Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

Jonathan Cape; my copy simultaneous QPD bookclub edition, 1998

Why?

A Booker winner which I've not read it, and should have done; McEwan is in the news with his new novel What We Can Know; and, having handled the BCA account at Hodder back in the day, I can't resist the nostalgia of a QPD paperback in a second-hand bookshop.

Enjoyment factor

Short - and pacy. Lots of great stuff about male friendships in middle age, ego, and doing the right thing.

But - the ending for which the novel is famous didn't quite ring true for me. The drama felt concentrated in the earlier parts of the novel, and the denoument felt rather over-done.

It left me thinking ...

That of all McEwan's brilliant novels (and this one is very good), this was a strange one to have won the Booker.