27 Feb 2018

The Good Companions - by J.B. Priestley

Phew! This book took a while. I started it, under the impression that it was quite short. I read it on my Kindle and the details said that it had around 100 pages; it is actually rather over 600 pages!

The story is long and quite detailed, illustrating some interesting angles on aspects of life in England a century ago. It is well written, with excellent descriptive sequences and a lot of humour, but it is too long. I think a third of it could be edited out - as I feel it would be in a modern book - and the story would be tighter, but lose none of its richness.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but the excessive length would deter me from reading any of the author’s other work.

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