Capital

I’ve formed the habit of checking on the one-star Amazon reviews (there are always some) of each book I read, to decide if I share their view. At time of writing, this book has 452 reviews and averages 4 stars, so what did the 25 odd-readers-out take exception to? Well, in summary they say (a) the c......more

This book was not as engaging as it could have been. I really like that it was about different inhabitants of one street and their individual stories. However I don’t think the execution was there. Despite this, it was intriguing enough to keep me reading until the end.......more

I can't say this ever engaged me much. In many ways Lanchester tries to do for London what Tom Wolfe did for New York in The Bonfire of Vanities but less successfully. Especially because there's more dramatic tension in Wolfe's book, his characters are much richer and more complex and he's a better......more

Posh Eastenders: that’s basically what John Lanchester’s Capital is. Instead of the east end working class whose lives revolve around Albert Square, here you’ve got the middle/upper-middle class denizens of Pepys Road. A banker, a footballer, an artist, and the less wealthy who’re connected to them......more