A wonderful narrative history of the fall of the Roman Republic under the autocratic rule of Emperors and tyrants. A compelling and brilliantly written book which never once mentions America but the thought of which is never a second away. I really enjoyed it and couldn’t put it down. Highly recommended.

Maigret journeys to a small town in Holland, at the request of an arrested lecturer, to solve the mystery of a murder in a small town which cannot admit of scandal. A classical and elegant tale, beautifully told.

Not a Maigret but one of his roman durs, tough, bleak, very fine short novels. Dr. Mahé on holiday on the island of Porquerolles falls prey to the delusion he can escape from his banal existence as a married doctor.

The Fourth Charlie Mortdecai Novel. Completed by Craig Brown. Charlie, proudly growing a moustache, is thrown out of the house for it by his wife. He finds himself in Oxford trying to solve the death of a female don who drove into an omnibus.

I always get to the same point in this novel and I always stop, just as she prepares to open the Pie Shop. I think it’s because Mildred herself has no interior life. Steinbeck it ain’t. So while one is prepared to be moderately entertained for a while after the while I go I don’t care anymore.

Very entertaining but by the end there are so many twists and turns as to whether he is or he isn’t Philip Roth or whether the story is true or it ain’t that one gives a quiet sigh for being brought up a dull doubting Christian and didn’t  have to go through all the tortured self-questioning guilt of a Jewish upbringing. Nevertheless there is no part of Judaism left unexplored in this quite remarkable novel.