bwl 70 - Autumn 2013
Fiction
| William Boyd - The New Confessions
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| Sorry bwl but this was not for me, I did not develop any feeling for the J J Rousseau obsessed narrator but he did manage to be part of some very interesting 20th Century events. It was all too contrived (I found that in Any Human Heart too, bwl 59 and 63)) but then I have not yet read Jean Jacques Rousseau's True Confessions, I will report back when I have! (Chris Cozens)
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| Natasha Carthew - Winter Damage
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| Natasha Carthew writes poetry; it really shows in this novel aimed at a teenage market. Set in Cornwall, it is a dystopian imagining but very real - and the cold which pervades the narrative is palpable. A tale of desperation, survival and ultimately hope. Read it. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| John Dickinson - Muddle and Win
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| I don't usually enjoy "funny" books for teens. This is the exception. Muddle is a devil - a very minor one; Sally Jones is good. All attempts to turn her from the straight and narrow have failed. So Muddlespot is sent; his adversary, the redoubtable, perfect Windleberry. The synopsis sounds incredible - but it works. And if Muddlespot is the best character, well the devil always did have the best tunes. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Hans Fallada - Alone in Berlin
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| A deeply disturbing and chilling book, taking place in Berlin during WW2, it tells the stories of ordinary, working city dwellers living under the Nazi regime. Neighbours suspicious of each other and strangers, lives turned upside down. One couple, originally Nazi sympathisers, become totally disillusioned after their soldier son is killed, and decide to 'quietly rebel' inevitably leading to their own demise. The 'Afterword' reveals what led Hans Fallada to write this extraordinary novel. (Mary Standing)
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| Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling
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| What's in a name? Everything it seems when selling books. Published under a pseudonym, this detective novel enjoyed a modest success until it was revealed that J K Rowling was the author, when overnight it became a best seller. Interrupted half way through, I found it hard to get the enthusiasm to pick it up again. I loved her Harry Potter world and wish Rowling did not feel pressured into writing grown-up novels, when her own genre is so appealing. (Jenny Baker)
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| Elizabeth Gilbert - The Signature of all Things
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| This book is going to become a classic! It's the story of Alma Wittakers, a very wealthy American girl and a self-taught brilliant botanist in the 18th century. And that's the thing: Gilbert makes the study of moss interesting while at the same time telling the story of Alma's life. You have to read it. (Laurence Martin Euler)
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| Mark Haddon - The Red House
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| Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (bwl 19) engaged my curiosity; this book appeals to more familiar psychology. After their mother's death Richard organises a holiday together with his estranged sister and their families. During their week together one by one their long-held beliefs and prejudices are challenged as they and their children come up against realities that shift their perceptions dramatically. Haddon is extraordinarily perceptive and his heart is in the right place. An excellent read! (Annabel Bedini)
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| A M Homes - This Book will Save your Life
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| Cocooned in the seemingly perfect LA life, Richard's reality is an isolating routine controlled by his housekeeper, trainer and nutritionist. A sudden and unexplained seizure launches him back into the outside world. A darkly comic but touching satire of a lost soul reconnecting with living and love for his family through a series of bizarre events and friendships. Cleverly poking fun at the hang-ups and trappings of modern America, the result is a warm and affecting story. (Rebecca Howell)
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| Penelope Lively - Family Album
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| The six siblings growing up in Allersmead, a shabby, rambling Victorian pile, shared an apparently idyllic childhood with their earth mother, remote father and the au pair. Many years later and scattered throughout the world, as that time is reviewed through adult eyes and with adult voices a very different picture emerges, while revealing the subsequent diverse paths that their lives have taken. Beautifully told - I loved it. (Sue Pratt)
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| Hilary Mantel - Every Day is Mother's Day
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| As a Mantel fan, interesting to discover her first (1985 ) novel. Mentally retarded (though is she?) Muriel lives in a crumbling house with her mother, plagued by poltergeists and refusing entry to strangers, including Isabel, the social worker assigned to Muriel's case. As the situation inside the house deteriorates in ghastly ways, Isabel tries to run her own life outside: married lover, difficult father. The conflict between 'abnormal' and 'normal' ends with a mighty crash. Imperfect but promising. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Kate Mosse - Citadel
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| Set during WW II, this final novel in Mosse's Languedoc trilogy (bwl 33 and 47) has all the hallmarks of its predecessors. Atmospheric, mystical, peopled with extraordinary but believable characters, it pits the forces of evil and darkness against those of life and light, as it tells the story of 18 year-old Sandrine as she is gradually drawn into the role of resistance fighter. If you like Mosse, you'll love it, if not - best avoid. (Jenny Baker)
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| Jane Rogers - The Testament of Jessie Lamb
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| A virus has infected the entire human race, making every woman die in childbirth. People blame terrorists, nature or God. Society reels at the thought of its imminent extinction, while scientists work on ever more desperate ideas. A great premise, but the author's skill in telling the story through the eyes of a 16 year old proves to be a hindrance - Jessie's self-absorption and teenage invulnerability make it hard to do more than scratch the surface. (Kate Ellis)
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| Emile Zola - La Bête Humaine
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| This riveting story of passion, greed and murder is a serial novel about a potential serial killer, and a railway novel which takes a novel look at railways. Zola believed in atavism and Jacques is cursed with 'an awful hereditary disorder' which drives him to sexual possession and murder. He lives in a society governed by technological progress where some, driven by greed, kill in cold blood. Should we accuse or excuse? As atmospheric and memorable as Germinal (bwl 64). (Denise Lewis)
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Non-Fiction
| Julian Barnes - Levels of Life
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| Barnes writes about his grief for his wife by finding parallels with the first attempts at balloooning and the 'balloonatics' involved, particularly one who fell in love with Sarah Bernhardt. He also explores early photography and new perspectives on life as the world is viewed from above. The section dealing with his grief I found almost intoxicatingly poignant. His feelings are so raw and so honest you have to forgive him going on a bit. (Victoria Grey-Edwards)
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| Mary Beard - Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town
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| By focusing not on its famous citizens but rather its ordinary ones, Mary Beard brings the Roman Empire to life. Vesuvius' eruption barely gets a mention; instead we hear tales of bakers, garum makers and slaves. It's not a sanitised version of Roman life - smutty graffiti, lewd frescoes and filthy streets are all covered in Mary's irreverent style. So forget the guide books (they're probably wrong); take this to Pompeii and prepare to see it a new light. (Kate Ellis)
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| Michael Blakemore - Stage Blood: Five Tempestuous Years in the Life of the National Theatre
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| Following his excellent book Next Season, Michael has come up with a riveting account of his career at The National Theatre when the drama's behind the scenes almost matched those on stage. I was a member of the company at the climax of this period and I devoured this beautifully written account of a great actor - Laurence Olivier - at the end of his life and reign. (David Graham)
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| Anne de Courcy - The Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj
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| A lively, social history based on memoirs, letters and diaries of the women seeking husbands in the Raj's heyday, highlighting the discrepancies between their privileged backgrounds and their frequently difficult lives in far-off regions once their goal was achieved. Perhaps unwittingly by underlining the polarity between the British and the Indian and the former's wasteful expenditure to maintain prestige, It serves as a marker to show how the world and attitudes have changed in so short a time. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Antonia Fraser - Perilous Question: The Drama of the Great Reform Bill 1832
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| This book is curiously disjointed, repetitive and somewhat patchily written. I suspect the author relied too heavily on her research assistants and failed to bring her accustomed flair to the narrative account of what was a very dramatic episode in British history. Too harsh? Perhaps a little but I was left with an empty feeling after reading her book and although better informed, I was no more engaged by the subject. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Michael Grant - Cleopatra
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| By concentrating on the geo-historical politics of the dominant Romans of their time, Caesar, Antony and Octavian (Augustus), the author puts this celebrated queen into deserved perspective as a serious and visionary ruler. Unravelling the sources behind the tangle of myth, gossip and invention, Grant reveals a learned and ruthless woman, whose ambition was to restore her empire to its former greatness, and shows how great issues of history are so often decided by the flukes of life. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Alastair Hazell - The Last Slave Market: Dr John Kirk and the struggle to end the African slave trade
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| Alastair Hazell charts a fascinating and horrifying story - and in many respects a tragic one. Though John Kirk was successful, his is not the name that is recognised. It is a story that shows all sides as less than perfect and the results are, like most historical results, ambivalent. A very readable account of a little known aspect of the history of the British Empire, of East Africa and the story of slaving. Recommended. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Robert Hughes - The Fatal Shore: A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia, 1787-1868
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| Honest, deeply felt, scholarly and eminently readable, this is a truly terrible revelation of the almost medieval and inhuman judiciary situation in late Georgian and Victorian England and the shameless way in which the government chose to free England of her criminals. Transportation was the answer for the slightest infringement or the worst crime. Transcending the purely historical, this indictment of what ravages personal power can effect on a dependent society is chilling in its objectivity and fairness. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Ben MacIntyre - Double Cross; The True Story of the D-Day Spies
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| This account of the deception at the heart of the preparations for D-Day offers an amazing and surreal insight into the minds and machinations of MI6 and reads like the best of thrillers; alarming to realise how destiny hangs by a thread, luck or human whim. The spies' bravery, treachery, greed and inspiration succeeded in convincing the Nazis that Calais and Norway were the targets of the invasion force. Our debt to them is enormous. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Iain Martin - Making it Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the Men who blew up the British Economy
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| Don't understand the complex financial instruments behind the economic meltdown of 2007? Neither did Fred Goodwin. This clear and lively account of how a conservative Scottish bank came to lead the charge to disaster shows Fred the Shred with all his considerable faults but others - from Gordon Brown to Mervyn King - don't emerge unscathed. Educational and, in a grisly way, highly entertaining. (Tony Pratt)
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| Russell Miller - Uncle Bill: The Authorised Biography of Field Marshall Viscount Slim
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| Must an authorised biography always become a hagiography? This one does which is a pity because it is well written for the lay reader (Miller is a journalist by trade) and it is fast paced. But it adds little more than can be found in Slim's own masterful Defeat into Victory. Uncle Bill lacks balance and nuance (and maps!) but does nothing to harm Slim's reputation as one of this country's finest generals ever. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Frederic Taylor - The Berlin Wall: 13 August 1961-9 November 1989
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| Visit Berlin today and you cannot avoid 20th Century history in all its enormity, pomp and misery. This is a highly informative and well researched record of Berlin's 28 divisive years. It dispels many myths too e.g. the death toll associated with partition was perhaps just over 200 (though one death is too many). The ultimate irony is that 24 years on, the city is once more dynamic and exciting, especially in the East. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Frances Wilson - How to Survive the Titanic: or The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay
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| A perceptive exposé of the chairman of the White Star Line, who instead of going down with the ship jumped into a lifeboat. Accused of cowardice, he survived hearings in the United States and England but spent his remaining 25 years in ignominy in Ireland. A fascinating biography but also a literary and social analysis - Conrad's Lord Jim is particularly cited - of the gentleman's role of honour, which obsessed the era leading up to and including WW I. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Ann Wroe - A Fool and his Money: Life in a Partitioned Medieval Town
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| Wroe, a historian, almost by chance started researching the French town of Rodez during the 14th century, where she unearthed the story of a merchant who couldn't remember where he had hidden his pot of gold. Following this thin thread of story, Wroe recreates the intense life of a town divided between two masters: intrigue, scandal and ordinary goings-on. Not a word is quoted that wasn't actually spoken. A truly wondrous piece of research.
(Annabel Bedini)
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| Feedback |
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| Gone Girl (bwl 69) was indeed a very good book, and unusual. I felt that it described very accurately all kinds of thoughts that w have in relationships but very rarely, if ever, put into words - interesting. (Polly Sams Plant) |
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| Although I didn't think Sweet Tooth (bwl 67) was as good as several of Ian McEwan's earlier books, I did thoroughly enjoy it. The circumstances could have helped. I downloaded it from Amazon's audible.co.uk, sat in our garden doing patchwork and listened to Juliet Stevenson reading in a voice that was perfect for the part of Serena the sultry siren! The twist at the end was a complete surprise and I admit there were a few tears as I praised McEwan's cleverness. (Denise Lewis)
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| I've just finished reading The Garden of Evening Mists (bwl 66 and 69) and found it as engrossing and captivating as the two reviewers did. A book really worth searching out. (Jenny Baker)
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