This is a powerful and atmospheric novel mostly set in the jazz era at around the time of the Second World War. It deals with jealousy, betrayal, secrets, and fear and makes you feel as if you were closely involved with this talented group of young men. I could hear clearly the voice of the narrator as it lifted off the page and feel his confusion and pain as it followed him through his life. This is one to watch and would be a memorable book group read.

The book centres round cutting a jazz record in Paris in 1940 and the arrest and disappearance of Hieronymus Falk, a horn player to rival Louis Armstrong. At twenty years old he was a brilliant player, a German citizen but black. Sid his friend was the only witness to his detention and the guilt dogs him forever after.

I felt I could have done with a glossary to explain one or two of the jazz slang terms.

Every sentence is beautifully crafted in this disturbing story from Julian Barnes. Tony Webster and his adolescent cohorts experience a privileged education and enjoy the preoccupations typical of teenage boys. Although they believe they will be friends forever, they drift apart as they disperse into adulthood. Tony leads a quiet life and when we meet him he is a leisurely pensioner. A solicitor’s letter makes him face truths and relationships from the past that he has willfully misinterpreted.

None of the characters in this book are particularly likable, which usually makes for a laborious read. However, the dexterous way in which Barnes draws you into Tony’s psyche makes you feel like you are remembering events with him.

The excellent characterisation does not detract from the plot, which is a slow crescendo throughout the story. The final revelation does not disappoint.

My only criticism with this audio version is Richard Morant as the narrator. I found after a few chapters his voice began to grate a little, and I feel sure that if I had read the text Tony would not have sounded like this. However, Barnes is an undisputedly talented writer and uses the English language to its fullest effect. This is an excellent story.

Having read everything Carol Birch has written so far, I came to this in great anticipation and I was not disappointed.

Jaffy Brown is seven years old when he is almost eaten by a tiger. This sets in train his meeting with Jamrach, his menagerie and Jaffy's friendship with Tim and Ishbel Liniver. Joining a whaling boat in his early teens, he and Tim sail to the Dutch East Indies to find a 'dragon' for Jamrach's menagerie. That voyage and its consequences, forms the bulk of what is in essence a classic shipwreck tale.

I love Carol Birch's writing, at times it verges on poetry, but there were a couple of instances in the dialogue where I felt it didn't ring true to nineteenth century speech and sounded too twenty first century!

Despite this quibble I thoroughly enjoyed this book, finishing it almost at one sitting. The Naming of Eliza Quinn remains my favourite historical novel by this author, but Jamrach's Menagerie is now a close second.

A great read with rounded and complex characters, this could furnish much discussion in a book group.

This is a fantastic book. It's about a young boy, Harrison, recently from Ghana and now living on a rough inner city estate. Harrison, Harri, is a very intelligent and observant boy and sets about trying to solve a stabbing of another young boy. The story is told in his own voice, so we get to interpret things that Harri is too young to understand, such as why his Aunt has a boyfriend with a baseball bat always at his side. Harri has a friendship with a pigeon who tries to roost on his balcony. We hear the voice of the pigeon towards the end of the book, a quirk which is very clever. The book is both funny and sad in turns and the end is shocking. I think this should be a book that is read in schools to help teenagers understand the realities of everyone trying to live together in a diverse society. At the end of the day Harri is just like all the other Year 7 boys, he's interested in girls, trainers and fighting with his sister and still worries about getting in trouble with his mum. Boys are boys whatever the colour of their skin and wherever they were born. Loads for reading groups to discuss.

Wow this is a good read. Snowdrops is written in the form of a confession to the main character's wife-to-be. Nicholas is recalling time spent in Moscow and events that he was drawn into; events that he is deeply ashamed of. Indeed he is very unsure whether his fiancée will want to marry him by the time the story ends. It is a fast paced novel, intelligently written and absolutely gripping. It's all there: corruption, intrigue, murder and cams. Our character also visits other parts of Russia and it has to be said that the country, particularly Moscow, isn't going to win five stars on Trip Advisor on the strength of A D Miller's descriptions, but it makes fascinating reading. This is a convincing illustration of how an ordinary and seemingly intelligent lawyer can 
be duped in to a well organised scam and I don't think I am giving anything away by telling you that a ‘snowdrop’, in Russian slang, is a "corpse that lies buried or hidden in the winter snows, emerging only in the thaw".