Have you read ... W. Somerset Maugham?

   

     I'm reading All Kinds of Magic by Piers Moore Ede just now, and one of the book's many striking incidents concerns the author's reading matter. While travelling in India he happens upon a copy of Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, and he is quietly getting on with it in a Delhi café when a voice to his left says, "Very fine. Very fine to see the works of William Somerset Maugham are still appreciated."

     Piers and the Times of India-reading gentleman beside him go on to discuss the book which turns out to be highly relevant to Piers' journey and his interest in Indian spirituality, but that encounter made me realise that I have never read Maugham, not Of Human Bondage, nor Cakes and Ale - nothing - and that, surely, is something I should put right.

    Have you read him?