bwl 113 - Summer 2024
Fiction
| Isabel Allende - The Wind Knows My Name
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| 1938: 5 year old Samuel boards the last Kindertransport out of Austria with just his violin; 80 years later 7 year old Anita and her mother flee El Salvador for the US only to fall foul of the family separation policy. Their stories - past and present - intertwine as both search for home and a place to belong. A heartfelt novel from an author who has first-hand experience of working with refugees and those fleeing violence. (Jenny Baker)
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| Alexander Baron - From the City, from the Plough
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| Written by a participant soon after the war, this superb novel follows an infantry battalion training for D Day, through the June invasion itself and beyond. The focus is on the ordinary soldier - from veterans to new recruits - with backgrounds as diverse as Liverpool slums and family farms, but the the officer class also figures. What emerges is a vivid portrait of army life and attitudes encountering and enduring an experience both lethal and gruelling. In sum it is a compelling account of chaos, bravery, boredom and exhaustion laced with hard won wisdom. (Tony Pratt)
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| Becky Chambers - The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
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| Chosen by my daughter to broaden my reading choices, this is first of four books in a science fiction series. However my sense was that despite the futuristic device of the Wayfarer ship drilling through hyperspace to connect planets, it was more about the mixed crew of humans and aliens, their behaviour towards each other and attitudes to race, sex and the boundaries of difference. An enjoyable and imaginative read. (Christine Miller)
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| Anthony Doer - All the Light We Cannot See
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| I was as fascinated by the crafting of this novel as I was by the stunning story itself. Doerr has created three-dimensionality by writing strands of luminous narrative, then braiding them together with an urgency that carries the reader swiftly forward. This suspenseful tale of a blind girl, a cursed diamond, illegal radio broadcasts, a young German soldier, and the irrational cruelty of WWll will hold you in its grip from beginning to end. (Sharron Calkins)
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| Michael Frayn - Skios
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| An hilarious farce which canvasses a tiny slice of the same issues as Caledonian Road - the excesses of the wealthy, celebrity and vanity among academics. Frayn administers retribution in a not dissimilar fashion exposing the all-too-human flaws and foibles of his players, with humour and without the introspection and judgement that O'Hagan brings to his tale. (Margaret Teh)
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| Colleen Hoover - It Starts with Us
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| A book club choice that had the disadvantage of being the sequel to a book I hadn’t read. Hoover writes YA and romantic novels. This is the latter with all the highs and lows of a second chance at an enduring relationship. Handsome Atlas and the beautiful Lily previously loved and supported each other through difficult teenage years. Now there is an ex-husband and a young child in the mix. All is resolved, as it must be. (Christine Miller)
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| Min Jin Lee - Pachinko
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| Pachinko - a Japanese pinball game of chance - plays a central part in this epic story which spans nearly 100 years of Korean/Japanese history and the title is a metaphor for the turbulent lives of four generations of one family whose stories we share. You need to concentrate, the names are difficult, I would have liked a cast list but Sunja and her family will live long in my mind.
(Jenny Baker)
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| David Nicholls - You Are Here
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| Two unlikely protagonists are thrown together on a 10-day walking trek across the hills and moors of northern England. The rest drop out leaving the pair to continue alone. Both are divorced, both wounded. If you're looking for a will they, won't they, when will they piece of romantic escapism, this could be it. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't kept comparing it to Nicholl's One Day and the splendid TV adaptation.
(Jenny Baker)
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| David Nicholls - You are Here
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| The hotly anticipated new David Nicholls concerns a small group hiking coast to coast through the peak district. Like a Jane Austen novel the outcome is never in doubt, it's about the journey not the destination. Maybe my expectations were too high but while enjoying it I was a tad disappointed after the much loved One Day and found the narrative predictable and limited in comparison, although the characters were engaging and well drawn. (Sue Pratt)
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| Andrew O'Hagan - Caledonian Road
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| An incisive examination of the many-layered facets of contemporary life in London with sympathetic, realistic characters. Ironically - since one of the principal topics in the vast array covers money laundering by seedy Russian oligarchs - there is a list of characters just as in War & Peace. The current obsession with gender, racial discrimination and inequalities, the shallowness of the cult of celebrity, hypocrisy and inhumanity regarding asylum and migration are all integrated in this epic work. (Margaret Teh)
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| Lawrence Osborne - Only to Sleep
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| Written very convincingly in the Raymond Chandler/Philip Marlowe style, the story finds Marlowe in his seventies with physical decline and the approaching end of life, adding new dimensions to his world weary melancholy. The wise cracks and cynicism remain intact but the vulnerability lends a tougher quality to the writing. The story, involving drugs, corruption, ruthless murder and a femme fatale in the classic Chandler mode, keeps you interested. A good holiday read. (Tony Pratt)
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| Tamora Pierce - The Song of the Lioness Quartet
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| Meet Alanna of Trebond. Her ambition to become knight; her brother Thom wants to become a magician. Both ambitions go against the rules of their world. So will they succeed? Well you have to follow Alanna as she takes on a boy’s persona and trains with the squires. Full of action, adventure, magic and jeopardy – and a bit of romance - Alanna’s career is one for all those active girls who want to kick against convention.
(Ferelith Hordon)
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| Richard Powers - Three Farmers on the Way to a Dance
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| Richard Powers sees a photo in a museum exhibit and creates three paths of existence for the three farmers in the photo. It is a virtuosic novel, filled with wonder on every page. Their lives are compelling, and the times they live through are told in riveting style. Powers is America's best these days. A new novel coming out this fall. Confession: my favorite writer.
(Herb Roselle)
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| Richard Powers - The Time of Our Singing
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| Powers uses a landmark event in US racial history, Marian Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial to create a marriage between a black woman and singer from Philadelphia and a Jewish physicist at Columbia University. Their twins are musical prodigies, but the novel is also a historical perspective of the civil rights movement told in especially gripping prose. Powers at his best.
(Herb Roselle)
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| Amor Towles - Table for Two
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| This new volume of short stories not only amused me but was just about right for my current limited attention span! (Margaret Teh)
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| Anne Tyler - The Accidental Tourist
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| Often considered to be Tyler's best novel I decided to re-read it and wasn't disappointed. Macon Leary writes travel guides for businessmen who would rather be at home. After the tragedy of his son's death, his wife leaving him and an accident Macon finds himself back in his childhood home, complete with his three adult siblings. Having found a trainer, Muriel, for his unruly dog an unlikely romance blossoms. In Tyler's hands the apparent mundanity of suburban American life becomes extraordinarily entertaining! (Mary Standing)
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Non-Fiction
| Nigel Barley - The Duke of Puddle Dock: travels in the footsteps of Stamford Raffles
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| Stamford Raffles founded Singapore, who remembers him now? this fairly recent book by the anthropologist Nigel Barley (1991) refreshes his memory, recalling vividly a world long past, uncovering more reasons for adding to the respect the institutions he created demand from us, and leaves us with the feeling that past and present are still most strongly linked, a very interesting worth-while read. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Elizabeth Beller - Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy
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| 25 years ago, on July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife Carolyn,
and her sister, Lauren, were killed when their small private plane crashed into
the sea. This truly fascinating biography of Carolyn Bassette-Kennedy shares
the story of a kind, intelligent, fun-loving young woman with a strong work ethic.
Her romance and subsequent marriage into the Kennedy family made her a
constant target for the paparazzi, who hounded her to the point of depression and
paranoia. For Carolyn and John, Jr., there was no ‘Camelot’ (Sharron Calkins)
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| David Bellos - Is that a Fish in Your Ear?: The Amazing Adventure of Translation
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| Translation sounds so boring and often is, but not after reading this fascinating and most entertaining in depth analysis, packed with a great deal of original information. The author is Professor of French and Comparative Literature as well as being Head of the Translation department at Harvard. For anyone interested in words, as we all are here, this is a wonderful, witty book, the basic theme being: how do we really make ourselves understood to other people? (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Natalie Dykstra - Chasing Beauty
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| This sparkling biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner is many stories rolled
into one: an Edwardian period drama, a chronicle of privilege, and the portrait
of an extraordinarily focused woman. ‘Belle’ devoted most of her life to the
creation of a personally curated art museum, later to be known as the Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum. She was a life-long friend of Henry James, and
enjoyed close friendships with John Singer Sargent, Edith Wharton, and Kazuko
Okakura. Read this biography and be thoroughly awed. (Sharron Calkins)
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| Peter Frankopan - The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
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| The author explores the importance of the silk roads, not only for the exchange of goods creating riches and dominance for some countries, but also an exchange of ideas, religious and political, creating power and greed for others. From spices to oil and nuclear power, the spread of Christianity and rise of the West to Islam and threat of the East that we face today, it’s the connections he makes between the events of over 2000 years that are so fascinating. Highly recommended. (Denise Lewis)
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| Antonio Mendez - Argo:How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History
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| 1979, Iranian militants storm the American Embassy in Tehran holding the inhabitants hostage. Six escape and take refuge in the Canadian Embassy. Now the CIA must devise a plot to rescue them. If you've seen the film you will know the outcome but this firsthand account, told by the operative who devised the scheme and flew out to Tehran to escort them home, fills in the gaps. This is his nail-biting account of what happened step-by-step.
(Jenny Baker)
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| George Orwell - Politics and the English Language
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| I last read this essay, written in 1945 and first published in Horizon, when studying O Level English in the 1950’s. His views on the debasement of language and linguistic decline are still pertinent and his contention that ‘political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible’ could not be better put. The Bodleian Library’s reprint, edited by D J Taylor, also reminds us of the clarity and elegance of Orwell’s literary output. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Ed Peppitt - The Beacon Bike:Around England and Wales in 327 Lighthouses
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| A young boy in his attic bedroom in Kent falls asleep counting the seconds between the flashes on the wall from the Dungeness lighthouse. One day, he dreams, he will visit them all. Now, many years later, despite or perhaps because of a diagnosis of MS, he gets on his bike and takes us on an epic ride around England and Wales. Yes, it's a tribute to the coast's beautiful landscape and to the generosity of the people he meets but also it shines a light on human's indomitable spirit.
(Jenny Baker)
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| David Kynaston and Harry Ricketts - Richie Benaud's Blue Suede Shoes:The Story of an Ashes Classic
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| Built round an account of one riveting 'Ashes' match in 1961, the two opposing captains, Benaud and May, represent polar opposites. One a great batsman and gentleman amateur in an English game disfigured by class division, the other a professional sportsman, shrewder and, paradoxically, less risk averse. The English defects, the authors argue, contributed to under performance and ultimately to the growth of the very professionalism the authorities deplored. Many insights offered but principally for the cricket enthusiast of a certain age! (Tony Pratt)
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Poetry
| Nicola Davies - Choose Love |
| Taking the experience of a refugee leaving a life devastated behind travelling to an unknown, unfamiliar destination, Nicola Davies has created a sequence of poems tracing this journey. Moving from Departure to Arrival and finally Hope. Some of the poems are heartbreaking. She commemorates a particular family who all drowned crossing the Channel. She ends hopefully. Together with the words are Horáček’s illustrations – vibrant, abstract, capturing emotions and a sense of place
(Ferelith Hordon) |
| Feedback |
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| When bwl started up I jokingly predicted that it would soon fizzle out as we would all be so busy reading each others' recommendations we wouldn't have time for anything new. I'm delighted to have been proved very wrong (!) but have actually fallen into this trap myself. All I can do is endorse enthusiastically two recent reviews: Colin Thubron's Shadow of the Silk Road and Tim Garton Ash's Homelands. In their very different ways both exceptionally interesting reads. Thank you reviewers! Annabel |
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