For Whom the Bell Tolls
A strange mix of historical drama, boys own war story, philosophical musings and sweeping characterisation of a nation with a bit of mild titillation thrown in. Whilst very readable I wasn't sure if it wasn't the war story that kept me gripped to see if our hero executes his mission rather that anything else in the book. The replacing of any obscenities with, well, the word "obscenity" was a bit odd and if you aren't going to write any actual obscenities why have your characters use them all the obscenity time. After finishing I googled the book to see if it was this edition that had replaced any swear words in the original text but it seems he wrote it like this due to problems selling previous books with swearing in them. Also noticed that this was written as a serial which probably explains the boys own nature of the book. Wasn't enthralled enough to go straight into the next story in this collection but there again not put off enough to give away to a charity shop.
