Amsterdam

Ian McEwan

Not the favourite author of the group, perhaps, but certainly the most frequently recurring name. Another non-recommended McEwan. Doreen said it's a very slight book, which let down her high expectations after Enduring Love.

Doreen described the book as cold - again, it's not creepy or nasty. It's a moral story about making choices between the right and the wrong, ending in a very unpleasant, bizarre, slightly comical way.

One character is a famous, presumably good, composer who talks about the process of music-making. He left Doreen cold (another unfavourable comparison, this time to Grace Notes). You're left wondering whether the music is actually any good - the merit of the music is important in the story, but McEwan doesn't convey that knowledge to the reader.

Doreen reckons that it won the Booker Prize on the Buggin's Turn principle.
Doreen 6/12/98

Andrew “enjoyed it more than I thought I would” and found it “a bit of a page turner”. The story was enjoyable but the ending belonged on a much more substantial novel – this one was like a sketch for a bigger book, and it certainly shouldn’t have won the Booker prize.
Andrew 7/11/99

Gill's first book by this author and likely to be her last. It is set in an English middle-class world to which she could not relate.
Gill 17/7/04

Rob thoroughly enjoyed this book which had won the Booker Prize in 1998. Despite this success it did not receive much critical acclaim at the time and Rob thought it was the sort of book that MacEwan knocked out on a Saturday afternoon.
Rob 24/4/05

Seán thought this ludicrous - unbelievably stupid. There's no motivation for anything that happens in the book.
Seán 6/11/05

Boring, it doesn't go anywhere, fizzles out: didn't like it.
Christine 11/12/05

By the same author

The frames have gone all funny - click to make it good.