Interesting as an example of the kind of invasion adventure story serial from the period but doesn't really hold up today. The opening chapter has a guy describe a Jewish conspiracy and then when we find out he was wrong about the Jewish part our narrator calls a Greek person a "dago" - very charming example of British upper class prejudices. Overall there's just not an interesting story and the episodes are so clearly tied to fulfilling a serial format that as a novel it's hard to take seriously. It's basically readable but it's so daft and generic with boring chases around the same tiny patch of Scottish land that there's no reason to. Just a historical curiosity. 1 star is a little harsh maybe but it's just. Not good
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Scotsman John Buchan’s fabulous The Thirty-Nine Steps is rightly considered a seminal classic in the Adventure/Spy genre, and it is for good reason it was on The Guardian’s Best 100 English Novels list at #42.

This exciting tale of espionage defined the man-on-the-run tale in breathless fashion, and was the first of the author’s Richard Hannay tales. What remains remarkable is the contemporary prose. Though it takes place before the first World War, offering insight into the view of what was happening at the time, the tale is timeless, and with minor changes, could easily be a thrilling espionage adventure told in our day. Books need to be judged within their context, and while most do, some don't. This classic has a solid four-star average after hundreds of reviews on Amazon in the US, which accurately reflects how much fun this is to read.

That's not to say some of what happens isn't implausible, almost Cornell Woolrich level implausible, but with a style and pace which makes Robert Ludlum (another great writer who was no pretentious critic's darling) seem lethargic; no easy task. The reader is having so much fun they simply don’t care that it's hardly plausible. It is, after all, fiction. Reading The Thirty-Nine Steps is fun and exciting, which is what it is supposed to be. Watching Hannay escape time after time until the thrilling confrontation and conclusion is exhilarating.

Buchan writes as though using lighting bolts rather than a pen, taking readers along for the electric-charged ride. The Thirty-Nine Steps is the quintessential can’t-put-down read. That thrill you got as a youngster reading a mystery adventure by flashlight beneath the covers was captured by Buchan, but it was moved forward into adulthood. On that level it doesn't just succeed, it shines. It's on The Guardian's list for good reason.

The book differs from Hitchcock’s famous British film adaptation in that there is no love interest for Hannay here; frankly because as a boys adventure story brought forward into adulthood, it isn’t needed. A rollicking good old-fashioned tale that set a bar seldom reached since it was written. The 39 Steps is fabulous fun and quite enjoyable when read, if you don't make comparisons with spy novels written many decades later, and why would you do that? This edition of this seminal work has an excellent biography at the end readers will most likely enjoy. Highly recommended. ( )

Really enjoyed this - while some holes in the plot, some references which clearly indicate that it is definitely of it's age, and a good amount of unfeasability, nonetheless it had me turning each page in order to find out what happens. ( )

A taste of Sherlock. Lots of wandering the rural British countryside in a variety of creative disguises. A plot that was subtle (to me at least).
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Fast moving and fun. Not nearly as complicated as later books in the genre. Does help to have some knowledge of pre-World War I colonial Africa and Europe. ( )