Flashman and the Dragon by George MacDonald Fraser

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I usually enjoy a Flashman tongue-in-cheek romp through the pages of British Empire history, but I dunno, since Brexit far too many Brits have re-embraced jingoism, so while the humour of Flashman being praised for his heroism and love of country, when in reality all he’s trying to do is get his end away with foreign beauties while saving his own skin, it just doesn’t seem that funny to me at the moment. The audiobook did feature an excellent essay written by Fraser in which he pokes gentle fun at the numerous American (professional) reviewers who thought the “Flashman Papers” were real historical documents.

No. 17 of 100 books I intend to read and review in 2020.

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Patrick Sherriff is an Englishman who survived 13 years working for newspapers in the US, UK and Japan. Between teaching English lessons at his conversation school in Abiko, Japan, with his wife, he writes and illustrates textbooks for non-native speakers of English, releases Hana Walker mystery novels, short stories, essays and a monthly newsletter  highlighting good fiction published in English about Japan. Saku’s Random Book Club is his latest project to spend more time with books.

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