bwl 23 - April 2004
Fiction
| Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code
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| This 454 page thriller is an absolute pleasure. Robert Langdon, an American symbologist, and Sophie Neveu, a French cryptologist, meet in the Louvre at the scene where her curator grandfather has been murdered. Suspected by the police, they escape and, using their unique skills to decipher the gruesome clues he has left, turn detective to try to find not only his murderer but the much sought after secret which led to his death. Brilliant. (Laurence Martin Euler)
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| Victoria Clayton - Clouds Among the Stars
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| An entertaining romp of a novel narrated by Harriet, the middle and only sensible child of a celebrated theatrical couple. Nothing will ever be the same after her father is accused of murdering his arch rival. Situations and characters verge on the preposterous but, as in all Victoria Clayton's books, the food is delicious and there are underlying truths beneath the trivia. If you're looking for a well written piece of escapism, try this. (Jenny Baker)
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| Marika Cobbold - Shooting Butterflies
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| A tale of love, loss and redemption which entwines the lives of two women. The first, Grace a successful photographer who on her 40th birthday receives a present from her dead lover; the second, Louisa, now 100, widow of a famous painter. If you've read Guppies for Tea or any other Cobbold novel, you won't need me to urge you to read this. If you're new to her writing, you have a treat in store. (Jenny Baker)
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| Anne Donovan - Buddha Da
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| If like me you usually avoid books written in dialect, make this one an exception. It works. How would you cope if your Da, a down-to-earth Glaswegian decorator, turned to meditation and became a Buddhist? If you're his wife, you'd probably rejoice if he gave up drinking with his mates but what would you do when he announces he needs to be celibate on his path to enlightenment? Comic, poignant - truly a must-read. (Jenny Baker)
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| Katie Fforde - Restoring Grace
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| This is the froth on a cappuccino - complete with that sprinkling of chocolate. If you are fussy about style, characters and dislike romance - don't read, but if you need some pure, uncomplicated, comforting fun, then do. Grace needs a lodger, Ellie needs a home - they both need a man. Luckenham House needs restoration Then there are the awful ex's. The scene is set for a gentle romp that keeps the reader smiling. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Nicci French - Land of the Living
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| If you cannot imagine yourself kidnapped, in the dark, memory lost, no one to help, no one believing your story, try Land of the Living, by 'Nicci' and ' French'. Extraordinary welding of plot and style by two (!) authors, and an amazing synthesis of emotional perception. The suspense holds and builds to a powerful, chilling and, unusually for this type of literature, satisfactory conclusion. Excellent read for escape, holiday, etc. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Sue Gee - The Hours of the Night
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| This is a thoughtful and intricate story of a year in the life of six people living on the Welsh border. At the centre is the young poet Gillian, a reclusive introvert. Other characters are renowned singer, Rowland; Edward his farmer partner; Nesta a gifted therapist and Phil, a young composer. If I had read this book in France it would have made me homesick for Great Britain, even for the mud and the rain. (Sandra Lee)
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| Ann Harrison - Manly Pursuits
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| Cecil Rhodes orders English song-birds to populate his Cape Town woods (true). Obsessively retiring ornithologist Wills (fictional) brings them from England, becomes involved in pre-Boer War intrigue and gradually cracks his shell of solitude. But will the disorientated birds sing? Somewhat overloaded with fictionalised historical characters and over-ambitious in trying to include too many big themes, but it's atmospheric, often very funny and I romped through it with glee. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Dominic Holland - The Ripple Effect
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| This engaging but lightweight comic novel starts with speculators buying a struggling local football club (intending to develop the ground for housing, naturally). It continues with a rogue batch of jam-less doughnuts setting off a chain-reaction of coincidence and mishap that ends not only with the survival of the club, but with a bright, rosy future. Recommended for holidays and long journeys, although I thought pools wins in novels were a thing of the past... (Clive Yelf)
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| Jackie Kay - Trumpet
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| It's only when he dies that the world discovers Joss Moody, famous trumpeter, was really a woman. His widow flees to Scotland to escape the press and the furious disbelief of her adopted son who plans a biography, ghost-written by a scheming journalist. There follows a journey of discovery as those close to Joss try to unravel the past and to reassess their own feelings towards the man they thought they knew. A remarkable story. (Jenny Baker)
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| Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
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| A fundamentalist Baptist missionary uproots his family from their American way of life, and deposits them in a primitive African village; the Belgian Congo of the 1950s. Their extraordinary life story unfolding over three decades is told by his wife and four daughters. Their very different personalities reflect on the culture, with political, religious and personal consequences. It is an enthralling epic, touching on every aspect of human existence, endurance and final estrangement. (Mary Standing)
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| Hanif Kureshi - The Buddha of Suburbia
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| Recipe for this tasty and enjoyable meal of a book: First take a mix of less than attractive, but certainly individual, characters. Add areas of confusion and concern such as race, sex and power. Have them struggle with and against each other in an attempt to form some sort of equilibrium in their lives. Set it in the early seventies with a background of punk and the National Front, then sit back and enjoy the results! (Clive Yelf)
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| Gina B Nahai - Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith
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| If you like magic-realism, read this. It chronicles the lives of an Iranian-Jewish family beginning in Tehran before WW II and ending in present-day Los Angeles. At the heart is the story of Roxanna, born a bad-luck child, and her daughter Lili who she abandons at the age of five by sprouting wings and taking off into the night. Whimsical, perhaps, but the characters are real enough as are the turbulent events that shape their lives. (Jenny Baker)
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| Arturo Pérez-Reverte - The Queen of the South
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| Another change of scenery with this the Spanish novelist's latest thriller. Set initially in Mexico and subsequently in Morocco and on the coast of Southern Spain, he tells the rags-to-riches story of Teresa in the scary and violent world of international drug-running. It kept me on tenterhooks in spite of suffering, as I have found with some of the novels I've read recently, from being 100 to 150 pages too long. (Jeremy Swann)
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| Elke Schmitter - Mrs Sartoris
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| Translated from German, this contemporary first novel tells of destructive forces following lost love. Margaret, a passionate woman jilted by her first lover, suffers a mental breakdown, then settles for a secure but boring marriage to Ernst. Some years later she embarks on an affair, and once again is jilted. Her emotions erupt. An unpredictable tragedy follows, entwining her story with that of her daughter's. Cleverly constructed to keep you reading to the end! (Mary Standing)
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| Kathleen Tessaro - Elegance
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| This first novel about a young American, now living in London after having studied drama, has a very worldly and sophisticated appeal. Underneath the 'glitz', however, is a strong but subtle assessment of the realities of life, many of them unpleasant. The Anglo-American flavours, the refreshing candour, the quirky humour remind one of Bridget Jones's tussle with love and life but this, in my view, is less bubbly and more intelligent. Well worth the investment. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| J R R Tolkien - The Hobbit
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| Reading for the first time, I can say I enjoyed The Hobbit, could see its importance but despaired at having to plough through turgid chunks (riddle-contests and a multitude of similarly named dwarfs) to get to the good bits, (the quest, Smaug the Dragon, Gollum and a big battle at the end!). I tried reading it to the children, who fell asleep; so my feeling is that it's a children's book best read by adults. (Clive Yelf)
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| Anne Tyler - The Amateur Marriage
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| In Anne Tyler's latest book Pauline and Michael marry in 1942 - they hardly know each other, they certainly don't understand each other. Over the next 60 years they do the usual things: have children, move to better houses, earn more money. But the marriage never seems to work properly, especially after their elder daughter disappears. They spend their lives simply dealing with things, never really examining them. I raced through it and enjoyed it tremendously. (Julie Higgins)
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| Penny Vincenzi - Wicked Pleasures
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| Although the plot of Wicked Pleasures is a tad more improbable than usual, and the characters flatter, it is a marvelous book to take on holiday, a long train journey or to relax with after a hard day's work. Intelligently written, it is 'wickedly' sophisticated and frothy, without being stupid. The pace is very fast, the situations inventive. If not a 'must', certainly a 'worthwhile'. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Minette Walters - Disordered Minds
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| Anthropologist Jonathan Hugues joins forces with councilor George Gardener (an elderly woman!) in an attempt to uncover yet another miscarriage of justice in England. In the 70's, Howard Stamp, a retarded 20-year-old, committed suicide in prison after having been convicted of brutally murdering his grandmother. It's a good read and it's interesting to note how skillfully, book after book, Minette Walters is able to paint such an assortment of different characters. (Laurence Martin Euler)
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Non-Fiction
| Nick Cohen - Cruel Britannia - Reports on the Sinister and the Preposterous
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| The writings of this Observer journalist were new to me before reading this collection but I enjoyed them a great deal. His light touch and skilful analysis in pointing out the hypocrisy and the double standards of 'New Labour' since its coming to power were not only amusing but, with the help of hindsight, very accurate (for example in his analysis of the 'Blair's Babes' photograph). Dissenting labour journalism at its incisive and honest best. (Clive Yelf)
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| Felicity Kendall - White Cargo
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| Written while her father lay dying, this autobiography is also a tribute to this extraordinary man who dedicated his life to touring India with his theatre company. Kendall's childhood is fascinating, not only for its sense of time and place but also for the family warmth and energy that kept everyone going in situations of hilarious if hair-raising precariousness. I found it an extremely touching book and unexpectedly well-written. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Lynn H Nicholas - The Rape of Europa - Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War
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| A fascinating story, told very soberly and in great detail, of how a vast number of art treasures were pillaged by Hitler's supporters in Europe during WW II and carried off to Germany. It also explains how many others were ingeniously concealed from the Nazis and protected against damage from Allied bombs. Names of many of the treasures are given together with accounts of how they were recovered and restored to museums and private owners. (Jeremy Swann)
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| John Nicol - The Last Escape
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| and Tony Rennell
This book is a fascinating description of the forced migration of Allied prisoners of war in 1944/45, West away from the advancing Russians and East ahead of the Allied advance. It is difficult to imagine such barbaric treatment and on such a large scale. It is a gripping read, because John Nichol has considerable empathy with the subject and because he captures the mood of the era through numerous personal accounts, diaries and historical data.
(Richard Winstanley)
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| Sydney Powell - Adventures of a Wanderer
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| Simply written with directness and honesty, these reminiscences of an educated and foot-loose wanderer cover the twenty years up to the First World War. From South Africa to Australia, New Zealand, the South Sea Islands and Gallipoli, he went wherever work and the promise of adventure took him, meeting in the process a fascinating collection of misfits, 'gentlemen rankers' and romantics who fringed the frontiers of Empire. A book I found both revealing and rewarding. (Clive Yelf)
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| Tom Standage - The Mechanical Turk - the True Story of the Chess-playing Machine that Fooled the World
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| In 1769 Wolfgang von Kempelen produced a mechanical toy to amuse the court of Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. It consisted of a life-size, oriental figure, seated behind a cabinet on which rested a chess board and pieces, capable of playing and winning a game against a human volunteer. It played and beat, amongst others, Napoleon and Benjamin Franklin during its 85 year career. Hoax or mechanical brain? All is revealed in this fascinating account. (James Baker)
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| Auberon Waugh - Will This Do ?
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| Looking round for something light and amusing to read, I came across this columnist's autobiography up to the age of 50 which I had enjoyed when it came out in 1991. It admirably fitted the bill and frequently proved hilarious. There is little doubt that he inherited his novelist father Evelyn's taste for wilful eccentricity. (Jeremy Swann)
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| Simon Winchester - Krakatoa - The Day The World Exploded
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| Although a minutely detailed history of a volcano, Winchester manages to present it as the history of volcanoes in general, how they are 'born', where they 'live', the animal and plant-life that belong to them. His total involvement with Krakatoa and the aftermath of its eruption in 1883 gives the reader the feeling that the volcano is more animal than mineral. The pace is fast, the maps copious and clear, the amount of information incredible. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Simon Winchester - The Map that Changed the World
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| Based on the first geological map of England, itself a unique concept, this is a biography of its creator, William 'Strata' Smith who, the son of a blacksmith, rose by his own scientific observations and in spite of much adversity, to be the acknowledged 'founding Father of Geology'. This book gives, although repetitious and needlessly flowery in places, a useful insight into social issues when the Industrial Revolution started to make itself felt. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Feedback |
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James Baker writes:
Just a note to endorse the sentiments expressed in the review of Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters (bwl 21). The writing is extraordinary. It's difficult to believe that the family don't actually exist and the events did not happen. Mistry is a great natural storyteller and I just feel I want to sit down and listen to any tale he'd like to tell. |
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Clive Yelf writes:
An update on selling on Amazon (see 2003 feedbacks 19 and 20): I've now gone big-time with about 40-odd books listed. Of these I've already sold five for about £4.50 each. The really encouraging thing is that three of these books had already been rejected by conventional second-hand bookshops as being on subjects that didn't sell (Radical Feminism, Gender studies etc) . These were snapped up within a day or so of being advertised. I now have another reason for scouring charity shops and boot sales (as though I needed one!). |
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