bwl 87 - Winter 2018
Fiction
| Amanda Craig - The Lie of the Land
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| A London couple cope financially with divorce by decamping, with children, to Devon. There are pluses and minuses as they find different ways to integrate with this new way of life which turns out to combine delight and nightmare in equal measure. Devon is certainly not a blank sheet. Funny and full of insights into both rural and city life, a gripping narrative races to a dramatic climax and some partial resolutions. Left me wanting to read more by this novelist. (Tony Pratt)
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| Charles Dickens - Martin Chuzzlewit
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| This was a tough read. Not that it was all bad, but it felt like someone copying Dickens and getting it all slightly wrong. The working-class side-kick was annoying, the plot meandered, the coincidences overly contrived (feel for the family that lost a child every time they appeared) and the character plot-twist at the end stretched credulity. Some good stuff too of course but it's never a good sign to be relived when you've finished. (Clive Yelf)
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| Tana French - In the Woods
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| For fans of detective stories this debut novel is a 'must read'. A 12-year old girl's body is found in a wood. Enter detective Rob Ryan and his side-kick Cassie. Rob is a complex character with a secret from his childhood that could be hugely significant on this case. A long book (too long!) but the characters are intriguing and the reader is really drawn in. I felt the ending was unsatisfactory but otherwise a good read for long winter days. (Mary Standing)
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| Esther Freud - Mr Mac and Me
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| Suffolk, WW I is about to begin: 13-year old Thomas Maggs is lame, his publican father a drunk; he has two sisters but all his brothers have died, their souls the starlings flying high over the churchyard. To his isolated coastal village comes a mysterious Scotsman and his beautiful wife. He is Charles Rennie Mackintosh; is he harmless; is he a spy? Freud using language like a painter's brush brings the characters and landscape vividly to life. (Jenny Baker)
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| Kate Griffin (aka Katharine Webb) - The Midnight Mayor
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| If you like Ben Aaronovitch you will like this. The second in a sequence of four following the adventures of Matthew Smith, a young sorcerer who has died but been reincarnated through the power of the electric waves of communication - The Blue Angels - that link us all. Wild, unrelenting in its action, imaginative. The Midnight Mayor keeps the City safe after the Lord Mayor has gone to bed. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Victoria Hislop - Cartes Postales from Greece
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| Another fascinating novel by Hislop with delightful photographs which really bring the country alive. At first difficult to place the characters in the here and now and work out who was who but not for long. Here is mystery, intrigue and a gentle love story set in the Greece she knows so well. All inspired by postcards plus a notebook which were meant for someone else. How I wish I'd had the courage to just "take off"! (Shirley Williams)
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| Haruki Murakami - Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage
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| Once there were five inseparable school friends but one is cold-shouldered by the rest who each declare independently that they never want to see him again. Accepting this shattering rejection stoically he leaves his home town for a new life. Decades later he wonders exactly why he was ostracised and goes in search of answers. It's a melancholic and reflective novel which would have been much shorter if he'd asked them in the first place. (Clive Yelf)
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| George Saunders - Lincoln in the Bardo
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| As an American, I learnt many appealing stories about Abraham Lincoln, none prepared me for this dark and heavy rendering of an intensely sad period in his life. I kept putting it down, resting from the hard work needing to digest it, then doggedly continuing. Yes I truly value and appreciate the unique style and scenario devised by this professor of creative writing. And yes, I did finish it. But did I enjoy it? I leave you to guess! (Sharron Calkins)
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| Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy
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| I missed this when it won prizes several years ago, but certainly recommend it as a great fireside companion for the remainder of winter! Don't be put off by the daunting thickness of the tome! It is an engaging tale of the intertwining of families, their personal and political relationships after Partition in India. I haven't finished it yet, but have friends waiting to borrow it, and one of them has read it twice already! (Margaret Teh)
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| Ali Smith - Autumn
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| I loved this novel. I was not prepared for its chaotic and disjointed structure but this did not affect my enjoyment of the book or my sympathy for its characters. What emerges is an account of London life, art and political events from the 1960s to Brexit and it made me take a new look at Pop Art along the way. (Judith Peppitt)
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| Edward St Aubyn - Dunbar
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| St Aubyn's re-working of King Lear for the Hogarth Press. So, Lear as...errr... Rupert Murdoch (!) a megalomaniac media mogul whose elder daughters have him locked up while taking over his empire. The story follows Lear pretty faithfully but I couldn't help reading it as black humour, the Goneril and Regan characters unbelievably villainous, the Fool as failed comedian, Edmund as pill-popping duplicitous Dr Bob.... Intentionally humorous or not, I confess I romped through it with - misguided? - glee. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Madeleine Thien - Do Not Say We Have Nothing
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| Shortlisted for the Man Booker, this is a densely, though beautifully written, epic that introduces us, in the West, to the effect and impact of Mao's Cultural Revolution on both the ordinary people of China and those of the cultured and talented classes. A constant theme throughout - the power of music. Some might prefer Jung Chang"s Wild Swans - but this is not to be ignored. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Angie Thomas - The Hate U Give
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| A must for anyone who enjoys writing for young adults. Sixteen-year old Starr is the only witness when her best friend, Khalil, is shot by a white policeman for no apparent reason. She herself inhabits two worlds - her own community and the posh white school she attends. How should she react? Immediate, challenging, uncomfortable, thought provoking but ultimately uplifting. (Ferelith Hordon)
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Non-Fiction
| John Crace - I, Maybot: The Rise and Fall
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| John Crace's political sketches for the Guardian have provided much needed comic relief from the desperate events that have overtaken the UK since the Brexit vote. His invention of the Maybot to characterise the Prime Minister's demeanour and behaviour have struck a chord and will be remembered long into the future when hopefully the sorry mess will have been resolved one way or another. This curated selection of his acerbic sketches is a 'must read'. (Jeremy Miller)
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| David Gilmour - The Film Club: No School. No Work ... Just Three Films a Week
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| How badly must your son be failing at school for you to take him out and home-school him with three films a week? Great to pick movies your child has to watch especially as mine would refuse any I suggested on principle, but this is so much more a book about the dynamics of a complicated father/son, complex coming-of-age relationship than the life-lessons in the movies themselves, making me mightily relieved to be relatively shallow. (Clive Yelf)
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| Luke Harding - Collusion: How Russia Helped Trump Win the White House
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| This book shines a light on the Russia-Trump connections prior to the American election. It reads like a thriller enlivened with wit and insight and shines a light on the Putin regime. Is it possible that a foreign country can be instrumental in getting someone into the White House? This book says it can. A time bomb - a congressional investigation is under way. Its conclusions could be devastating for Trump. Watch this space and read this book. (David Graham)
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| John Higgs - Watling Street: Travels Through Britain and Its Ever-Present Past
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| A journey from Dover to Anglesey in which the author explores English identity at a time when who we are and where we're going are live issues. A varied, if confused, picture emerges in which everything, from Robin Hood and St George to Bletchley Park and the prostitutes of 16th century Southwark, mixed up with the sometimes tatty everyday scene and the imaginings of counterculture, add up to something richer and deeper than the idea of a current selfie might suggest. (Tony Pratt)
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| Walter Isaacson - Leonardo Da Vinci
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| A serious book for the general reader but studiously researched with much detailed information and some surprises. Leonardo (from Vinci) ended up dying in France in 1519. We often think of him as a painter because of his famous The Mona Lisa and The Last Supper but his insatiable curiosity in anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry made him the true Renaissance man. This is an irresistible, illuminating account of an amazing, unique human being.
(James Baker)
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| Lisa Jardine - Going Dutch: How England plundered Holland's glory
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| Sadly in almost her last full-length history before her untimely death, Professor Jardine - an inspirational communicator and a renowned historian - tells the less well known story of the Dutch coup d'état that brought William and Mary to the English throne in 1688 in a somewhat muddled fashion. The historical narrative becomes quite difficult to follow through her constantly moving backwards and forwards in time and between England and Holland. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Patrick Leigh Fermor - The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos
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| Was it worth the wait? Maybe. In the weeks before his death in 2011, PLF was still working on the draft of the third and last volume of his trilogy describing his epic journey from London to Constantinople in 1932 (bwl 33). It doesn't have the magic or the charm of the earlier two, nor disappointingly does he write about arriving at his destination. Instead, the last third of the book is devoted to an uneventful excursion to Mount Athos. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Michael Lewis - The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World
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| Thomas Carlyle called economics the dismal science. What would he have called behavioural economics? Lewis turns his attention to this burgeoning field by focussing on the friendship between two notable Israeli practitioners. I am unconvinced that this new craze advances human understanding or that it really is a science. Lewis's usual frenetic writing style doesn't make the subject any more exciting. After reading this book, Carlyle might conclude that 'dreary' might be an appropriate epithet. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Anthony McCarten - Darkest Hour: How Churchill Brought us Back from the Brink Film Tie-In
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| I devoured in a day this book which encompasses the events of May 1940 when Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. He inspired the nation with his great oratory and turned back the appeasers and fainthearted who wanted to negotiate with Hitler. I lived through this time and this book is a testament to his greatness with copious references to his magnificent speeches. We shall never see his like again. (David Graham)
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| Jon Morris - The League of Regrettable Superheroes: Half-Baked Heroes from Comic Book History
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| We all know about Superman, Batman and the rest of them, but spare a thought for Dr Hormone, Bee-Man, Rainbow Boy and Doll Man, superheroes whose powers were, well a bit rubbish really. You couldn't fault their enthusiasm though and despite having short shelf-lives in their respective publications their back-stories provide either a fascinating commentary on the ills of their society or a good chuckle at their bizarre attempts to address it. Or both. (Clive Yelf)
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| Iris Origo - A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary 1939-1940
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| Anyone who has read War in Val d'Orcia (bwl 2) will be fascinated by Origo's diary of the years leading up to the war. A real eye-opener to discover how desperately the Italian rural population trusted Mussolini to keep them out of the war. Also fascinating to see how propaganda turned Britain into the hated arch-enemy and foresaw its apparent downfall with immense satisfaction. As for Anglo-American Iris trying to keep sane under these circumstances, well, heroic! (Annabel Bedini)
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| Iris Origo - Images and Shadows: Part of a Life
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| And here are Origo's memoirs . . . Her privileged upbringing - America, Ireland, then Fiesole - gave her a breadth and depth of sympathy which illuminated her life both as chatelaine of the Val d'Orcia estate and as biographer. The worlds she evokes may be lost but her intelligent, perceptive attitude to life are for all time. She says 'It has only been through my affections that I have been able to perceive, however imperfectly, some faint "Intimations of Immortality"'. There you go! (Annabel Bedini)
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| Geoffrey Parker - edited by - The Thirty Years' War
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| Many people, I'm sure, avoid reading about this most complicated and confusing crisis in early modern history because it almost defies understanding. Four hundred years later, however, we can still see the impact on the shape and development of modern Europe caused by the political, economic and military events of 1618-1648. The clarity and liveliness of this concise book throws new light on the contorted politics and should spark enthusiasm for further study. (Jeremy Miller)
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| John Preston - A Very English Scandal:Sex, Lies and a Murder Plot at the Heart of the Establishment
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| The tragicomedy of Jeremy Thorpe's trial for attempted murder, also featuring, among others, his gay henchman, a supportive MP, a male model and Rinka the dog. Add in a 'chicken-brained' hit man and an outstanding but drunken defence counsel and you have rich entertainment. The author had access to new material plus the freedom which the death of most of the principals allows. They took some of the story with them however. What remains almost defies belief. (Tony Pratt)
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| Nigel Slater - The Christmas Chronicles
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| A glorious appreciation and evocation of winter and Christmas. The book includes personal memories, historical facts, anecdotes and recipes. His pleasure in Christmases past and present is infectious. I was amused by his dislike (somewhat shared) of e-cards. I was utterly caught up in the sights, sounds and smells of these months. Also there is the bonus of additional, delicious recipes to try. I have noted to start reading it again in November this year! (Christine Miller)
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| Rosamund Young - The Secret Life of Cows
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| The author has spent her whole life on the farm where she grew up; she knows and names every animal she rears, studies and records their moods and behaviour with humour, understanding and respect. When I was a child I was terrified of cows, fearsome creatures who with heads lowered, trundled menacingly towards us as we walked passed their field. Now I understand they were just curious and saying hello. It's a delight, read it in one go! (Jenny Baker)
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Poetry
| William Sieghart - The Poetry Pharmacy: Tried and True Prescriptions for the Heart, Mind and Soul |
| As a lonely eight-year old at boarding school Sieghart found solace in reading poetry aloud and has spent his life promoting the healing power of verse. This books includes a selection of the many he has prescribed over the years, each poem carefully chosen to give strength, comfort and encouragement. Enjoy it as a straightforward anthology of verse or put it aside to be reached when things go wrong and life looks bleak. (Jenny Baker) |
| Feedback |
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For those of us who read Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy (bwl 9, 55 and this issue) so passionately the promise of a sequel - A Suitable Girl* - is a wonderful piece of news. My sisters, parents and I belong to those who read the whole book and didn't find it too long, we loved it and inhabited that world during the weeks or months we read it - an amazing novel, comparable only to One Hundred Years of Solitude (bwl 41). But you need to concentrate! (Sally Gutierrez)
*Ed. Note: Due to be published in June this year
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