bwl 31 - September 2005
Fiction
| Simon Crump - My Elvis Blackout
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| Using the myth and enigma of Elvis as its central motif, this slim volume of vignettes reads like the dream-journal of a feverish junkie. Altogether bizarre, grotesque and frequently (it must be said) rather annoying, I often wondered what the point of it all was whilst eagerly turning the pages for the next scene of despair, misery and gallows humour. A fetid but fascinating nightmare that addresses the author's demons more than those of Elvis. (Clive Yelf)
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| Michael Cunningham - Specimen Days
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| I started Cunningham's new novel with great expectations - I must admit I'm a fan - but I was puzzled at first: this book is so different from his previous ones. And then I was captivated by his old charm. The section 'In the Machine' haunts you a long time after you finish it and the difference to his previous books is the unease and horror that characters experience. There may be hope but it's far away. (Laurence Martin Euler)
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| Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex
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| Cal (born Calliope, but as a hermaphrodite who is only diagnosed when she's 14) is 41 now, and decides he has to write the story of his life, which starts with his Greek grandparents in 1922 when they travel to America after the burning of their home in Smyrna. The book is long and includes a large cast of characters, but Cal's journey and those of his friends and relatives make for compulsive reading. (Julie Higgins)
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| Tibor Fischer - Under the Frog
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| 'Under a frog at the bottom of a coal mine' is a Hungarian way of saying 'as bad as it can get.'....This deceptively funny story hops between 1944 and 1956, the hero growing to maturity through the years of Communist rule, culminating in the horrors of the abortive 1956 uprising. Will his dream of escaping the country come true? Sardonic, hilarious, sad, full of captivating characters - a wonderful (in every sense) read. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Jamila Gavin - Coram Boy
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| In the eighteenth century many desperate women handed their babies to the Coram man who undertook to deliver them to the newly founded Coram Hospital where they would be kindly treated. In reality, he acted only in his own interests which included murder, extortion and blackmail. Written for children, this is nevertheless a cracking good read, full of dastardly villains, cold-hearted aristocrats, devoted friends and passionate lovers. (Jenny Baker)
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| Elizabeth George - With No One As Witness
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| Inspector Lynley, aka Lord Asherton, and his Scotland Yard Team are called in to track down a serial killer. The victims are mostly young men who have fallen foul of the law. The setting is London and its problem areas. The cast is large and the story long. Though at times confusing, it hooked me and made good holiday reading. (Jeremy Swann)
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| Liz Jensen - Ninth Life of Louis Drax, The
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| A brilliant, psychological thriller with a Hitchcockian set of characters - the disturbed, accident prone boy in a coma after falling over a cliff, his enigmatic, strawberry-blonde mother who loves him to bits, a father who has disappeared and a doctor who is drawn into the dark heart of their hidden world. Only Louis can reveal what really happened on that picnic in the Auvergne but he can't communicate. Or can he? (Jenny Baker)
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| John Lanchester - Fragrant Harbour
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| Set mainly in Hong Kong (Heung gong = Fragrant harbour) - incidentally my birthplace - this tells the story of four people: Tom Stewart, who leaves England to seek his fortune, Sister Maria, a beautiful and uncompromising Chinese nun, Dawn Stone, an English journalist and Matthew Ho, a young Chinese entrepreneur. Their interwoven stories blend into the 20th century history of class ridden and racially divided Hong Kong and its brutal awakening by the Japanese occupation. Recommended! (Wendy Swann)
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| Donna Leon - Blood from a Stone
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| An African street vendor is killed in Campo Santo Stefano, shortly before Christmas. He was a nobody, so who's going to bother to find his murderer? Commissario Brunetti of course, and even when warned by his superior not to! A good one by Donna Leon. (Laurence Martin Euler)
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| Marina Lewycka - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
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| What do you do when your recently widowed 84 year old, Ukrainian Dad - who happens to be writing a history of tractors - falls in love with a voluptuous, gold-digger, half his age, who is intent on getting a foothold in the West, no matter what it costs? Well, you close ranks even though you and your sister have been feuding for years. A wonderfully comic and perceptive novel, with acutely observed characters. (Jenny Baker)
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| Philip Pullman - Northern Lights
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| Lyra is a small wild orphan who lives in Jordan College, in another world Oxford, where she is looked after by the Master, the Staff and the Scholars. She plays with Roger, the kitchen boy, and roams the rooftops and attics. She is a plain and ordinary girl until one afternoon, she and her daemon, Pantalaimon, decide to enter the Scholar's meeting room unseen, and on their own. Suddenly, Lyra's life is flipped upside-down. (Eloise May)
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| J K Rowling - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
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| Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a truly amazing book. Following on from the already famous first five books, the 6th one is by far the best. The excitement, the mystery and the feel of what you are reading is a wonderful sensation. To be able to read this book is an incredibly high privilege, and having read all the others, I was amazed that this one could be any better. (Eloise May)
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| Rosie Thomas - Sun at Midnight
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| An absorbing novel about the Antarctic with wonderful descriptions of the terrain. It is about a group of scientists and how they cope with various situations that arise. Some of them have their secrets. I found it difficult to put down. (Julia Garbett)
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| William Trevor - A Bit on the Side
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| Trevor's latest collection of short stories, and as good as any previous one. Without wasting a word, Trevor creates an entire world in a very few pages and almost always leaves the reader with a sense of loss and sorrow. The first one is, I think, the most moving, although it's a hard decision to make. (Julie Higgins)
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Non-Fiction
| Nigel Barley - Dancing on the Grave - Encounters with Death
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| Having read and enjoyed this fascinating anthropological exploration, I cannot imagine any other field could possibly be as complex or colourful as the range of human attitudes toward death - or jokes about death, relations with ancestors, cannibalism, rebirth or even the approved method of behaving at funerals. In many ways this is an inspiring book that can lead to a questioning of our own attitudes as well as marvelling at the creativity of others. (Clive Yelf)
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| Nina Bawden - Dear Austen
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| Nina Bawden was on the train which crashed at Potter's Bar in 2002. Badly injured, she survived. Her husband did not. Written as a letter to him, she describes what happened, both then and afterwards when she became heavily involved in the fight that the 'victims' (how she hates that word) had for any acceptance of liability from the powers-that-be. In turns angry and poignant, it's also a touching eulogy to a beloved husband. (Jenny Baker)
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| Paul Cartledge - The Spartans - An Epic History
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| Athenian individualism, democracy and intellectual enquiry are symbolic of the admirable in western civilisation, but the contribution of the Spartan ideals of martial prowess, the ordered society and the permanent subjugation of neighbouring peoples is often played down. Even fellow Greeks found them 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' and this study illuminates Sparta's unique formative circumstances and the characters that helped create the Spartan myth. As such it's a recommended primer to fascinating history. (Clive Yelf)
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| John Igamells - Richard Parkes Bonington
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| and also a further book with the same title by Stephen Duffy
I have long been a great admirer of the work of this brilliant water colourist (1802 - 1828). It is a poignant thought that he died when he was only twenty-five!
In France where we live, I have been surprised to find that Bonington is not better known. He lived most of his life in France. He studied and. travelled and painted here and in Italy and was a friend of Delacroix whose development he probably influenced. To convince friends here of Bonington's greatness, I have been using the two books listed above. The first is a small Wallace Collection Monograph with several colour as well as black and white pictures. The second is much larger with bigger colour reproductions and an essay on each. Both contain much background and biographical information.
(Jeremy Swann)
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| Hans J Massaquoi - Destined to Witness - Growing up black in Nazi Germany
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| Hans's grandfather was the Liberian consul to Germany', his mother German. After his grandfather and father were expelled he and his mother struggled to survive not only poverty and war-time conditions - including the carpet bombing of Hamburg - but above all the Nazi race laws. A hair-raising and thought-provoking tale of a small boy learning he is not only different but subhuman and of a mother fighting to ensure her son survives at all. Fascinating. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Michael Sanders - From Here You Can't See Paris
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| This is the American author's account of 13 months spent in 'La France profonde' with his wife and young daughter. Unlike some other books of a similar genre, the people are real people, the places are real places, and the events are real events. It centres on a real restaurant, and describes the difficulties and successes of running a small business in rural France. We know this having lived nearby for over ten years. (Peter Healy)
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| Frances Spalding - Gwen Raverat - Her Family and Friends
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| Gwen is a granddaughter of Charles Darwin. This shows life in Cambridge at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The Darwins were a large family that was very much looked up to. Gwen's life was not an easy one nor was her marriage. A lot of research has gone into this and Frances Spalding has written a good biography. (Julia Garbett)
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| J.B. Sykes - English Dictionary
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| The English Dictionary is very useful to anyone of any age and any ability. It is useful in the sense that you can discover new words, find out meanings of words and what context you should use them in. I recommend the Collins or the Oxford Dictionary to people of all ages. (Eloise May)
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| Feedback |
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Jeremy Swann writes:
Looking back through the issues of bwl published during the last couple of years, I wondered which two or three books featured there would come top of my list on the grounds of originality, thought-provokingness and sheer enjoyability. I finally chose the following two, both first novels and both by non-European writers (is this significant?). They are:
Chimimanda Nguzi Ardichie's ''Purple Hibiscus'' (bwl 26) and Khaled Hossein's ''The Kite Runner''.
It would be interesting to learn what our readers would select as their choices using the same criteria. |
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