bwl 106 - Autumn 2022
Fiction
| Jean-Baptiste Andrea - trans. Sam Taylor - A Hundred Million Years and a Day
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| Stan, a French Palaeontologist, has always been obsessed with fossils and when he hears of the skeleton of a dragon lying in a cave deep in an alpine glacier, he has to go and investigate. Is this the dinosaur he has been looking for? His harsh and sad early life has fed this obsession and is reflected in the hazardous journey that he and his chosen companions decide to make. More than an alpine adventure, this is a very moving read, and wonderfully translated from the French. (Jenny Freeman)
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| Various Authors - The Complete Harvard Classics - 71 volumes available digitally
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The collected greatest wisdom of humankind: Philosophy, literature, history, poetry, drama, Science, Sociology,.....well, trying to enumerate it is fruitless. A collection to be sipped or chewed from time to time. These are the works that the learned men of the past knew intimately. They're still relevant.
And here we are as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
(Mathew Arnold, Dover Beach)
(Herb Roselle)
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| Brit Bennett - The Vanishing Half
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| At 16, twin sisters escape from their small, black community in Louisiana where the residents take pride in their pale skin colour. The ease of the writing style is deceptive as their lives, relationships and the views and expectations of society are explored over many years. Race is pivotal but there's a lot more to the story as generations and lives intersect. Will they return? Will they find peace with past and present? Well worth a read to find out.
(Rebecca Howell)
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| Natasha Bowen - Skin of the Sea
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| This is, yes, another YA novel; a fantasy and it is really exciting to see an author of colour stepping into this field to bring a fresh voice. Here we meet African myth and folklore. At its centre the Mami Wata, black mermaids both fearsome and benevolent and an array of deities opening eyes to the richness of African cultures. I was not bored - recommend to any teen or YA friends and relatives. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Jessie Burton - illus. by Olivia Lomenech Gill - Medusa - The Girl Behind the Myth
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| Burton is known as an author for adults. Here she looks to a younger audience. Taking the myth of Medusa she does not retell it; she reimagines it from the perspective of a teenage Medusa. The setting is an island, the time frame narrow, both protagonists in their teens, both bound by convention and expectations. But Medusa can turn you into stone - a happy ending? I would suggest satisfying and the illustrations are perfect. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Leavis Carroll alias Lucien Young - Alice in Brexitland
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| You don't have to be mad to live here, but it helps, says the cover of this amazingly funny and all too true book, paraphrase of Lewis Carroll, whom we all know and love. Written with biting wit and laser-sharp allusions to easily identified politicians, this new but so recognisable Alice goes down the Brexit hole, takes advice from the Corbynpillar, meets Trumpty Dumpty and all her and our old friends, but with a difference, and what a difference. A must, especially nowadays. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Isabel Colegate - Orlando King
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| First published fifty years ago, Colegate's trilogy has been reissued in one volume - a mid-20th century odyssey whose hero's life invokes the myths of Oedipus and his daughter, Antigone. A bildungsroman illuminating the privileges and corruptions of upper-crust English society as Europe is drawn into WWII. I loved it but it's not for everyone, it went down 40-60 with my book group. (Jenny Baker)
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| Robertson Davies - The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost, Leaven of Malice, A Mixture of Frailities
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| Set in a small university town dreams are quietly taking shape, or falling apart. The professional director of The Little Theatre Company is tormented by his amateur actors; two families are locked in a feud, a fortune with no male heir is lavished on an aspiring singer. Beneath the veneer of geniality and good manners, passions are simmering. Another delicious trilogy with such evocative titles from this acclaimed Canadian author. (Jenny Baker)
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| Charles Dickens - The Pickwick Papers
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| It abounds with wit and the foibles of people like those we have met, and perhaps a bit of ourselves mixed in. And the beautiful Victorian prose. Perhaps Toole had read this before he wrote A Confederacy of Dunces (see bwl 29). It's a bit Pickwickian. (Herb Roselle)
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| E M Forster - A Passage to India
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| The story centres around the question of what really happened when a Muslim Indian accompanies a young British woman on a visit to the Malabar caves. Superficially the theme is colonialism and the prejudiced attitude of the British during the Raj. But it is also about religion, mysticism, the idealistic view of humankind as a single, unified whole, and how friendships can be threatened by cultural or religious barriers. Not an easy read, but I found it a rewarding one. (Denise Lewis)
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| Bonnie Garmus - Lessons in Chemistry
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| A story about a female victim of mid twentieth century male chauvinism, thwarted in her chosen chemistry career and hit by personal tragedy, who becomes a TV chef by accident. Not a light sounding storyline, perhaps, but an unusual lady who is no ordinary chef. While the feminism is a strong part of the mix this very individual novel is anything but preachy. The witty writing keeps you eagerly reading until the last page. (Tony Pratt)
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| Robert Harris - Act of Oblivion
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| After the Stuart Restoration, the Parliamentarians were pardoned except for the 'regicides,' signatories of Charles I's death warrant. Many were dead or soon captured and executed, but two prominent regicides escape to America where fellow Puritans offer hiding places. On the run, they have an obsessed pursuer. Years go by. The fugitives live in increasing misery, while their pursuer contends with growing official indifference. A gripping story, building to a final dramatic confrontation and conveying much of the sadness of a lethally divided society.
(Tony Pratt)
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| Mick Herron - Bad Actors
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| This is the eighth in the Jackson Lamb series, centring around demoted and de-motivated spies from Slough House, the slow horses. This is his most political novel to date, wickedly so since not much imagination is needed to identify the real-life Westminster inspirations for his characters. Bad actors, you see, bend the rules for their own gains. Can the slow horses outwit them? Herron's pacy and comic genius leads to a thrilling and anarchic conclusion. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Barbara Kingsolver - Unsheltered
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| Two families, lives entwined round a crumbling New Jersey villa. 2017, climate change is threatening, Trump is a candidate in the presidential election, Willa is battling to nurture her difficult family. In the 1870's, science teacher Thatcher Greenwood - with the backing of his neighbour, real-life, botanist Mary Treat - must fight the establishment to defend the writings of Darwin. Sounds heavy-going. Absolutely not. It's a Kingsolver gem. (Jenny Baker)
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| Jennifer Makumbi - The First Woman
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| In this epic tale, we follow teenage Kirabo brought up by loving grandparents as she searches for her identity and the truth behind family feuds and secrets. Where is her mother? Did she really choose to abandon her? Mixing modern feminism with Ugandan folklore and legend this is a roller-coaster ride whose feisty heroine had me enthralled and left me wondering do all patriarchal societies lay the blame for their ills on their First Woman? It would seem so. (Jenny Baker)
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| Benjamin Myers - The Perfect Golden Circle
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| Two friends on the fringes of societ - one a scarred Falklands veteran the other into alternative thinking - spend summer nights creating crop circles of increasing beauty and complexity. All around them the natural world hums with activity and there are occasional encounters with people, ranging from fly tippers to landowners. Rejecting the age’s materialism, they tap into an older, layered and more spiritual England, attracting media attention and tourism in the process. But the summer, like the transient circles, must end. An absorbing read. (Tony Pratt)
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| Richard Osman - The Man who Died Twice
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| The follow-up to 'The Thursday Murder Club (bwl. 100 Spring 2021), another hilarious piece of froth. Plot-holes and unlikelihoods abound, but who cares? Our intrepid pensioners once again out-maneuver the pros and bring, all in one go, diamond smugglers, drug dealers, young delinquents, MI5 and the American Mafia to justice. Pure escapism, thank you Mr Osman! (Annabel Bedini)
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| Elif Shafak - The Island of Missing Trees
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| This is a beautifully expressed, emotional novel that held me in its magic. It is set in London now and in Cyprus at the time when the divisions between Turks and Greeks on the island increased and became horribly violent. It tells of a deep lasting love, trauma, displacement and grief through its main protagonists and a fig tree. Nature plays an important part in the novel. Shafak enchanted me again. (Christine Miller)
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| William Shakespeare - The Complete Works
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| I love Kindle, and collections like this for a pittance are the greatest value on the planet. The wealth of the plays and sonnets is inexhaustible and stays fresh and alive for a lifetime, all filled with pithy comments on humanity. "Headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe" from A Comedy of Errors, just one of thousands. Highlight the quotes you cherish and read them collected in one place. (Herb Roselle)
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| Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace
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| The world's greatest novel? It is certainly vast in ambition and scope – Napoleon's doomed Russian expedition and its effects on society. Tolstoy brilliantly evokes the human reality of fighting armies, entwining them with the vicissitudes of his deeply oberved protagonists (goodness, the emotional and spiritual intensity!). I admit I got bogged down by his excursions into moral and historical philosophising, but, coming back as an adult, I am full of admiration. Yes, a truly towering work. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Sarah Winman - A Year of Marvellous Ways
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| 1947: Marvellous Ways is 89 years old, she sits by the river bank in a Cornish creek, with a telescope searching for someone or something, she knows not what. Drake is a traumatised soldier from WW II on a mission to fulfil a dying man's wishes. Their paths cross in Winman's life-affirming tale as the old woman comes to his aid. Magical - a delicious fairy-tale for grown-ups. (Jenny Baker)
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Non-Fiction
| Bimini Bon Boulash - Release the Beast: A Drag Queen's Guide To Life
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| There's a great memoir to come from the drag community with a range of anecdotes and insights to inspire and amuse. Sadly I'm not sure this is it. There are enjoyable sections but what wears the reading patience a little thin is the reliance on lists – Queer Films; Tips on Coming Out; Fashion Icons; Fashion Designers etc. which felt too much like padding and a desperate attempt to reach the word count. A pity. (Clive Yelf)
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| Frederick Crews - Postmodern Pooh
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| The cover says: Frederick Crews is a Person of Very Great Brain. What he pooh-Poohs deserves it and he finds a great deal in these eleven articles given at a hypothetical symposium at a Modern Language Association meeting. Very, very funny, it is also a very real unveiling of the hypocrisies, stupidities and pedantry found too often in postmodern criticism. . . A delight not only for lay-readers but hopefully scholarly ones as well . . . those who can laugh at themselves, or should. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Alain de Botton - The Art of Travel
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| Take a range of subjects relating to travel – anticipation; the sublime; the exotic and others. Find a writer with relevant works and location (for example Countryside and City, Wordsworth and the Lake District) then let the author visit, read and whimsically ponder in what turns out to be an engaging, thoughtful and insightful manner. I really enjoyed this and it has certainly encouraged me to go further with my own reading, especially John Ruskin! (Clive Yelf)
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| Theo Fennell - I Fear for This Boy: Some Chapters of Accidents
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| The anecdotal and self-deprecating memoirs of a London jewellery designer, his attempts to break into pop music and make his way in the jewellery trade. Star Wars memorabilia and the American rich feature with large scale alcohol consumption and some unforgettable people the source of many scrapes. The 'narrative' ends more peacefully with domestic mishaps. If Chelsea types getting drunk and the luxury trade don't appeal,"they didn't to me", some of the stories are so entertaining and the telling so good that this still makes a great holiday read. (Tony Pratt)
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| Peter Hopkirk - Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search For The Lost Treasure Of Central Asia
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| As suggested by the title this is both a series of exciting archaeological adventures into the most inhospitable and remote areas of the world in order to rescue priceless artefacts AND a shocking tale of cultural destruction carried out by privateers during a period of weak central rule. The stripped and gutted temples of the Taklaman and Gobi deserts, a fascinating melting pot of cultural influences, are still a source of anger in the region. (Clive Yelf)
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| Eric Newby - On the Shores of the Mediterranean
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| This was written in 1984 when I first read it. During the pandemic, travel restrictions made me turn to it again and journey with him in my mind as he meandered around the Mediterranean coast. In the last 40 years, I too have shared some of the joys and frustrations he writes so charmingly about. Now as restrictions are lifted somewhat, he still inspires me to discover the all too many places as yet unvisited. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Konstanin Paustovsky - trans. by Douglas Smith - The Story of a Life (Books 1-3)
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| An engrossing autobiography covering the childhood and early manhood of this Russian author, previously unknown to me. The writing is intense and filled with vivid depictions of the countryside, cities and characters he meets during a tumultuous period of Russian history including WW1 and the violence leading to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Poignantly for a reader now, he was educated in Kiev/Kyiv and returned as a journalist. Despite all, you sense his love for Mother Russia. (Christine Miller)
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| Charles Spicer - Coffee with Hitler: The British amateurs who tried to civilise the Nazis
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| Another take on appeasement during the thirties sounded interesting. By focussing on the little-known Anglo-German Fellowship and its Berlin counterpart, the Deutsch-Englische Gesellshaft, the author does indeed bring
some new insight into the historical narrative. But to me this is just journalism dressed up as history. He overworks the use of the ablative absolute and annoyingly, he introduces many characters by what they would become in the future. Neither make for a very satisfying read. (Jeremy Miller)
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Poetry
| Emily Dickinson - The Complete Poems |
| A digital Collection, for a couple of dollars. Is there a finer poet in the English language? Some would say no. Generally very short poems, but filled with astonishing imagery, gesture, sometimes wry, often imbued by nature, loss, hope.
I gained it so,
By climbing slow,
By catching the twigs that grow
Between the bliss and me.
(Herb Roselle) |
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