bwl 36 - September 2006
Fiction
| Alaa al Aswani - The Yacoubian Building
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| Not surprisingly, given its no-holds-barred content, this tale of present-day Cairo apparently took the Arab world by storm . . . The once-dignified Yacoubian Building in Cairo is going down in the world and now houses people from every walk of life. With great affection, the book recounts their shenanigans, using their stories to illustrate the different realities of contemporary Egypt. I found it fascinating as well as being an enormously enjoyable read. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Anthony Capella - The Food of Love
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| Studying art history in Rome, American Laura declares she can only love a man who can cook; Tommaso, a handsome waiter, can't but his best friend, unassuming Bruno, can. The scene is set for a Cyrano inspired tale of seduction and secret love, threaded through with mouth-watering descriptions of Italian food and a real feel for the atmosphere of backstreet Rome and the Italian countryside. A delicious cappuccino of a tale. (Jenny Baker)
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| Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night
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| "After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn's for an oyster supper" - a dramatic first sentence for this accomplished first novel. Introduced as a lost curiosity of Victorian literature, complete with footnotes and bibliography, it is a story of deception, love, betrayal - and revenge. Who is Edward Glyver? Is he really who he claims? What about Charles Daunt? Saints - or sinners? This is an excellent read straight out of the Wilkie Collins' stable. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Martin Davies - The Conjuror's Bird
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| In 1768 Joseph Banks and Captain Cook sailed away on the Endeavour to collect botanical specimens. That much is true, but Martin Davies has woven a magical and romantic tale around historical facts which takes us seamlessly between past and present. The identity of the beautiful girl with green eyes, and the search for the exotic Ulieta bird provide a mystery more intriguing than Dan Brown. A lovely read. (Jenny Freeman)
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| Xiaolu Guo - Village of Stone
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| A refreshingly unsentimental evocation of the hidden lives of the billion-plus who exist in China's scattered northern coastal villages. Little Dog - orphaned, taken in by silent, harsh grandparents, fish her whole life - discovers, when 7 years old, an unknown thing: Happiness and that her real name is Coral. Finally, she lands in Bei-jing, 18 years old, finding a different, freer but still hidden-away life. A satisfying, informative read. (Joan Jackson)
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| Batya Gur - Murder on the Bethlehem Road
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| To my mind this is the best of the detective stories written by this author who died last year and was referred to as 'the Israeli P.D. James'. With the Second Intifada as backgound, Chief Inspector Michael Ohayon, familiar from the author's previous books, investigates the murder of a young woman and uncovers one of the most hidden secrets in the history of Israel. Absorbing! (Jeremy Swann)
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| Joanne Harris - Gentlemen & Players
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| This is a great read and I couldn't put it down. Set in a northern boys' grammar school, it's a story of revenge, but you're not entirely sure who the perpetrator really is. The suspense is fantastic and the climax is gripping, but there are also elements of black comedy throughout to keep you smiling. And the Classics Master is a fantastic character. Thoroughly recommended. (Annie Noble)
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| Victoria Hislop - The Island
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| Spinalonga, a tiny island off Crete, was Greece's last remaining leper colony and it provides a fascinating backdrop for a novel. It was obviously the island's history which inspired the author and it kept me turning the pages because I found some of the characters too contrived and black and white. Hyped as a Richard and Judy's summer read, this could be one for that proverbial airport lounge or a long train or coach journey. (Jenny Baker)
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| Nick Hornby - A Long Way Down
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| Four people meet on a roof top where they are going to commit suicide, but they make a pact to stay in touch while they reconsider their decision. The book employs an interesting but sometimes confusing four-way narrative. While some of the characters don't elicit much sympathy and at times the story drags a little, there are some amusing moments in what is a wry and ultimately uplifting comedy. (Annie Noble)
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| Michael Marr - Baber's Apple
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| I have to declare an interest here as this is the first novel from a very good friend. That apart, this is an extraordinary book and a tour de force. It charts the amazing adventures of Baber as he grapples with women, an ageing and ailing grandmother, and apples. Sent to Kazakhstan by his employer, he becomes embroiled in terrorism, a criminal gang and an old VW van. Slightly over the top at times, it's great fun. (Annie Noble)
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| Irène Némirovsky - Suite Française
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| Published 64 years after Nemirovsky's death in Auschwitz, this novel comprises the first two books in what was planned as a five-book tome about France during the occupation in WWII. It is mostly about people (French, German), their humanity and inhumanity. Nemirovsky's plans for the other three books are reported in the two must-read appendices, as are letters from her husband and others, trying desperately to find out where she was. Important, edifying and heart-breaking. (Julie Higgins)
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| Mal Peet - Tamar
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| This is a powerful novel, that deserves a wider audience than the teenage readership at whom it is aimed. When Tamar is left a box of memories from her grandfather to decode, the story that emerges turns her world inside out. It is the story of a group of resistance fighters in Holland during the Hunger Winter. It is a story of love, jealousy, betrayal - and finally tragedy. Winner of the Carnegie Medal, a fantastic read. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Libby Purves - Mother Country
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| A not quite random choice from the library trolley during an unplanned week in hospital this summer. The author, though younger, was at my school, so why not? No regrets. Excellent fast-paced detective-type story in which a young American, both parents long dead, travels to England to trace his unknown relatives. I like the author's writing style and unexpected twists in the story meant it was absorbing to the end. (Wendy Swann)
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| Manuel Rivas - The Carpenter's Pencil
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| Spain during the Civil War. Imprisoned Republican Doctor da Barca has everything his peasant guard Herbal lacks: intelligence, spiritual freedom and the love of 'the most beautiful woman in the world'. Herbal's internal dialogue with the painter he executed, owner of the carpenter's pencil - the battle between envy and humanity - will decide da Barca's fate. But there's much more in this multi-layered, exceptional piece of story-telling - and thanks to Rivas for making hope intellectually credible! (Annabel Bedini)
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| Garry Shandling - Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host
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| Larry Sanders. A funny guy. Self-obsessed, arrogant and insecure. And what about those pithy monologues? Short phrases - measured delivery - smirk to the camera. Very amusing. And very much like reading this book. Funny, insincere with an uneasy feeling of being exploited. On small pages. In large print. With over a hundred pages devoted to photographs of guests. But I had the last laugh - I only paid 20p for it second-hand. It was worth every penny. (Clive Yelf)
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| Anita Shreve - A Wedding in December
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| A group of school friends reunite for a wedding after 26 years, and past loves, problems, tragedies and secrets surface. It's beautifully written, each character is brilliantly drawn, and the interweaving of the past is very well done. This is completely absorbing and at times heartbreaking: after a couple of weaker books, Shreve is right back on form. (Annie Noble)
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| Anne Tyler - Digging to America
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Two families - one American, one Iranian - adopt baby girls from Korea and thereafter have an annual 'Arrival Party'. Throughout the next (10?) years we get to know the girls, their immediate families, their extended families, and learn about their differences and similarities, and about their shared humanity. Tyler shows us - again - how difficult life can be if we make it, and how easy if we let it. Warm and wonderful, and easy to race through.
Shortlisted for 2007 Orange Broadband prize (Julie Higgins)
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| Leonard Woolf - The Village in the Jungle
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| I didn't know he had written novels (two) and was spellbound by this story of life in the jungle of Ceylon, inspired by his experience as colonial administrator. Woolf has an extraordinary feel for, and sympathy with, his doomed villagers, cut off from the outside world and struggling against poverty, disease, superstition, injustice and above all the pitiless encroachment of the jungle itself. This is an extraordinary, hypnotic book, beautifully written and deeply felt. (Annabel Bedini)
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Non-Fiction
| Humphry Berkeley - The Life and Death of Rochester Sneath
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| The hoax which this hilarious book describes was outrageous enough to get its young author banned from his Cambridge college for two years. The deliciously-named Rochester Sneath is the fictitious headmaster of a fictitious English public school and the book reproduces letters in which he asks for advice from national figures and headmasters of leading public schools together with the real replies received from the many taken in. A laugh from beginning to end. (Jeremy Swann)
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| Humphrey Carpenter - That Was Satire That Was - The Satire Boom of the 1960s
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I was born just in time for the satire boom of the 60s - by eight days as it happens because it seems it all started with Beyond the Fringe at the Edinburgh Festival in August 1960. Taking in TWTWTW*, the birth of Private Eye and the rise and fall of The Establishment Club, this is an engaging, fascinating and very readable account of the personalities, politics and ideologies behind the story. Well worth a read.
*Editor's note: For those not around in the 60s, TWTWTW stands for That Was The Week That Was, a satirical programme on TV. (Clive Yelf)
* Editor's note: For those not around in the 60s, TWTWTW stands for That Was The Week That Was, a satirical programme on TV. |
| Richard C Conniff - Spineless Wonders - The Joys of Formication (sic! Formication means a sensation of insects crawling on the skin)
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| This fairly typical example of a journalist's book provides a range of very readable essays loosely grouped around a central theme - in this case invertebrates. And very interesting it is too with chapters from spiders to slugs and fleas to flies. The essays are a mix of history, biology, anecdote and fact with at least a couple of 'Fancy thats!' and 'Well I nevers!' in each chapter, which is all you could ask for really. (Clive Yelf)
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| Brigid Keenan - Diplomatic Baggage - The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse
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| The author is an old friend, though sadly we lost touch years ago. She had and still has a wonderful (and rare?) gift for telling funny stories against herself. Her transition from fashion editor to diplomatic spouse took her to many places that tourists rarely see and led her to write this highly entertaining but also very informative account of exotic places and people and numerous perilous adventures which she and her family somehow survived. (Wendy Swann)
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| David McCumber - The Cowboy Way - A Year in the Life of a Montana Ranch Hand
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| From this readable but slightly detached account (cowboys keep themselves to themselves) I now know that ranch hands require phenomenal bodging skills, an ability to work with an enormous range of machinery, the willingness to work all hours to complete repetitive tasks (never mind families or days off) and the ability to shrug off extreme weather conditions. Not many horses or illuminating insights though - the author seemed more absorbed with the ranching than the writing. (Clive Yelf)
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| John Mortimer - The Summer of a Dormouse - A Year of Growing Old Disgracefully
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| Mortimer, distinguished playwright, novelist and former barrister, ponders on the trials of old age and regales us with gossipy anecdotes about famous actors, writers, lawyers and politicians as well as ordinary people he has known and the idiosyncrasies of the British legal system. Never afraid to tell a joke against himself, he recounts throwing his radio on a bonfire and other assorted mishaps in a gently humorous way that I enjoyed very much. (Wendy Swann)
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| Helmut Newton - Helmut Newton: Autobiography
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| With unusual frankness the world-famous fashion photographer tells the story of his life. Born in pre-WWII Berlin, Jewish, he escaped arrest by the Gestapo and set off for China. He stopped off at Singapore where he worked as a 'gigolo', was interned and sent to Australia where he was put to work as an apricot-picker and later joined the army. Demobilised, he set up as a freelance fashion-photographer, worked for Vogue and ultimately earned worldwide fame. (Jeremy Swann)
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| Chris Patten - Not Quite the Diplomat - Home Truths about World Affairs
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| Based on his experience as UK politician/government minister, last governor of Hong Kong and European Union commissioner for External Affairs, the author with much elegant use of lively metaphors 'tells how it was' and sets out his views on international affairs. Most interesting on how he sees the current state and role of America, and the future development of China. I was so enthusiastic about this book that I was tempted to re-read it straightaway. (Jeremy Swann)
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| Gavin Pretor-Pinney - The Cloudspotter's Guide
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| The author is just mad about clouds. So much so that he founded The Cloud Appreciation Society with its own interactive website. This guide contends that clouds are nature's poetry, their contemplation is good for the soul and we should applaud their ephemeral beauty and proudly live with our heads in them. Buy it. Browse through it. You will never take the sky or clouds for granted again. (Jenny Baker)
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| Heather Pringle - The Mummy Congress - Science, Obsession and the Everlasting Dead
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| There's something fascinating about a preserved body, no matter how it manages to survive the ravages of time. Taking the Congress as the starting point (THE place for mummy scientists to meet and party) the book uncovers just what's exciting the experts in a range of fields - the prepared mummies of Egypt, South America and communist Russia and those naturally preserved by peat, ice, desiccation or Buddhist self-mummification. Humorous, interesting and not a little poignant. (Clive Yelf)
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| Janichi Saga - Confessions of a Yakuza
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| Previously published as The Gambler's Tale, this record of the life of one of Japan's traditional gang bosses has just been reissued by a publishing house called Kodansha International. It is a real curiosity, if you can find it. The life of the boss is told by his doctor who over the years, with his patient's consent, taped their conversations. Utterly recognisable basic humanity in an utterly unrecognisable context. Fascinating! (Annabel Bedini)
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| Dava Sobel - The Planets
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| Dava Sobel, who began her planet fetish aged 8, quotes the following mnemonic as an aid to memorise the order of the planets: My very educated mother just served us nine pies, which sadly with Pluto's demotion no longer works. However, there's nothing passé about the rest of this book which tells the fascinating story of our solar system through myth and history, astrology and science fiction to the latest data from robotic space probes. (Jenny Baker)
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| Feedback |
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Jenny Baker writes:
re the derivation of the title of Lynn Truss's Talk to the Hand (bwl 35) - the following extract is from Wikipedia, the free internet encyclopedia:
Talk to the hand (or tell it to the hand) is an English language slang phrase associated with the 1990s. It originated in African American Vernacular English as a contemptuous and urbanized way of saying that no one is listening, and is often elongated to a phrase such as "Talk to the hand, because the ear's not listening" or "Talk to the hand, (be)cause the face don't understand"
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