The Glass Room

O dear. A difficult one to rate. Another book which I suspect will get me slightly into trouble when discussing this in the next meeting of my real life reading group – in that sense reminding me of what happened when we did read The Invisible Bridge last year. Seeing many readers liked this book, a......more

This book was bootleg. I was rather disappointed. This was nominated? To what? Booker Prize? Everything in it was just old recycled ideas. And the Glass Room metaphor got very old very quickly. I wanted to scream: Yes, we get it! Enough! Don't you just love when the author assumes you're mentally hand......more

I'm not sure why some reviewers found The Glass Room ponderous or cliched. I was mesmerized by this beautifully told story revolving around the Glassraume, a Bauhaus-style home set on top of a hill, the main feature of which is a large room with walls of glass that overlooks the city. It also featur......more

It’s been a long time since I read a book that has stayed with me for so long afterwards and, I have to say, I miss reading it. The protagonist is not, of course, human; it’s the eponymous room. The author has based his story on a real house, the Villa Tugendhat, which is situated in Brno in the Cze......more

I've given this book three stars, but really it's a combination of two and four. Two for Mawer's writing, which is frequently heavy-handed, riddled with cliched foreboding (gathering storm clouds on the horizon--give me a break!) and sledgehammer symbolism. At times it seems the author is trying to......more