A Common Reader is . . .

. . . written by Tom Cunliffe, of East Sussex, England (to read more about me see my About page).

It consists of book reviews and more general articles about reading and currently receives over 10,000 unique visitors each month. So far 288 book reviews have been published.


My currently-reading shelf:
Tom Cunliffe's book recommendations, liked quotes, book clubs, book trivia, book lists (currently-reading shelf)


This website is archived for posterity in the British Library's UK Web Archive

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Archives

Review (audio recording): Swann’s Way – Marcel Proust

Naxos, the renowned producer of classical music recordings is publishing a complete and unabridged recording of Marcel Proust’s epic work, Remembrance of Things Past (À la Recherche du Temps Perdu).

The reader is Neville Jason who Washington Post called “the marathon man” after his 70 hour recording of Tolstoy’s War and Peace.  Jason is well equipped to [...]

Review: The Foundling – Agnès Desarthe

Jerome lives with his teenage daughter, Marina.  His wife, Paula, left him some years ago, apparently through boredom and the desire to live a more exciting life than her marriage to a rural estate agent gave her.  Jerome is a quiet, introspective man who takes a long time to let his feelings come to the surface, but [...]

Review: The Unit – Ninni Holmqvist

I have been a great fan of Kazuo Ishiguro’s books ever since The Remains of the Day right up to his latest  book of four stories, Nocturnes.  One of his more intriguing books was Never Let Me Go, about a boarding school in which cloned children were raised to become organ donors (turned into a [...]

Review: The Misfortunates – Dimitri Verhulst

I read quite a few European books in translation but its not often I come across a book from Belgium (only two feature on this blog so far).  Late last year I made a visit to Bruges and realised that that beautiful city of canals and filigreed stonework was hardly characteristic of a country that contained [...]

Review: The Orphan Master’s Son – Adam Johnson

On this 1 January 2012, I wish a happy and prosperous New Year to all my readers.  

I’m starting this year with a book which isn’t available in the book stores until April.  However, I wanted to publish the review while the subject is so topical following the death last month of North Korean [...]

Review: Far North – Marcel Theroux

In Far North, we read of a world in which the inevitable results of consumerism, global warming and the environmental exploitation of poorer nations has come full cycle.  The disaster has long been and gone.

Before the disaster, numbers of the concerned emigrated to Siberia, a blank canvas of a land, where environmentalists, Quakers and [...]

Review: The Hunger Trace – Edward Hogan

In The Hunger Trace Edward Hogan has produced a characteristically English novel set among the hills of Derbyshire.  Hogan’s elegant prose makes the English county of Derbyshire a main feature of the book with its remote villages and sodden countryside. He has an obvious love of his home county and writes eloquently of its rugged [...]

Review: I Curse The River of Time – Per Petterson

Norwegian writer Per Petterson writes in a sparse, restrained style which somehow mirrors the bleak Scandinavian towns and landscapes he describes in his novels.  In I Curse the River of Time, we meet Arvid Janse, a character who features in other Petterson novels, a tired man who has failed to fulfil his potential and [...]

The ridiculous and the sublime

I’ve always enjoyed Peter James series of police procedural novels set in Brighton.  Peter has a close relationship with the Sussex Police, even to the extent of sponsoring a police car.  He has been able to go out with them on their investigations and his books have an air of authenticity about them.  His latest [...]

Review: Andrew Miller – Pure

I write a lot of reviews and while I only usually only write about books I enjoy, sometimes I have the pleasure of writing about something really special.  Andrew Miller’s Pure is in this category of “five-star plus”, a book which I hope will be nominated for a prize, being both literary and readable [...]