Lanark by Alasdair Gray. Haven't been able to face reading it so far.

The London Review of Books shop near the British Museum

Stanfords, Covent Garden, travel book shop

Daunt Books, Marylebone Road

Bookmarks the Socialist Bookshop, Bloomsbury

https://booksandbao.com/indie-bookshops-in-london/

a very short one

but his Glass Bead Game is more complex and interesting

Quite an achievement to be both pretentious and twee in one short story.

Never managed to understand the title. Wolf Hall is the Seymour home, nothing to do with Cromwell or Anne Boleyn.

And it did take me a surprisingly long time to read. And I've been procrastinating about the sequels for years.

Londonstani by Gautam Malkani. It's got one of those fashionable plot twists close to the end. The problem with that was if you had managed to like the book up until then, which I had, despite it not being the easiest read, the plot twist invalidated everything you'd previously liked about the book.

For the sake of being smartarsed, spoil your story. No wonder it's less popular than the publishers hoped.

Or a problem with Patricia Cornwell?

No, but I have loved a book so much I restarted it straight after finishing.

I go with 5 because it is so prevalent and achieve the same as you by using decimals eg 3.5

About 1200 books. Biggest subgroup is non-genre fiction. There's also a lot of history, and a lot of crime/thriller.

In the book of the Firm, he swindles about 10 Million bucks from the Mafia, shops them, gets the feds to spring his brother from jail and they escape into the Caribbean. None of that bollocks about telling the Mafia they have been defrauded of tax and leaving their employ alive and without consequences.

I dunno that it was significantly more crap than the book.

I think the problem is more with your expectations than the book.

Basically, no.

Actually, I know several people who prefer the Hobbit to Lord of the Rings because it's less digressive.

I lived in one. There are pros and cons.

The Swiss Alps in the 19th century - it really isn't much like that now.

And the Swiss get a bit frustrated by the anglo-saxon expectation that they be like that in the 21st century.

Merely pointing out that in the US, the Latin look is commonly considered not to be white, unlike in Europe. And of course many people of mixed race have olive skin, and are definitely not considered white there either.

Should have heard the fuss when Hermione was cast as black in the harry potter play! And yet all we know is that she has buck teeth, brown eyes and brown bushy hair. No reason that couldn't be black. Emma Watson was the miscast in terms of looks.

or Latino