This book focuses on the lives of a variety of people who all live on the same street and receive mysterious postcards. Despite the fact it's quite a long book it's easy enough to read and well written. There are quite a lot of characters but they are described enough so you remember who they are. Based on this book I would read other books by this author.

There is no getting around the fact that John Lanchester's novel 'Capital' is a brick of a book. At almost 600 pages it seems amazing that a reader can be enthralled for that long while just hearing about the everyday lives of 4 London families; yet enthralled we were as we were pulled into the world of a huge cast of characters and situations that took us down a different view of wealth through the concept of the 'Haves' and 'Have Nots' in society today. Often touching and with humour bordering on satire throughout this novel, Capital has many moments that stay in the psyche for days after reading - particularly everyday insights that rang true for many book group members (the trip to the doctor's surgery especially stands out). Our criticism involved the odd cliché and stereotype going a little too far (the patriarchal Asian Grandmother and Over-the-top money-grabbing bankers wife spring to mind), it took a little while to get use the the book "bouncing" about (each of the relatively short chapters tended to be different characters voice so story progression moved a little slowly in places) and that the overall link of the 'We Want You Have' postcards could have been stronger but untimely Lanchester's easy writing style won through and won the majority of us over.

It took me much longer to read this book than normal. There were so many characters I had to keep flipping backwards to remind myself who everyone was. However the story line was good and worth persevering with.

Interesting premise and an easy read with some genuinely funny bits. However I felt the story line and characters were overly simple and stereotyped, which was a bit disappointing. Hence, the 3 star rating.