How to be Good, The Outcast and In Cold Blood

Not the best Nick Hornby novel I have read, but How to be Good is quite funny in parts. Unfortunately, it does become a little tiresome and repetitive. If it had been squeezed into a book half as long, it could have been much better.

I found The Outcast to be spellbinding. It starts at the end of the war before plunging into the late 50's, so it conjured up something of my childhood. A cloud of menace hangs over the story, so it was never going to end well. The writing is poignant and subtle. Crucial events have slow beginnings which build beautifully to their inevitable climax. This should become a classic, especially for schools.

Ever since I had seen the two films about Truman Capote, Infamous starring Toby Jones and the inferior Capote with Philip Seymour Hoffman, I had wanted to read In Cold Blood. However, I found the true life story of the murders of the Clutter family in November 1959 heavy going. There was just too much information. There were too many peripheral and obscure characters whose backgrounds and intensively detailed. But I did find if I skipped these passages, I could enjoy the narrative much better. I will stick to fiction for my reading.