I'm really interested in the 1920s and 1930s, and as F. Scott Fitzgerald is an author who is pretty much synonymous with these time periods. So, The Great Gatsby was a book that I really wanted to read; and I'm certainly very glad I did.

Plot-wise, not all that much happens. Nick Carraway moves to slightly unfashionable West Egg, where his home is sandwiched by two massive houses, one of which is owned by Jay Gatsby; who is famous for throwing big parties there. Into the mix comes Tom & Daisy Buchanan, the latter is Nick's second cousin, the former being her husband; and it's soon revealed that Gatsby and Daisy have history together.

Whilst Daisy and Gatsby's love story is beautiful, and somewhat tragic, the best thing about this novel is Fitzgerald's writing. The book isn't that long; it's a little less than 200 pages, but he manages to make you know the characters in just a few words. For instance, Tom Buchanan's actions can all be explained by the line 'one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savours of anti-climax'. However, this certainly isn't true of the title character; who few people know anything really about. Although the reader/Nick learns the (probable) truth about Gatsby mid-way through the novel; the other characters seem kept rather in the dark, and instead decide to cast numerous aspersions on Gatsby character.

There was a quote doing the rounds of Twitter by Tobias Wolff, saying that Gatsby doesn't have a single word out of place anywhere, and I would so agree. This is perhaps the nearest I've come to a perfectly written book that I've ever been. I really recommend it.