I suppose one of the advantages of applying to study English is preparation consists of reading lots, and not slaving in a hospital or law firm all summer. And, to avoid feeling guilty about this, I have been reading lots.

Firstly, A S Byatt's Possession, which I adored for about two thirds, before suddenly becoming disappointed and disillusioned with it. It's a very self indulgent book, and you feel as if much of it, particularly the lengthier journal entries, are a vanity on Byatt's part, to prove herself to the literati as a Serious Author. This isn't helped by the weakness of the plot: two academics (one a typical male everyman, another an ice cold feminist, Byatt's strength not being characterisation) discover love letters between a prominent Victorian poet, and an obscure feminist, assumedly lesbian fairy poet, and from there seek to prove their discovery, following a neat and improbably chronologically correct chain of poems, journals and letters, before their work is snatched and taken credit for by The Forces of Darkness (The obsessive American professor's characterisation is pure Goodkind, including implied paedophilia.) I have to say, aside from the aforementioned Literary Points Scoring, I have no idea why Byatt chose to bother with the modern plotline, given the much more compelling nature of the relationship between the poets, which is worth reading for. This subplot is touching, well thought out and characterised, and never rises to the melodrama of its modern counterpart. The present day storyline, however, is weak, improbable, filled with stock characters, awful, clumsy parallels and a truly awful final 'showdown' (I swear Byatt has taken this from a Scooby Doo episode, it is that ridiculous). Possession has at its heart a genuinely compelling story, smothered under a self indulgent literary facade. A shame.

Jonathan Barnes' The Somnambulist also suffers from excellent concept, awful execution syndrome. It's a lurid, ridiculous Victorian romp, packed with eccentricities and freaks galore, which collapses entirely, as many detective novels do, when its central conspiracy is revealed, and turns out to be much less exciting than it had seemed. Unfortunately, The Somnambulist, goes a step further; the revelations is not only uninteresting, but also ignores much of what had already happened, leading to a huge number of loose ends being entirely dropped (such as the titular character himself, and the reverse time travelling King of London, Cribbs, all fascinating, tantalising characters which demand some kind of resolution to justify their presence at all.) and the stupidest ending to a novel I've ever come across: a pitched battle at London docks between the outcasts of London, the Police, secret government agents, a pair of demonic public schoolboys, and the reanimated corpse of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, dripping acid and leaving destruction in his wake. This has little to no relevance to the rest of the book, and is both unsatisfying and entirely bizzare. Only read if you are prepared to be seriously disappointed by the end.

Sarah Water's Affinity, a lesbian tale of Victorian spiritualism and imprisonment, is decidedly superior, and makes much better use of its 19th Century setting. The gloomy, despairing atmosphere of the prison, and the narrator's bleak home-life is nothing short of excellent, without ever resorting to melodrama. It's gripping, and surprising, right to the very end, and reminds me a great deal of Joanne Harris' Sleep, Pale Sister, which is a very good thing. Highly recommended.

Speaking of which; I could really use advice on which Woolf novel I should start with - I've read the opening thirty pages of both Mrs Dalloway and To The Lighthouse, and would like to have finished one or the other (or another entirely) by the end of the summer.