bwl 54 - November 2009
Fiction
| Robertson Davies - The Deptford Triology
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| The Deptford Triology interlaces the story of three extremely different characters in a gripping book that moves from continent to continent with imagination,intrigue and continual surprise. This is a good, fat book that gives hours of extremely satisfying reading. (Ange Guttierez Dewar)
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| Margaret Drabble - The Sea Lady
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| I hadn't read a Drabble novel for years, so was pleased to find she still puts a good story together. Media celebrity Ailsa and marine biologist Humphrey once spent a childhood holiday together, later married - disastrously - and finally meet up again in their sixties, to find themselves manoeuvred into confronting their childhood experiences. Exploring the working out of our destinies and the life-long haunting of our early lives, I found it convincing and moving. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Dave Eggers - What is the What
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| Weird title for a weird and somewhat wonderful book. Based on the true story of a Sudanese refugee living in America, it begins with a mugging which sets the protagonist on a mission to explain to those he encounters what his life has been since he was seven. One harrowing event follows another and is only bearable because of the easy, matter-of-fact style. And what does that title mean? You'll have to read it to decide. (Jenny Baker)
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| Jane Gardam - The Queen of the Tambourine
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| We learn all about Eliza Peabody from the unsolicited notes and letters she writes to her suburban neighbours. She just doesn't fit in and becomes increasingly isolated as people avoid her and she loses track between reality and fantasy. She's eccentric, funny and sad and initially rather irritating but as the narrative unfolds and she comes to an understanding of herself, I found myself warming to her more and more. A writer who never disappoints. (Jenny Baker)
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| Lucinda Hare - The Dragon Whisperer
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| At last - an enjoyable and substantial novel for younger readers. Eleven year old Quenelda longs to become a dragon knight like her father - not a career for a girl. However, she has a gift that will set her apart - she can talk to dragons. Is she the real Dragon Whisperer? While not outstandingly original, this is a good, exciting read and to be recommended. Looking for more? Try Tamora Pierce's Alanna books. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Matthew Kneale - When we were Romans
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| Laurence is nine and trying to make sense of his increasingly chaotic world. His mother is suffering mental and marital breakdown and decides to drive to Rome with Laurence and his little sister. Their 'adventures' are narrated by Laurence, who has a fascination with emperors and science, illustrating how powerless we are when faced with events beyond our control. A deeply touching tragedy, but not everyone can cope with the weird spelling and grammar! (Mary Standing)
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| Donna Leon - Death at La Fenice
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| Encouraged by reviews of other Donna Leon novels on this list, I decided to make the acquaintance of Commissaire Brunetti. Nor was I disappointed. This is the first of the Brunetti novels. The Commissaire finds himself engaged in solving the mystery surrounding the death of a famous conductor. Old fashioned police work, an engaging detective, a clever twist in the end - and Venice. I shall be reading more. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Margaret Mahy - Heriot
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| Not everyone enjoys fantasy, but if it is your fancy this is one to attract attention. While, it may be aimed at a young adult audience, this is immaterial. The ingredients are recognisable - the education, development and coming-of-age of a young wizard to rescue the kingdom threatened with evil, but it is the quality of Mahy's prose that makes this fantasy stand out. I loved it. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Henning Mankell - The Chinaman
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| Half fascinating and half an utter bore . . . possibly the opposite to some readers. Fascinating plot concerning murders and the exodus of thousands of Chinese forced to work on the west coast of America; but utterly boring to anyone like me who loathes politics; entire chapters are dedicated to just that - and in this case, Chinese politics. Slight relief from hearing about the foul weather which occurs in most of Mankell's books. (Ange Guttierez Dewar)
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| Lorrie Moore - Gate at the Stairs
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| Better known for her short stories perhaps, Lorrie Moore's writing continues to be both lyrical and funny as it looks at domestic USA. We follow the outsider, Tassie, who, to support herself while at college, looks after an African-American toddler, adopted by a strange, sophisticated couple with a hidden secret. Tassie feels more and more a stranger at home because of her experiences, intensified by the mystery surrounding her boyfriend. (Christine Miller)
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| Irčne NĂ©mirovsky - All Our Worldly Goods
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| This novel first appeared in France in 1947 five years after NĂ©mirovsky's murder in Auschwitz. It spans the years between the outbreak of WW I and that of WW II, telling the story of two bourgeois families whose lives intertwine, their loves, griefs and joys. A small canvas maybe, but using delicate and telling brush strokes, a picture emerges of what it was like for ordinary French people living between the shadows of those wars. (Jenny Baker)
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| C J Sansom - Sovereign
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| The major political significance of Henry VIII's Progress of the North has been largely overlooked by historians, but is resurrected here as Shardlake reluctantly goes to York on a mission to ensure the welfare of an important conspirator who is to be returned to London for trial. Solidly based on historical fact, the insight on the iron fist of government on the social and religious lives of ordinary men grows clearer with each of Sansom's books. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| C J Sansom - Revelation
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| Henry VIII is wooing Catherine Parr, whom he wants for his sixth wife. Archbishop Cranmer and the reformers, also in the 'hot-gospel' common folk, are threatened as the King returns towards Catholicism, if not to the Pope. Times are anxious and a serial killer is at work. But is he possessed by the devil, or is this human madness? With these murders that Shardlake and his assistant must solve, Sansom researches deeply into the primitive ideas of medicine, witchcraft and magic in Tudor times. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Rothesay Stuart Wortley - Letters From A Flying Officer
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| Originally a tract to impress the importance of aviation on inter-war British youth, this series of letters from father to son describes life in the RFC throughout the Great War. However, although ostensibly fiction, it is obvious that the recollections are those of the author and his friends and they provide a superb and highly engrossing account of the lives and attitudes of early military aviators as well as chillingly predicting the future London blitz. (Clive Yelf)
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| Paul Torday - The Girl on the Landing
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| After Torday's wonderfully original first two novels, I had high hopes for this . . . Michael stops taking his anti-schizophrenia medication and, with terrifying consequences, reverts to what he believes is the original human condition, guided by an enigmatic female presence - hallucination or genuine manifestation? It's satisfactorily creepy and scary and the device of husband and wife telling their extra-ordinary and ordinary versions alternately works to build up considerable tension. So why was I slightly disappointed? (Annabel Bedini)
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| William Trevor - Love and Summer
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| Ellie and Florian - she a lonely and nun-ridden married young woman, he a loner, the last member of a loving family - meet casually and a friendship/romance begins which lifts both their lives. The gossip which threatens in the small Irish village doesn't reach them, but still we know, even if they don't, that the relationship is impossible. The other characters in the book are all real and indispensable to the story. Trevor does it again! (Julie Higgins)
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Non-Fiction
| David Edmonds - Bobby Fischer Goes to War: The true story of how the Soviets lost the most extraordinary chess match of all time
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and John Eidinow
For anyone interested in chess, the most extraordinary match perhaps of all time between Spassky and Fischer is an enduring memory, not only for the games but for the personalities of the contestants from the two major powers during the 'cold war', eliciting from Fischer the famous quote that it was " . . . a microcosm of the whole political situation . . . ". It also made Reykjavik for ever part of history. (James Baker)
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| Dominic Green - Three Empires on the Nile: The Victorian Jihad, 1869-1899
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| A veritable compendium of two centuries at least of historical, geographical, political and personal detail which reads like a thriller and leads the reader compulsively on to an assessment of the causes of the present day's woes in the Sudan, the pan-Islamism and 'Mahdi Army' of today. This slim volume's 314 pages includes a Cast of Characters, Prologue, biographical epilogue, exhaustive notes, bibliography, Index and glossary, by a most talented and disciplined young author. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| G W Houghton - They Flew Through Sand: Notes and Sketches of an RAF Officer in the Western Desert
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| More journalist than combatant, the observations of this young officer were written as the desert war was in full swing and published before it ended. As expected they fully capture his feelings of exhilaration at the wide open expanses of the desert and of his admiration for the pilots whose deeds he documented, but the undercurrent of anxiety is explained by being written at a time when the eventual outcome was by no means certain. (Clive Yelf)
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| Richard Noll - The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement
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| The development of Jung's own beliefs famously led to the split with his mentor Freud but Noll suggests the driving influences for Jung were primarily German philosophy and cultural forces, most notably that of Nietzsche, recent German unification and pan-nationalism, the influence of Wagner and Germanic pagan revivalism. Adding Jung's sealed, mainly feminine, inner-circle, a series of personal 'revelations' and a carefully prepared image and legacy makes a persuasive case for Noll's 'charismatic sect' allegations. (Clive Yelf)
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| Daniel Walker Howe - What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848
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| This ambitious volume, the latest in the scholarly Oxford History of the United States, describes a nation in pursuit of its 'Manifest Destiny'. By doubling the country's size, legendary presidents such as Madison, Monroe and Jackson set the tone for American imperialism that other compatriots were to follow. One cannot but admire their resourcefulness but also baulk perhaps at their hypocrisy. This should be essential reading for a better understanding of the modern American psyche. (Jeremy Miller)
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| David Winner - Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football
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| How far can you go in extrapolating the character of a nation through the way it plays football? Quite a way if this engaging and very enjoyable work is to be believed. The Dutch emphasis on consensual government and mistrust of leaders, their views of space and its uses (a result of their national geography) and historic Dutch attitudes to Germany all played their part in creating football teams of undeniable genius but deep psychological flaws. (Clive Yelf)
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| Feedback |
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| Regarding Zoe Heller's The Believers, may I offer an alternative view to the very negative one expressed in bwl 52? Unlike the reviewer, I enjoyed this book enormously. I found it a highly perceptive account of what happens to a family whose rigidly held belief system (not for nothing the book's called 'The Believers') is shaken to the roots when the charismatic father has a stroke, leaving him in a coma, both there and not there. I loved the way the grown-up children begin to emerge as real individuals from under the yoke of family identity, while the wife-and-mother, Audrey, becomes increasingly outrageous as she fights tooth and nail to keep the faith in the face of their - and his - betrayal. To my mind, it is a deeply satisfying book as well as being extremely well written and - yes - often very funny. Not for the first time, I am intrigued by how the same book can be read so differently! (Annabel Bedini) |
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