bwl 48 - November 2008
Fiction
| John Boyne - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
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| The story is told through the perspective of Bruno, a young boy, who meets a Jew through a concentration camp fence. Because he's innocent and oblivious to everything going on, you have to work out what is happening from what you know. It's a good read for all ages but perhaps even more touching for younger children, who don't know much about that time. However, I felt it wasn't quite as brilliant as everyone says. (Eloise May)
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| Michael Connelly - The Brass Verdict
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| A trial is a contest of lies. Yes, everybody lies in a trial and that's what is fascinating. Recently out of rehab, lawyer Mickey Haller inherits the clients of an old colleague and finds himself defending Walter Elliot, a Hollywood mogul, accused of murdering his wife and her lover. Connelly's famous cop is here, too, Hieronymus Bosch, and he and Haller are about to be linked in a surprising way. A very good read. (Laurence Martin Euler)
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| Amitav Ghosh - Sea of Poppies
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| If you like the sound of an historical adventure sweeping across continents and generations, packed with disparate characters ranging from a bankrupt raja, a Chinese opium addict, a beautiful French heroine, a mulatto freedman from Baltimore, sailors, coolies and convicts, then put your feet up, kick off your shoes and indulge. This, the first of a trilogy, written by a master story teller, is absolutely the perfect read for those all encroaching dark winter days. (Jenny Baker)
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| Joseph Kanon - The Good German
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| Although written in 2001 this novel, set in 1945, faultlessly keeps to time and place, conjuring up the sights, smells and miseries, street by street, of a ruined Berlin divided into zones of occupation after Hitler's defeat. A story of espionage and love, this consummate thriller transcends its genre by asking profound ethical questions in its exploration of the nature of justice, and what is meant by good and evil in times of peace and war. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Joseph Kanon - The Prodigal Spy
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| Perhaps the spy thriller has been done and overdone, but this one is well worth reading. The Cold War and US government officials defecting to Russia may be out-of-date but the family relationships, the problems and values discussed in the novel are still the constants of our lives today and the plot is an ingenious one. And perhaps, these days, not as out of date as it may seem. Vigorously and tautly written, a useful leisure time read. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Joseph Kanon - Alibi
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| The elaborate and convoluted plot relies on Kanon's intimate knowledge of Venice as he conjures up an atmosphere of mystery and foreboding. One becomes lost in murky streets and canals together with characters who seem to be trapped in horrors of their own making, and in the city itself. Perhaps the miseries of guilt and moral dilemma are overdone and there is too much Venice, but the book is worth the benefit of the doubt. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Andrey Kurkov - Death and the Penguin
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| Viktor, living in post-soviet Russia, earns his living by writing obituaries for currently living people. His companion is a penguin who is unhappy living in an over-heated environment. It is a macabre book, packed with death, but the dead-pan way it is written makes it extremely humorous. The lack of emotion between the characters and the sinister events which occur paint a striking portrait of the bleakness of life in Russia. (Veronica Edwards)
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| Marina Lewycka - Two Caravans
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| Lewycka's History of Tractors in Ukrainian (bwl 31) is a hard act to follow but she does well. The caravans, one for women one for men, stand in a strawberry field in Kent, the story revolving round the immigrant workers who inhabit them. Funny (you'll never eat a battery chicken again), sad and closer to reality than Tremaine's The Road Home (bwl 47), this is a wonderfully affectionate account of 'foreignness', not to mention the delicious love story . . . (Annabel Bedini)
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| David Lodge - Deaf Sentence
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| The narrator in this novel based on Lodge's own life is a recently retired linguistics professor of an English university with an elderly father and a wife who has an interior design shop. His life is complicated by a young American woman student preparing a thesis who asks for his help. The practical problems of deafness, aging and old age are described with insight and understanding and at times made the subject of comedy. Good stuff! (Jeremy Swann)
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| Henning Mankell - The Pyramid
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Both for fans* of Inspector Kurt Wallander and a fascinating introduction to those new to this character. These 5 short stories - by filling in the gaps from the beginnings of his career and chronicling some interesting cases - uncover the reasons that led to his divorce with Mona as well as what lay behind his difficulties with his father (an incredible trip to Egypt). It's an essential!
*Editor's note: And there will soon be millions more as Kenneth Branagh is starring in a new BBC series based on this character.
(Laurence Martin Euler)
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| Andrew Martin - Murder at Deviation Junction
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| This author was new to me. If you like the days of steam railways, this is the book. It involves Murder, Mystery and Steam with a Dickensian flavour. The year is December 1909 and a young police Detective is struggling to prove that he has the capabilities to become a Sergeant, and the solving of a strange murder makes his career hang in the balance and himself fighting for his life. (Shirley Williams)
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| Katharine McMahon - The Rose of Sebastopol
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| True historians will probably scoff at a book like this: the tale of a headstrong girl who, inspired by Florence Nightingale, goes to the battlefields of the Crimea and her female cousin, who despite being terrified of breaking conventions, goes to look for her when she becomes missing. Nevertheless, it conjures magnificently the mores of the times and vividly contrasts the comfortable life enjoyed by well-off Victorians with the horrors of a war so ill conducted. (Jenny Baker)
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| Mark Mills - The Savage Garden
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| The opening scenes of The Savage Garden have an air of Brideshead but the period is pure Philip Larkin. This novel is well written overall but with some slipshod passages. While Mark Mills is obviously well versed in his subject of Greek and Roman mythology he tends to labour his points and in doing so loses our attention. This mystery has a number of entertaining twists but I did not find them all entirely convincing. (Judith Peppitt)
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| Kate Morton - The Forgotten Garden
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| Lovers of family mysteries will relish this book. Set in 1913, 1975 and 2005 it unravels the secrets surrounding a little girl found abandoned on an Australian quayside; all she remembers is that she was hidden on a ship by someone she calls The Authoress, but who then disappeared. It's one of those books which you can imagine reading curled up in front of a roaring fire. In other words, fantasy, but delicious. (Jenny Baker)
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| Jodi Picoult - Second Glance
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| In his quest to be reunited with his dead fiancée (and given his seeming inability to die), Ross Wakeman has become a paranormal investigator. Hired to probe mysterious happenings in a Vermont town where an Indian tribe asserts that a plot of land scheduled for development is a burial ground, Ross gets more than he bargained for, from both the dead and the
living. A departure from the Picoult formula, and surprisingly compelling (Siobhan Thomson)
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| Carol Shields - The Republic of Love
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| Written in 1992 and set in Winnipeg, Shields explores the meaning of love between mid-thirties, folklorist Fay - reluctant to commit to marriage - and Tom - almost forty, a late-night radio music and chat show host, three times married and divorced, but with optimism to start again. Shields writes engagingly about the ordinariness of their lives, friends and family. This is a gentle love story with some unexpected surprises.
(Diane Reeve)
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| Agnes Smedley - Daughter of Earth
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| This novel, first published in l929 - written by a courageous woman who stood out for women's rights as far back as the late l800s - is practically autobiographical. She suffered extreme poverty and hardship in the States but managed to get herself educated despite opposition from every side and finally became relatively famous through her political friendships and for writing and publishing several non-fiction books. This book is gripping and harrowing at the same time.
(Ange Guttierez Dewar)
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| John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
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| A stark social commentary painfully relevant to modern times, The Grapes of Wrath is as beautifully written as it is thought provoking. The story of one family's ill-fated struggle to reach California and find work during the 1930's depression, it exposes you to the noblest and the darkest of human nature. Above all, though, it taught me the value and power of hope. And how sometimes having nothing makes you appreciate the suffering of others. (Theo Hobson)
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| Paul Torday - The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce
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Like with Lewycka*, could we expect a second mini-masterpiece from the author of Salmon Fishing in the Yeman (bwl 43)? Well, though utterly different, Wilberforce too is truly original. Told back-to-front (and for once it works) we trace the downfall of a self-deluding alcoholic whose obsession with wine starts when his grey, solitary, life is overturned by meeting a charismatic wine merchant and his glittering friends. Lots of brain-teasing morals but above all, a profoundly touching and poignant read.
*see review for Two Caravans
(Annabel Bedini)
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| Evelyn Waugh - Scoop
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| "Up to a point, Lord Copper" still peppers the conversations of close observers of the goings-on in Westminster and Whitehall. But how many people have read the Fleet Street satire where it originated? Returning to this slight novel after forty years, the plot now seems contrived and
somewhat silly. The occasional flash of high comedy reminds one why it was so popular when it was first published in the thirties. But vintage Waugh? Up to a point. (Jeremy Miller)
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Non-Fiction
| Patrick Bishop - Fighter Boys - Saving Britain 1940
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| Strong on personal narratives and reminiscences, this illuminating account looks at the chain of events and planning that ensured Fighter Command was able to survive the Battle of Britain. From the experiences of the First World War, the struggle to establish a fledgling independent service in the inter-war period, the democratisation and establishment of flying training for reservists and finally the (often tragically brief) experiences of combat over Britain, this is history by personal testament. (Clive Yelf)
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| Michael Holroyd - A Strange Eventful History - The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and Their Remarkable Families
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| Holroyd brilliantly illuminates the complex story of these two interlocking families, giants of Victorian theatre: the Irvings and the Terrys. Stars of their era, the Lyceum Theatre was their arena and Irving's fiefdom. Their productions with their over elaborate sets would seem old-fashioned now, but they packed the punters in. Fame comes at a price and both they and their gifted offspring paid their dues. To all theatre lovers, I highly recommend this book. (David Graham)
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| David Kennard - A Shepherd's Watch - Through the seasons with one man and his dogs
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| To be a sheep farmer in North Devon might be a precarious existence at the best of times and not an immediately obvious subject for a book. However this simply told, honest account of one year of such a life draws you in so that you share the pleasures, the frustrations and the concerns. The author's decision to enter sheepdog trials may provide him with momentary relaxation but are just as fascinating for the outsider. (Clive Yelf)
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| Armin D Lehman - In Hitler's Bunker - A boy soldier's eyewitness account of the Fuhrer's last days
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| An extraordinary personal account of the last weeks of Hitler's life. Selected from his doomed Hitler Youth unit and given the job of courier in Hitler's bunker, the author found himself traversing a shattered Berlin with senseless orders for non-existent units. The disintegration of the Nazi hierarchy matches the crumbling of the young man's ideology as his revered leaders fall apart before the inevitable Russian advance. He later became an American citizen and peace campaigner. (Clive Yelf)
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| Steven Levitt - Freakonomics - A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
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| Now this book is annoyingly far too easy to read. In looking at concealed links and effects of many everyday actions and beliefs the authors come up with some fascinating and interesting facts and trends that challenge many commonly held assumptions. Are drug dealers rich? Does it matter if your child goes to a 'school of choice'? Do police initiatives really cut crime? Entertaining and informative? Yes - but much more 'Informative' bias please! (Clive Yelf)
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| Virginia Nicholson - Singled Out - How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War
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| In this moving and extremely competent book, Nicholson shows - with the aid of case histories, statistics and sociology - how these cruelly called surplus women, with no chance of finding a husband, managed to lead fruitful and sometimes very successful lives. Before WW I, a woman's one aim was to get married but later she had to adjust or perish. Nicholson's exhaustive investigation explores the extraordinary lives many made for themselves and how they helped to change our society. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Matthew Sturgis - Walter Sickert - A Life
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| Some-time actor, radical reactionary, reclusive socialite, innovative traditionalist, the heart of the English school of painters, Sickert (1860-1942) was all these things and more but not, as Sturgis conclusively proves, Jack the Ripper.* More than a biography this is a rewarding slice of social history illuminated by the life of this talented, single-minded, selfish, kindly and generous man who seemed equally at home in such diverse places as London, Paris, Venice, Dieppe, Bath and even Broadstairs. (*see Portrait of a Killer, bwl20). (James Baker)
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| Cynthia True - American Scream - The Bill Hicks Story
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| Hicks became an iconic figure due to his early death from pancreatic cancer aged 32. With his memory fresh and his compatriots still youthful, talking to those who remember him is not a problem and probably provides a more rounded picture of an individual of many contradictions and some less than appealing traits. His confrontational and intelligent humour is better seen than read but I doubt the account of his inner life will be bettered. (Clive Yelf)
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| Feedback |
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Ferelith Hordon writes:
I am delighted to see someone else appreciating Dick Francis' books*. I have always been a fan - I am not making claims of great literature - but as thrillers they certainly keep you turning the pages. The Danger is one of my favourites - another would be For Kicks.
*Editor's note: The Danger and Reflex reviewed bwl 47
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Annabel Bedini writes:
May I disagree with the reviewer of Sebastian Faulks' Engleby, bwl 46? Far from patchy and boring, I found it a coherent, credible and absolutely chilling exploration of an emotionally dysfunctional mind. (Faulks seems to be increasingly interested in the functioning of the human mind - see his Human Traces, bwl 33 - and it will be interesting to see where he goes next.) As for the infamous dinner party, to my mind it was the only moment of comedy in an otherwise bleak book.
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