One of two 5 star books Ive read this year. I loved this book. Dont really know why. The writing is superb ( )

This was fabulous. A long stretching family saga kind of thing that I could have kept reading forever. The story is about rise and fall of Charles Freeman and his family, mostly centering on one of his sons James. Starts in the 1950s and works its way up to the late 90s or so. Takes in the changes of English society and politics over the years. Very wide but it doesn't get out of hand. I loved it.

I read this a while back, but I loved it. It's one of those long novels you can lose yourself in, tracing characters and their families from childhood to how they turn up. It takes place in mid-century Britain and looks at one well-off large family. ( )

I always like that classic set-up of watching a group of friends and/or family as they change and interact over the years and was especially pleased to find it applied to modern lives. The result is a good read, marred unfortunately by spells of slack writing and cheap literary tricks, and of course a range of very unlikeable characters. ( )