ve read, too.
Also, The Code Of The Woosters, Gussie Finknottle’s speech day address in particular.
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25 Jan
6:32am, 25 Jan 2024
84,157 posts
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Diogenes
Correction, it’s in Right-Ho, Jeeves
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25 Jan
8:27am, 25 Jan 2024
53,635 posts
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McGoohan
Good point actually. Wodehouse has made me LOL on several occasions
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27 Jan
4:55pm, 27 Jan 2024
22,415 posts
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Columba
Another one here for Meaning of Liff.
Also LOL-ed at parts of Milkman, though other parts made me gasp as they grabbed me by the throat.
Also some of Magnus Mills's books, especially The Maintenance of Headway, which was the first one I read.
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30 Jan
9:49am, 30 Jan 2024
53,657 posts
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McGoohan
Right, finished this last night.
Liebling read this first and really enjoyed it. She read it in a day. When I picked it up I thought I was also going to love it. It gets off to an intriguing start and sets up quite a few tense elements. Henri the narrator is quite a fun creation but as he gets a bit less actuarial and a bit more engaged with the world, I lost interest a bit. Found it a bit unpickupable the further I got.
The biggest problem for me is the crime thriller bits are quite poorly done. There’s never any real feeling of threat. It’s all a bit sequential too. He’s presented with a problem. He deals with said problem in his own actuarial way, we move on. The final boss is largely despatched off-page and requires a huge amount of luck on Henri’s part. After the set-up the ending was a real damp squib. The problems just sort of go away, everyone’s happy, la-de-da.
I gave it 6/10.
Now, in true Columba-style I shall go back and read what everyone else thought.
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30 Jan
9:52am, 30 Jan 2024
53,658 posts
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McGoohan
Well, largely agree with what's been written. I thought I'd missed something about Laura in my stop-start reading of the book but ... we are missing some of her backstory, right?
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30 Jan
11:28am, 30 Jan 2024
66,415 posts
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LindsD
I think so, yes.
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3 Feb
5:33pm, 3 Feb 2024
14,313 posts
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Little Nemo
I enjoyed this book at first and it seemed to have some intriguing ideas but I don't think it lived up to the promise. It seemed to drift off into a mediocre crime book with rather flat characters.
I liked the idea of a socially weird, numbers-orientated anti-hero blundering his way around organised criminals but this book didn't quite nail it. There were a few nice touches of humour and a couple of the colleagues were interesting but the love interest was super-annoying and the criminals didn't feel convincing. Perhaps the Finnish sense of humour is different or something was lost in translation.
I was also troubled by his attitude to the deaths in this book. Some of them were pretty hideous (the poor bloke in the barn! drowning upside down in a car!  ) but he never seemed fazed by them. Also couldn't understand how he could start his own money-lending service? Surely you can't just set one up without some sort of financial audit?
It wasn't a bad read, just not one I would want to repeat. I won't be trying the sequels.
I gave this book a 5.
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4 Feb
7:26pm, 4 Feb 2024
22,424 posts
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Columba
Agree with Nemo about the hideous deaths, which the main character seemed to take in his stride.
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4 Feb
9:09pm, 4 Feb 2024
66,509 posts
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LindsD
Me too
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