Anfenwick

I picked this book up in the library and after the first couple of chapters I decided it was going to be rather like spending a pleasant evening in the pub. So I thought I might as well make a night of it, perhaps even go clubbing afterwards, and that was that. I finished the thing round about 4am.

There were definitely moments during that night when someone - I think it was Jude the narrator - had a few too many and suffered various lapses of political correctness and bouts of Too-Much-Information syndrome. He didn't always keep the best company either, some of his pals are intolerable scumbags. And I'm sure the drinks got spiked at some point, because that's the only explanation I can find for some of the weirder hallucinatory moments. Notwithstanding, we certainly set the world to rights, at least those parts of the world that have to do with economics, cosmology, art and literature. There were some sublime moments as well, and Jude got laid of course... although I didn't - apparently a partner who spends all night reading with the lights on is unappealing, or so I've been told.

Funny thing is, I didn't have a headache at all in the morning. In fact I felt utterly unchanged - which seems less than you should expect to feel when you've spent the night setting the world to rights. You could argue that because of that, Jude in London really only deserves 4 stars. It was a laugh though, and I'd certainly read the other books in the series at some point, so I gave it 5.