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 290 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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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: The Sisters Brothers – Patrick deWitt

Well, The Sisters Brothers didn’t win this year’s Booker Prize and most of the pundits said that it was an outsider.  Perhaps it was a little too quirky, a humorous add-on the short-list to provide some light reading for those who struggle through the complete set.

The novel is set in 1851, and readers find [...]

Review: Great House – Nicole Krauss

Patrick Ness in The Guardian almost put me off this book by telling me about the author -

It is difficult to find a profile of Nicole Krauss that doesn’t mention 1) her beauty, 2) her youth or 3) her marriage to Jonathan Safran Foer (even younger, slightly less beautiful). There’s an inevitable air of [...]

Review: Caribou Island – David Vann

At this late stage of January, I intend to get back to writing book reviews after what has been a very busy two or three weeks.  We’ve been away quiet a bit and then when at home every day seems to have been taken up with other activities.  I apologise for not visiting other people’s [...]

Review: Freedom – Jonathan Franzen

Note – for the Michelham Priory Christmas Quiz 2010 click here.  For the answers click here.

It seems a little pointless writing about this massively hyped novel Freedom, the follow up to Franzen’s 2001 block-buster, The Corrections.  After all, every English language newspaper on the planet seems to have published a review of it, and [...]

Review: The Anthologist – Nicholson Baker

Like many readers, I have a vague and sporadic interest in poetry and like to browse favourite anthologies from time to time.  I occasionally set pen to paper myself, usually when something has moved me more than usual, but only in a private way and definitely not for sharing.  But on the whole I [...]

Review – The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis

My only knowledge of Lydia Davis, before coming to The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, is that she was the translator of Marcel Proust’s Swanns Way, in the Penguin edition which adorns my shelves – and its one of the six volumes of Remembrance of Things Past which I’ve actually read (only three to go).

However, [...]

Review: The Last Station – Jay Parini

The Last Station is a fictionalised account of the last year in the life of Leo Tolstoy, and as can be seen from the cover, the books has recently been filmed with actors Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer.  The book was first published in 1990 and I assume its been re-published to tie in with [...]

Review: The Unnamed – Joshua Ferris

I didn’t particularly enjoy Joshua Ferris’s last book, Then We Came To The End, perhaps because its theme (the tedium and chronic insecurity of modern office life) was a bit too close to home at that time.  Many of the events in it paralleled my own experiences a little too painfully.  Fortunately those days are [...]

Review: The Other Wise Man – Henry Van Dyke

These days I find myself struggling with the Christmas thing.  Like most adults, I’ve lived through many of them.  I’ve had times when the whole Nativity has been tremendously meaningful to me, and other times when it barely passes through my consciousness – this year, the latter condition seems to apply.

But sooner or later, [...]