bookswelike

bwl 76 - Spring 2015

Fiction

Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London

Peter Grant, constable, has just discovered a corpse in Covent Garden; but the only witness has been dead for a century. So begins Peter's initiation into an arcane and secret arm of the Metropolitan Police. Lively, fun and with more than a touch of Pratchett humour, this is detection with magic - not forgetting the feuding Mama Thames and Father Thames with their family - the rivers of London. (Ferelith Hordon)

Eleanor Catton - The Luminaries

You will either love this book or be extremely irritated by it - always supposing you have the stamina to read beyond page 300. I loved it, and found the artificial construction fascinating. At heart it is a murder mystery, in which twelve men whose characters reflect the signs of the zodiac are all unreliable narrators. Following the pattern of the moon, the narrative ends where it began. Very clever, beautifully written. (Ferelith Hordon)

Louise Doughty - Apple Tree Yard

Yvonne, a scientist working in London, is a self-described ordinary woman, happily and comfortably married with two grown-up children. Little does she know, when one day she meets a stranger and starts a passionate affair, how her life will change forever. It is - as one critic said - totally addictive and I could hardly stop reading until the very end. (Polly Sams Plant)

Elena Ferrante - My Brilliant Friend

Volume one of the recently translated quartet of Neapolitan novels by a writer who insists on anonymity. The books span the sixty years of a friendship which begins in post-war Naples between two small girls who from childhood onwards struggle to break free from the restraints of Italy's macho dominated society. Characters, situations and places come alive on the page but you need to concentrate to remember all the connections and beware, read this first one and you could be hooked. (Jenny Baker)

Penelope Fitzgerald - The Blue Flower

After reading Hermione Lee's brilliant biography of Penelope Fitzgerald I've been discovering the novels. Based on the life of the young Fritz von Hardenburg (the German writer Novalis), living in Saxony at the end of the 18th century, this is both a love story and a fascinating account of local life at that time. The writing is economical, highly intelligent and amusing. The narrative rambles, but seems even more true to life for that. (Victoria Grey-Edwards)

Alice La Plante - Turn of Mind

Gripping, sad and not to be recommended to anyone with a family member or friend suffering from Alzheimer's, as does the ex-surgeon, protagonist of this book - who is also accused of murder. Written mainly in the first person, the style is intriguing and the characters are subtly portrayed. (Ange Guttierez Dewar)

Jonathan Little - The Kindly Ones

An extraordinary exploration of evil and culpability recording actual events and characters narrated as a memoir by an educated, cultured but fictitious senior SS officer. If ordinary men, through a sense of duty, loyalty and ambition, desensitised by war, participate in organised systematic genocide, what happens to a psychologically damaged man in the same situation? Is the seed of evil within us all and how would we act in order to survive, personally and as a nation? A harrowing and disturbing masterpiece!
Winner of Le Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française and the Prix Goncourt in 2006 (Denise Lewis)

Stephen May - Wake Up Happy Every Day

A struggling English couple staying with a friend in San Francisco make the most of his sudden death and become hugely rich. The plot thickens and draws in a selection of characters (though the change from person to person does take some persistence) to create a rather implausible but irresistible thriller with many pithy and quite thoughtful comments on all sorts of things. It's a light and amusing read, though I skimmed some of the digressions. (Victoria Grey-Edwards)

Ian McEwan - The Children Act

Sometimes suspiciously perfect, here McEwan presents a moral dilemma with great insight. Should Fiona Maye - respected Family Law judge - rule that Jehovah's Witness Adam must accept a blood transfusion? Round this central theme and its repercussions McEwan explores wider questions of religion versus a lay society, personal values versus a 'greater' good and, in the end, self-interest versus compassion. Maye's own marital troubles may seem superfluous but perhaps save this novel from becoming a treatise. Impeccable and involving! (Annabel Bedini)

Patrick Modiano - Missing Person

An amnesiac's attempts to find out who he is take him to a loose grouping of expatriates in occupied France and to the traumatic experiences which may have triggered his amnesia. By implication our lives are as murky and shifting as the life of the nation itself. In both cases, memory fades, the scene changes and betrayal hovers. Not for you if you dislike loose ends but it resonated with me for the way hidden lives slip out of sight. (Tony Pratt)

Richard Russo - Empire Falls

An intertwined group of lives in a Maine town which is in long term decline. Sometimes grim things underlie the lives and befall the characters. Doesn't sound like a lot of fun? Actually it is rich in humour, sometimes laugh out loud, and the characters and their setting are compelling. You feel that you can see them across the street. Not sure about the ending but getting there was absorbing and plugs you into the American experience. (Tony Pratt)

Jane Shemilt - Daughter

Wife, mother, doctor, juggling a busy life, until one night her teenage daughter goes missing. As her life unravels, Jenny discovers nothing was as she thought, certainties evaporate and layers of family secrets emerge. Cleverly told, alternately leading up to and following the disappearance, it's a tense page turner. (Sue Pratt)

Non-Fiction

Jeremy Bernstein - Cranks, Quarks and the Cosmos: Essays on Science and Scientists

Not being a scientist I do really enjoy a bit of science reading for a glimpse of a totally different world and Bernstein does the job admirably. I think it really helps that the author is himself a theoretical physicist as he chooses his subjects and topics with the eye of someone who really knows who or what is significant and why, and his skill as an author make for an informative and stimulating read. (Clive Yelf)

Countess of Carnarvon - Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The lost legacy of Highclere Castle

Julian Fellowes's successful series, filmed at Highclere Castle - for centuries the seat and home to the Carnarvon family - inspired Fiona, the 8th Countess to write a biography of her predecessor, the 5th Countess. She succeeds brilliantly in welding biography and history together to form a valuable picture of people and politics when the great English country style was at its apogee and its aftermath both during and after WW I. She also includes the fascinating story of the 5th Lord Carnarvon and the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)

Thomas Hauser - Muhammed Ali: His Life and Times

Ali's life told by those that worked, lived, fought and were employed by him and undoubtedly the best biography of a sporting figure I've ever read. Always a divisive figure, time allows a true appreciation of his turbulent life - the black consciousness movement, conversion to Islam, and his stand on the Vietnam War. That a single sportsman, however good, could act as such a social lightning-rod makes for a complex and a truly remarkable story. (Clive Yelf)

Laura Hillenbrand - Unbroken

Not one to like or enjoy. It's impossible to like reading about the indescribable suffering the main character, a famous athlete, experienced as a Japanese P.O.W. and impossible to enjoy reading about his crashing into the Pacific and what he and two other airmen underwent, constantly attacked by sharks, half-starving, drifting thousands of miles. However, this story of an extraordinary man, who not only survived but was capable of forgiveness, needed to be told and read. (Ange Guttierez Dewar)

Angela Jackson - For us it was Heaven

This is a biography of an Englishwoman who worked as a nurse during the Spanish Civil War and who was probably the only Englishwoman to serve in the International Brigade, her name was Patience Darton. The story is both passionate and sad and shows what great fortitude she possessed. It is a part of history I did not really know about and at times it is quite frightening. Worth reading. (Shirley Williams)

Marie Jalowicz Simon - Gone to Ground: One woman's extraordinary account of survival in the heart of Nazi Germany

This is a memoir of a young Jewish woman who during WW II lived underground in Berlin under an assumed identity. In constant fear of discovery, she was helped by anti-Nazi Germans at great risk to themselves. Her story is a triumph of the human spirit against impossible odds. She survived her ordeal and went on to a distinguished academic career. (David Graham)

Boris Johnson - The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History

So personally involved with his subject, nonetheless amazingly fair and objective, written with huge respect, love, understanding and an enormous sense of history, scholarly but not pedantic, never failing to explain the opposition's point of view, this is an extraordinary book written about an extraordinary man by another; in this case one can really say it takes one to know one. Churchill comes alive again, warts and all; a unique and most rewarding experience from one politician to another. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)

Roger Knight - Britain against Napoleon: The Organisation of Victory 1793-1815

This unique study focusses on the backroom boys (alas all boys) such as Inspectors of Telegraphs, Transport Office Commissioners and Secretaries at War. Without them, better known Admirals and Generals could not have pursued and eventually delivered (from a British perspective) the successful outcome of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Despite the degree to which the whole nation was involved, we came close to losing. There are lessons in all of this for today. (Jeremy Miller)

Michael Lewis - Flash Boys: Cracking the money code

Read this short but shocking tale if you want to understand why a man from Hounslow allegedly caused the flash crash of 2010, wiping billions of dollars off the value of America's biggest companies in a matter of seconds. Written in a somewhat breathless style, it introduces us to the frightening world of high-frequency trading. By the end, we might just understand what an algorithm is but, I venture, not how it works. (Jeremy Miller)

A J Libelling - The Sweet Science

Boxing journalism from the age of the ringside flash-bulb, Liebling's articles not only evoke the sight and sounds of the gyms and rings, but also of the characters inhabiting them. But he does this with a very literary style, referencing and comparing contemporary bouts with contests that had taken place centuries beforehand, quoting previous chroniclers of the 'noble art' with a reverence and respect that elevates his own work above that of mere fight commentator. (Clive Yelf)

Simon Louvish - Keystone: The Life and Clowns of Mack Sennett

A name from the earliest, chaotic days of the movies, I was never really sure what he was - Director? Actor? Clown? All of the above but Sennett made (and lost) his fortune as the founder of Keystone Studios, discovering and developing so many silent era stars that 'Start with Sennett, get rich somewhere else!' became a Hollywood cliché. Caught by the Wall Street crash and the rise of cartoons his reign was brief but colourful. (Clive Yelf)

Helen Macdonald - H is for Hawk

Not a handbook on how to train a hawk, let alone a goshawk but a beautifully written account of the author's coming to terms with the loss of her father through the process of understanding and gaining the trust of a wild predator. The stages of the bird's development mirror the stages of her grieving until the moment when it is introduced to its adult home and she finds she can now face her own future. (James Baker)

Tim Parks - Italian Ways: On and off the rails from Milan to Palermo

For Parks fans, a must. How can a whole book about rail travel possibly be hilarious, informative and absolutely not boring? Starting with his awful experiences as a commuter, Parks sets off to discover the rest of Italy's rail system with all its inconsistencies, inefficiencies, absurdities and unexpected delights. Parks offers his experiences as a sort of microcosm of what Italy is like, with his usual mixture of exasperation, affection and, on occasion, real respect. A true delight! (Annabel Bedini)

Raja Shehadeh - Language of War, Language of Peace: Palestine, Israel and the Search for Justice

This book by a distinguished Palestinian who lives in Ramallah eloquently describes the ongoing conflict. This and the author's other book, Palestinian Walks, should be read by anyone interested in the background of this tragedy. (David Graham)

Feedback

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I read Down the Common on the strength of the bwl 75 review and thoroughly enjoyed it. It offers a fascinating insight into daily life in the Middle Ages together with a real feel for the characters and their mind set. While they knew of no other existence, I was left feeling profoundly grateful to have been born into the twentieth century. The sheer back-breaking, unending struggle simply to survive against the elements, endless discomforts and the shadow of death are omnipresent. Beautifully illustrated by the author and with fine descriptive prose. (Sue Pratt)

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I'd second Jenny Baker's praise of Lamentation (bwl 75). Very well-researched, it tells you a lot about the times, notably the lethal issue of religion and the ruthlessness of the Court, and C J Sansom's plot is refreshingly unsentimental. For me the best of the series so far and seems to have set up new circumstances for further stories. Good!
I'd also like to endorse the favourable comments for Michael Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White (bwl 17 and 68) - a very entertaining modern take on the Victorian novel which reminded me of The French Lieutenant's Woman. A long story - which for me dragged only with some overlong diary extracts - gave new perspectives on London, industry, religion and the position of women while depicting a believable set of characters and keeping you interested in what was happening to them. (Tony Pratt)

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