 | The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Buy new: £5.02 / Used from: £0.01 Formulaic, melodramatic, over-the-top, and not very subtle. How this twaddle became a commercial success is beyond me. The film inspired by the novel is dire, too.
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 | The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Buy new: £4.63 / Used from: £0.96 Adds no insight to Islamic fundamentalism, mired as it is in clichés & stereotypes. Superficial, contrived, poorly written, & derivative in its narrative structure, the novel has no redeeming features
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 | The Gathering by Anne Enright
Buy new: £3.98 / Used from: £0.01 A miserable novel teeming with all the Irish childhood clichés: drunken father, overworked mother, too many children, perpetually gloomy weather and sexual abuse. Yawn.
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 | The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen
Buy new: £5.04 / Used from: £0.01 Moving in parts, but Jensen cant make up her mind whether she wants it to be a family saga, detective story, satire, or paranormal tale. It has a bit of everything, none of which is satisfying.
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 | An Equal Music by Vikram Seth
Buy new: £5.96 / Used from: £0.01 The book is just a self congratulatory jerk-off, with Seth showing off his knowledge of Western Classical music, interrupting the flow of what could have been an interesting story line.
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 | On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Buy used from: £0.01 Wonderfully written & very funny in parts, it would have been an engrossing read had I not read 'Howards End', from which the book borrows liberally (without any acknowledgment).
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 | Clear: A Transparent Novel by Nicola Barker
Buy new: £5.21 / Used from: £0.01 If you are looking for depth here, you are diving at the wrong end. It takes more than a collection of off-the-wall characters behaving and speaking wackily to make a good novel.
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 | The Alchemy of Desire by Tarun Tejpal
Buy used from: £0.25 A novel set in 1980s India. One wonders what the purpose was other than giving a vehicle to the author to rant about anything and everything. Contains cringeworthy descriptions of sex. Complete waste
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 | Larry's Party by Carol Shields
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £0.01 Boring, monotonous tale of the boring life of a boring man, which never really gets out of the left lane. Shieldss home-grown truths become annoying after a while. Not one of her best.
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 | Six by Jim Crace
Buy new: £7.19 / Used from: £0.01 Stylishly written, with handful of truisms thrown in, which nevertheless do not compensate for the complete lack of plot. Is it a fable? If so, of what? A fanciful knickknack and nothing more.
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 | A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler
Buy new: £4.98 / Used from: £0.01 Predictable, bradyphrenic, and lacking drama; you might as well be reading a grocery list. When it finishes you wonder: have I missed the point? Then you realize there is no point.
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 | Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Buy new: £5.49 / Used from: £2.23 Gimmicky, goofy, mawkishly sentimental, and ultimately unconvincing. Foer takes on big themes and makes a dogs breakfast. A big let down from the author of Everything is Illuminated.
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 | Five Boys by Mick Jackson
Buy new: £4.50 / Used from: £0.01 Tiresome, uninteresting, dull, slow, tedious, wearisome, slow, tiresome, boring, irksome, uninteresting, tedious. And repetitive.
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 | The Last Resort by Alison Lurie
Buy used from: £0.01 Too many bland characters that are barely believable. You stop caring halfway through what might happen to them. Long descriptions of clothing may inccrease page numbers but add nothing to the story
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 | Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres
Buy new: £4.61 / Used from: £0.01 Bernieres employs a wide range of techniques, ideas and styles, and serves a hodgepodge of drama, action, comedy, tension, and melodrama. It is all a bit too much. Well written, though.
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