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A Possible Life |
Five diverse short stories set in the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp, a Victorian workhouse, a future time in Italy, nineteenth century rural France and the hippy US music scene in the 1970s. They are linked by a strong narrative and haunting characters as they try to make sense of their lives which have been shaped and determined by random events, while struggling to connect with those around them.
(Sue Pratt - bwl 72 Spring 2014) |
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A Week in December |
This captures the lives of a group of people in London in a week in 2007, including a tube driver, an arrogant literary critic, a trophy wife, and crucially, a city banker and an Islamic militant. The latter two are plotting destruction in different ways. As the story unfolds the characters' lives interweave - most are being invited to the same dinner party - and tension increases. Some characters are better defined than others but it is an interesting read.
(Christine Miller - bwl 62 Autumn 2011) |
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Birdsong |
Re-reading this book I realised no one had reviewed it, perhaps because it was published before we began. Set in France before and during WW I, it ranks amongst the best novels about the so-called Great War with an immensely moving and erotic love story at its centre. Real flesh and blood characters endure all the horrors of war within the confines of conventions that must be followed, social positions observed. Not to be missed.
(Jenny Baker - bwl 43 December 2007) |
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Engleby |
I found Engleby a curiously uneven book. It is in turn interesting, intriguing, amusing but pretentious and sometimes downright boring. Look out for Stelling's dinner party which will remind you of invitations before we all had the confidence to refuse them. We have all met Laura and Clarissa. The drawn out ending left me with a feeling of ambivalence - I don't know whether I enjoyed this book or not!
(Judith Peppitt - bwl 46 June 2008) |
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Human Traces |
Two idealistic but fundamentally incompatible young doctors at the turn of the 19th century set up a clinic in Austria to pursue their research into the nature-versus-nurture theories of mental illness. Their personal and professional progress towards enlightenment - or is it disillusionment? - may be a bit heavy on theory (and did Faulks really need to visit First World War-fare again?) but, it's richly atmospheric and the human stories are beautifully narrated.
(Annabel Bedini - bwl 33 February 2006) |
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Jeeves and the Wedding Bells |
For fans of the master, just when you had accepted that there couldn't be any more, a new Jeeves and Wooster story. Faulks comes up with amusing dialogue and some classic Wodehouse situations: a scene in which Wooster, impersonating a butler, disastrously serves dinner, is up there with the best. But he lacks Wodehouse's deft economy with plot and character and sometimes the pace slackens. Still an entertaining read.
(Tony Pratt - bwl 72 Spring 2014) |
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On Green Dolphin Street |
Set against a backdrop of the Kennedy/Nixon fight for the presidency and the Cold War, this is a mesmerizing tale of love and divided loyalties. Mary van der Linden is happy in her marriage, has children she adores and parents who adore her. It seems nothing can disturb the equilibrium of her charmed life, until that is she accompanies her diplomat husband to a posting in Washington where journalist Frank Renzo appears on the scene.
(Jenny Baker - bwl 11 October 2001) |
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Paris Echo |
Hannah - an American in Paris researching the lives of women under Nazi occupation - befriends runaway Tariq, a Moroccan teenager, who she takes in as her unlikely lodger. Both become haunted by the stories she unearths but those stories are overshadowed by too much present-day minutiae about Paris, especially Tariq's fascination with the Metro. I kept wondering whether he ever changed his clothes and who did the washing.
(Jenny Baker - bwl 92 Spring 2019) |
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Where my Heart Used to Beat |
Here Faulks returns to the horrors of two world wars and their tragic aftermath on the lives of those who were there. Unexpectedly contacted by a stranger, neurologist Dr.Robert Hendricks is forced to confront and make sense of his life. The narrative is strong, moving backwards and forwards in time, poignant and sad with themes of love and loss, set against reflections on the workings and frailty of the human mind.
(Sue Pratt - bwl 86 Autumn 2017) |
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