Books by Edward St. Aubyn
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review 1: The third in the Melrose series is better than the second but not quite as perfect as the first. Patrick attends an early 90s aristocratic country party populated with more of the absolutely awful characters St Aubyn writes about so well. Very funny in parts though Patrick's endl...
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review 1: This was a light, fun read and exactly what I needed, having been involved for years in a bookclub based on novels which have won literary prizes. It does a swift job of ridiculing the agenda-based machinations of a ludicrous selection committee for a thinly disguised Booker Priz...
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review 1: I picked up Edward St. Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose Novels because he was mentioned by a couple of writers I like as “someone they were reading at the time.” The collection of four (“Never Mind,” “Bad News,” “Some Hope” and “Mother’s Milk”) are really novellas that comprise a novel. ...
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review 1: I don't know what I expected when I picked up St Aubyn's books but it certainly wasn't what they actually are so I had to put them down and let some time pass before I could come at them with the right frame of mind. St Aubyn's characters and situations are unspeakably sad. I am ...
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review 1: Still padding my totals with these short novels. but I thought this volume was terrific. The whole novel is about a fancy party with Princess Margarett in attendance- who is invited, who is going with who, who talks to margarett, who is screwing who. Its a withering view of En...
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review 1: The "battlefield" is the competition for the Man Booker Prize (here called aptly enough the Elysian Prize), centering on the fierce fights to be short-listed for the prize-- as the author himself was for the Mann-Booker -- and of course the short-listers and the judges. It is o...
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review 1: It's cynical literary fiction about wealthy British people in the last half of the 20th century—which I wouldn't normally enjoy, and in fact I didn't enjoy the first two books, but kept reading on the recommendation of a friend. And the third and fourth books were redemptive, per...
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review 1: It's too bad Goodreads doesn't phrase it as "done reading" rather than "read." I didn't finish this, but I am sure done with it. I did get through the first novella, "Never Mind," about Patrick Melrose's horrific childhood. It's just 24 hours (or so) in the life, but man does it ...