Mister Pip

This is when two and a half stars would be handy. I really couldn't stand this book for a couple of reasons when I first started reading it. It has a narrative voice that sounds like an oldish adult trying to sound like a five year old. Jones writes in staccato sentences that are occasionally poetic......more

This is a fascinating book ostensibly about an isolated island in the south Pacific and its inhabitants caught in a war over a copper mine. The lone white man on the island decides to help the children through the tension by reading from Great Expectations, and various repercussions follow. But, the......more

I've had this book on my shelf for a few years now, and when New Zealand came up as the first country in the Travelling the World challenge, it seemed like fate that I'd waited this long to read it. Well, the author's a Kiwi but the book is actually set on the small tropical island of Bougainville,......more