bwl 56 - Spring 2010
Fiction
| Betty G Birney - The World According to Humphrey
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| I absolutely love this book. The story is about an extraordinary Hamster called Humphrey who goes on loads of exciting adventures in the big world outside of his cage. He is the most clever Hamster I've ever heard of because he can write and read and understand humans even though they can't understand him. I would recommend this book to children of all ages. And my daddy liked this book too. I love Humphrey! (Zoe Baker (age 6 almost 7))
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| Aifric Campbell - The Semantics of Murder
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| A well-known psychiatrist, American but living in a fashionable part of London, uses his confidential case files for his fiction writing under a pseudonym. An original, ingenious, very dense, dark psychological drama, written in an unusual, baroque literary style. Many will find this gripping, the fine writing perhaps irritating, the denouement is certainly unexpected . . . well worth a read. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Nicci French - Complicit
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| Differently constructed when compared with the previous ones, this new Nicci French is certainly up to standard. Bonnie, who tells the story, is a music teacher who has to form a band to play at a wedding. She falls in love with one of the musicians, the summer is hot, friendships between band members unravel, passions turn murderous, everyone lies and no one is prepared to tell the truth to uncover a murderer. Very good. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| David Hewson - The Blue Demon
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| Nic Costa and his friends in the Roman Carabonieri are catapulted into the world of international terrorism and the secretive background to world politics. A horrific murder on the eve of the G8 summit in Rome seems to hark back to a previous incident thought to have been closed, involving a maverick group, the Blue Demon. This is a fast paced thriller that plays with ideas of nationality and loyalty. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Diana Wynne Jones - Fire and Hemlock
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| I revisited this title and found it as absorbing as ever. It is a reworking of the Tamlin story in which a young man "captured" by the Faery Queen, can only be saved by the resolution and love of a mortal girl. Set firmly in the present its themes are time, growing up and relationships. DWJ is one of the few authors to be interesting with her fantasy. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Barbara Kingsolver - The Lacuna
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| After ten silent years a new gem from the author of The Poisonwood Bible (bwl 4, 14 and 23). Written in the form of a diary that may or may not have been burned, we follow its perpetrator from Mexican childhood to his involvement with Frida Kahlo, Rivera and Trotsky which inexorably leads to his subsequent downfall in 50's America. Breathtaking prose, characters brimming with life. If you read nothing else this year, read this one. (Jenny Baker)
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| Penelope Lively - Moon Tiger
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| This is a beautifully written account of a dying woman's life seen through her eyes and those of her family and friends. Lively slips easily between past and present as she develops the theme that no two people experience the same event in the same way, and that perhaps we are never truly known even by those closest to us. (Judith Peppitt)
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| Simon Mawer - The Fall
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| A climber falls to his death from the Great Wall, a vertical slab of Welsh rock, compelling his oldest friend to discover why and to confront the past with its secrets, loves, lies and betrayals. Looming over everything is the constant lure of the mountains. Mawer guides you on the friends' every climb culminating in their attempt on the Eiger's north face with its unrelenting heights, freezing temperatures and the ever present fear of avalanches. Rivetting. (Jenny Baker)
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| Kate Mosse - The Winter Ghosts
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| In 1928 the car in which a young Englishman is driving through the French Pyrenees spins off the road during a snowstorm, seeking help he stumbles through woods into a remote village, where all is not as it seems, people behave oddly, time plays strange tricks . . . and so begins a delicious spooky tale set in the author's beloved Languedoc haunted by the lives and fate of the Cathars. (Jenny Baker)
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| George Orwell - Burmese Days
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| A modern classic which has since become required reading for anyone travelling to Burma, this shocking portrait of British colonial life was Orwell's first, and somewhat stilted, novel. He based it on his experience as a policeman in the 1920's. Some say that the bigotry and corruption he paints were contributory factors behind Aung Sang's decision to take the country out of the Commonwealth on gaining independence in 1947. That may be overstating the case. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Colm Tóibin - Brooklyn
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| This book was lauded by many critics and won last year's Costa Novel Award. I find it hard to understand why but then I read it right after The Lacuna so that probably explains it. Members of my book group either more than loathed it or loved it. I thought the style irritating, the characters cardboard and just wonder if any of you have read it and whether you agree or disagree. (Jenny Baker)
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| Peter Timmins - The Fourth Vow
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| When a centuries-old order of nuns is disbanded, its multi-million assets will go to the Vatican. Realising this, Margot, Kristi and Janet, three alumni of one of the sisters' schools, devise a 'cannot-fail' scam to gain control of the fortune - the Vatican being the only loser. This mild thriller is imaginative and ingenious and quite a good read, despite a rather pedestrian style and the indiscriminate use of colloquialisms. Excellent for travelling and holiday reading. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Angus Wilson - The Collected Stories
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| I must have read these years ago but had completely forgotten them. They cover the years 1949 to 1957, most of them are just a few pages long, and they avoid being dated because of Wilson's psychological acuity. Most short stories leave me wanting to know more, but these are self-sufficient, each one a kind of moment of truth, complete in itself. Clever, wicked, chilling, funny-sad, I found them absolutely compelling. (Annabel Bedini)
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Non-Fiction
| John Ayto and Ian Crofton - Brewer's Britain and Ireland: The History, Culture, Folklore and Etymology of 7500 Places in These Islands
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| I was given this recently and dip into it frequently in fascination. The difference between the Maid of Kent and the Fair Maid of Kent? Why 'Lombard Street to a China orange?' Why is Offaly called 'the Faithful County'? Where and what are The Bitches? See what I mean? You could spend hours just flipping through the pages on a sort of historical/geographical jaunt. A truly wonderful book! (Annabel Bedini)
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| Bill Bryson - Shakespeare: The World as a Stage
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| Shakespeare holds an almost mythical status in the nation's psyche and as a result, large numbers of myths have emerged around him and his authorship. Bill Bryson takes an engaging look at what is known about Shakespeare himself and shows that - contrary to belief - we actually know more about his life than many of his contemporaries (even if the record is still tantalisingly incomplete) and that the 'real' author of Shakespeare's works was Shakespeare himself! (Clive Yelf)
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| Kate Clanchy - Antigona and Me
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| A thought-provoking account of the friendship that develops between a North London writer and the Kosovan refugee she hires, on impulse, as a cleaner. Antigona's story unfolds erratically, not chronologically, much as you would expect of any history told across a kitchen table, with memories triggered by a word, circumstance or carefully placed question. Through it Clanchy explores the nature and ramifications of freedom, ingrained tradition, motherhood, guilt and privilege. Sounds preachy but isn't. (Siobhan Thomson)
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| Mike Evans - The Making of Raging Bull
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| You've read the original autobiography, enjoyed the award-winning film but you are still fascinated by the story. The next step has to be to read the book of adapting the autobiography to make the film! Which is actually a very illuminating look at the issues and challenges facing actors and directors and the difficulties for writers in adapting an autobiography into a film script. I could have happily done without the numerous encyclopaedic appendices though. (Clive Yelf)
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| Ffion Hague - The Pain and the Privilege: The Women in Lloyd George's Life
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| 550 pages of fascinating reading, completely changing my opinion of one of our great Welshmen, unfortunately for the worse. I had no idea of the history of the three women in his life, and what one of them especially achieved against all odds. In many ways they overshadowed him. That said, I believe that I too would have fallen for his charm. Ffion Hague knows how to 'dig deep' for tales of our past. Enjoy. (Shirley Williams)
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| Steven Johnson - The Ghost Map: A Street, an Epidemic and the Two Men Who Battled to Save Victorian London
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| From the outbreak of a terrible cholera epidemic in London, 1854, which reads like a medical thriller - which indeed it turned out to be - to educated suppositions about the future of cities and popular health, this medico-social case history is based on solid geographical knowledge of a very small area in Soho, and ends considering the advantages and disadvantages of the 'city planet'. Well-written, full of historical detail and fascinating. A very unusual book. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Emma Larkin - Finding George Orwell in Burma
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| The author's quest for Orwell takes her to all the places he lived and visited in the mid-1920's. She deftly combines political travelogue with literary appreciation, no more surprisingly than by suggesting that a trilogy of Orwell novels, Burmese Days (bwl 56), Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four are a tragic metaphor for the recent history of this benighted country. She also highlights the disparity between Orwell's early colonial behaviour and his later socialism. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Norman Lewis - Golden Days
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| Describing some fraught journeys through war-torn Burma in the early 1950's, Lewis paints an affectionate portrait of a country redeemed from awfulness by the gentle and often wonderfully eccentric Burmese people. Nothing has changed in sixty years, neither the people's stoical resistance nor the regime's implacable authoritarianism. Anyone considering visiting the country now should read this heartening account. The continuing triumph of the human spirit which we witnessed is the most positive reason for going there today. (Jeremy Miller)
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| William H McNeill - Plagues and Peoples
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| With the rise of new viruses like Ebola, HIV, Mad Cow Disease and bird flu, this well-known historian offers an unusual - although here and there very personal - theory of how epidemics work to undermine a region's population, so that its weakness favours invading armies and other factors which he calls 'macroparasites and microparasites'. The first half is a bit speculative but the second is spot on . . . an interesting and instructive read. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Irfan Orga - Portrait of a Turkish family
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Childhood memories of a son (born 1908) of a wealthy Istanbul family as the Ottoman Empire tottered towards its end when Germany, its ally, lost WW I. And incidentally reduced the family to poverty. Vivid descriptions of luxury followed by years scraping for food to keep the family. The author eventually lands up in England and his story is completed years later in an afterword by his son. A harrowing book but definitely worthwhile reading. Publisher: Eland *. (Jeremy Swann).
* Eland was launched some years ago to revive and republish outstanding travel books from the past. They have broadened out subsequently to some extent. You can get a free copy of their latest catalogue by going to their website www.travelbooks.co.uk/. The catalogue is a small paperback with over a hundred pages, each one devoted to a separate book. Makes interesting reading.
(Jeremy Swann)
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| Bertrand M Patenaude - Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky
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| Having read both The Lacuna(bwl 56) and In the Blue House (bwl 16), I was curious to know just how accurate both books are about Trotsky's Mexican exile, his assassination and the part played by Stalin. To my joy I heard about this recently published book. It reads like a thriller combining the novelist's skills of bringing characters and places alive with the historian's ability to probe into the facts and truth about real events. (Jenny Baker)
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| Francis Pryor - Seahenge: A Quest for Life and Death in Bronze Age Britain
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| You have to admire the author who takes a headline-grabbing news-story and places it in context of his own archaeological passions. Not that these aren't fascinating and informative, but half way through you do have to remind yourself why you bought the book in the first place! By the end though you can see his point and the emergence of the wooden henge on the Norfolk coast takes it's rightful place in the historic record. (Clive Yelf)
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| Laurence Rees - World War Two Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West
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| The recent opening up of Soviet archives reveals that contemporary eyewitnesses rated Stalin as the most accomplished and efficient of the four western war leaders. Not that he was by any means infallible - the massacre of Polish officers was a major blunder and the German invasion left him in fear of a coup - but after consolidating his power he was then almost constantly underestimated by both Allies and Axis alike to their ultimate cost. (Clive Yelf)
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| Michael Shermer - Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition and Other Confusions of Our Time
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| My gripe about this book is that it was based on a series of articles and discussions published in other journals. Sometimes this is not a problem but what I was hoping would be a focussed examination of a particular topic was instead an almost random scatter-gun of entertaining, interesting but loosely linked articles. Only near the end did I feel it get to grips with its title but I was already peeved by then. (Clive Yelf)
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| Justin Wintle - Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi
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| Not a straightforward biography. Instead her father's and her own life are used to describe the history of modern Burma/Myanmar. The book covers the important details of her life and her tragic involvement in the country's politics. It makes it clear that the campaign for democracy was not due to one-person (her) and makes an interesting/controversial point that perhaps her Buddhist pacifism prevented the 1988 rising from being forceful enough. (Christine Miller)
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| The Children's Book is keeping me up far too late at night, propping my eyelids open so I can read on, through the longueurs and into the wee hours. I don't want it to end, though as I've so little time for reading, it probably never will! (Siobhan Thomson) |
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