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Utopia Avenue
Dean hurries past the Phoenix Theatre, dodges a blind man in dark glasses, steps onto Charing Cross road to overtake a slow-moving woman and pram, leaps a grimy puddle and swerves into Denmark Street where he skids on a sheet of black ice. Utopia Avenue, David Mitchell, Sceptre 2020 I really think that David Mitchell…
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The Bone Clocks
I fling open my bedroom curtains, and there’s the thirsty sky and the wide river full of ships and boats and stuff, but I’m already thinking of Vinny’s chocolaty eyes, shampoo down Vinny’s back, beads of sweat on Vinny’s shoulders, and Vinny’s sly laugh and, God, I wish I was waking up at Vinny’s place…
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Slade House
Whatever Mum’s saying’s drowned out by the grimy roar of the bus pulling away, revealing a pub called The Fox and Hounds. Krijgt die man het toch maar mooi voor elkaar om van één gegeven een boek te maken. Er gebeuren Vreemde Dingen in een Vreemd Huis, door de jaren heen. Elke negen jaar, en…
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Black Swan Green
Do not set foot in my office. How do you review a book in which “just” life happens? Teenage life, to up the ante? In this semi-autobiographical bildungsroman (Wikipedia’s words, not mine) the reader looks over the shoulder and into the mind of Jason Taylor, a child in the early eighties. At first he’s a floater, not a…