Books of 2006, part one

I’ve occasionally threatened a books post. I began writing this, finally, on New Year's Eve, and have returned to it from time to time. The turn of the year seemed an opportune moment to recall some of my reading of 2006. I’d managed to read a little more fiction than usual last year, which isn’t saying all that much.

These aren't, of course, really books of 2006 in the conventional sense, as they've almost all been around for years - a couple of centuries and more in the case of The Castle of Otranto - but this is a personal journal after all.

I've decided to deliver my reviews in instalments. I wrote about Pratchett first, before going to see the stage version of Feet of Clay, and have left my text unchanged.

( Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett )

Books of 2006, part two

( The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova )

( Temeraire, by Naomi Novik )

Books of 2006, part three

( Viriconium, by M. John Harrison )

( The Lordly Ones, by Keith Roberts )

( The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole )