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Birdsong

by: Sebastian Faulks

July 18, 1994
This book is amazing. I was so moved by the story, it is so well written it is like you are reliving the experineces of the characters and there with them through their ups and downs. I found it to be emotionally draining in places, but worth every second.

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Devil May Care (James Bond)

by: Sebastian Faulks

May 28, 2008
It's my own fault that I really didn't enjoy this book. Faulks makes it clear that he is writing as Ian Flemming. Whether he achieves this I will leave to those more qualified than I. However from reading other reviews opinions seem to be mixed. I suppose I had hoped that he would inject a bit of the Faulks magic into Bond.

Devil May Care is almost completely devoid of insight or interesting observation, the plot is thin and unconvincing and place description so cursory you felt you could be virtually anywhere. The characters are superficial and the twist frankly risible.

One might feel that Faulks attempts to rehabilitate Bonds reputation as a sexual predator was worthy except for the way in which he then associates ... Read More:

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Engleby

by: Sebastian Faulks

March 27, 2008
From the first page to the last, an absolutely compelling novel. The voice of Engleby is wonderful, arrogant and biting but lonely and compelling. The evocation of Cambridge in the seventies makes you feel you are there (which sounds awful, as though it this was something precious, precisely the opposite of what it is). And very gradually, you start to see the truth, a truth which is inevitable but which you can hardly bear to believe. Then read the last page, and let a tingle touch your spine....

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The Girl at the Lion D'Or

by: Sebastian Faulks

January 03, 1998
Those who have read some of Faulks' later novels might be disappointed in this one. There's no question that Faulks is a good writer and the descriptions and phrasing are the same high quality as his later books. The problem for me was the plot - it's a slow moving, rather uninspired story.

Set in France between the wars, it tells of a love affair between a young waitress and a wealthy lawyer. There's not really a lot else in there - the obligatory references to war which you find in all Faulks books - and several potentially interesting plot threads are left unexplored. The ending was weak, with ends left untied and increased the frustration I felt with the book.

This is one of Faulks' first novels and it shows - you can tell that a good ... Read More:

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Human Traces

by: Sebastian Faulks

July 06, 2006

Sebastian Faulks's epic work from 2005 spans more than 600 pages in the hardback edition. Its scope is vast, and its ambition - to recap the advances and recreate the excitement of psychiatric innovations in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, all within the boundaries of a credible work of fiction - is enormous. Yet Faulks pulls this monumental task off with astonishing skill, creating a novel that both informs and fascinates.

The story starts in 1876 in Breton, France, where an inquisitive 16 year-old, Jacques Rebiere, dissects small animals clandestinely in his bedroom, away from the prying eyes and disapproval of his strict father and disinterested stepmother. Jacques comes from a dysfunctional family - his mother died shortly after his birth, ... Read More:

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Charlotte Gray

by: Sebastian Faulks

July 01, 1999
I had high hopes for this book, because I absolutely loved Birdsong, but I found it left me rather unmoved. It's written in what seems, to me at least, to be a curiously detached style and it didn't seem to really penetrate beneath the surface of the characters. Even amidst the danger of Occupied France, SS officers on trains, children being sent to concentration camps, the collaboration and resistance of the French, I never really cared very much about what happened to the characters. The one part that did affect me, the two young boys being sent to the gas chambers, was less about the specific fate of those two characters and more about the actual fate of the children who really were killed in the Holocaust. So, a disappointment, I would say.

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Birdsong

by: Sebastian Faulks

November 05, 2007
This book is amazing. I was so moved by the story, it is so well written it is like you are reliving the experineces of the characters and there with them through their ups and downs. I found it to be emotionally draining in places, but worth every second.

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The Fatal Englishman: Three Short Lives

by: Sebastian Faulks

January 30, 1997
To believe that this is a collection of incipient novellas is to misunderstand the purport of the book. It is a searing examination of the Romantic Byronic spirit of a certain kind of Englishness - that of the outsider, well-educated and assured but also tenderly, tragically flawed. It has much more to do with the theme of Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom or the disclosures of Sassoon than some imagined cutesy nostalgic view.
Each of the characters is examined as a contrasting icon within their zeitgeist. The prevailing mores and challenges of their respective times cumulatively constrict and ultimately kill them. They all share a putative rosy future but this is soured by their very own identities which do not allow them to thrive and prosper in their chosen activities of painting, aviation and ... Read More:

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A Fool's Alphabet

by: Sebastian Faulks

January 03, 1998
The 26 chapters of this book are named after places, one for each letter of the alphabet. Moving around in time as well as location, it reads rather like a collection of short stories with a common central character rather than a novel. Rather than being driven by exposition of a plot, each episode is enjoyed as a nicely written set piece.

The writing is good - Faulks has a style which is elegant and descriptive without being overblown. Some chapters are very strong, for instance the description of office life and the chapter set in Jerusalem. Others were less interesting, although I suspect every reader would have a different preference depending on their own experiences.

It isn't really a very memorable book. I enjoyed the experience of reading it whilst I was actually reading ... Read More:

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On Green Dolphin Street

by: Sebastian Faulks

May 27, 2002
well written, but felt like some kind of writing exercise: soulless and unengaging. Interesting in as much as it gives a feel for the way 'big history' fits in with personal history, but you end up not caring about the characters and their outcomes.