It’s time (in fact it’s over time, as I’m a day late, again) to catch up on what went on with our reading of “The Nice and the Good” and to look forward to “Bruno’s Dream”.

I reviewed the book here and we’ve had a good discussion already, even though I posted quite late in the month (I struggled with putting together my review somehow). You can also read Jo’s Goodreads review here and I will add more as I’m sent them.

I had lots of contributions of alternative covers for “The Nice and the Good”. Lucky I’m not collecting them myself, right?

The first American edition from Viking (submitted by Elaine Brix and David Mahon) has a lovely author photo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The blurb

and David added this excellent character list from his copy:

(interesting point: Fivey is named as “Ewan” in Judy’s letter in the UK version. Is he Gavin in the US one?)

Bookish Beck has another of the very odd 70s Penguin covers. Who is this even supposed to be?

and Peter Rivenberg contributed his later Penguin, of which he comments, “Rather conventional and artistic. But as an added bonus, this second-hand book came with a used parking disc from the Cork City Council as a bookmark.”

Bruno’s Dream

Moving on to Bruno’s Dream, I have three copies: my first edition, my Triad Granada 1980 reprint, bought in the mid-80s, and the Vintage Classic. Don’t get me started on why they left this one out of the new red spined editions. But they did. At least it still has an introduction.

Here are the blurbs from the original …

which seems to sum it all up very well (I’ve completely forgotten Lisa, however: will I remember her as I re-read this for the third or fourth time?). Triad Granada went for:

and Vintage are more brief:

Are you going to be reading or re-reading “Bruno’s Dream” along with me? Are you catching up with the others or have you given up)? What’s your favourite so far? Your least favourite?

You will find a page listing all of these blog posts here, updated as I go along.