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1066 - The Hidden History of the Bayeux Tapestry by Andrew Bridgeford |
Was this famous tapestry a faithful recording of the Normans' version of events leading to William the Conqueror's invasion of England or does it have a subversive sub-text which suggests the whole enterprise was based on a series of lies? Whether you've seen or hope to see the original or have enjoyed the Victorian copy in Reading Museum, this book makes intriguing reading as it attempts to unravel the truth, image by image.
(bwl 29 April 2005) |
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A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo |
When the author arrived in London she began a diary which became the seed for this romantic comedy - written in deliberately bad English - about a Chinese girl's attempts to understand the language, weird customs and attitudes she encounters. Then she meets an Englishman who changes everything and she enters a new world of sex, freedom and self-discovery in which she learns that the Chinese meaning of Love is sometimes different to that of the West's.
*Shortlisted for the Orange Broadband prize for fiction 2007
(bwl 41 August 2007) |
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A Dog's Heart by Mikhail Bulgakov |
What happens when a rather touching stray dog, accidentally scalded by water, is rescued by an eminent scientist only to become the victim of a bizarre experiment in humanisation, involving the implanting of the pituitary gland and testicles of an alcoholic criminal? You've guessed it, disaster. Written in 1925, but not published in Russia until 1987, this short novel is both magic realism and a comic, scathing satire on the Stalinists' attempts to manipulate human behaviour.
(bwl 65 Summer 2012) |
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A Gesture Life by Lee Chang-Rae |
'Doc' Hata, a Japanese, is a revered elder in a small town in the States. The novel explores his relationships with his adopted daughter and the American woman he almost loved together with his repressed memories of K, the Korean girl who was forced to be one of the 'comfort women' pressed into sexual services during the Second World War. I had to keep turning the pages even though some passages were almost unbearable.
(bwl 5 October 2000) |
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A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson |
This companion piece to Life After Life (bwl 69) follows Teddy Todd, bomber pilot in WW II. Atkinson loves playing with time, alternate lives, the what-ifs and might-have-beens. The chapters are not arranged chronologically, so we are often aware of what will happen before we discover what has gone before. Amazing writing - especially descriptions of Bomber Command's missions over Germany. A perceptive, thought-provoking novel about the fall of man and the indelible legacy of war.
(bwl 77 Summer 2015) |
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A Good Place to Die by James Buchan |
In 1974, a young Englishman teaching in Isfahan finds himself involved with one of his pupils, who is the daughter of a General and an Iranian princess. The lovers elope, are separated and he spends the next years searching for her in the prisons and battlefields of Iran's new world. This is a book to savour, gripping and enigmatic, part love-story, part political-thriller, it paints a chilling picture of a country ruled by oppression.
(bwl 7 February 2001) |
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A Horseman Riding By (trilogy) by R M Delderfield |
Looking for a long Autumn read to while away those darkeninbg days? Look no further than this nostalgic saga in which idealistic Paul Craddock returning from the Boer war becomes squire of an estate in rural Devon. The three books follow his life, his loves, his hopes, his dreams and that of his tenants as two world wars disrupt their lives. Kick off your shoes, relax and enjoy!
(bwl 110 Autumn 2023) |
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A Legacy by Sybille Bedford |
Like Jigsaw (bwl 27 and 39) this enthralling novel is semi-autobiographical. Set in Germany, France and Spain, it traces the history of Bedford's family before WW l. Her father was a German aristocrat her mother a Jewish-German who was partly English. Based on fragments, memories, hints and half revealed secrets there is something Proust-like about its style but happily minus the longueurs. If you enjoyed The Hare with Amber Eyes, I think this is one for you.
(bwl 61 Summer 2011) |
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A Life in Secrets by Sarah Helm |
During WW II 400 + agents were sent to France, many did not return, including 12 young women. When hostilities ended Vera Atkins, who worked for the Special Operation Executive's French section, made it her mission to uncover their fate, a harrowing trail which led to Natzweiler, Ravensbrüch and Dachau. This book traces that mission but also sets out to unravel the roots of Vera Atkins herself, a woman who deliberately shrouded herself in mystery.
(bwl 43 December 2007) |
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A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro |
This is Ishiguro's first novel recently reissued by Faber and as elusive and as captivating as his later works. The narrator, middle-aged Etsuko, shifts between her present life in England and her memories of one hot summer just after WW II in Nagasaki which conjure up her relationship with a mysterious woman and her strange, little daughter. As in a dream we are never quite sure what is happening or quite who anyone is.
(bwl 52 July 2009) |
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A Parrot in the Pepper Tree by Chris Stewart |
Want a light-hearted, feel good read? Then look no further, especially if you have enjoyed Chris Stewart's best-selling, Driving Over Lemons (bwl 1). This continues the story of life in Las Alpujarras as well as a look-back at his earlier days, sheep shearing in midwinter Sweden and as a school boy drumming for Genesis. It's not all idyllic, in fact a lot of it is distinctly uncomfortable and not many of us would actually want the parrot!
(bwl 15 October 2002) |
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A Question of Loyalties by Alan Massie |
I read this novel when it was first published in 1989 and second time around, I found it as lucid and moving as I remembered. It tells the story of a son's attempts to discover the part his father played in the Vichy government. Was he a misguided patriot or a treacherous collaborator? In telling his story, Massie manages to tell a much bigger one, that of war-torn France itself. A brilliant piece of writing.
(bwl 37 December 2006) |
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A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka |
What do you do when your recently widowed 84 year old, Ukrainian Dad - who happens to be writing a history of tractors - falls in love with a voluptuous, gold-digger, half his age, who is intent on getting a foothold in the West, no matter what it costs? Well, you close ranks even though you and your sister have been feuding for years. A wonderfully comic and perceptive novel, with acutely observed characters.
(bwl 31 September 2005) |
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A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini |
Set in Afghanistan, this story of two women - both forced to marry an ignorant and brutal man - becomes a sort of metaphor for the turbulent history of that country from pre-Soviet invasion to Taliban rule, portraying all the horrors of war: loss, repression, starvation, physical and mental abuse. Yet finally the women find some sort of redemption through the power of love. It's an immensely readable and worthy successor to The Kite Runner (bwl 29).
(bwl 42 October 2007) |
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A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson |
Seven-year old Clara is looking after next door's cat while trying to make sense of life, the grown-ups don't tell her anything: what happened to Rose her run-away sister, why doesn't Mrs Orchard come out of hospital and who is Liam, the solitary man now living in her house? Why are the police involved and what happened thirty years ago? With this redemptive tale of grief, remorse and love Lawson has once again made magic.
(bwl 102 Autumn 2021) |
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A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman |
1947: Marvellous Ways is 89 years old, she sits by the river bank in a Cornish creek, with a telescope searching for someone or something, she knows not what. Drake is a traumatised soldier from WW II on a mission to fulfil a dying man's wishes. Their paths cross in Winman's life-affirming tale as the old woman comes to his aid. Magical - a delicious fairy-tale for grown-ups.
(bwl 106 Autumn 2022) |
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About Grace by Anthony Doerr |
David is crippled by the prophetic nature of his dreams until one night, with floodwaters surrounding his home, he has a nightmare in which he fails to save his baby daughter, Grace. Believing this will somehow save her, he flees and beaches up on a remote Carribbean island forever tormented by not knowing if she survived. After two decades he musters the strength to find out . . . Doerr's first novel, a feast of lyrical, descriptive prose, full of the promise of things to come.
(bwl 107 Winter 2023) |
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Absolutely & Forever by Rose Tremain |
15-year old Marianne falls in love, absolutely and forever, with 18-year old Simon. Just a crush her mother says. But love, a crush, whatever will haunt her through her teenage years, into her twenties and beyond. Sounds a bit trashy? Think again. This is Rose Tremain and her wit, humour and believable characters carry you through to the end.
(bwl 111 Winter 2024) |
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Accidence (Shall) Will Happen: the non-pedantic guide to English Usage by Oliver Kamm |
Is it Mothers' Day or Mother's Day? Does it matter if I sometimes split an infinitive? Is a man hung or hanged? Should I never use a preposition to end a sentence with? This is a book for those who love the strength of the English language, it's ability to change and grow and can recognise that some so-called rules are just conventions. The author, a self-confessed former stickler, is a Times columnist and leader writer.
(bwl 80 Spring 2016) |
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Alex Through the Looking-Glass: How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life by Alex Bellos |
This is a book aimed at people like me who can't quite get their heads around the alien world of maths and numbers. How can everything just be reduced to an equation? But perhaps reduced is the wrong word, perhaps it should be expanded? Not ideal bed-time reading, you need to concentrate and you might need a pencil and paper, so best taken in stages and gradually you will feel your understanding stretching.
(bwl 73 Summer 2014) |
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All Our Worldly Goods by Irène Némirovsky |
This novel first appeared in France in 1947 five years after Némirovsky'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.
(bwl 54 November 2009) |
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An Equal Music by Vikram Seth |
A book about love lost and found and lost again set against a background of music. I found it totally absorbing and it made me want to rush out and buy all the CDs of the pieces he mentions.
(bwl 1 January 2000) |
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An Uncertain Hour - The French, The Germans, The Jews, The Klaus Barbie Trial, and the City of Lyon, 1940-1945 by Ted Morgan |
Why were the French so easily defeated and why did so many collaborate, either actively or passively with the Germans? This fascinating and disturbing book provides some answers. As well as details of the Barbie trial, it covers many stories including the search for the Resistance leader, Jean Moulin, the disastrous struggle of the maquis in the Vercors and the tale of the fate of the 44 inhabitants of the Jewish children's home in Izieu.
(bwl 38 February 2007) |
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Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje |
Ondaatje is a poet as well as a novelist, so the writing is full of imagery. It's central theme concerns Anil Tissera, a forensic anthropologist working for a human rights organisation, and her mission to find the source of the campaigns of murder engulfing Sri Lanka. It's very dark, occasionally funny, sometimes obscure. It's a great read, though not perhaps at bedtime
(bwl 5 October 2000) |
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Any Human Heart by William Boyd |
Logan Montstuart's story and that of the 20th century is told through the diary he kept intermittently from 1923 to his final years in France. It is so cleverly crafted that encouraged by the discreet footnotes, the list of his works and the index at the back you could be forgiven for believing this is not fiction but a real diary written by a real person. If you enjoyed the recent TV dramatisation, the book is even better.
(bwl 59 Winter 2011) |
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Apeirogon by Colum McCann |
With their blessing, McCann tells the story of two fathers - one Israeli, the other Palestinian - both have lost daughters, one to an army sniper, the other to a suicide bomber - and their desire to bring about reconcialiation by standing together to tell their stories to the world. At first its disparate sections are confusing but like the title are part of the metaphor for the peoples of Jerusalem with their seemingly endless differences going back through the centuries. A dazzling, thought-provoking read.
(bwl 103 Winter 2022) |
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Bel Canto by Ann Patchett |
In an impoverished South American country, terrorists, intent on kidnapping their country's president, storm an international gathering. He however has stayed at home to watch his favourite soap so the unlucky guests are taken hostage. They include an American opera diva, a Japanese tycoon and his interpreter. Security forces surround the house, days stretch into weeks then months, bonds and friendships form lulling hostages and captors into a dreamlike state which they never want to end. *winner of this year's Orange prize
(bwl 14 July 2002) |
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Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman |
American Pearlman seems to have burst onto the British literary scene and taken all the cognoscenti totally by surprise. Her short stories, which span 40 years of writing, take us around the world from tsarist Russia, to London during the blitz, from Central America to Maine, from Jerusalem to Massachusetts. They are sad, funny, perceptive and always thought provoking, each one engaging the mind long afterwards. A collection to savour and eke out carefully, one by one.
(bwl 77 Summer 2015) |
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Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks |
Re-reading this book I realised no one had reviewed it, perhaps because it was published before we began. Set in France before and during WW I, it ranks amongst the best novels about the so-called Great War with an immensely moving and erotic love story at its centre. Real flesh and blood characters endure all the horrors of war within the confines of conventions that must be followed, social positions observed. Not to be missed.
(bwl 43 December 2007) |
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Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes |
Some followers of Sylvia Plath are deeply suspicious of Ted Hughes's motives for publishing this collection, written over a 25 year period following her suicide, chronicling the love and pain of their relationship. But Seamus Heaney says it all: "To read Birthday letters is to experience the psychic equivalent of 'the bends'. It takes you down to levels of pressure where the undertruths of sadness and endurance leave you gasping . . . "
(bwl 10 August 2001) |
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Black Orchids by Gillian Slovo |
It begins romantically in post-war Ceylon when Evelyn falls in love with and marries a rich, young Sinhalese, but things change when they settle in England and face the 1950s' prejudice against mixed-race families. Slovo beautifully captures the attitudes of the time, the gradual disintegration of a marriage and the struggles of the children to feel at home in their skin and to forgive the failures, lies and ultimately the suffocating love of their parents.
(bwl 55 Winter 2010) |
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Black Swan Green by David Mitchell |
Covert stammerer and secret poet, 13 year old Jason Taylor is growing up in the deadest village in England, anticipating a stultifying year but he hasn't reckoned with smouldering family discord, a junta of bullies, the Falklands War, a Gypsy invasion, an eccentric old lady or the weird behaviour of creatures called girls. Sometimes funny, sometimes painful, this novel brilliantly evokes the bewildering world of adolescence. It surely must be semi-autobiographical.
(bwl 41 August 2007) |
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Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris |
Set in London, Pog Hill and Lansquenet, the French village in 'Chocolat' (see March list), this is the story of Jay and his boyhood mentor, Jackapple Joe, whose ghostly presence pervades his adult life. Some of the villagers reappear but there are others too, like the reclusive Marise and her daughter, Rosa. Much of it is hugely enjoyable, though I was irritated by the narrator, a 1962 Fleurie, and thought Jay's mother and girlfriend were a little overdrawn.
(bwl 5 October 2000) |
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Booth by Karen Joy Fowler |
Encouraged by the review in bwl 107 I was curious to read this book. Like many British people, the only thing I knew about Lincoln's assassination was it happened in a theatre but by whom I had no idea. It's a fascinating read in which Fowler breathes life into Booth and his extraordinary family in a way denied to the writer of straight-forward biography. Purists turn away!
(bwl 109 Summer 2023) |
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Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel |
Anne Boleyn's final years - hand-in-hand with Thomas Cromwell, we follow the route he devised to engineer her fall from grace. Everything is through his eyes, we see only what he saw or wanted to see, so there is no visible torture, no rack although their shadow is everywhere. A must for lover's of Wolf Hall (bwl 55); I thought it even better, especially as Mantell seems to have dropped her irritating habit of not making clear who is actually speaking.
(bwl 65 Summer 2012) |
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Broadsword Calling Danny Boy: On Where Eagles Dare by Geoff Dyer |
Is it really fifty years since Burton and Eastwood made that daring raid to free an American General imprisoned in the Nazi fortress Schloss Adler? It was every young boy's dream film. Film critic Dyer was one of them and now, as a kind of tribute, he has written this funny scene-by-scene account of the impossible but thrilling escapades of its heroes. Never mind if you haven't seen it, read the book and for sure you will want the DVD!
(bwl 91 Winter 2019) |
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Brooklyn by Colm Tóibin |
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.
(bwl 56 Spring 2010) |
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Buddha Da by Anne Donovan |
If like me you usually avoid books written in dialect, make this one an exception. It works. How would you cope if your Da, a down-to-earth Glaswegian decorator, turned to meditation and became a Buddhist? If you're his wife, you'd probably rejoice if he gave up drinking with his mates but what would you do when he announces he needs to be celibate on his path to enlightenment? Comic, poignant - truly a must-read.
(bwl 23 April 2004) |
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Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China by Hilary Spurling |
After reading The Good Earth (bwl 58), I turned to this engrossing biography of the author. Her domineering father - an archetypal zealous missionary - dragged his sweet-tempered wife and young family to China but despite or perhaps because of the atmosphere of religious fervour, it was Pearl's empathy with the Chinese that shaped her imagination, leading her to become one of the greatest writers on the country which remained her spiritual home throughout her adulthood in America.
(bwl 59 Winter 2011) |
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Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres |
Published in 1995 this is as compelling as ever in its telling of the WW II German massacre of the Italians on the Greek island of Cephalonia. Yes, there is a touching love story but unlike the film it does not dominate, instead we view events through the experiences of all three nationalities. It is a passionate indictment of how War and a belief in racial superiority corrupted so many. The writing is so gripping, the characters so real that it is truly unputdownable.
(bwl 98 Autumn 2020) |
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Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood |
If you experienced the subtle bullying that so-called best friends can inflict on a child, this book will strike a chord. It tells the story of Elaine, a painter, who because of an exhibition, returns reluctantly to Toronto where she grew up. Long buried memories begin to surface and as the story unfolds so are revealed the miseries she underwent at the hands of her tormentor Cordelia. This is Margaret Atwood at her best.
(bwl 4 July 2000) |
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Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo |
0n a small Caribbean island, a male nurse, with problems of identity, is assigned to take care of a demented old woman whose past he gradually unfolds. What are the unspeakable secrets hidden in her house? What turned her father into a monster? Where are her mother and her mother's lover? Did her sister just abandon her? And the old man who comes to visit, who is he? Dark, crackling with energy and vivid descriptions.
(bwl 32 November 2005) |
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Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahar Delijani |
Written by a young exiled Iranian - apart from some early chapters in which the writing is overblown - this is a disturbing and moving account of children growing up with the knowledge, often unspoken, always there, of the terrible things suffered by their parents' generation resisting the fundamentalism following the '79 revolution. Shifting backwards and forwards in time, the Jacaranda Tree, throwing its shadow over all their lives, becomes the symbol of love and hope.
(bwl 72 Spring 2014) |
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Chocolat by Joanne Harris |
On Shrove Tuesday Vianne Rocher, opens a chocolate boutique in a village in SW France and becomes embroiled with Father Reynaud (who has his own demons) in a battle for the hearts of the villagers. It's an exotic tale, beautifully written, full of the pungent smells of chocolate and spices.
(bwl 2 March 2000) |
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Chronicles of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez |
In just 122 pages Marquez brings to life a small Colombian community in which everyone is complicit to a murder which is about to happen including the victim. They all know but no one does anything, all of them waiting for someone else to do something. 27 years later a man returns to try and piece together what happened and why. Read it once, straight through, then read it again. Was it really a honour killing? Are you sure?
(bwl 94 Autumn 2019) |
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Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris |
This sequel to The Tattooist of Auschwitz (bwl 89) is loosely based on a Holocaust survivor and her time in a Russian gulag. Her family have disowned it as a distortion of the truth. It's a pity, perhaps, the author used the name of a real person who did survive, but differently. Nevertheless, it is a compelling read and indictment of the terrible things humans do to each other. True 16-year old Cilka would do anything to survive but would we have been any better?
(bwl 97 Summer 2020) |
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Citadel by Kate Mosse |
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.
(bwl 70 Autumn 2013) |
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Clara by Janice Galloway |
This brilliant novel tells the remarkable story of Clara, wife of Robert Schumann, friend of Brahms. A child prodigy, taught by her father, destined for a glowing career under his control. But love intervened and after fierce opposition, she broke away and married. One of life's survivors, despite having 8 children and being 'only a woman', she continued to teach, compose and perform throughout Europe to support her family and her adored but increasingly unbalanced husband.
(bwl 21 November 2003) |
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Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr |
Somewhere in the future, Konstance is lost in Outer Space; in 1453 an orphaned girl and a disfigured boy strive to escape the siege of Contantinople; in 2020 Idaho, a young misfit plots revenge on an uncaring world - all share a link with an ancient Greek text describing a lowly shepherd's search for the perfect state. You need to concentrate as the narrative shifts from one perspective to another but just relax and let Doerr's gift of story-telling and descriptive prose keep those pages turning.
(bwl 103 Winter 2022) |
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Clouds Among the Stars by Victoria Clayton |
An entertaining romp of a novel narrated by Harriet, the middle and only sensible child of a celebrated theatrical couple. Nothing will ever be the same after her father is accused of murdering his arch rival. Situations and characters verge on the preposterous but, as in all Victoria Clayton's books, the food is delicious and there are underlying truths beneath the trivia. If you're looking for a well written piece of escapism, try this.
(bwl 23 April 2004) |
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Cod - A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky |
This won the prestigious Glenfiddich award in 1999 for Best Food Book, and became a best-seller after winning rave reviews. Even so I resisted it, not imagining a book devoted entirely to cod would be that enthralling. But I was wrong. Not least among its revelations is that there actually was someone called Birdseye who developed a way of freezing fish and invented what the Americans call fish-sticks better known to us as fish-fingers.
(bwl 7 February 2001) |
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Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell |
This is a delightful sequel to The Diary of a Bookseller (bwl 95), something to make you chuckle and enter into the world of the somewhat eccentric and at moments curmudgeonly owner of Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. He doesn't like customers who bargain and wishes they'd put things back in the right place, his loyal and faithful assistants are never quite good enough. Yet despite, or perhaps because of his droll and pithy grumbles, he comes across as an absolute treasure. Read it and laugh!
(bwl 97 Summer 2020) |
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Conundrum by Jan Morris |
From the age of 4 a little boy called James felt he was really a girl. This dilemma dogged his life through childhood, adolescence, a career as a successful journalist and writer, marriage and fatherhood. In this revealing memoir, published in 1974, we follow Morris's 10-year journey changing from male to female. The need and determination is palpable but one question remains: Is gender absolutely paramount in defining who we are? Freud, of course, would say, Yes!
(bwl 92 Spring 2019) |
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Conversations in Bolzano by Sàndor Màrai |
This novel about love, betrayal, possession and the pursuit of pleasure is as mesmerising as Embers (bwl 13). Casanova has escaped from a Venetian prison and returned to the scene of a duel fought with the Duke of Parma over Francesca, the woman they both loved. So begins another form of duel, this one with words, that can only end in a kind of death for one of the protagonists.
(bwl 28 February 2005) |
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Coram Boy by Jamila Gavin |
In the eighteenth century many desperate women handed their babies to the Coram man who undertook to deliver them to the newly founded Coram Hospital where they would be kindly treated. In reality, he acted only in his own interests which included murder, extortion and blackmail. Written for children, this is nevertheless a cracking good read, full of dastardly villains, cold-hearted aristocrats, devoted friends and passionate lovers.
(bwl 31 November 2005) |
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Crusoe's Daughter by Jane Gardam |
From the age of 6, Polly Flint spends her life in her elderly aunts' remote house on the edge of a marsh where she feels as marooned as Crusoe, her hero, on his island. Set against a backdrop of the 20th century with its two world wars, this is a tale of family secrets, hidden relationships, unrequited love and how the experiences of childhood so often determine our adult lives. Jane Gardam at her best.
(bwl 34 April 2006) |
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Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese |
In a tiny Mission hospital in Haile Selassie's Ethiopia, twin boys, orphaned at birth, are raised by two of the hospital's resident doctors. And so unfolds an engrossing story of forbidden love, sibling rivalry and the search for identity against a backdrop of war and revolution, climaxing in a hospital in America's Bronx. Beware, there's a lot of blood and guts, but Verghese, himself a physician and surgeon, is an inspired story teller.
(bwl 58 Autumn 2010) |
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Dark Fire by C J Sansom |
In the second of Sansom's atmospheric, Tudor novels, plots abound, no one is as they seem. Shardlake, defending a girl accused of murder, is again inveigled to work for Thomas Cromwell. He has just twelve days to recover the formula for a legendary substance, which has been discovered in a dissolved monastery's library. On his success or failure hangs the girl's life and also Cromwell's favour with the King. A rollicking, good read.
(bwl 45 April 2008) |
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Daughters of Britannia - The Lives & Times of Diplomatic Wives by Katie Hickman |
Written by the daughter of one of those wives, this is an illuminating look at the lives of women who by reason of marriage played an essential part in the diplomatic scene. Quoting from letters and memoirs, it ranges across the centuries. Warm, funny and at times unbearably poignant.
(bwl 3 May 2000) |
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David Copperfield by Charles Dickens |
Having just read Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead I had to re-read this classic to find out just how close the two were. What struck me most was how fresh and alive the writing still is and how even the most absurd or grotesque characters come across as real and believable human-beings and what a cracking story-teller Dickens was and is. No wonder people rushed out to buy the latest instalment as it appeared every week.
(bwl 108 Spring 2023) |
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Days Without End by Sebastian Barry |
17-year old Thomas McNulty, an Irish émigré, stows away on a ship bound for America where he befriends and falls in love with a part-Indian boy, John Cole. They survive as cross-dressers dancing in seedy nightclubs until they enlist in the Cavalry, become immersed in the Indian and Civil Wars and then take under their wing the little daughter of an Indian Chief. Barry's lyrical prose held me captive from one page to the next. He never disappoints.
(bwl 99 Winter 2021) |
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Dear Austen by Nina Bawden |
Nina Bawden was on the train which crashed at Potter's Bar in 2002. Badly injured, she survived. Her husband did not. Written as a letter to him, she describes what happened, both then and afterwards when she became heavily involved in the fight that the 'victims' (how she hates that word) had for any acceptance of liability from the powers-that-be. In turns angry and poignant, it's also a touching eulogy to a beloved husband.
(bwl 31 September 2005) |
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Dear Life by Alice Munro |
Short stories, therefore a challenge. I was new to Munro but when she won this year's Nobel prize for literature, I felt I must read her. This is her latest volume: vignettes of small-time life in rural Canada. Each like a novel pared down and down leaving not much more than the skeletal remains. Read once to get the gist, then read again slowly to decipher their meaning. Like fine wine or malted whisky!
(bwl 71 Winter 2014) |
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Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver |
A brilliant reimagining of the story and characters in David Copperfield transported from poverty-stricken Victorian London to a poor community in the southern Appalachians in the midst of the opioid crisis. Demon is born to a single mother in an abandoned trailer 'like a little blue prizefighter'. He will need that fighting spirit, buckets of charm and a quick wit to survive. Epic, fantastic, gripping, angry, powerful, electrifying - all of these!
(bwl 108 Spring 2023) |
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Dissolution by C J Sansom |
If you've read this author's Winter in Madrid (bwl 38) you might enjoy his Tudor crime novels featuring Matthew Shardlake, a hunchback reformist lawyer and his loyal assistant, Mark. In this first book - there are two others - he is sent by Thomas Cromwell to investigate sacrilege and a gruesome murder in a monastery on the Sussex coast. Fast paced, atmospheric, full of satisfying historical detail, I guessed the who but not the why.
(bwl 42 October 2007) |
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Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak |
The story of Yuri Zhivago and his struggle to survive the cataclysmic events in Russia in the first half of the 20C caused huge excitement when it reached the West in 1957-8. Daring to suggest the life of an individual was more important than Collectivism and overtly criticising Stalin, it was a must read. Still something for our 21C? The answer is Yes - forget the film and TV adaptation and immerse yourself in Pasternak's masterpiece.
(bwl 60 Spring 2011) |
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Does Anything Eat Wasps? and 101 other questions by Mick O'Hare (editor) |
If you need relief from the more serious things of life, dip into this goldmine of questions and answers from the popular 'Last Word' column in New Scientist magazine. December's best-selling title on Amazon - what higher recommendation is there? - it will delight and amuse as it fills you in on such conundrums as How long can I live on beer alone?, Does a compass work in space? and Why can't we eat green potatoes?
(bwl 33 February 2006) |
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Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight - An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller |
A moving evocation of a white farming family's life during the civil war in Rhodesia followed by fresh starts in Zambia and Malawi. Life was difficult, money short, not all the children survived and the feisty mother became at times something of a desperate drunk. It's honest, funny and sad but never mawkish as are so many childhood memoirs. Through it all shines the author's zest for life, her love of Africa and her family.
(bwl 18 April 2003) |
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Driving over Lemons by Chris Stewart |
This is the story of the ex-Genesis drummer turned sheep shearer who bought a derelict farm in Andalucia. It is down to earth and funny without ever being patronising.
(bwl 1 January 2000) |
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Earth and Heaven by Sue Gee |
After WW I, a young painter Walter Cox enrols at the Slade School under Henry Tonks and Wilson Steer; here he meets all the important people in his life, his wife Sarah, the alluring Nina, and the sculptor Euan who becomes his best friend. But it is Kent and its people including Walter's children which shape this atmospheric novel. So authentic are its characters and settings that I couldn't believe they were mostly fictional.
(bwl 22 February 2004) |
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East of the Mountains by David Guterson |
Dr. Ben Givens sets out from Seattle to return to his homeland in the apple orchards east of the mountains. Old and ill, he takes nothing with him but his hunting dogs, his father's old gun and his intention to end his life. His journey becomes an odyssey in which, after a series of extraordinary adventures, some very bloody, he learns a kind of acceptance. Harrowing but lyrical too and in the end life affirming.
(bwl 5 October 2000) |
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Eats, Shoots and Leaves - The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss |
If the misuse of an apostrophe, comma, semi-colon or what-have-you sets your teeth on edge, or if you're somebody who is unsure how to apply the finer points of punctuation, then this book is for you. In fact it's been a 'for you' for a huge number of people since its publication at the end of 2003. Its journalistic style is a bit off-putting, but it's packed with useful snippets of information. I enjoyed it.
(bwl 22 February 2004) |
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Embers by Sàndor Màrai |
In a Carpathian castle, over one night, an elderly General engages in a duel of words with the friend who disappeared 41 years ago after a hunt, an incident with a gun and a dinner shared with the General's wife. Parrying and counter-parrying, they gradually reveal their histories, the truth about their friendship and confront the events that determined their futures. Originally published in 1942, Embers has only recently been translated into English. It's mesmerising!
(bwl 13 April 2002) |
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Exposure by Helen Dunmore |
A must read for fans of this writer and for anyone who enjoys the intricacies, betrayals and subterfuges of the spy thriller. It is the height of the Cold War, at the end of a suburban garden ,a woman buries a briefcase, it's to protect her family but results in consequences she could not foresee . . . A perfect page-turner for the chaise-longue on a sun-drenched beach or in an English garden between the showers.
(bwl 81 Summer 2016) |
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Extra Virgin - amongst the olive groves of Liguria by Annie Hawes |
This is an affectionate account of how Annie Hawes and her sister found themselves buying and living in a small house just outside the village of Diano San Pietro. The humour is often self-deprecating so that we see these English females through the eyes of their often nonplussed Italian neighbours. Lots about food and cooking, growing and harvesting olives, revealing not just an idyllic world but one now faced with the realities of the EEC.
(bwl 9 June 2001) |
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Faith Fox by Jane Gardam |
Golden girl, Holly Fox, dies in childbirth. No one can cope, so baby Faith is dumped on her strange family in the North which includes an uncle who runs a religious sanctuary for the homeless and her caring but slightly dotty grandparents. Although its themes are serious - bereavement, faith or its absence and people's different expectations and perceptions - it is written with life-affirming exuberance and is very amusing especially about growing old.
(bwl 11 October 2001) |
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Falling by Elizabeth Jane Howard |
After two unsuccessful marriages, Daisy, in her sixties, has no illusions about men. But she has not reckoned with con man Henry Kent and his determination to inveigle his way into her life. From the beginning, there is no secret about Henry's calculated intentions as he plans how he will play on her susceptibilities and weaknesses but I was kept guessing right until the end as to whether or not he will get his comeuppance.
(bwl 5 October 2000) |
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Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier |
In 1901, two little girls meet in Highgate Cemetery and become acquainted with the gravedigger's son. Over the years, their friendship has a profound effect on themselves and their families and ultimately leads to tragedy. Although I felt the American author did not truly understand the mores of Edwardian England, the pages kept turning. If you enjoyed 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' (bwl 7), you'll want to read this but maybe wait for the paperback in June.
(bwl 12 January 2002) |
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Family Life - Birth, Death and the Whole Damn Thing by Elisabeth Luard |
Elisabeth was married at just 21 to Nicholas Luard, co-founder of Private Eye. This memoir, interwoven with recipes (she's a cookery-writer), chronicles their life from early days in London to those spent in Andalusia and Provence. Then tragedy strikes. The last chapters, one in Francesca's own words, relate how the family confront and cope with the spectre of Aids. Read it in tandem with The Field of the Star to be uplifted rather than depressed.
(bwl 16 December 2002) |
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Felicia's Journey by William Trevor |
Felicia leaves Ireland for the Midlands with just two carrier bags and some money she has stolen. Her search for her boyfriend is hopeless until she is saved - or is she? - by plump, genial, middle-aged Mr Hilditch, a fantasist with a penchant for homeless girls. Pathetic human being, monster or both? Trevor employs his mastery of language to gradually build the tension, compelling the reader, with ever increasing dread, to turn each page.
(bwl 60 Spring 2011) |
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Fingersmith by Sarah Waters |
Set in Victorian England, in the genre of Dickens or Wilkie Collins with plots, counter plots and unexpected twists, this atmospheric, gothic thriller revolves around two orphaned girls whose lives are inexplicably tangled: Susan brought up amongst petty criminals and Maud reared first in a mad-house then in her uncle's gloomy mansion. Be prepared for constant surprises for nothing and no one is as they seem. The pages turn themselves!
(bwl 14 July 2002) |
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Five Photos of my Wife by Agnès Desarthe |
I would probably never have read this book if it hadn't been chosen for the book group I attend. An old man coming to terms with his wife's death, old age, his own mortality, his Jewish origins and family. Serious stuff, yet the book is strangely light hearted, its tone set by his decision to search the Yellow Pages to find an artist who will paint a portrait of his wife. It's quite a find.
(bwl 15 October 2002) |
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Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris |
Framboise, now sixty-four, seeks to unravel her painful memories of a fateful summer during the occupation of France. Oranges, her mother's album of recipes and coded jottings, her scheming nephew and his wife, the names on the village war memorial, her childhood friend Paul, the deceptively tranquil Loire, a pike called Old Mother and Tomas the German soldier all play a part in this complex tale of love, deceit, misunderstandings, blackmail and death. A must.
(bwl 9 June 2001) |
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Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver |
Dellarobia - young, rebellious wife-mother-daughter-in-law - experiences an epiphany as she witnesses the extraordinary arrival of millions of Monarch butterflies on a remote Appalachian mountainside, their winter habitat in Mexico destroyed by logging. Life for her and her small God-fearing community becomes entwined in the fate of the butterflies as the world's media, sightseers and tourists descend and the temperature drops ever closer to freezing. Another winner from this practised weaver of tales.
(bwl 68 Spring 2013) |
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Forgotten Voices of Burma: The Second World War's Forgotten Conflict by Julian Thompson |
A collection of oral testimonies from those who took part. It captures "what it was like to fight in the demanding terrain and climate of Burma; and . . . . to be confronted by the most formidable soldiers encountered by anyone in the Second World War - the Japanese"*. For me, it was a search for my father who was there and never spoke of it, for others it will be fascinating history.
*quoted from the author's preface.
(bwl 58 Autumn 2010) |
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Four Season's Cookbook by Margaret Costa |
First published in 1970, reissued in 1996 and now available in paperback, this is absolutely one of my favourite cookery books. It still seems up-to-date and is full of mouth watering recipes and suggestions arranged under seasonal headings. It's my first call when I am baffled by any culinary skill or when I want inspiration for a simple supper or more elaborate dinner party. And when I don't want to cook, I enjoy just reading it!
(bwl 11 October 2001) |
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Frankie & Strankie by Barbara Trapido |
This strange book, purportedly a novel but surely a thinly disguised memoir is set in 1950s South Africa. Told through the eyes of a young, white girl growing up at a time when racial laws are being tightened, it is not only a chronicle of the often hilarious pains and pleasures of childhood, adolescence and early adulthood but provides an inside view of the attitudes and politics which led to the insidious growth of apartheid.
(bwl 27 December 2004) |
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Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath by Bill Browder |
More exposures and revelations from the author of Red Notice (bwl 92) as he follows the trail of the stolen billions from Russia, across Europe to America which leads right back to a certain KGB operative in St. Petersburg 20 years ago. Now Putin's enemy No. 1 Browder, despite honey traps, hired agents following him around the world and the murder of his Russia allies, is determined to expose the truth. A truly inspiring Knight of our times.
(bwl 105 Summer 2022) |
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Frieda and Min by Pamela Jooste |
It's summer, 1964, in Johannesburg, two young girls are thrown together. Jewish Frieda, secure in her family, accepts everything because that is how things are. Min brought up in the bush, withdrawn and traumatised after her brother's death, questions everything and finds herself in terrible trouble with the authorities. Told with warmth and humour, this is the story of their friendship and how through its strength they cope with the cruelties of their country's regime.
(bwl 13 April 2002) |
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Gaglow by Esther Freud |
Germany, 1914: it is the shared birthday of Eva and her brother Emanuel, eleven years older. So begins a complex tale of a Jewish family, their governess Schu-Schu and Gaglow their country house interspersed with the story of their modern-day descendant Sarah, an unmarried mother who is posing for her father, a painter who has severed all links with the past. Lucidly written with vividly drawn characters, the story never fails to intrigue.
(bwl 21 November 2003) |
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Germinal by Emile Zola |
In this his masterpiece which centres on a strike in 1860's N. France, Zola not only brings to life the desperate needs, the cruelty and greed, the love and humanity of his characters - be they the poverty-stricken miners, the idealistic Marxist, the arrogant anarchist or the comfort-loving bourgeoisie - he plunges you, almost literally, into the depths of the mine itself: the smells, the heat, the claustrophobia, the noise, the constant brooding presence of its awfulness. Truly unforgettable.
(bwl 64 Spring 2012) |
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Ghost Light by Joseph O'Connor |
As the ghost light burns in an empty theatre, so in a dingy boarding house, an old woman, somewhat sozzled with gin, burns with the memories of herself as a young actress engaged to Ireland's greatest playwright, Synge, who died so many years ago. O'Connor with his Irish gift for language breathes life into their story using the novelist's prerogative to imagine and invent. If you've read his Star of the Sea (bwl 28), this is as good.
(bwl 60 Spring 2011) |
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Gilead by Marilynne Robinson |
In this companion novel to Home (bwl 52), the Reverend Ames begins a letter to his young son. It is not only a testament to his own life and to his forbears but in it he also tries to unravel and understand the events surrounding the troubled life of Jack, the son of his oldest friend. Read one of these books and the other becomes a must. In which order? Maybe this one first.
(bwl 53 September 2009) |
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Gilgamesh by Joan London |
We travel from Australia to London and on to the Middle East, as Edith, accompanied by her baby son, searches for Aram, her Armenian lover, and her cousin, Leopold, who arrived together one summer on the brink of WW II in the rural backwater in which she and her family lived. The story of Gilgamesh, fabled king of Mesopotamia, and his quest for enlightenment is the thread which binds them. A mesmerising read.
(bwl 24 June 2004) |
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Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold |
The marriage of Charles Dickens is the inspiration for this novel which charts its disastrous course through the eyes of his widow. However, the author has changed all the names and transposed events and relationships to give herself the imaginative freedom to provide an insight into how a once adored wife came to be put aside in favour of her sisters and an enigmatic actress. Sounds like a potboiler? It's far better than that.
(bwl 49 January 2009) |
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Glass of Time by Michael Cox |
Cox is a master at spinning a tangled web and this sequel to The Meaning of Night (bwl 36) doesn't disappoint. It's another splendid gothic tale of secrets and lies which its heroine seeks to unravel when she becomes lady's maid to the 26th Baroness Tansor, formerly Emily Carteret. Much that was unexplained now becomes clear but this second novel also stands on its own and like its predecessor encourages much burning of the midnight oil.
(bwl 50 March 2009) |
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Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee |
The temptation to cash in by publishing this draft of To Kill a Mocking Bird (bwl 24) must have been enormous; all Lee's fans would love it. Or maybe not. It's interesting to read and compare but beware - it's the opposite of redemptive. Here Scout is a judgmental twenty-something, Atticus a bigot, the trial ends in anti-climax. Fortunately Lee's editor saw the gold amongst the dross, encouraged her to rethink, rewrite, polish and produce her masterpiece.
(bwl 80 Spring 2016) |
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Golden Hill by Francis Spufford |
All Hallows, 1746, the Henrietta lays anchor in New York harbour, on board a young man, the purveyor of a bill for one thousand pounds. Who is he? Is the bill genuine? Is he rich or is he a scoundrel? And what exactly does he want the money for? Here's a delicious web of 18th century intrigue with a denouement that I defy anyone to guess. It's a book that takes time to get into but well worth the effort once you do.
(bwl 83 Winter 2017) |
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Good Cheap Eats in London 2002 by Richard and Peter Harden |
Whether you live in London or are simply visiting, this is the ideal guide for sussing out reasonably priced places to eat. At the back there are indexes with listings under a whole variety of headings as well as comprehensive maps. Try Mon Plaisir in Monmouth Street for a pre-theatre supper, Sarkhels in Southfields for the best Indian cuisine in town or if you like Turkish there's Tas in SW1. Just three of the many!
(bwl 14 July 2002) |
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Great Expectations by Charles Dickens |
Driven by the recent BBC travesty of an adaptation I had to read the book again and watch David Lean's black and white masterpiece. If school put you off Dickens then there's no better introduction to this master storyteller than the tale of Pip, the blacksmith's little nephew, bequeathed by an unknown benefactor to become a gentleman, learns by his mistakes and lapses to become one in the truest sense. Hang the washing and the housework, I couldn't put it down!
(bwl 109 Summer 2023) |
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Great House by Nicole Krauss |
The writer is young, beautiful and writes like an angel; the literary establishment are apparently grinding their teeth! Four narrators, tenuously linked by their histories, their memories, their Jewishness, the people they love and the impossibility of truly knowing and understanding those you care about the most. Lucid, infuriating and illuminating, I was captivated but be warned, if you only enjoy a straight narrative, you might want to throw it out of the window.
(bwl 62 Autumn 2011) |
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Gwynne's Grammar: The Ultimate Introduction to Grammar and the Writing of Good English by N M Gwynne |
Want to understand grammar? Look no further than this humble little book with its Definitions, explanations and illustrations of the parts of speech and of the other most important technical terms of grammar. Incorporating as it does Strunk's Guide to Style explaining how to write well and the main pitfalls to avoid.
(bwl 69 Summer 2013) |
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Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
In 1960's Nigeria, the lives of three disparate people intersect: Ugwu, houseboy to a university lecturer, Olanna, who has abandoned her privileged family to live with the professor, and Englishman Richard in thrall to Olanna's twin. Embroiled in the horrors of civil war, pulled apart and thrown together in unimaginable ways, their allegiances are cruelly tested. Definitely not a book for bedtime, but its lucid prose will make you want to keep the pages turning.
*Winner 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction
(bwl 40 June 2007) |
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Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones |
Who is she, this young African woman searching through Europe for the child who was stolen? Her story unfolds through the eyes of the witnesses she encounters - each with their own perspective, some honest, others evasive so that we are constantly left questioning who and what she is and what actually happened. Then we hear her version. This new book from the author of Mr. Pip (bwl 47) is equally complex, equally compelling. Read it!
(bwl 62 Autumn 2011) |
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Heartstone: Shardlake Goes to War by C J Sansom |
The fifth in the series. Katherine Parr is now Queen; lawyer Shardlake, charged by her servant to unravel the wrongs done to a young ward, becomes embroiled in the sinister world of the King's Court of Wards. War looms, a massive French fleet is approaching England. Over all hangs the ever present menace of the monster King and his powerful minions. Sansom, an historian as well as a novelist, paints a powerful picture of those malevolent times.
(bwl 61 Summer 2011) |
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Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger |
The setting is brilliant - Highgate Cemetery where Niffenegger worked for a year to get background for her book. But somehow for me it never took off. I found the characters - the weird American twins, the agoraphobic man whose wife has fled to Amsterdam, the ghosts and the hauntings, all too unbelievable and disengaging. It's not a patch on The Time Traveler's Wife. (bwl 29)
(bwl 57 Summer 2010) |
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His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet |
Set in the Highlands in 1869, the book opens with a memoir in which the accused admits his guilt as he chronicles everything leading up to a brutal triple murder. Then comes the trial and gradually, as each witness testifies to their own version of events, all the certainties become uncertainties: what is true, what is half-true, what is a lie? Believe everything on the cover:a mesmerising, literary thriller, fiendishly readable, gripping, blackly playful and ingeniously constructed.
(bwl 84 Spring 2016) |
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History of the Rain by Niall Williams |
We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive those who only live now in the telling . . . so writes Ruth, bed-bound, in her attic room in rain-sodden County Clare as she struggles to find her roots, her poet-father, her lost twin-brother . . . and in the background, always constant, is the river, the salmon running through it and the curse of the family's Impossible Standard. Funny, heart-wrenching, Irish writing at it's most sublime.
(bwl 79 Winter 2016) |
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Home by Marilynne Robinson |
Reverend Boughton - failing in health, now cared for by his youngest daughter, Glory - yearns for news of Jack, his favourite son, who disappeared years ago. Then the prodigal unexpectedly returns still trailing all his problems and emotional needs which Glory and their father long to assuage. A moving and beautifully crafted novel, which covers the same events but from different viewpoints to Robinson's earlier book 'Gilead' which I now can't wait to read.
Winner of the 2009 Orange prize
(bwl 52 July 2009) |
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Homestead by Rosina Lippi |
Set in the years between 1909 and 1977, this is an unusual and fascinating novel about several generations of women living in an isolated village in the Austrian alps. It charts their individual experiences of farming and dairying, their friendships and loyalties, their courtships and marriages, and the impact on their traditional way of life of the two world wars and creeping modernity. Short-listed for the Orange prize.
(bwl 9 June 2001) |
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How to Freeze - Everything you need to know about freezing & freezer management by Carolyn Humphries |
Do you get frustrated when a cookery book tells you something freezes well and then gives you no idea how to pack it, how long it can remain frozen or how it should be defrosted and reheated? If so, it's worth getting hold of a copy of this paperback. It may not absolutely live up to its sub-title but it does give a lot. It's clearly laid out and concisely written. I swear by it.
(bwl 21 November 2003) |
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Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain |
Being a bit wary of the label 'masterpiece' and stories written in the vernacular, I doubt I would have read this without my book group. My prejudice lingered over the first couple of chapters and then despite myself, I was gripped by the characters, humour and above all the setting of the Mississippi River. What can you say about a masterpiece, except if you haven't read it, put it on your list of must-reads?
(bwl 52 July 2009) |
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i before e (except after c) - old school ways of remembering stuff by Judy Parkinson |
If you like mnemonics and acronyms, enjoy pithy rhymes, have trouble with spelling words like brocolli (whoops, sorry, broccoli), confuse practise or practice, there or their, can't convert from imperial to metric, don't know the star signs, stumble at maths, then you'll love this book crammed with old-fashioned memory aids; though you might find that memorising some of the aids is even harder than trying to remember whatever it is you are trying to remember.
(bwl 46 June 2008) |
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I Couldn't Love You More by Esther Freud |
Mothers, daughters, betrayals and secrets - three generations seeking to find what they have lost. Aoife waits in Ireland for news of her daughter; Rosaleen in 60's London is bewitched by a famous sculptor; Kate's trail leads to a forbidding convent in Co. Cork where fallen women come to have their babies. Freud has drawn on her own family's history to write another involving read and amongst those censorious nuns she does allow one humble soul to have compassion.
(bwl 105 Summer 2022) |
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Ice Road by Gillian Slovo |
Set in 1930s Russia and culminating in the German siege of Leningrad, the death of Kirov - once Stalin's favourite - leads to the beginning of those monumental purges which affected the lives of everyone from the humblest to the most powerful. This is a complex novel whose leading characters refuse to be crushed by the terrible events unfolding around them, though not all of them survive. Slovo is a brilliant, evocative and uplifting writer.
(bwl 25 August 2004) |
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In a Land of Plenty by Tim Pears |
If you enjoy family sagas, this is one for you. It tells the story of the Freeman family, their loves, hopes, fears and disappointments from the aftermath of World War II until the present day. If you watched the recent serialisation on TV, it's not only intriguing to discover some of the omissions and gaps but also to realise how brilliantly cast it was and how faithfully, in the main, it kept to the book.
(bwl 9 June 2001) |
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In Love and War - A letter to my parents by Maria Corelli |
This is the actual letter that the author, the daughter of the architect Macdonald Gill, wrote to her parents in the summer of 1944. When Italy entered the war, she was living and studying music in Rome which meant that she, her husband and their best friend, a celebrated Jewish opera singer, went into hiding. Not a literary masterpiece but a haunting account of their deprivations, adventures and the love triangle that eventually divided them.
(bwl 30 June 2005) |
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In the Blue House by Meaghan Delahunt |
A stunning book which switches between Trotsky's final years in Mexico and life and death in Russia under Stalin. As with any novel based on history, there is a relentless inevitability as the story unfolds but by concentrating on personal events in the leaders' lives a chilling light is shed on the horrors inflicted on individuals as well as the whole nation ruled by a megalomaniac driven by paranoia.
(bwl 16 December 2002) |
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Innocence by Penelope Fitzgerald |
This early novel set in Florence in the fifties is well worth seeking out. The story centres around an absurd and touching pair of lovers, the guileless daughter of the decrepit Ridolfi family and a fiery young doctor from the south. The book is full of wonderfully eccentric characters from the oh so practical English girlfriend to an Aunt who staffs a home for orphaned babies with lonely old ladies because they will love them.
(bwl 16 December 2002) |
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Jack by Marilynne Robinson |
The prodigal son, who haunts Robinson's Gilead trilogy, is given his voice. Lonely, weighed down by the doctrines of his Presbyterian childhood, Jack is a vagrant and an alcoholic until he meets Della an African-American who transforms his life. But this is segrated St. Louis where such a liaison is against the law. It's twenty years since he left but if he returns home will he find the redemption and acceptance for which he longs? Rivetting, heartbreaking, an utterly compelling read.
(bwl 103 Winter 2022) |
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Jane Boleyn - The Infamous Lady Rochford by Julia Fox |
If like me you're a bit of a Boleyn junkie and have enjoyed Phillippa Gregory's novels on the theme, you will be fascinated by this factual defence of the role Lady Rochford played in the downfall of two of Henry VIII's wives. She makes a satisfying villain but it seems that truth is more prosaic than fiction and that far from being scheming and vindictive she was as much a victim as her royal mistresses.
(bwl 49 January 2009) |
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Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City by Guy Delisle |
This graphic-novel is a memoir and travelogue of Delisle's year in Jerusalem with his partner (who works for Médecines sans Frontières) and their young children. Using simple, sensitive line drawings with astute often funny non-judgmental comments, he observes and records the population's complex daily lives with the ever-present wall, checkpoints, traffic jams, the settlements and the seemingly insoluble differences that afflict everyone whether Jew, Arab, Christian or Secularist. It left me feeling baffled but better informed. A stunning book.
(bwl 68 Spring 2013) |
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Joseph Knight by James Robertson |
Sir John Wedderburn, a Scottish sugar planter exiled to Jamaica after Culloden, returned home after many years bringing with him his token slave, Joseph Knight, to serve him in perpetuity. But Knight rebelled and the resulting case became a cause célebre bitterly fought in the Edinburgh courts. In this fictional account, Knight remains a shadowy figure but Wedderburn and his family, the lawyers and historical figures like Boswell and Johnson are brought vividly to life.
(bwl 46 June 2008) |
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Katalin Street by Magda Szabo |
1944, Budapest, the lives of three neighbouring families are shattered by the German occupation. What happens to little Henrietta will haunt and determine the lives of her childhood friends, a boy and two sisters as they struggle to survive the social and political upheavals of 20th century Hungary. It's a book I needed to read more than once; I confess I skimmed it the first time round then started again and this time savoured every chapter.
(bwl 93 Summer 2019) |
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Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo |
Kim Jiyoung is born into a society where being female unashamedly casts you into a second-class role from birth, when you should have been a boy, through childhood when your brother gets his own room, then as a teenager being blamed for late-night harassment, next passed over for promotion by a male and finally becoming a wife who runs the home, does the laundry, bears the children, gives up her career. She's acting strangely, feeling depressed, going mad. I'm not surprised. Is it so much better here?
(bwl 101 Summer 2021) |
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Kith & Kin by Stevie Davies |
Middle-aged, successful, Mara returns to her home town determined that events in her childhood and teens are long forgotten, but a chance viewing of a nostalgic film-clip begins the process which makes her confront unanswered questions about herself, her family and the fate of her beloved cousin Frankie. It's a tale of love, hate, rivalry and jealousy played out against the heady atmosphere of the Sixties. A truly, compelling read.
(bwl 33 February 2006) |
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La Cucina - a novel of rapture by Lily Prior |
From childhood Sicilian Rose Fiore has been passionate about food but now middle-aged and overweight, exiled from her village, working as a librarian and nursing a broken heart, she meets an enigmatic Englishman who is researching the history of the island's cuisine and who awakens all her latent sensuality. It's funny and raunchy, sometimes frightening, sometimes sad but mostly it's a celebration of the earthy pleasures of cooking and eating, living and loving!
(bwl 13 April 2002) |
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Lamentation by C J Sansom |
In this sixth Shardlake novel, set in Henry VIII's final months, our hero is reluctantly drawn into an intricate plot concerning a stolen manuscript, which puts him, his associates and the Queen, Katherine Parr, in mortal danger. Dissidents are burnt alive. Lawyer and Historian, Sansom, brings Tudor London vividly to life, his characters, rich or poor, breathe. See back issues of bookswelike to read reviews of the previous books in the series. Let's hope this one is not the last.
(bwl 75 Winter 2015) |
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Last Friends by Jane Gardam |
In this final volume of Gardam's trilogy, we learn the secrets of Veneering's Russian heritage. Was his father a spy, who was his mother and where did he get his wealth? If you haven't yet read Old Filth (bwl 29) and The Man in the Wooden Hat (bwl 55), you have a treat in store. Funny and sad, the characters become as familiar and as elusive as real friends. A joy to read.
(bwl 71 Winter 2014) |
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Le Testament Français: translated by Geoffrey Strachan by Andrei Makine |
A Russian exile living in a Paris cemetery, Makine's haunting autobiographical novel is a collection of childhood and adolescent memories. Through Charlotte, his half-French grandmother with her suitcase full of stories, he learns what it was like to live in Stalin's Russia and it is she who changes his perspective of everything. Written in French, it was only when he pretended his work was translated from Russian that he was published in France.
(bwl 67 Winter 2013) |
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Life of Pi by Yann Martel |
The choice of Booker prize-winners inevitably seems to surprise and often annoy and this one was no exception. Its theme of ship-wrecked Indian boy on a lifeboat with a zebra, an orang-utan and a tiger sounds whimsically Disneyish. Don't be put off, the animals are red in tooth and claw and the tale is far from whimsy. Whether it will make you believe in God as one character suggests, I leave you to discover.
(bwl 17 February 2003) |
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Like Water in Wild Places by Pamela Jooste |
Bleaker than either 'Frieda and Min' or Jooste's first book, 'Dance with a Poor Man's Daughter' (bwl 4), this is both an indictment of apartheid and a lament for the fate of the Bushmen. Told through the eyes of Conrad and Bicky, children of a white senator, it's a heartbreaking story ending on a note of hope, brilliantly written with strong characters and vivid descriptions of the beautiful country that is South Africa.
(bwl 13 April 2002) |
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Lila by Marilynne Robinson |
Lila is left out on the stoop, crying, alone when the intrepid Doll snatches her; they are on the run, her childhood spent with other itinerants; until one life changing day she wanders into Gilead's church where Reverend Ames, twice her age, is conducting the service. Theirs is a deceptively simple story, told in haunting, elegant prose which poses age-old complexities: does life have meaning? what is love? is another person ever knowable and God - can He really be there?
Ed's note: Lila is the third book in a trilogy. The other two are Gilead (bwl 53) and Home (bwl 52)
(bwl 81 Summer 2016) |
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Lilla's Feast by Frances Osborne |
An intriguing story which chronicles the history of the author's great-grandmother who was born in 1882 in China and whose life took her to India, England and back again to China where she was interned in a civilian camp by the Japanese during WW II. She sustained herself through semi-starvation by composing a book - now in the Imperial War Museum - of recipes and household hints. A mixture of the personal and world events.
(bwl 28 February 2005) |
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Lily by Rose Tremain |
Tremain with her consummate skills - without any of some other writer's histrionics - brings vividly to life the story of Lily, abandoned at birth and brought by the young constable who found her to Coram, the Foundling Hospital. At first fostered by a loving family, then returned to the uncaring system of the Hospital, she tries to survive in harsh Victorian London but she hides a terrible secret; does the policeman who found her hold the key to her fate? A wonderful read.
(bwl 103 Winter 2022) |
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Little by Edward Carey |
A reconstruction with graphic illustrations of the life of Marie Grosholtz, nicknamed Little, destined for fame as Madame Tussaud. Orphaned Marie, growing up under master wax-maker Curtuis, watches and learns and is infiltrated into the life of the French court. It doesn't shun the gruesome and there are moments to wish for the smelling salts but there is also much humour, especially with her meeting of the King. How much is true, how much myth, it's impossible to say, but I found it irresistible.
(bwl 97 Summer 2020) |
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London in the Nineteenth Century - A Human Awful Wonder of God by Jerry White |
The author traces London's history from the destruction of much of the old slums at the beginning of the century to the huge suburban expansion which had occurred by the end and which forms the basis of today's metropolis. It paints a vibrant picture of a city where rich and poor from all over Britain, Europe and the Empire rubbed shoulders, and where literature, science, architecture, engineering and philanthropy flourished. A gem of a reference book.
(bwl 39 April 2007) |
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Longbourn by Jo Baker |
Jo Baker - no relation - takes us to downstairs Longbourn, home to the Bennet family. Forget the muslin and manners, concentrate instead on housemaid Sarah's reddened hands scrubbing those monthly rags. No D'Arcy here, but a black manservant and a new footman with a mysterious past and what is the secret between the housekeeper and Mr Bennet? An intriguing, enjoyable read for all lover's of Pride and Prejudice, I wonder what Jane Austen would have thought.
(bwl 98 Autumn 2020) |
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Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez |
This brilliant novel overthrows the idea that love is the prerogative of the young. It begins with the death of Juvenal Urbino who falls from a mango tree trying to rescue a parrot. This is the cue for the reawakening of a love affaire between his widow and the suitor she rejected fifty-one years, nine months and four days earlier. Rich in imagery, filled with preposterous but believable characters it makes the heart sing!
(bwl 20 September 2003) |
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Love is Blind by William Boyd |
Yes, it's a love story but so much more than that. Set at the end of the 19th century, we follow the fortunes of Brodie Moncur, musician and piano-tuner, as life takes him to Paris, St. Petersburg, Edinburgh and beyond. If you enjoyed Any Human Heart (bwl 59 & 63) this book should delight you with the added bonus that at the end you will feel you might be quite good at tuning a piano. I found it riveting.
(bwl 91 Winter 2019) |
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Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl |
Having read The Choice (bwl 91 & 92) I wanted to read this book by Edith Eger's mentor. If you're looking for complex answers to complex questions like what is the meaning of life?, why are we here? or does God exist? you won't find them in this book. What you will find is the simplest of answers that the meaning lies within ourselves and our own ability to give life meaning. Or perhaps not so simple.
(bwl 93 Summer 2019) |
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Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam |
In a tight-knit Pakistani community in an unnamed British town, two lovers disappear, believed murdered; the brothers of the dead woman are arrested and as the year progresses through winter to the following autumn, the lives of both families unravel. The over-flowery language of the first chapters soon gives way to a moving and absorbing portrayal of this immigrant community which is governed by an unbending interpretation of Islamic doctrine.
(bwl 30 June 2005) |
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Mara and Dann by Doris Lessing |
Set thousands of years in the future when a new Ice Age engulfs the northern hemisphere, this is the story of two children, their struggle to grow up and the odyssey they undertake across the hostile country we call Africa and they know as Ifrik. At times irritating but nevertheless a real page turner.
(bwl 3 May 2000) |
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March - A Love Story in a Time of War by Geraldine Brooks |
Anyone who loved Louisa May Alcott's Little Women will be intrigued by this book. While the March girls and their mother valiantly kept the home fires burning, their father was caught up in the Civil War. This is his story. It paints a much darker picture of the times seen through the eyes of a man trying to conquer his own fears and desires and doesn't flinch from describing the cruelties inflicted by both sides.
(bwl 34 April 2006) |
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Marrying the Mistress by Joanna Trollope |
Like all Trollope's books, this is a deceptively easy read. Judge Guy Stockdale at 62 decides to leave his wife and marry the young woman who has been his mistress for the last seven years. All the characters and family situations are spot on, my only reservation is with the rather unsympathetic portrayal of Laura, his wife.
(bwl 8 April 2001) |
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Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel |
If you liked The Hare with Amber Eyes (bwl 59 and 61) you will definitely love this one which invites the reader into intimate conversations with twelve famous manuscripts from St. Augustine to Chaucer and beyond. Sounds hardwork? It isn't, but go for the hardback with full-colour illustrations. One for the Christmas list perhaps.
(bwl 90 Autumn 2018) |
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Merivel by Rose Tremain |
A delicious treat for readers of Restoration (bwl 26). If you haven't read it or forgotten the story, never mind, Tremain ingeniously fills in the gaps through the discovery of Merivel's old journal. Scene set, he now records, with Pepysian wit and gusto, a new set of escapades which take him to Versailles, outwardly golden, inwardly squalid, to his Norfolk Estates, a duel in Switzerland and finally to the Court of the ailing Charles II.
(bwl 73 Summer 2014) |
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Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones |
In this extraordinary book, the villagers on the tropical island, Bougainville, are caught between government forces and rebels high on jungle juice. Mr Watts, the only white man, appoints himself as teacher to the children, his only text book: Great Expectations. It and its hero have a huge influence on how the narrator, 13 year old Matilda, copes with the gruesome experiences inflicted by the warring factions and ultimately enable her to deal with life itself.
(bwl 47 September 2008) |
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Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith by Gina B Nahai |
If you like magic-realism, read this. It chronicles the lives of an Iranian-Jewish family beginning in Tehran before WW II and ending in present-day Los Angeles. At the heart is the story of Roxanna, born a bad-luck child, and her daughter Lili who she abandons at the age of five by sprouting wings and taking off into the night. Whimsical, perhaps, but the characters are real enough as are the turbulent events that shape their lives.
(bwl 23 April 2004) |
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More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman |
Gili's family are celebrating grandmother Vera's 90th birthday but when estranged daughter Nina arrives old wounds are opened. The novel takes us from Israel to Yugoslavia and to the desolate island, Goli Otok, where Tito's political prisoners were held. Under torture Vera must choose between defending her husband's political integrity or abandoning her child. Based on the life of Eva Panić Nahir, and fully acknowledged, indeed she asked him to write it - truly unpudownable.
(bwl 102 Autumn 2021) |
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Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift |
Once upon a time, before the boys were killed . . . . so begins this short, beautifully written narrative. It is 1924, Jane, a maid with no mother to go to, is lying naked in bed with her lover Paul, the only surviving son of a wealthy family. Her story ebbs and flows between the events of this momentous day, the terrible losses of the Great War and the long, remarkable life ahead of her. Short it may be but not a single word is wasted.
(bwl 80 Spring 2016) |
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Mourning Ruby by Helen Dunmore |
A haunting, beautifully written novel involving rejection and loss, trust and friendship, the search for identity and meaning. It's a tale weaving stories within stories: an abandoned baby, a child killed in a road accident, the complexity of relationships in which the people involved might want to but do not share the same needs, perceptions and desires. A complex and rewarding read which despite its often harrowing subject matter ends on a note of optimism.
(bwl 35 July 2006) |
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Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud |
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.
(bwl 87 Autumn 2018) |
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Mrs Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale |
1858's new divorce laws resulted in hundreds of petitions, the most salacious of which was that of Henry Robinson who, using his wife's stolen diary as evidence, cited for adultery. Lucid and sensual, dozens of pages were read out in court and published with relish by the newspapers. A work of imagination, as Isabella claimed, or did she really have an affair with handsome Edward Lane who faced ruined if its contents were true? Read to find out.
(bwl 65 Summer 2012) |
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Music & Silence by Rose Tremain |
Peter Claire, an English lutenist arrives at the court of Christian IV of Denmark and is soon enmeshed in a convoluted tale of light and dark, good and evil which involves the King, his adulterous wife Kirsten, the women who Peter loves and a host of other characters. Quite wonderful.
(bwl 2 March 2000) |
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My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante |
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.
(bwl 76 Spring 2015) |
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My Grandmothers and I by Diana Holman-Hunt |
Diana lived with her mother's mother in Sussex surrounded by pugs and servants but occasionally visited her other grandmother who survived with only one maid-of-all-work in a virtual mausoleum to her deceased husband, the painter Holman-Hunt. Rivals for her affection, both grandmothers were determined to teach her that their way is best. If you ever come across a copy of this funny and perceptive memoir, originally published in 1960, snap it up!
(bwl 22 February 2004) |
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Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia by Orlando Figes |
This is a book for anyone who is curious to discover Russia's past through the experiences of its intelligentsia, artists, writers, musicians and architects. Their perceptions, fantasies and attitudes about their country and its peasant majority played an important part in shaping events. Those who became exiles, lived under an idealistic belief in Russia's greatness but the ones who returned, almost without exception, fell foul of Stalin's ruthless system. A fascinating, accessible way to learn a lot of history.
(bwl 63 Winter 2011) |
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Nightwoods by Charles Frazier |
The late 1950s, a young woman, seeks solace from the world in the Appalachian backwoods, but her contentment is shattered with the arrival of two damaged children, her murdered sister's twins, for whom their killer father is searching believing they have stolen a cache of money. Wonderful, spare, lyrical writing, an inward-looking rural community peopled by characters powerfully drawn, I savoured it, though it wasn't liked by everyone in my book group.
(bwl 63 Winter 2011) |
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Ninth Life of Louis Drax, The by Liz Jensen |
A brilliant, psychological thriller with a Hitchcockian set of characters - the disturbed, accident prone boy in a coma after falling over a cliff, his enigmatic, strawberry-blonde mother who loves him to bits, a father who has disappeared and a doctor who is drawn into the dark heart of their hidden world. Only Louis can reveal what really happened on that picnic in the Auvergne but he can't communicate. Or can he?
(bwl 31 September 2005) |
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Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler |
Liam Pennywell - widowed, remarried, divorced - loses his job and moves to a tiny apartment where a shocking occurrence jolts him out of his certainties. Tyler's depiction of Liam's relationships with his daughters, his grandson, his ex-wife and a new woman he encounters make you laugh and cry and want to shake him for being so himself. This is vintage stuff, small town America inhabited by ordinary people trying to make sense of their lives.
(bwl 53 September 2009) |
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Northern Lights by Philip Pullman |
Having heard so much about this trilogy, which is ostensibly written for older children but has adults equally enthralled, I decided to try it and now I am completely hooked. Beautifully written, set in a parallel and completely believable Universe, it's moving, terrifying, gutsy and full of twists and excitements without a hint of whimsy. I can't recommend it highly enough.
(bwl 7 February 2001) |
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Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale |
This is the story of a family blessed, or perhaps cursed, by a mother who is both gifted artist and manic-depressive but who she really is or where she came from is a mystery which begins to unravel after she is found dead in her Cornish studio. This is one of those books which I raced through to discover what happened but when it was finished needed to read and savour all over again.
(bwl 46 June 2008) |
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Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller |
The defeated English retreat from their disastrous Spanish campaign against Napoleon, among them Captain Lacroix haunted by memories of a village massacre; rather than rejoining his regiment he flees to the Hebrides, unaware an English corporal and a Spanish officer are in pursuit. We follow the hunted and the hunters from island to island as Lacroix finds some sort of redemption and gradually we learn the truth. Written in such vivid, luminous prose that the past becomes as immediate as the present day.
(bwl 94 Autumn 2019) |
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Old Filth by Jane Gardam |
Long ago, Old Filth was a Raj Orphan sent 'Home' to be fostered and educated in England. Gradually his story unfolds, each incident slotting jig-saw fashion into place to finally reveal the unspeakable childhood event which determined the man he would become. One question runs throughout: can children, starved of affection, ever be capable of meaningful relationships, however much they try? I couldn't bear to let this book go, and found myself reading it twice.
(bwl 29 April 2005) |
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Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry |
Retired policeman, Tom Kettle, is relishing his retirement until his peace is shattered by two ex-colleagues banging on his door. Now with a decades old case reopened, he must revisit long-buried memories of his and his beloved wife's past and confront what exactly happened one fateful day. A heartbreaking, mesmerising novel where memory plays tricks and nothing is quite as it seems.
(bwl 109 Summer 2023) |
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On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry |
Through the elusive medium of memory, grieving 89 year-old Lilly Bere, recalls her life from her flight after WW I from Dublin to America (her Canaan's side) up to the recent death of her beloved grandson. A novel of love, war, family ties and friendship, told in Barry's lilting prose, illuminating how the past, and the side you are perceived to be on, forever haunts the Irish. Another treasure from the author of The Secret Scriptures (bwl 53).
(bwl 65 Summer 2012) |
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On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons by Laura Cumming |
Summer, 1929, a child is kidnapped on the beach only to be found 5 days later. The child grows up unaware of this event and it will take another fifty years before her daughter's diligence will unlock the secrets of the past. Cummings is an art critic and her family memoir, beautifully written, is illuminated by pictures and images as she gradually unearths all those things which nobody talked about it but which affected so many lives.
(bwl 95 Winter 2020) |
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On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks |
Set against a backdrop of the Kennedy/Nixon fight for the presidency and the Cold War, this is a mesmerizing tale of love and divided loyalties. Mary van der Linden is happy in her marriage, has children she adores and parents who adore her. It seems nothing can disturb the equilibrium of her charmed life, until that is she accompanies her diplomat husband to a posting in Washington where journalist Frank Renzo appears on the scene.
(bwl 11 October 2001) |
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Once in a House on Fire by Andrea Ashworth |
This is a vivid and ultimately uplifting account of the author's childhood in northern England. Somehow she, her sister and half sister learn to cope in a confusing world in which their widowed mother always falls for men who swing from passionate love to extreme violence. You might think this is just another account of a poverty stricken childhood but what comes across is how children can grow and survive even in awful conditions.
(bwl 4 July 2000) |
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Orlando King by Isabel Colegate |
First published fifty years ago, Colegate's trilogy has been reissued in one volume - a mid-20th century odyssey whose hero's life invokes the myths of Oedipus and his daughter, Antigone. A bildungsroman illuminating the privileges and corruptions of upper-crust English society as Europe is drawn into WWII. I loved it but it's not for everyone, it went down 40-60 with my book group.
(bwl 106 Autumn 2022) |
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Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz |
A kaleidoscope of Egyptian family life with its controlling patriarch, submissive wife and daughters and dominated sons whose struggle to throw off their fetters becomes a metaphor for Cairo itself as it rises against British dominance. The characters may not all be likeable but they pulse with life as does the city in all its beauty and squalor. Set at the end of WWI, the engaging and perceptive youngest son must surely be a portrait of Mahfouz himself.
Ed Note: Naquib Mahfouz was given the Nobel Prize for literature in 1988. This is the first book in his Cairo Trilogy, the others are Palace of Desire and Sugar Street
(bwl 83 Winter 2017) |
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Parade's End: Some Do Not; No More Parades; A Man Could Stand Up; Last Post by Ford Madox Ford |
If it hadn't been for Tom Stoppard's TV adaptation, I doubt I would have read Ford's tetralogy. Not an easy read but seeing it in tandem on TV where events unfolded chronologically and the actors gave flesh to the characters certainly added to my enjoyment. Briefly - there are 901 pages in the Kindle edition - the narrative revolves around a love triangle between the high-principled Christopher Tietjens, his vindictive and manipulative wife Sylvia and Valentine, a young suffragette. At its heart is the blood and darkness of the Great War. The narrative meanders back and forth through time, events are revealed through memory and the sometimes unreliable perceptions of the main characters all of whom are forged and trapped in the mores of their time, Christopher by his out-dated sense of honour and his inability to express his feelings, Sylvia by the restraints of her religion at war with her feelings and desires, and Valentine by her family ties and feminist aspirations. Ford wanted his book to be a history of his time and also serve as an indictment of the powers that be who sent so many young men to their senseless deaths. In both ways he succeeded. Reader, I was hooked. And as an afterword, the Kindle was an added bonus with its built in dictionary and links to Wikipedia and the internet. Whoops, I've over-run my 75 words, but then there are four books!
(bwl 66 Autumn 2012) |
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Paradise Lost - Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance by Giles Milton |
Giles Milton is an historian gifted with the common touch and in this account, which he unfolds through the memories of the survivors, he brings vividly to life the terrible fate that was inflicted in 1922 on Smyrna, the richest and most cosmopolitan city in the Ottoman Empire. I found it almost unbearably harrowing and heartbreaking, not a book for the faint hearted.
(bwl 50 March 2009) |
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Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks |
Hannah - an American in Paris researching the lives of women under Nazi occupation - befriends runaway Tariq, a Moroccan teenager, who she takes in as her unlikely lodger. Both become haunted by the stories she unearths but those stories are overshadowed by too much present-day minutiae about Paris, especially Tariq's fascination with the Metro. I kept wondering whether he ever changed his clothes and who did the washing.
(bwl 92 Spring 2019) |
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Past Mischief by Victoria Clayton |
Set in the seventies, this enjoyable novel begins with the death of Miranda Stowe's unfaithful husband. Left with three children, a large house and no money, she takes in paying guests who include a Hungarian pianist and an elderly painter. Her characters though often deliberately comic and sometimes bordering on caricature are nevertheless believable and strong, as is the narrative even if the ending is a shade too romantic. The food Miranda prepares is mouth-watering!
(bwl 21 November 2003) |
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Pearl of China by Anchee Min |
Growing up in Mao's China, Anchee Min was taught that "Pearl Buck insulted Chinese peasants therefore China" and that "The Good Earth was so toxic that it was dangerous even to translate". Then living in America and reading the book, she wept, "never having encountered any author who wrote about our peasants with such admiration, affection and humanity". This novel about Pearl Buck's life seen through the eyes of one of her childhood friends is the result.
(bwl 60 Spring 2011) |
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Penguin Companion to Food by Alan Davidson |
Think of a food. Anything. How about Oka, Gem or Caul? You will learn the first is a cheese made by Canadian Trappist monks, the second a small American muffin, the third an edible membrane surrounding an animal's intestines. There's even a section on Irak - its cuisine not WMD. From the simple to the obscure, this book has everything you might want to know about food. Definitely not a muffin, but a veritable gem!
(bwl 20 September 2003) |
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Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi |
This is Marjane Satrapi's remarkable graphic story of her childhood in Tehran from 1980 when it became obligatory for schoolgirls to wear the veil. She spends some years in Austria and then returns to study at the University. Her text is framed by simple, stark, often humorous, black and white drawings illustrating the bewildering contrasts between the warmth of family life and the outside world of revolution, repression and war. New to graphic books? Try this one!
(bwl 74 Autumn 2014) |
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Piranesi by Susanna Clarke |
"When the moon rose in the third Northern Hall I went to the ninth vestibule - entry for the first day of the fifth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls" - so begins this Fantasty novel from the author of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell. Piranesi inhabits a labyrinthine world, washed by winds and the sea. He keeps a journal, tends the bones of the dead, senses his name is not real. I loathed it at first then loved it and couldn't put it down!
(bwl 103 Winter 2022) |
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Port Out, Starboard Home - and other language myths by Michael Quinion |
Ever tried to explain the origins of expressions like posh, full monty, wet one's whistle, all mouths and trousers, come a cropper, break a leg!, on tenterhooks, forlorn hope to name but a few? Well, this handy little book by Michael Quinion, a writer on language and a researcher for the OED, is the bee's knees and will certainly cut the mustard.
(bwl 24 August 2004) |
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Prague Spring by Simon Mawer |
Two mis-matched Oxford students hitchhike their way into Prague where their lives cross with an English diplomat and his lover, Lenka. But this is 1968, Russian forces are gathering to suppress Dubček's soft socialism. Atmospheric, with vivid descriptions but with characters so stereotypical that they fail to engage - though they're forever engaging physically. I expected so much more from the author of that other novel set in Czechoslovakia - The Glass Room (bwl 55 & 63).
(bwl 91 Winter 2019) |
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Quartet by Jean Rhys |
1922, Paris: a city where well-heeled ex-pats rubbed shoulders with writers, artists and bohemians. Here Rhys became caught in a claustrophobic ménage à trois with Ford Madox Ford and his wife. In this raw semi-autobiographical novel, she recreates the confusion of a young, woman trying to survive in a sophisticated society where because she doesn't understand the rules, she is shunned as the culprit. Prejudiced perhaps, but powerful writing!
(bwl 66 Autumn 2012) |
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Quicksilver by Christie Dickason |
Set in the 17th century, the action shifting from Holland to England and back again, this is the extraordinary story of Ned Malise a dreamy, impoverished musician whose unwilling mission in life is to avenge his family's wrongs. Then suddenly to his horror he begins to turn into a wolf. Brilliant research and characterisation, luminous writing, this psychological thriller is, as the jacket claims, 'a dazzling novel of love, science and superstition'.
(bwl 12 January 2002) |
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Reading in Bed by Sue Gee |
Books and the pleasures of reading link the lives of Dido and Georgia, both now sixty, friends since University. Neither envisages what lies in store. Dido will doubt her husband and suffer ill-health; Georgia must cope with widowhood and an eccentric country cousin suffering from dementia; both will worry about their children's love lives and for a time even their friendship will falter. Written with Gee's usual panache, sad, funny and ultimately uplifting.
(bwl 51 May 2009) |
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Reading in Bed by Sue Gee |
Dido and Georgia, friends since university, return from a Book Fair - one to York the other to London - each laden with a pile of books. Sounds cosy? It isn't. Georgia is newly widowed, her only daughter searching for love, a distant cousin with dementia while Dido's life is falling apart with dizzy-turns, a husband she can no longer trust. Sounds grim? It isn't but it is all absorbing with living, breathing characters all conveyed in Gee's expressive prose.
(bwl 109 Summer 2023) |
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Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi |
Having done just that, I was naturally drawn to this book, although I read Lolita long before the overthrow of the Shah. In the late 90s Azar Nafasi, invited seven young women into her house to discuss forbidden works of Western literature. Intertwined with her fascinating comments on the books themselves, she relates their personal stories as well as her own from when she started teaching at Tehran University in the early days of revolution.
(bwl 25 August 2004) |
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Restoration by Rose Tremain |
Robert Merival, worldly, overweight and loud is content to play the fool for his adored mentor Charles II even to the extent of becoming a 'paper groom' to the King's young mistress. Then things go wrong and he becomes an outcast, striving to find his way to spiritual and social restoration. Tremain is a master of place, time and atmosphere and portrays hugely satisfying characters. Not a new novel but infinitely worth seeking out.
(bwl 26 October 2004) |
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River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh |
Read this only if you've read and enjoyed Sea of Poppies (bwl 48), otherwise you will be totally confused. We follow some of the characters - some seeking their fortune, others chasing an elusive flower - who are transported from Mauritius to the Chinese city of Canton where foreign merchants thrive on the illicit opium trade. It's packed with sights, colours, smells, strange languages and centres on the British belief in the rightness of free-trade, no matter what the human cost.
(bwl 67 Winter 2013) |
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Road Ends by Mary Lawson |
One winter's day in 1966, 21-year-old Megan, the linchpin of her family, breaks free from their chaotic life in Canada's frozen north and flies to London in search of independence and fulfilment. But at home, without her, everything is falling apart. Step by step, through the eyes of Megan, her father and her brother, their stories unfold. Another totally absorbing read from the author of Crow Lake (bwl 77) and The Other Side of the Bridge (bwl 78).
(bwl 79 Winter 2016) |
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Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson |
It's not hard to see why this unpretentious gem of a cookbook was voted 'The Most Useful Cookery Book Ever' by a panel of food writers, restaurateurs, chefs, cooks and consumers. Unlike some other books by top chefs, this one - divided into sections covering his favourite ingredients - is packed with recipes and tips designed to inspire rather than impress. If you don't like cooking, read it anyway. It's as good as a feast.
(bwl 32 November 2005) |
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Room by Emma Donoghue |
Room is the world in which five year old Jack lives with Ma. The only key belongs to Old Nick. There're a few books and a TV but Jack knows everything outside Room is just make-believe until one day Ma begins to talk of escape . . . Told in Jack's voice, his innocence and the love he and Ma share shine through, turning what could have been an unbearable story into something moving and uplifting.
(bwl 60 Spring 2011) |
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Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler |
Can Ian ever atone for his part in the tragedy that his family are struggling to survive? Compassionate, perceptive with underlying humour, all the characters from Ian to his parents, the three children he has inherited, the endearing members of the Church of the Second Chance and the inept foreign students next door are brought to three-dimensional life. Is family a haven or a curse, can any of us survive it? Vintage Tyler.
(bwl 90 Autumn 2018) |
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Saturday by Ian McEwan |
Whether it's squash, music, neurosurgery, road rage, family relationships, unpredictable violence or 2003's massive anti-war demonstration in London, this life in the day of neurosurgeon, Henry Perowne, is told by a master storyteller. It begins with a plane on fire witnessed through a bedroom window and describes the events of a day which should be just a normal Saturday but turns into one when Henry's attitudes and everything that he holds dear must be re-evaluated.
(bwl 29 April 2005) |
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Savage Lands by Clare Clark |
Louisiana, 1704, 20 young women arrived from Paris as wives for some of the migrants. Clarke tells the story of one of these women and her charismatic but treacherous husband whose lives become entwined with that of a young boy, Auguste. An absorbing read which compellingly evokes this hostile colony of swamps and marshes, its unbearably humid summers and freezing winters, pervaded by the shadowy presence of the Indian tribes and the looming threat of the English.
(bwl 59 Winter 2011) |
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Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan |
Eleven American tourists on an art expedition to Burma simply disappear. What happens to them is narrated by the ghost of the woman who organised the tour but died bizarrely on the eve of their departure. It's a tale of naivety and corruption, good and bad intentions, tyranny and humanity which veers rather uneasily between comedy and tragedy and has too many characters who seem like prototypes. Worth reading but wait for the paperback.
(bwl 34 April 2006) |
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Schott's Original Miscellany by Ben Schott |
Forget The Guinness Book of Records and go for this year's must have unputdownable. It's packed with useless information and useful trivia under such headings as Holalphabetic Sentences, Conversions Ancient and Modern, Chess Terms, Airport Marshalling Signals and the 5 Essential Rules for Life. There's even a map of the Hampton Court Maze, the words of Solomon Grundy and a translation of the longest town name in Britain. Perfect for post-festivity blues.
(bwl 17 February 2003) |
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Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh |
If you like the sound of an historical adventure sweeping across continents and generations, packed with disparate characters ranging from a bankrupt raja, a Chinese opium addict, a beautiful French heroine, a mulatto freedman from Baltimore, sailors, coolies and convicts, then put your feet up, kick off your shoes and indulge. This, the first of a trilogy, written by a master story teller, is absolutely the perfect read for those all encroaching dark winter days.
(bwl 48 November 2008) |
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Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell |
An enjoyable romp by the author of The Diary of a Bookseller on the customers who irritate him most grouped into seven categories: The Expert, Young Family, Occultist, Loiterer, Bearded Pensioner, Not-so-Silent Traveller and the Historian. As you read it you wonder if you will recognise yourself or if not someone you know. You might think this a risky undertaking for someone wanting to sell his stock but his self-deprecating humour will disarm anyone who might have been offended.
(bwl 99 Winter 2021) |
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Shooting Butterflies by Marika Cobbold |
A tale of love, loss and redemption which entwines the lives of two women. The first, Grace a successful photographer who on her 40th birthday receives a present from her dead lover; the second, Louisa, now 100, widow of a famous painter. If you've read Guppies for Tea or any other Cobbold novel, you won't need me to urge you to read this. If you're new to her writing, you have a treat in store.
(bwl 23 April 2004) |
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Short breaks in Northern France by Nick Rider |
If you're planning a day-trip, a weekend or a longer break, take this invaluable guide book. Each chapter concentrates on a specific region, high-lights an especially good restaurant, as well as recommending other places to eat, where to stay and shop, what to do and see. Our star finds were Nicol's, a small restaurant in St.-Valery-sur-Somme, the Hotel du Centre in Wimireux as well as the Parc Ornithologique du Marquenterre close to Le Crotoy.
(bwl 15 October 2002) |
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Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart |
Rejoice! The Booker judges really have chosen a title that is not just a literary triumph but is absolutely un-put-downable. I'm only half way through but couldn't resist having my say!
(bwl 99 Winter 2021) |
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Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart |
Shuggie is growing up on a run-down estate in Glasgow where unemployment is rife. His beloved, unmarried mother is an alcoholic and always falls for disastrous men. Shuggie knows he must look after and protect her but also he struggles to define himself. He is different, people notice, he must learn to be more like a boy. This is a raw, heartbreaking novel about a little boy's love for his mother and the devastating effect that addiction has on all those around you. Carrying the ghost of his mother somehow 16 year-old Shuggie must survive. It was a page-turner right to the end.
(bwl 101 Summer 2021) |
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Silence by Shusaku Endo |
17th C. Japan - Rodrigues, an idealistic Jesuit priest covertly joins the outlawed Christians to discover why his former mentor has apostatised. He see himself as a Christ figure with his own Gethsemane, his own Judas - a wretch called Kichijiro. Forced to witness the sadistic torture and executions of the peasant Christians, he is haunted by the question: Lord why are you silent? - then at his darkest hour, as he tramples on what he holds most dear, there is a glimmer of light.
(bwl 84 Spring 2017) |
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Sister of my Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
Don't be put off by the rather sloppy title. This is a stunning story of two cousins born on the same night as both their fathers were mysteriously lost. Set in India and America, it charts the story of their childhood ruled by the mothers, their arranged marriages and their efforts to break free and become part of the modern world.
(bwl 4 July 2000) |
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Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't be Wrong - what makes the French so French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau |
and Julie Barlow
A terrific read for those who love France. For two years, the Canadian authors played the role of anthropologists in a quest to unravel what makes the French tick. The book covers all aspects of French society from the role of the State to attitudes about food, land, privacy and language. An interesting side-effect is that by highlighting the differences between French and North American cultures, they give a fascinating insight into their own customs.
(bwl 24 June 2004) |
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Skallagrigg by William Horwood |
Who or what is the Skallagrigg? What significance does the name have for Eddie abandoned in the twenties in a grim hospital, for Esther, a girl with cerebral palsy growing up in the seventies and for the narrator, an American computer-games genius? This book takes you on a journey of emotional and psychological discovery as the truth behind the myth is gradually revealed.
(bwl 19 June 2003) |
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Small Island by Andrea Levy |
Centred in 1948 drab, down-at-heel London, four contrasting voices tell their overlapping stories: blonde, blue-eyed Queenie Bligh, her lacklustre husband, Bernard, and Jamaican immigrants, Gilbert Joseph and his wife whom he calls Miss Mucky Foot. It's funny, perceptive and moving in its handling of empire, racial prejudice, people's preconceptions, war and love. A real corker of a book and a deserving winner of so many awards.
*Winner of the 2004 Orange Prize and the 2004 Whitbread Best Novel Award and the 2004 Whitbread Book of the Year award
(bwl 28 February 2005) |
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Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers |
Wonderful, witty, beautiful, glorious, miraculous, effortless to read, quietly compelling, stunning, dazzling, a gut punch ending - just some of the quotes on the cover - not to mention it being longlisted for the Women's Prize. The majority of my book group agreed but help! it did absolutely nothing for me. "Quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum" - as Lucretius remarked or in plain English - one man's meat . . . just proves how subjective reading is.
(bwl 102 Autumn 2021) |
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Smiley's People by John le Carré |
After watching the 1982 DVD series recently I couldn't decide who was who and what was what. So I read the book. And what a convoluted tale of legends and spies as Smiley undertakes a lonely, covert mission to uncover the secrets which will finally cause the downfall of his arch-enemy Karla. Le Carré was so much more than a spinner of yarns, his characters from the General who defected to the girl incarcerated in a Swiss asylum are breathing human beings.
(bwl 100 Spring 2021) |
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Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson |
If you missed Guterson's brilliant first novel published fifteen years ago, search it out now, it is as compelling as ever. A Pacific island in mid-winter: a fisherman is found drowned in his nets, a Japanese-American is on trial accused of his murder. This is war-time, Pearl Harbour has changed the inhabitants' lives; prejudices and suspicions affect everyone's judgments. A nail-biting court-room drama set in a snow filled landscape which keeps its suspense until the end.
(bwl 57 Summer 2010) |
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Something Might Happen by Julie Myerson |
A senseless and brutal murder casts its shadow over the lives of the people living in a Suffolk seaside town. This is not a whodunit but an exploration and unravelling of relationships previously so taken for granted by the friends and family of the victim. The narrative is intimate, slow-moving almost hypnotic as it progresses towards its unpredictable and disturbing climax.
(bwl 37 December 2006) |
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Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason |
There's a lot of sorrow and for me not very much bliss. It's been described as warm and hilarious, but instead of wanting to hug the narrator and have a giggle, I wanted to throw her out of the window as she goes on and on about how miserable she is, life's unfairness and people's failure to understand her. Maybe it's my British stiff upper lip not letting me find mental illness funny.
(bwl 110 Autumn 2023) |
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Sovereign & Revelation by C J Sansom |
In these third and fourth volumes of Sansom's Tudor mysteries, lawyer Matthew Shardlake is reluctantly propelled into the world of Henry VIII's court. The atmosphere is rife with intrigue, murder, betrayal and religious fervour; the terror of torture and the Tower hangs over everyone, whether Queen or commoner. Perhaps more for curling up on the sofa than bedtime reading. Both are real page turners, especially if you like your history not too dry. Two definite musts.
(bwl 51 May 2009) |
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Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky by Bertrand M Patenaude |
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.
(bwl 56 Spring 2010) |
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Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman |
A very big book. nearly 1,000 pages which I found difficult to get through with its vivid descriptions of the suffering and hand-to-hand battles fought by Russian soldiers against Hitler's ruthless onslaught. So harrowing were the horrors, I did the unforgivable and skipped large sections only to find at the end that the siege of Stalingrad was to be continued in Grossman's second book Life and Fate. You need strong nerves to tackle them.
(bwl 94 Autumn 2019) |
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Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor |
1847 - on board en-route for America are hundreds of desperate refugees fleeing the Irish famine; travelling first class are a bankrupt landowner, his two young sons with their nanny, his wife and her lover. Murder is stalking the decks. Following multiple threads from documents, diaries, letters and interviews the lives and unexpected connections of the protagonists gradually take shape. The tension builds until the fatal deed is done and we reach the final unexpected twist.
(bwl 85 Summer 2017) |
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State of Wonder by Ann Patchett |
A pharmaceutical company in Minnesota is funding an eccentric doctor whose research in the Amazon jungle will change women's lives for ever. A letter arrives informing them that an employee, sent to monitor the progress of the centre, has died. His colleague, Marina, determines to find out what happened. So begins a modern-day Heart of Darkness as she enters a secretive world of strange loyalties, mosquito-infected waterways and remote tribes. Dark, atmospheric, and engrossing.
(bwl 64 Spring 2012) |
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Still Here by Linda Grant |
49 year-old Alix returns to Liverpool to attend her dying mother's bedside and to confront her Jewish family's past in Nazi Germany. She meets and immediately lusts after a middle-aged, American architect who is building an ultra modern hotel. An affaire is the last thing he wants as he struggles to understand why his marriage went wrong and to come to terms with his experiences in the Israeli army. A thought-provoking, raunchy and moving read.
(bwl 18 April 2003) |
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Sweet Caress by William Boyd |
Boyd's done it again - brought the 20th C alive, this time through the lens of a pioneer female photographer. She takes us from childhood trauma to old-age by way of the home counties, London, Berlin, New York, the Blackshirt riots, the Western Front, the Highlands, Vietnam and a Scottish island. Boyd loves tricks - the photos scattered through the text are fakes, so is the quotation on the frontispiece; even the acknowledgements are not to be trusted. Relax, sit back, enjoy the magic!
(bwl 83 Winter 2017) |
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The Africa House by Christina Lamb |
In the 1920s Stewart Gore-Brown built a feudal paradise in a remote corner of Northern Rhodesia complete with uniformed servants and port after dinner. He loved and idealised three women: Edith, his Aunt, twenty years older, Lorna who he wanted to marry and her daughter, also called Lorna, who became his wife. Champion of black Rhodesians, friend of Welensky and Kaunda, he played an influential role in the country's politics. This is his extraordinary story.
(bwl 13 April 2002) |
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The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman |
(Volume III of His Dark Materials trilogy)
If you've read the first two volumes of this trilogy (see bwl 7), you won't need any encouragement to read the third. I found these books thought-provoking and extremely challenging and, as with Harry Potter, definitely not just for the children. In following the adventures of Lyra and Will, the reader is faced with all sorts of fundamental and often uncomfortable questions about life, death and religion. These books deservedly have already become classics. They are dazzling.
(bwl 8 April 2001) |
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The Bee Sting by Paul Murray |
A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favour to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil - can a single moment change everything? The Barnes family is in crisis - we follow the character's complicated lives through the eyes of different narrators as each one struggles to survive. Funny, sad, totally immersive - from another of those born story-telling Irish writers. 

(bwl 111 Winter 2024) |
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The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri |
This haunting book follows beekeeper Nuri and his wife on their perilous journey from war-torn Syria to England's promised land. Beekeeping is all he has known, now his hives are destroyed, his wife blinded, his son lost. The author worked in a refugee camp in Athens and this story is not just Nuri's but the story of hundreds of others struggling to survive the terrifying circumstances of their lives and still retain their humanity. It puts our worries into perspective.
(bwl 97 Summer 2020) |
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The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald |
Moscow, 1913, Frank, an ex-pat Englishman, arrives home to discover his wife is en route for England with the children, only to abandon them at the nearest railway station. As winter is losing its grip so Frank is floundering, his well-meaning friends only adding to his confusion. Don't read it you're looking for derring-do and neat resolutions but if you enjoy pondering and peeling back layers, you'll be rewarded by a thought-provoking and often very funny read.
(bwl 88 Spring 2018) |
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The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore |
Leningrad, 1952, under Stalin's grip Russians survive by keeping a low profile. Then Andrei, a young doctor, becomes involved in the treatment of a seriously ill boy, the son of a feared, senior secret police officer. As the child's health worsens Andrei, his colleagues and his family find themselves falling victim to the paranoiac power of the State machine. Told with her customary panache, this is a brilliant and terrifying sequel to The Siege (bwl 14).
(bwl 60 Spring 2011) |
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The Binding Chair by Kathryn Harrison |
The narrative, alternating between 1920's Nice, late 19th century rural China, Shanghai, the trans-Siberian railway and pre WWI England, tells the story of May, the Chinese wife of an Australian Jew, and his feisty niece Alice to whom the older woman becomes a surrogate mother. The gruesome custom of binding little girl's feet is central to the narrative dominating May's life and affecting all around her. Dare I use the word unputdownable? Well, it was!
(bwl 12 January 2002) |
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The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory |
Anne Boleyn leaves an inheritance of suspicion, betrayal and death which haunts the lives of the three women telling the story: her devious, jealous sister-in-law Jane Boleyn, homely Anne of Cleves and poor little, fun-loving Katherine Howard. Overshadowing them all is the brooding presence of the now monstrous King and the political game being played by the scheming Duke of Norfolk. Meticulously researched, this is a must for any fan of this author's historical novels.
(bwl 41 August 2007) |
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The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell |
I have a terrible admission. I found this book impossible to read. I should have been warned, metaphysical thrillers are not my thing but I loved Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (bwl 57) and enjoyed Black Swan Green (bwl 41), however I struggled with the first section of this new novel, began to feel it might be working and then was completely thrown by the second section. All I wanted was a handy window. Has anyone else read it?
(bwl 78 Autumn 2015) |
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The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan |
Luling speaks excruciating English, is obstinate, forgetful, critical, superstitious and forever threatening to die. Her American-born daughter, Ruth, uncertain of her mother's love, regards her with embarrassed exasperation until she reads Luling's account of her early life in a remote Chinese village. Uncovering the secrets of Precious Auntie, dragon bones and Peking Man, Ruth comes to terms with the events of her own childhood and learns to understand herself. It's quintessential Amy Tan. Read it!
(bwl 10 August 2001) |
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The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro |
Post-Arthurian Britain: here are Sir Gawain now grown old, a mysterious Warrior and a boy bewitched. A strange mist from a dragon's breath engulfs the land. No one remembers quite who they are or where they began. Axl and Beatrice search for their long-lost son unaware that their journey will reveal submerged secrets they might prefer to forget. Can their love survive even as the boatman prepares to ferry them away? A strange, mystical and hypnotic book.
(bwl 85 Summer 2017) |
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The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje |
In the early 1950s, eleven-year old Michael sails to England on a huge liner; relegated to the lowly 'Cat's Table', he and two other boys have endless adventures, spying on and trying to make sense of the astonishing behaviour of grown-ups. Moving between the actual voyage and his later life, Michael gradually realises that this time apart has influenced everything and everyone he touches. An absolute gem, one to savour and to read again.
(bwl 64 Spring 2012) |
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The Cazelet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard |
My summer addiction but just the thing for those long, dark evenings ahead. Based loosely on Howard's own history, the five books follow the fortunes of the Cazelet family from their comfortable existence in the thirties, through the upheavals of WW II and into the uncertainties of the fifties. What happens is shown through the differing viewpoints of both the male and female protagonists allowing us, as in life, to make our own judgements. A truly wonderful read.
(bwl 94 Autumn 2019) |
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The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor |
Nothing much happens in the sleepy seaside town of Dynmouth. Or does it? Slowly and inexorably the narrative of intrigue and blackmail builds around a dysfunctional boy from the council estate and the respectable inhabitants whose secrets he knows. Intent on gathering props for an improbable sketch for the Summer Fete, Timothy calmly terrorises his victims and as the pages turn the reader is captured too. Has Trevor ever written a bad book? I don't think so.
(bwl 68 Spring 2013) |
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The Children's Book by A S Byatt |
Many people will love this book which charts the years between the late 1800s to WW I through the lives of an unconventional family and their English and German friends. Like a glittering kaleidoscope, the chapters dissolve one into another, revealing yet another tantalising facet of the era. There's no doubt that Byatt is a brilliant writer, although there were longueurs when I wished she would stop being brilliant and just get on with the story.
(bwl 55 Winter 2010) |
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The Cloudspotter's Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney |
The author is just mad about clouds. So much so that he founded The Cloud Appreciation Society with its own interactive website. This guide contends that clouds are nature's poetry, their contemplation is good for the soul and we should applaud their ephemeral beauty and proudly live with our heads in them. Buy it. Browse through it. You will never take the sky or clouds for granted again.
(bwl 36 September 2006) |
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The Code Book by Simon Singh |
A book for the schoolboy (or maybe schoolgirl) in us all. It traces the history of codes and ciphers from ancient Greece to the present day and ends with a world-wide Cipher Challenge for which there is a £10,000 reward. If you like maths you'll have endless fun with all the graphs and charts and if you are so inclined you might even be tempted to try to devise an unbreakable code of your own!
(bwl 4 July 2000) |
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The Colour by Rose Tremain |
Anyone who like me is a fan of Rose Tremain will be as eager as I was to read her latest novel which is set in New Zealand during the mid-nineteenth century gold-rush. Gold is the colour linking the lives of all the characters from Joseph and his wife Harriet, the boy Edwin and his Maori nanny to the Chinese market-gardener, Pao Yi. Luminous writing draws the reader into an unfamiliar but wholly convincing world.
(bwl 20 September 2003) |
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The Conversations: 66 reasons to start talking by Olivia Fane |
A book to dip in and out of: essays ranging through all aspects of life from parenthood, depression, ghosts and mirrors, to cooking and parties or running out into a summer storm naked. It will amuse, infuriate, have you nod in agreement or shake your head in disbelief. It may not start you talking but it certainly starts you thinking about what is sublime to what is ridiculous. Decidedly not a self-help book but a little gem.
(bwl 69 Summer 2013) |
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The Cornish Trilogy: What's Bred in the Bone, The Rebel Angels, The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies |
Want to escape from this real world? Here's another spellbinding trilogy from the author of The Deptford Trilogy (bwl 90). The titles alone are enough to stir the imagination. We follow the life, death and legacy of Francis Cornish, a Toronto art patron. Amongst the cast of characters are eccentric professors, a defrocked monk, a beautiful gypsy's daughter . . . A page-turning saga of academic and artistic life involving theft, murder and love in twentieth century Canada and underlying all, Davies's delicious sense of humour!
(bwl 105 Summer 2022) |
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The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas |
Having watched Gerald Depardieu's version and re-watched the one with Alan Badel, I needed to go back to the original, especially as their endings differed. It's an astonishing conglomeration of characters and events, told in a racy style, sweeping you on from one twist to the next as the Count wreaks his revenge on those who had wronged him. What a summer read it was, one which would be equally good sitting by that proverbial log-fire.
(bwl 82 Autumn 2016) |
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The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith |
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.
(bwl 70 Autumn 2013) |
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon |
This is an extraordinary insight into the sometimes comic, more often bleak and frightening world of a 15 year-old boy with Asperger's. He hates anything yellow or brown or being touched; loves lists and patterns; is good at maths and cannot lie; other humans are a mystery. His story begins when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered and sets out - with his pet rat - on a journey which will irrevocably change his life.
(bwl 19 June 2003) |
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The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert |
WW II in an unfamiliar light, in effect three stories about ordinary Germans: Helmut, a young, patriotic photographer in the thirties; Lore, a twelve-year-old girl who guides her siblings across a devastated Germany after the Allies imprison her Nazi parents; and in the nineties, Misha, obsessed by what his beloved grandmother knew and what his grandfather might have done during the war. The use of the present tense gives a heart-stopping immediacy to the narrative.
(bwl 35 July 2006) |
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The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally |
This unusual perspective on WW I describes no battles only their aftermath: endless processions of the injured in desperate need of care. We share the experiences of two Australian sisters, volunteer nurses, alienated by a guilty secret. Their hospital ship off Gallipoli is torpedoed and they are sent to work in field hospitals first on Lemnos, then on the Western Front. Harrowing and moving yes, but there is humour, friendship, love and humanity too.
(bwl 69 Summer 2013) |
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The Death of Faith by Donna Leon |
My first venture into the world of Commissario Guido Brunetti. It has all the trappings of a first-class mystery thriller. Dark secrets, unexpected deaths, strange heirs, a nun who having renounced her calling has put herself into grave danger, priests who are more worldy than pious and a sub-plot of paedophilia, all bathed in the luminous light of Venice. A great winter's read, curled up by a glowing fire!
(bwl 7 February 2001) |
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The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business, The Manticore and World of Wonders by Robertson Davies |
A small village in Canada, at 5.58 p.m. on 27 December 1908 a snowball is thrown, a little boy ducks and a heavily pregnant woman falls to the ground. This action will determine the lives of the three main protagonists - school-teacher Duncan Ramsay, sugar-baron Boy Staunton and Paul Dempster whose birth it precipitates - and whose destiny will be the most extraordinary of all. I had never read any of Robertson Davies's books and when I began this trilogy I wasn't even sure I wanted to, instead I was under his spell all through the summer. Here is a world which is real and often uncomfortable but always there is a feeling of magic and wonderment. Who did kill Boy Staunton? What is a Manticore? - read and find out!
(bwl 90 Autumn 2018) |
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The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams |
Simon Winchester's The Surgeon of Crowthorne (bwl 2000) tells the story of the Scriptorium where lexicographers assembled the Oxford English Dictionary but somehow the words women use amongst themselves were disregarded. This is their story and of the little girl who treasured them. Whimsical? Not at all, Williams brings a whole new perspective on how words and their usage have shaped and influenced our lives throughout history. Warm, funny with a touch of romance but never sentimental, it's a compelling read.
(bwl 101 Summer 2021) |
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The Discovery of France by Graham Robb |
Cycling 14,000 miles and researching for four years in the library, the author, tells the history of France from the Revolution to the outbreak of WWI through the eyes of ordinary people, most of whom until a century ago thought French a foreign language. Told with humour and understanding and never patronising, it's full of interesting facts, anecdotes and characters. Whether you know France well or only a little, you will find much to astonish you.
Winner of the 2008 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize
(bwl 51 May 2009) |
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The Dry by Jane Harper |
Drought, Australia's outback, a community in shock: policeman Falk returns for the funeral of his childhood friend who has slaughtered his wife and son, then turned the gun on himself. Or has he? In setting out to discover what led to the deaths, Falk is haunted by the secret he shared 20 years ago when he fled from the town. What distinguishes this page-turning thriller is Harper's evocation of the hot, dry, pulsating landscape, the perfect seedbed for smouldering resentments, grudges and suspicions.
(bwl 89 Summer 2018) |
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The Dutch House by Ann Patchett |
Although their mother has left, Danny the narrator and his sister Maeve grow up happily in a magical house in small-town Pennsylvania until one day their father brings home their future stepmother. Banished from the house they love, it will haunt them all their lives, just as it will take a life-time for Danny to begin to understand and possibly forgive. A poignant, evocative read.
(bwl 95 Winter 2020) |
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The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry |
I was sure I would hate this over-hyped book but instead found myself drawn in. The damp, fog-bound descriptions of the Essex landscape with its oozing mud, sense of foreboding and the creeping fear of superstition play as much a part as do the varied cast of characters who confound our belief in the conventional viewpoint of those we think of as Victorian - perfect when the frost lies outside and there's every excuse to curl up with a book.
(bwl 83 Winter 2017) |
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The Fall by Simon Mawer |
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.
(bwl 56 Spring 2010) |
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The Fall of Light by Niall Williams |
Mid-nineteenth C. rural Ireland, Francis Foley, quick to anger, and his four sons flee the aftermath of his rage which cost them their mother. Each follows his own path as they search for a land they can call their own. We follow their separate fortunes until finally a series of encounters and coincidences lead to a kind of reunion and redemption for him. Another gem from Williams yet another Irish author who writes like an angel.
(bwl 111 Winter 2024) |
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The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce |
If you have an i-Pad, or similar device, and young children around you who you want to encourage to read, download this App. Half book, half animated film it tells the story of Morris Lessmore who loved words, loved stories, loved books. Listen to the story, manipulate the images or just read the words underneath each page. And if you have a device but no children, download it anyway. It's magic!
(bwl 62 Autumn 2011) |
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The Far Cry by Emma Smith |
To evade her mother's clutches, Teresa, aged 14, is taken by her father to India to live with her half-sister. But this novel was written in the late 40s, so no planes, but train, boat and more trains and when they arrive, things are not as expected. Journey and events slowly unfold with evocative descriptions of people, place and landscape. India breathes, as do the characters. This gem, recently re-published, is worth seeking out.
(bwl 50 March 2009) |
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The Fencing Master by Arturo Pérez-Reverte |
1868, Spain teeters on the edge of revolution but Jaime Astarloa, old-fashioned master fencer, lives in a dream-world, his ambition to perfect the irresistible sword thrust. His serenity is shattered when Adela de Otero appears at his door and he becomes the unwilling participant in dark political deeds. Wonderfully atmospheric.
(bwl 2 March 2000) |
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The First Woman by Jennifer Makumbi |
In this epic tale, we follow teenage Kirabo brought up by loving grandparents as she searches for her identity and the truth behind family feuds and secrets. Where is her mother? Did she really choose to abandon her? Mixing modern feminism with Ugandan folklore and legend this is a roller-coaster ride whose feisty heroine had me enthralled and left me wondering do all patriarchal societies lay the blame for their ills on their First Woman? It would seem so.
(bwl 106 Autumn 2022) |
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The Food of Love by Anthony Capella |
Studying art history in Rome, American Laura declares she can only love a man who can cook; Tommaso, a handsome waiter, can't but his best friend, unassuming Bruno, can. The scene is set for a Cyrano inspired tale of seduction and secret love, threaded through with mouth-watering descriptions of Italian food and a real feel for the atmosphere of backstreet Rome and the Italian countryside. A delicious cappuccino of a tale.
(bwl 36 September 2006) |
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The Forest of Wool and Steel by Natsu Miyashita |
The sounds of a piano being tuned transport a Japanese boy to his mountain village with its scent of warm earth and falling leaves and determines his future. As he follows life's tortuous path, searching for purpose and meaning, he constantly asks himself: Have I got what it takes? And there is always the piano, the forest of wool and steel. A poetic, hypnotic tale to enchant and enthral.
(bwl 96 Spring 2020) |
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The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton |
Lovers of family mysteries will relish this book. Set in 1913, 1975 and 2005 it unravels the secrets surrounding a little girl found abandoned on an Australian quayside; all she remembers is that she was hidden on a ship by someone she calls The Authoress, but who then disappeared. It's one of those books which you can imagine reading curled up in front of a roaring fire. In other words, fantasy, but delicious.
(bwl 48 November 2008) |
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The Giant O'Brien by Hilary Mantel |
A disturbing read, dark and compelling, evoking the poverty and squalor of 18th century London. Mantel weaves together the life of the giant O'Brien, story teller and dreamer with that of John Hunter, celebrated surgeon, anatomist and procurer of dead bodies from he cares not where. Not for the squeamish.
(bwl 3 May 2000) |
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The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins |
Rachel, a self-obsessed fantasist, sees from the train the perfect couple - Jess and Jason, really Megan and Scott - who live up the road from where she lived, where her ex still lives with new wife and baby. When Rachel gets drunk she does irrational things, which she only half remembers. She's sure she did get off the train but did she see what happened when one of them goes missing? Sounds great but Rachel was so implausible, I didn't care.
(bwl 82 Autumn 2016) |
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The Girl who Fell from the Sky by Simon Mawer |
Marian Sutro is young, idealistic and bi-lingual; the perfect candidate to be recruited, trained and parachuted into occupied France; officially a Resistance courier, her real mission involves a nuclear physicist working in Paris whom she knew as a child. From the big adventure of training to the reality of a country where fear stalks every move, the tension builds unbearably. No one can be trusted. No one. A masterclass in espionage fiction.
(bwl 67 Winter 2013) |
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The Glass Room by Simon Mawer |
In a small Czech town, Viktor and Liesel Landauer build their futuristic house, all straight lines, with plate glass windows, onyx wall, white floors and ceilings, the embodiment of light and optimism. But this is the thirties, storm clouds loom, Victor is Jewish and the family must flee. Yet the house remains, casting its spell over all subsequent occupiers. A brilliant novel, fine characters, heart breaking and inspiring by turns. My absolute best recent read!
(bwl 55 Winter 2010) |
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The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck |
This twentieth century classic is enjoying a revival following Hilary Spurling's recent biography. It tells the story of a Chinese farmer and his family as they struggle to survive poverty, drought, famine and war. Familiar subjects maybe, but told by a writer who until the age of 8 considered herself Chinese and to whom China was always more real than the country of her birth. Read it if you haven't and if you have, read it again!
(bwl 58 Autumn 2010) |
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The Good People by Hannah Kent |
Nóra, newly widowed, cares for her disabled grandson but this is 19 C rural Ireland where folklore and superstition are rife, crops are failing, livestock are dying, people whisper - is he really a changeling? With her maid Mary, she turns to Nance who has healing powers and knowledge of the old ways. If they go to the river will they get her real grandson back? A compelling and heartbreaking story based on true events.
(bwl 108 Spring 2023) |
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The Great Western Beach - A Memoir of a Cornish Childhood Between the Wars by Emma Smith |
Not all bliss but written with perception and compassion, this is the antithesis of those over-hyped misery memoirs. As well as a portrait of the highs and lows of family life, it is a beautiful evocation of life in a small Cornish town between the Wars. Emma Smith recalls her world through a child's eyes. Her last words are "Goodbye, my childhood!" and throughout there is a lingering sense of Paradise (however imperfect) lost.
(bwl 49 January 2009) |
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The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore |
1952, Yorkshire - Isabel Carey, newly married to an overworked doctor, struggles to adapt to her life, upstairs the endless pacing of a hostile landlady, nearby a deserted WW II airfield and hidden in a cupboard an RAF greatcoat which for warmth she lays on her bed. Then one night there is a tapping on the window . . . A delicious, elegant ghost story that like all good ones continues to haunt long after you turn the last page.
(bwl 77 Summer 2015) |
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The Green Road by Anne Enright |
Rosaleen summons her four adult children to a final Christmas in their old home on Ireland's west coast. Reluctantly they arrive, Dan who is gay from NY, aid-worker Emmet from Mali, Hanna a resting actress with her baby from Dublin and Constance mother-of-three who stayed behind. Almost immediately they revert to their sibling roles, each vying for attention from a mother who never quite knew how to love. It's funny, sad, gossipy and painfully true.
(bwl 81 Summer 2016) |
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The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain |
To have the right kind of life, Mutti tells Gustav, "be like Switzerland . . . hold yourself together . . . be courageous, stay separate and strong". But what is the right kind of life and did his parents follow this maxim? What happened to his father, why is Mutti so bitter and cold, what is the difference between friendship and love? Or between neutrality and commitment? Read it to find out! Another star from Tremain.
(bwl 82 Autumn 2016) |
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The Help by Kathyrn Stockett |
A young woman is compiling a book containing the stories of their day-to-day lives written by the maids in her town, who are raising the children and doing all the cleaning and cooking. Innocent enough . . . but it's 1962, the town: Jackson, Mississippi; she is white, they are black. Warm, funny, angry, an extraordinary novel which keeps you on tenterhooks as she and the maids forge true friendships while facing ostracism, racial prejudice and worse.
(bwl 58 Autumn 2010) |
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The History of Love by Nicole Krauss |
Leo Gursky struggles to exist in modern day New York. Sixty years ago in Poland, he fell in love and wrote a book which unbeknown to him survived and now haunts the imagination of fourteen-year-old Alma, who was named after his main character. His and her story unfold in tandem revealing the lies, half truths and passions of the past. Funny, moving, tantalising and entirely believable. Everything you could want from a great read.
(bwl 35 July 2006) |
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The Hive - The Story of the Honeybee and Us by Bee Wilson |
Not about beekeeping but a fascinating glimpse through history, art and literature of mankind's many varied attempts to draw parallels with and inspiration for human society through studying and interpreting life in the hive. The bee while simply going about its business of making honey appears to have been all things to all men. Being christened Beatrice but always called Bee perhaps explains why the author became enamoured of her subject. An absorbing read.
(bwl 35 July 2006) |
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The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne |
Russia 1915: a sixteen-year old boy saves a member of the Imperial family from an assassin's bullet and becomes bodyguard to the Tzar's heir; now in his eighties, living in exile, he is recounting his story. The fate of the Romanovs and especially of Anastasia, the Tzar's youngest daughter, haunted the 20th C - never mind we now know their fate - Boyne, the master story-teller, unfolds, apart from a few caveats, a gripping saga of what-might-have-been.
(bwl 104 Spring 2022) |
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The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh |
Into the harsh world of an archipelago of islands set between the sea and the Bengali plains come two outsiders: Kanai, a business man and Piya, Indian born but American raised; he to discover the secrets of his uncle's past, she to study cetaceans. Although it is ostensibly their story, it was the haunting tide country, its legends and its people whose lives they disrupt, which engaged my imagination and kept the pages turning.
(bwl 47 September 2008) |
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The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville |
Two strangers arrive in an Australian bush town (he, jug-eared and gawky, to demolish the old wooden bridge; she, too big and abrupt for comfort, to set up a museum). Their story, interspersed with that of the Chinese butcher and the banker's wife is funny, perceptive, down-to-earth and touching. Awarded the Orange prize by the female jury, it was the only title short-listed which the shadow male panel wholeheartedly endorsed.
(bwl 10 August 2001) |
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The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai |
This novel set in India, America and England aroused conflicting reactions from my book group. It has a strong story line and intriguing characters and Desai is a formidable writer but it is only for those who revel in convoluted prose, extraneous punctuation marks, frequent diversions and long lists of description. If like me you find this sort of style overblown and intrusive you might want to throw the book straight out of the window.
*Winner of the 2006 Man Booker prize.
(bwl 39 April 2007) |
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The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin |
At 44, Dickens began a liaison with a young actress. To safeguard his reputation, he publicly announced that it was his wife's fault that their marriage had failed, removed her from their house and forbade their children to see her. He then pretended a bachelor existence, hiding Nelly completely away. When he died his sister-in-law and Nelly herself continued the deception. All records, letters and diaries were destroyed. Or were they? Read and find out.
(bwl 58 Autumn 2010) |
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The Island by Victoria Hislop |
Spinalonga, a tiny island off Crete, was Greece's last remaining leper colony and it provides a fascinating backdrop for a novel. It was obviously the island's history which inspired the author and it kept me turning the pages because I found some of the characters too contrived and black and white. Hyped as a Richard and Judy's summer read, this could be one for that proverbial airport lounge or a long train or coach journey.
(bwl 36 September 2006) |
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The Kites by Romain Gary |
Translated from the French, this haunting novel begins in 1932 Normandy with 10-year old Ludo - nephew of an eccentric kite-maker - falling in love with the little daughter of a Polish aristocrat. During WW II their paths cross again, he in the resistance, she sleeping with the enemy. As a kite flies free, yet is tethered by its string, so they are caught. Poetic and suffused with existential meaning and the darkness of war, yet too there is humour and heart-warming characters like the village restauranteur and a resistance-fighter Madame.
(bwl 94 Autumn 2019) |
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The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafón |
If you're a Zafon fan, you won't need urging to read this fourth book in his series centred around the Cemetery of Forgotten Books (see previous bwls). They can be read in any order but really you should begin with The Shadow of the Wind which sets the tone of all the others and is in fact the best. Gothic, exuberant, full of twists and turns, it gallops along which is good because it is huge and in hardback very heavy!
(bwl 92 Spring 2019) |
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The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver |
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.
(bwl 56 Spring 2010) |
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The Lie by Helen Dunmore |
WWI is over: Daniel, returns to a small Cornish town where, by obeying a dying old woman's wish, he becomes an outsider living on her smallholding, tending the land, feeding the goats, yearning to survive but all the time remembering . . . the horrors, the filthy mud, the smells and the guilt over the death of Frederick his boyhood friend who haunts him waking and sleeping. Intense and moving written in Dunmore's characteristic, lucid prose.
(bwl 74 Autumn 2014) |
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The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and of his friend Marilyn Monroe by Andrew O'Hagan |
This novel has garnered rave reviews. Monroe's final years seen through the eyes of a little dog who began life at Charlestone before travelling to the United States to be bought by Frank Sinatra as a gift for the actress. A dog with decided opinions, perceptions and prone to quote numerous writers and philosophers. A concept of genius, and I wanted so much to enjoy it but found myself defeated by the writer's sheer cleverness.
(bwl 57 Summer 2010) |
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The Light of Day by Graham Swift |
It is the anniversary of a death and as private detective George prepares to pay his fortnightly visit to Sarah, his ex-client, he gradually unravels the events which led to this day. From the start we can guess at her crime but it's the whys and wherefores that keep us on tenterhooks right to the end as he endeavours to understand the complexities of her relationships with him, her husband and her husband's lover.
(bwl 21 November 2003) |
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The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien |
A small Irish town is enthralled by a mysterious foreigner with his white beard, topknot ponytail, potions and healing hands. But Dr. Vlad is a lie, the fictional doppelgänger of the Butcher of Bosnia. This highly praised novel, written in that lyrical prose that is so peculiarly Irish, kept me turning the pages, hungry for more but perhaps because it is based on such recent history, I found it's Irish and London settings a distraction. Just too literal-minded, I suppose.
(bwl 81 Summer 2016) |
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The Long Song by Andrea Levy |
Let July, the narrator, be your guide: " . . . My son Thomas, who is publishing this book, tells me, it is customary at this place in a novel to give the reader a little taste of the story that is held within these pages. As your storyteller, I am to convey that this tale is set in Jamaica during the last turbulent years of slavery and the early years of freedom that followed . . . " and read on to be well rewarded.
(bwl 62 Autumn 2011) |
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The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien |
The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King
Amidst all the excitement generated by the filming of the first part of this epic trilogy, I felt I had to re-read it and was almost as captivated as the first time round. If, like me, you're a fan of Harry Potter or the books of Philip Pullman but somehow never got round to Tolkien, rush out and buy a copy. You won't be disappointed and it will certainly enhance your enjoyment of the films.
(bwl 12 January 2002) |
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The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold |
From her gazebo in a very un-celestial heaven, murdered teenager Susie Salmon watches and frets over her family and friends as they reel under the shock of her death. Can her parents' marriage survive? How will her sister and little brother cope? Will her friends learn to live without her? Underlying everything, will her killer ever be discovered and caught? Life, death, forgiveness, vengeance, memory and forgetting all are encompassed in this truly remarkable novel.
(bwl 19 June 2003) |
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The Luminaries* by Eleanor Catton |
New Zealand's 1860s' gold rush - on one level, a riveting tale of murder, intrigues and betrayals, lust and greed, manipulation and exploitation; on another, a carefully plotted astronomical allegory. The list of characters is long and seemingly disparate but all are involved, albeit often unwittingly, in the mystery that embroils Walter Moody, a lawyer and prospector, on his first night on the edge of the goldfields. Enjoy it on either level. See the final comment in this issue's Feedback.
* Winner of the 2013 Booker prize.
(bwl 74 Autumn 2014) |
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The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante |
Teenager Giovanna - well-brought-up, living in up-market Naples with her adored father and refined mother - overhears a chance remark which leads to the discovery of a ferocious, charismatic Aunt. Under her spell Giovanna begins to question everything, what are her roots and are her parents as perfect as she imagines? Ferrante brilliantly evokes all the agonies of those teenage years, the consciousness of self, the black and white judgments, the fluctuating moods, the discovery of sex.
(bwl 99 Winter 2021) |
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The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam |
If you enjoyed Old Filth (bwl 29) then this is a must. In it we learn more about Filth's wife Betty and what actually happened between her and his old rival, Veneering. Gardam is a writer who subtly tells you much but leaves room for your own conclusions and I think I solved most of the puzzles, but can someone explain how Betty was raised in a Japanese internment camp during WW II yet also worked at Bletchley Park?
(bwl 55 Winter 2011) |
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The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif |
Part romance, part political commentary, this is an unusual book which charts the story of two women, whose lives are separated by a century, both of whom are drawn to Egypt where the story takes place. It was shortlisted for the 1999 Booker, but don't let this put you off.
(bwl 3 May 2000) |
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The Meaning of Everything - The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester |
If you have read The Surgeon of Crowthorne (bwl 3) you might, like me, have felt you would like to know more about the creation of the OED from its inception in 1857 to the completion of the 1st edition in 1928. This book written in Winchester's usual racy style, satisfyingly fills those gaps, bringing a subject which many might consider dry as dust to exuberant life. It makes the mind boggle!*
*boggle - verb informal 1) to be astonished or baffled 2) (boggle at) hesitate to do. Origin probably related to Bogey. C16. OED
(bwl 24 June 2004) |
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The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
Those in the mood for a bit of a fairy tale might enjoy this story of Tilo, a mysterious priestess who has arrived in California from a magic Indian island to set up a shop dispensing spices which will give her customers whatever they most desire. All is well until she falls under the spell of a lonely American and finds herself having to choose between following her heart or losing her powers.
(bwl 11 October 2001) |
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The Mysteries of Glass by Sue Gee |
1860, winter, Darwin has recently unleashed The Origin of Species, a young curate arrives in a small town in Herefordshire. Idealistic but vulnerable and lonely, his love for a married woman and his discoveries of hidden cruelties and hypocrisies plunge him into a crisis of faith. Strong characters and a uncanny evocation of time and place kept me enthralled until the end.
(bwl 52 July 2009) |
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The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux |
One of the earliest locked room mysteries by the author of The Phantom of the Opera. With detailed floor plans, clues and red herrings a-plenty, young reporter Rouletabille and renowned detective Frederic Larsan pit their wits against each other to reveal who is attempting to kill Mademoiselle Stangerson - each time the perpetrator is spotted he simply vanishes into thin air. Kept guessing until the end, the dénouement is unexpected, absurd, impossible yet completely right.
(bwl 90 Autumn 2018) |
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The Olive Farm by Carol Drinkwater |
Perhaps just the thought of yet another saga of an expat's Mediterranean idyll sets your teeth on edge. If so, read no further. But you will miss a treat because Carol Drinkwater has the story-teller's knack of drawing you into the romance and drama of her life which is centred around an abandoned olive farm in the hills above Cannes.
(bwl 10 August 2001) |
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The Olive Season by Carol Drinkwater |
If you read Carol Drinkwater's first book The Olive Farm (bwl 10), you won't need me to encourage you to read this one. OK, it's escapist, but it's not all honey and roses and for anyone who has enjoyed any sort of love affaire with Provence and the Midi, it will arouse all sorts of nostalgic memories. And if it needs a saving grace, it doesn't in any way patronise the locals, unlike some who shall be nameless!
(bwl 18 April 2003) |
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The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory |
If you like historical novels, read this. It paints a vivid picture of the Tudor court powered by the King's desperate need for an heir and the wiles of the Howard family who are determined that one of their girls will become Queen. Mary at aged 14, captures his eye and becomes his mistress, but it is Anne who wins him, leaving Mary to chronicle her sister's rise and fall and her own escape.
(bwl 27 December 2004) |
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The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson |
Set like Crow Lake (bwl 24) in remote Northern Ontario: young Ian - the doctor's son, struggling to find his path in life - becomes involved with two brothers - one dutiful and kindly, the other duplicitous and charismatic. All three in thrall to one woman. The characters, the remoteness and beauty of the landscape cast their spell immersing us in a complex tale of loyalties and family divisions. And what about the Bridge? . . . . read it to find out more.
(bwl 78 Autumn 2015) |
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The Penguin Lessons by Tom Michael |
A real antidote to those post-Christmas blues: meet Juan Salvador, a penguin, impulsively rescued then smuggled into post-Peronist Argentina by a young English teacher at an elite boarding school. Soon boys and adults alike are captivated by the bird's pragmatic bearing, his unique ability to listen and to change lives. The author's honest and clear-headed account of his time in S. America and his attempts to do what is best for the bird had me enthralled.
(bwl 79 Winter 2016) |
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The Periodic Table by Primo Levi |
A chemist by training, Levy's inspiration for these 21 stories was the Periodic Table,
an element being the fulcrum of each. There is chemistry here, quite a lot, but so much more, as he traces the different periods of his life and those who he encountered from childhood in Fascist Italy to the Holocaust, Auschwitz and survival. Finally there is Carbon, which endlessly renews itself - surely a metaphor for Levi's own humanity and belief in life.
(bwl 79 Winter 2016) |
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The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason |
London 1886, unassuming Edgar Drake is summoned by the War Office to travel to the jungles of Burma to tune a rare grand piano owned by an enigmatic Surgeon-Major. As he journeys, familiar ties are loosened and he surrenders to the captivating spell of the places he encounters and the people he meets: soldiers, story-tellers, bandits, a mysterious woman, the doctor himself. Nothing is as it seems, only the piano is a constant. Intensely readable.
(bwl 29 April 2005) |
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The Planets by Dava Sobel |
Dava Sobel, who began her planet fetish aged 8, quotes the following mnemonic as an aid to memorise the order of the planets: My very educated mother just served us nine pies, which sadly with Pluto's demotion no longer works. However, there's nothing passé about the rest of this book which tells the fascinating story of our solar system through myth and history, astrology and science fiction to the latest data from robotic space probes.
(bwl 36 September 2006) |
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The Poetry Pharmacy Returns by William Sieghart |
Sieghart has done it again - produced another wonderful anthology of verse to inspire, encourage or comfort depending on your mood. Serious often, funny sometimes, each poem is a small piece of music. Balm to the Soul.
(bwl 95 Winter 2020) |
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The Poetry Pharmacy: Tried and True Prescriptions for the Heart, Mind and Soul by William Sieghart |
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.
(bwl 87 Winter 2018) |
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The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene |
1930s Mexico, the suppression of the Catholic church is at his height, the hunt is on for the last remaining priest who is secretly criss-crossing the country, hidden by the villagers, saying Mass, giving absolution. The priest is a sinner with a penchant for whisky, plagued with doubts and fears yet knowing he has no choice but to follow this certain road to Calvary. Classic page-turning Graham Greene.
(bwl 91 Winter 2019) |
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The Prince of West End Avenue by Alan Isler |
A group of residents in a Jewish retirement home are putting on a production of Hamlet and there is much fun in their rivalries and absurdities. The narrator cast as the Ghost but aspiring to play Hamlet gradually revisits his own life trying to find peace and redemption as he confronts how ambition and vanity led his family to the concentration camps. Chosen for my book group and second time round for me, it proved as funny, moving and compelling as before.
(bwl 100 Spring 2021) |
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The Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam |
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.
(bwl 54 November 2009) |
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The Queen's Fool by Philippa Gregory |
And after having been embroiled in the intrigues of Henry VIII's court, you might care to enjoy this sequel. This time the narrator is a young Jewish girl who with her father has escaped from the Spanish inquisition to England where she becomes Holy Fool to Queen Mary. It speeds along at a tremendous pace and is an extremely palatable way of learning some history.
(bwl 27 December 2004) |
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The Reader by Bernhard Schlink |
A fifteen year old boy is drawn into an intense relationship with an older woman which will haunt him forever. For this is 1950s Germany and Hanna has a past which she, and ultimately he, cannot avoid. Their story is a metaphor for a post-war generation trying to confront and understand how quite ordinary people went along with and took part in the Holocaust. Not a comfortable read but one that lingers long in the mind.
(bwl 27 December 2004) |
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The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid |
If you've read Màrai's Embers (bwl 13 & 30) you will recognise this mesmerizing narrative device: a monologue by the protagonist (in this case, a Pakistani Princetown graduate) towards a silent and ambiguous companion in which he explains and justifies his actions. In an atmosphere of suspense and tension, Mohsin dissects the effects of a doomed love affair and the cataclysmic fall-out following 9/11 which contribute to his hero's despair, disillusionment and ultimate fundamental change of values and beliefs.
(bwl 44 February 2008) |
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The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka |
Lakshmi arrives in Malaya to marry a supposedly rich man. Reality is very different. By nineteen she has five children. When the Japanese invade, she hides her eldest daughter under the floorboards. The story of what happens and the effect on all their lives is narrated in turns by the mother, her children and grandchildren, each with their own perspective of personalities and events. Steeped in myth and magic, gods and ghosts, it constantly enthrals.
(bwl 17 February 2003) |
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The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick - The biography of a legend by Peter Lamont |
A man throws a rope into the air which rises until completely vertical then a boy climbs to the top and disappears. Conjuring trick, magic or complete hokum? There were certainly vast numbers who believed in its authenticity and many who claimed to have witnessed it. If you've a few hours to while away, read this book to discover not only the truth but that people prefer to believe what they want to believe.
(bwl 25 August 2004) |
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The Road Home by Rose Tremain |
Lev comes from Eastern Europe to seek work, leaving behind his mother, daughter and Rudi, his crazy friend who lives for his battered Chevrolet. He battles grinding hours in restaurants and on an asparagus farm for small wages, encountering hostility and unexpected kindness in a baffling world of casual sex and an obsession with celebrity, until ultimately discovering that the road he is travelling is leading him home. Absorbing, beautifully written, funny and deeply moving.
(bwl 47 September 2008) |
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The Romantic by William Boyd |
The fictional biography of Cashel Greville Ross - soldier, farmer, felon, writer, father, lover - one man many lives. We move from Ireland to London, from Waterloo to Zanzibar, from Sri Lanka to Pisa and the world of Byron and Shelley to Ravenna where he meets the woman who will haunt his heart. Another treat for fans of Boyd or another to be avoided if you find his books too contrived and full of coincidences! I enjoyed it.
(bwl 107 Winter 2023) |
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The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon |
True historians will probably scoff at a book like this: the tale of a headstrong girl who, inspired by Florence Nightingale, goes to the battlefields of the Crimea and her female cousin, who despite being terrified of breaking conventions, goes to look for her when she becomes missing. Nevertheless, it conjures magnificently the mores of the times and vividly contrasts the comfortable life enjoyed by well-off Victorians with the horrors of a war so ill conducted.
(bwl 48 November 2008) |
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The Salt Path by Raynor Winn |
You've lost home and livelihood, your husband is terminally ill, what would you do? For Raynor and her husband Moth the solution was to walk the coastal path from Minehead to Land's End and beyond. They knew it was mad, they were broke with just two backpacks, camping equipment, a few clothes and an old guidebook. Step by step, we follow their path across this wild landscape of land, sea and sky, as spell bound by her writing as they are by nature's healing power.
(bwl 98 Autumn 2020) |
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The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost, Leaven of Malice, A Mixture of Frailities by Robertson Davies |
Set in a small university town dreams are quietly taking shape, or falling apart. The professional director of The Little Theatre Company is tormented by his amateur actors; two families are locked in a feud, a fortune with no male heir is lavished on an aspiring singer. Beneath the veneer of geniality and good manners, passions are simmering. Another delicious trilogy with such evocative titles from this acclaimed Canadian author.
(bwl 106 Autumn 2022) |
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The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier |
Want something escapist? Look no further. This improbable tale of identity switching by two men, mirror-images of each other, who meet by chance in a French bar has everything: a luxurious chateau, a bed-ridden witch of a mother, a resentful brother and his sex-starved wife, a sister who won't talk to him, a put-down wife, a sweet child, a mistress in the village. Never mind it is only the dog who notices that John is not Jean, the pages just keep turning.
(bwl 104 Spring 2022) |
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The Sea House by Esther Freud |
Set in East Anglia, Lily comes to the village of Steerborough to research the life and work of architect Klaus Lehmann who died there in the fifties. The story switches back and forth in time between the now and then and as the past gradually reveals its secrets, the present-day characters re-assess their own lives. It's a meandering, complex novel, very evocative of time and place. Perfect for lazy summer days - if you have any!
(bwl 24 June 2004) |
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The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue |
Based on contemporary accounts and historical research, after a slow start, the novel gathers momentum as Donoghue fleshes out the characters and evokes the courtroom drama of a notorious Victorian divorce case between Vice-Admiral Codrington and his wife, Helen. Unwittingly her friend Emily Faithful, an early feminist, becomes embroiled in the drama which involves assignations, deceits, prejudiced witnesses and the appearance of a mysterious sealed letter all of which add to the tension.
(bwl 64 Spring 2012) |
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The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson |
1627 - Turkish pirates raid Iceland's shore seizing 400 people to be auctioned as slaves. So begins an immersive novel, rich in folk lore and history as we follow the fate of Asta, her children and her much older husband, a pastor who is sent on a mission to raise a ransom. Asta meanswhile is absorbed into her new life and forges a strange relationship with the man who bought her. Once set free she faces a new kind of exile as she returns to the now unfamiliar world of home.
(bwl 101 Spring 2021) |
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The Secret Commonwealth: Volume 2 of The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman |
We fast forward 20 years to find Lara now in Oxford, the bond with her daemon is broken and she is drawn into a complex world which takes her across Europe and into Asia to search for a haunted city, a secret at the heart of the desert and the mystery of Dust. Be warned, it ends on a cliffhanger. Now we must wait for volume three. If you've never read Pullman his Dark Materials books might be the perfect answer to lock-down.
(bwl 96 Spring 2020) |
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The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd |
South Carolina in the 1960s, Lily, now fourteen, has grown up on her father's peach farm believing that she accidentally killed her mother. When racial tensions explode she and her black servant flee, following a trail left by the dead woman which leads to the home of three bee keeping sisters. Bees work their magic, truths are uncovered, lies exposed in a novel of darkness and light which leaves a lingering afterglow, golden as honey.
(bwl 14 July 2002) |
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The Secret Life of Cows by Rosamund Young |
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!
(bwl 87 Winter 2018) |
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The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry |
A mental hospital in modern-day Ireland: Roseanne McNulty, nearing 100, begins a secret journal relating the events which through ignorance and religious bigotry led to her incarceration. Meanwhile, her psychiatrist's attempts to uncover her history reveal contradictions in her story illustrating how memory perhaps unwittingly sifts and refracts the truth. Lyrically written, grim and shocking, it is also an affirmation of the power of hope and love. I cannot recommend it too highly.
*Costa Book of the Year 2008
(bwl 53 September 2009) |
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The Secrets we Kept by Lara Prescott |
Yes, it is a thrilling plot, the story of Pasternak's banned novel smuggled to the West then repackaged by the CIA and smuggled back into Russia but oh it's so clunkingly told. The opening sentence should have put me off: We typed 100 words per minute. Really? Too breathless, too many cardboard characters, too much switching back and forth. Confession, half way through I gave up.
(bwl 95 Winter 2020) |
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The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer |
Iran, 1972, the Shah has fled. Isaac, a prosperous jeweller, is arrested, tortured and faces summary execution. We learn his story through his eyes and those of his pampered wife, little daughter and the son living in America. Perhaps because the characters are composites of the many who suffered, they seem sometimes like shadows behind a screen, but I was hooked by the story and on tenterhooks as the family made their perilous way to exile.
(bwl 67 Winter 2012) |
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The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka |
1990's Sri Lanka rife with death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons - Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay wakes up dead in a sort of celestial visa office. He is given seven moons to discover who killed him and lead those he loved to hidden photos that will rock the country. It's a tough read but there is humanity and humour alongside the grimness, the ghouls and the ghosts and the powerful writing keeps those pages turning.
(bwl 107 Winter 2023) |
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The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón |
Post-war Barcelona, 10 year old Daniel is taken by his father to 'The Cemetery of Forgotten Books' where he must choose and adopt one for life. He becomes obsessed by his choice and as he grows up he discovers several others inordinately interested in trying to discover more about its mysterious author, Julian Carax, whose life at moments seems to strangely mirror his own. Part atmospheric thriller, part love story, with a cast of brilliant characters.
(bwl 28 February 2005) |
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The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District by James Rebanks |
James Rebanks was born into a family of shepherds whose roots go back 600 years. He hated school, leaving at barely 16, but later took A-levels and studied history at Oxford, gaining a first. He found fame on Twitter, recording his daily routine and notching up 40,000 followers. This memoir followed. It is lucid, unsentimental, quietly passionate about the beauty and complexity of sheep farming, his love of the land, his way of life. It's a delight.
(bwl 77 Summer 2015) |
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The Shock of the Fall* by Nathan Filer |
Matthew a young schizophrenic, has been sectioned. He is writing and drawing his life story sometimes on a computer other times on a typewriter. He's trying to make sense of his life, his grief and his guilt following the death of his younger brother. The author is an experienced psychiatric nurse and makes Matthew into a living, breathing human being. Sad and funny, it's a remarkable read and, unlike some prize-winning books, fully deserves the awards it has won.
*2013 winner of the Costa First Novel Award and also the overall Costa Book of the Year
(bwl 72 Spring 2014) |
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The Siege by Helen Dunmore |
Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this novel centres on one family's efforts to survive the terrible privations which occurred during the German siege of Leningrad in WW II. Everyone I know who has read it, raves about it although I did have some reservations. It's harrowing stuff and yet maybe because it is so lyrical, there's a detachment about the writing almost as if there's a screen of glass between narrative and reader.
(bwl 14 July 2002) |
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The Silence in the Garden by William Trevor |
Summer 1904 Sarah comes to an island off Cork as governess for distant cousins. She remembers an idyllic time but 30 years later, after WW I and the Irish Civil War, she returns and uncovers the devastating events which haunt the family still living there. Told in Trevor's lyrical prose it's an absorbing read, but with a narrative that crosses time, place and characters, you need to be on the look-out for his subtle clues. It tied my book group in knots!
(bwl 98 Autumn 2020) |
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The Sonnets by William Shakespeare |
Released by Touch Press in association with Faber & Faber, this is not a book but a brilliant App. You don't have to be a scholar or already a lover of the sonnets to derive enjoyment from it. Each sonnet can be accessed chronologically or they can be browsed at random. You can simply read them to yourself, or better still listen to them read by a vastly talented group of actors. A real treat.
(bwl 65 Summer 2012) |
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The Sound of One Hand Clapping by Richard Flanagan |
Set in Tasmania, from the atmospheric beginning when three year old Sonja's mother walks out into a blizzard, this is a real page turner. As she grows up, in order to come to terms with themselves and each other, she and her father must confront the horrors witnessed by the family in Nazi occupied Slovenia.
(bwl 4 July 2000) |
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The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart |
Set in the wilds of Canada, this is the story of Klara, nicknamed the spinster, and her brother Tilman, a boy who could never stay in one place. World War I changes their lives forever but both find a kind of redemption when in 1933 they join the carvers working on the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge. If you enjoyed Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks or Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy, then read this you must.
(bwl 15 October 2002) |
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The Story of a New Name; Those who Leave and Those who Stay Behind; The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante |
My Brilliant Friend (bwl 76) was the the first of Ferrante's Neapolitan quartet and now I've read the other three, were they worth it? Yes, definitely for those who are prepared to be swept into the turbulent lives and complicated relationships of the studious Elena and Lila, her rebellious childhood friend. The cast is huge, the settings shift and change, so best read one after the other without a time lapse in between. The friendship - is it really friendship? - spanning all four books is tested constantly and as the women approach old-age, past jealousies surface, storms brew, questions remain. Can anyone really know, trust or understand another person and do we ever really know, trust or understand ourselves? There are no easy answers. These four books, written by an author who shelters behind a pseudonym, have caused a storm in the literary world but, unlike some other titles that have done the same, they really do deserve the hype. Be prepared to be totally engrossed - though a word of caution for those who prefer down-to-earth, straightforward narrative, you might find them maddening!
(bwl 79 Winter 2016) |
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The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst |
Described by one critic as probably the best 2011 novel and with the literati outraged that the Booker ignored it, naively my expectations were high. At its heart: a charismatic WWI poet, the effect he has on those who encounter him and changing attitudes towards homosexuality in the 20C. The passages seen through a child's eye are funny and moving but the huge cast of groping, blushing males and frustrated females left me in a stupor. I gave up.
(bwl 63 Winter 2011) |
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The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman |
This second volume continues the story of Lyra and her dæmon Pantalaimon only this time the action moves between three Universes. A new character is introduced, Will, who is searching for his explorer father. His quest interweaves with that of Lyra's and the book, like the first, ends on a knife edge making it imperative to go onto Volume III. Watch this space!
(bwl 7 February 2001) |
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The Summer After the Funeral by Jane Gardam |
I discovered this early work of Jane Gardam's in the library. I wasn't disappointed. An elderly clergyman dies whereupon his widow palms their children off onto various friends and acquaintances for the summer. It's a rites of passage book. Perceptive and funny. The characters are a delight, especially the mother who assumes that people exist to do whatever she asks and so constantly finds they fall rather short of her expectations.
(bwl 12 January 2002) |
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The Summer Book by Tove Jansson |
Published in 1972, this novel by the Scandinavian writer and artist - best known as the creator of the Moomin stories - has recently been reissued to critical acclaim. It's the simple story of a grandmother and her 6-year old grand-daughter whiling away a summer on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Each learns to accommodate the whims and yearnings of the other as a gruff but tender love develops between them. Magic!
(bwl 20 September 2003) |
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The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen |
The narrator half French, half Vietnamese is a communist sleeper agent in America, imprisoned by his own side he is writing his confession and only when he understands the answer to what is more precious than independence and freedom will he be set free. A gripping, searing, sometimes funny tale of friendship, divided loyalties, exile, and a war in which the Americans are the extras unlike in Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Winner of the Pullitzer Prize 2016.
(bwl 101 Summer 2021) |
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The Temporary Gentleman by Sebastian Barry |
In his latest book, Barry continues to explore the lives of the Irish McNulty family who are at the centre of The Secret Scripture (bwl 53) and The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (bwl 57). Written in his lilting prose, this time the narrator is Jack, Eneas's brother, haunted by his memories of the past. Fans of Barry won't be disappointed but if you read this one first, the others are a must.
(bwl 75 Winter 2015) |
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The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson |
A n apostate Minister of the auld Kirk falls to a certain death but miraculously, after three days, he rises again to tell how he was saved by the Devil. Is he mad? Is this true? Is he having a joke? Mixing folklore, the supernatural, faith and its opposite, this is a tangled web that tingles the spine and, with its open-ended conclusion, challenges the reader to make of it exactly what they will.
(bwl 75 Winter 2015) |
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The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell |
1799, a young Dutch clerk arriving on the island of Dejima, off the coast of Nagasaki, becomes embroiled in a labyrinthian adventure. I struggled at first with the large cast of characters with their Dutch and Japanese names, but then completely succumbed to this complex tale involving greed, skulduggery, love, duplicity, suspicion, treachery, religion and superstition and was roller-coasted to the end only to slowly read it again to savour all the nuances of Mitchell's dazzling writing.
(bwl 57 Summer 2010) |
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The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman |
Want a bit of escapist froth? This runaway best-seller might fill the bill. Set in a retirement community next to an abandoned Convent and its tranquil cemetery, the club's members scorn bookgroups, French conversation or jigsaws but pass the time solving long-forgotten murders. Suddenly, their quietude is shattered by not one but two real murders. Undaunted, inspired they set out to discover who, why, what and when? It's silly, unpretentious fun. Book two is promised later this year.
(bwl 100 Spring 2021) |
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The Time and Space of Uncle Albert by Russell Stannard |
If, in this Einstein year, you struggle to get a glimmer of understanding of his Theory of Relativity, look no further than this enchanting book. Written ostensibly for children by a Professor of Physics, it relates how Uncle Albert's feisty niece agrees to help unlock the mysteries of space and time by being beamed up into the unknown world of the thought bubble. I enjoyed wonderful moments of revelation and almost grasped the meaning of everything!
(bwl 28 February 2005) |
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The Travelling Hornplayer by Barbara Trapido |
If you're a fan of Trapido, you'll love this one. It's full of zany characters and comedy that teeters on the edge of tragedy. It begins with a girl killed in a car accident whose ghost haunts and affects the lives of all those around her.
(bwl 1 January 2000) |
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The Underground Railroad by Colsom Whitehead |
Cora is a slave escaping the barbaric existence of life on a cotton plantation. As she passes from state to state, through the network of the underground railroad, hunted by slave-catchers, she discovers what seems like freedom is often just another form of bondage until . . . . . Whitehead has based his story on contemporary accounts but makes the Railroad an actual railway - a device which at first is distracting but ultimately it works. A searing, compulsive read.
(bwl 86 Autumn 2017) |
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The Unicorn Road by Martin Davies |
This author weaves magic spells and although for me this doesn't quite live up to his previous novel (The Conjuror's Bird, bwl 36), it nevertheless conjures a complex tale involving the fate of a 13th C Sicilian expedition searching for mythical animals and that of a young Chinese woman summoned to the court of an Emperor renowned for his sensual appetites and cruelty. An intriguing tale of religion, skulduggery, a secret script, loss and yearning.
(bwl 53 September 2009) |
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The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell |
Two sisters: one of them will steal the other's life. Now Kitty has dementia and Esme whom no-one knew existed has reappeared. Slowly their story unfolds going backwards and forwards from their childhood in India to their coming of age in stuffy, upper-class Edinburgh. What did Kitty not mean to do and who is the baby that haunts them? If you're after a straight-forward read this is not for you but if you enjoy unravelling puzzles, it's a must.
(bwl 99 Winter 2021) |
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The Victorians by A N Wilson |
Copiously illustrated, ranging across the whole spectrum of life in the Victorian era and told in a racy, sometimes gossipy style, this book is for anyone looking for an introduction to the history of that period. Its only flaw is that owing to the vastness of its canvas it tends to flit from one subject to another, leaving you hungering for more detail. But then perhaps that's the whole purpose of the book.
(bwl 44 February 2008) |
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The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier |
This is the first book by the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring (see bwl 7). Set in France, it concerns two women born centuries apart. The first grows up as a Catholic just when Calvinism is sweeping the country, the other is a modern-day American obsessed with discovering her French roots. Naturally the two are connected. It's a good read, suited to those times when you want to while away the hours with nothing too taxing.
(bwl 18 April 2003) |
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The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale |
1895, a blistering summer, Robert, 13, (addicted to penny-dreadfuls like today's young to their phones) and Nattie, 12, treat themselves to days at Lord's, trips to the seaside and to the theatre; father is at sea, mother in Liverpool - or is she? Suspicions are aroused, there's a strange smell - step-by-step with immense skill Summerscale unfurls the crime, the trial and the redemption beginning in Broadmoor's enlightened regime, continuing through WW I and ending in Australia. Fascinating.
(bwl 81 Summer 2016) |
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The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse |
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.
(bwl 56 Spring 2010) |
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The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin |
If you like literary thrillers then rejoice. This is the first in a series of 10 which have taken Russia by storm. Set in 1876 Moscow and St. Petersburg, its hero, Erast Fandorin - the James Bond of the 19th C - is a young police clerk whose brilliance and powers of deception lead from events surrounding a bizarre suicide to the uncovering of a devious world-wide conspiracy. Don't expect reality, just a fantastic read.
(bwl 25 August 2004) |
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The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels |
An introspective novel about displacement, love and loss. Set primarily in Canada, it time travels between the destruction of the Abu Simbel temple in 1964 to the ravishing of Warsaw in WW II. In lyrical, enigmatic and lingering prose Michael describes how Avery, a young engineer, and his botanist wife, Jean, after suffering their own personal tragedy, journey through the landscape of grief in their efforts to find where they truly belong.
(bwl 65 Summer 2012) |
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Thin Air by Sue Gee |
William Harriman, retired, lives a comfortable if lonely existence in his Dulwich house. He runs an antique stall with Buffy, his late wife's best friend, and struggles to understand his prickly daughter and help his schizophrenic son. Then Janice Harper arrives as his lodger sent to get a life from Shropshire by his eccentric cousins who run a down-at-heel dog sanctuary and museum. She is the catalyst for change. An engrossing and thought provoking book.
(bwl 19 June 2003) |
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This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Young Doctor by Adam Kay |
Kay's memoir of his life as an NHS junior doctor is both funny and terrifying. Ben Wishaw portrayed him beautifully in the recent TV adaptation as he rushes from one emergency to another in the maternity department of a London hospital. Can it really be as chaotic as he portrays? No wonder he chucked it in. Product warning: Don't read this book if you are planning a pregnancy.
(bwl 105 Summer 2022) |
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This Must be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell |
O'Farrell spins Irish magic as she gradually unravels the lives and marriage of American Daniel and Claudette, a reclusive English film star. You need to concentrate. There are multiple narrators, each with their own perceptions; time is not lineal; we zigzag across continents; those who are closest are often the furthest apart. And when unresolved events return to haunt Daniel can love ever be enough? A roller-coaster - my first O'Farrell, and it won't be the last!
(bwl 86 Autumn 2017) |
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Three Things you Need to Know about Rockets by Jessica A Fox |
Here we are in Wigtown again in Scotland's biggest second-hand bookshop. If you enjoyed Shaun Bythell's sagas (bwl 95, 97 & 99) this memoir by his American girlfriend fills in those missing blanks. Romantic, exhuberant given to much introspection, it is not hard to understand why dour, dithering Bythell could not live up to her dream and fell so far short of her expectations. An entertaining read though there were moments when I wanted to shake her for being so needy!
(bwl 101 Summer 2021) |
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Ties by Domenico Starnone |
The story of a marriage that has lasted - just - which nearly destroyed Vanda when Aldo betrayed her, yet here they are in old age off on holiday leaving their adult children to feed the cat. When they return their apartment is ransacked, the cat missing and Aldo is forced to confront his failure as husband and father . . . . and what of the children, permanently damaged by the lies and cover-ups. A devastating short book with a savage twist at the end.
(bwl 84 Spring 2017) |
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Tightrope by Simon Mawer |
Readers of The Girl who Fell from the Sky (bwl 67) will welcome this sequel. Marian Sutro haunted by the consequences of her undercover mission, her Nazi interrogation and months in Ravensbruck struggles to adjust to post-war Britain. Then she is contacted by her old handler and recruited to feed worthless secrets to and turn a Russian agent . . . but Marian has her own agenda, the need to serve a greater good . . . whose side is she or anyone on?
(bwl 80 Spring 2016) |
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Tiny Sunbirds Far Away* by Christie Watson |
12 year old Blessing leaves a comfortable life in Lagos with her mother and brother to seek refuge with her Moslem grandparents in the Niger Delta. No electricity, no flush toilet, crocodiles in the river, gunfire in the distance, oil fires poisoning the air, boy soldiers, magic fireflies, female circumcision. Told with love, laughter and tears - it's impossible to summarise the story. Believe all the hype this surprise novel has generated and read it!
*Winner of the Costa First Novel award
(bwl 63 Winter 2011) |
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee |
If you've never read this classic, do read it now. Told by ten-year old Scout, she and her brother Jem live in a small-town community in 1930's Alabama. They and their friend Dill are terrified and fascinated by a mysterious recluse. Is he foe or friend? The answer will only be revealed as a result of the events surrounding the trial of a Negro accused of rape who is defended by their father. Deeply satisfying.
(bwl 24 June 2004) |
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Tom Lake by Ann Patchett |
It's cherry picking time in the middle of the pandemic and Lara's three grown daughters have returned to the family orchard. They beg her to tell them the story they've always longed to hear of how she once acted and fell in love with a not yet famous film star. As she remembers so Lara reflects on the difference between her adolescent dreams and the life she now leads. Would she change anything? Read and find out! Another Patchett gem.
(bwl 112 Spring 2024) |
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin |
To Sam and Sadie all the world's a literary video game. It's how they met as children and how as adults they lead their lives playing, inventing and creating new ones. For me a completely alien world yet I was drawn into their strange and complicated lives in which their friendship is the one constant sustaining them. It's weird but wonderful!
(bwl 110 Autumn 2022) |
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Transcription by Kate Atkinson |
In WWII Juliet Armstrong transcribed secret tapes and was recruited by MI5, now she lies on the pavement, the victim of an accident - or was it? As her life drains away the events of her past ebb and flow through her mind taking the reader through those murky days when she never quite knew who or what she was and what was real or subterfuge. It's pacy, often funny, full of twists and turns. Pure Atkinson in fact.
(bwl 93 Summer 2019) |
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Trio by Sue Gee |
1937, Northumberland, Steven a young history teacher, is mourning the loss of his wife, the bleak landscape a metaphor for his grief; redemption comes when he meets a trio of musicians and he experiences the healing power of music. Sue Gee's writing is itself like a piece of music, her characters live, breathe, suffer and love. Spanning two generations this is a novel with an undertow of sadness but one which is ultimately life affirming.
(bwl 95 Winter 2020) |
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Trio by William Boyd |
1968, a movie-set in Brighton: the director's wife Elfrida a novelist with writer's block, Talbot the producer and American film-star Anny - all have secrets but when the CIA comes knocking, events are precipitated which makes each of them take responsibility for themselves. The narrative switches in quite brief chunks between the trio which I found irritating but this may be due to my brain stagnating because of lockdown. Hey! - it's a William Boyd, it must be good.
(bwl 99 Winter 2021) |
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Trumpet by Jackie Kay |
It's only when he dies that the world discovers Joss Moody, famous trumpeter, was really a woman. His widow flees to Scotland to escape the press and the furious disbelief of her adopted son who plans a biography, ghost-written by a scheming journalist. There follows a journey of discovery as those close to Joss try to unravel the past and to reassess their own feelings towards the man they thought they knew. A remarkable story.
(bwl 23 April 2004) |
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Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach |
Set in Amsterdam in the 1630s, the lives of Sophia Sandvoort, her elderly husband Cornelis and the portraitist Jan van Loos are inextricably linked with that of tulip fever which gripped the city. The fate of them all hinges on the value of a single bulb. Atmospheric and mesmerising.
(bwl 3 May 2000) |
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Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach |
A re-review after 17 years (see bwl 3)! Perhaps not as mesmerising as it seemed then when we had never heard how tulip fever swept 17th century Holland. This is Amsterdam, cold, damp with its canals, cobbled streets and warehouses and those sumptuous paintings of everyday life. A story of love, lust, deception and greed - will Cornelis get the heir that he craves and will Sophia and Jan escape with a fortune?
(bwl 86 Autumn 2017) |
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Two Girls One on Each Knee (7): The Puzzling, Playful World of the Crossword by Alan Connor |
With its history of the puzzle, the famous lives it has touched, its role in WW II, this is a must for Cryptic addicts who will immediately spot the answer to the title. For those who find the clues impenetrable, this book will illuminate the setters' secrets and, as the author claims, you will begin to find them easier and a lot more satisfying than Quick ones. Did you know the best place to start is the bottom right-hand corner?
(bwl 71 Winter 2014) |
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Two Lives: Reading Turgenev and My House in Umbria by William Trevor |
Two haunting novellas, published under one title, tell the stories of two disparate women, one introverted, trapped in a loveless marriage, the other extroverted who knows all about the business side of love - both escape reality by taking refuge in the world of romantic fiction. Trevor insists that when writing them he had no plan to connect them, they just seemed to belong together. He's quoted as saying: "Most things in art of any kind happen by accident, and this is a case in point." A very happy accident for his fans.
(bwl 99 Winter 2021) |
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Unless by Carol Shields |
This is a remarkable book to linger over and savour and especially so as it is probably Carol Shields' swan song. Reta Winters, successful as a translator and as a writer of light fiction, is happily married with a family and a lovely house. Then all her certainties are challenged when without warning her eldest daughter decides to spend her days sitting on a Toronto street corner, a sign saying 'Goodness' hanging round her neck.
(bwl 15 October 2002) |
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Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver |
Two families, lives entwined round a crumbling New Jersey villa. 2017, climate change is threatening, Trump is a candidate in the presidential election, Willa is battling to nurture her difficult family. In the 1870's, science teacher Thatcher Greenwood - with the backing of his neighbour, real-life, botanist Mary Treat - must fight the establishment to defend the writings of Darwin. Sounds heavy-going. Absolutely not. It's a Kingsolver gem.
(bwl 106 Autumn 2022) |
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Waiting by Ha Jin |
For eighteen years army doctor Lin Kong and Manna, a nurse, have wanted to marry but they must obey the crazy rules of the Cultural Revolution which allow his village wife to refuse to divorce him and forbids them to be seen together beyond the hospital confines let alone cohabit. Sometimes funny, often sad, this novel vividly depicts life under an authoritarian regime and demonstrates how the passage of time alters desires and perceptions.
(bwl 11 October 2001) |
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Warlight by Michael Ondaatje |
WW II is over, Nathaniel and Rachel abandoned by their parents are left in the care of a mysterious figure known as The Moth and his strange cohort of friends. Are they criminals or something else? What did they do in the war, and how was their mother involved? Years later Nathaniel determines to find out and uncovers a world of mist and shadows, half truths and evasions. Not as mesmerising as The English Patient (bwl 91) but beautifully written.
(bwl 92 Spring 2019) |
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We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler |
5-year old Rosemary is sent away to stay with her grandparents, when she returns there is no sign of her sister and beloved playmate, Fern. Now a college student far from home, Rosemary begins to piece together what happened all those years ago with a mis-guided experiment which drove her psychologist father to drink and her mother into permanent depression. Heavy going? No, it's a page turner.
(bwl 109 Summer 2023) |
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West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge |
1938, The Great Depression, Hitler threatens Europe, two giraffes survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic, and are driven in a custom-truck across America to a zoo in California. Now, Woody aged 101, the rough-neck lad who drove them is writing his memoirs. Inspired by true events, it's a life-affirming tale of a young man's coming of age, the kindness of strangers, the passing of time and above all the strange empathy that takes place between people and animals.
(bwl 102 Autumn 2021) |
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What is the What by Dave Eggers |
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.
(bwl 54 November 2009) |
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When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant |
Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2000, this novel, set in Palestine in 1946, is about a young Jewish woman from England with romantic ideals about the Israeli state in the making. After tasting life in a kibbutz, she goes to the Bauhaus city of Tel Aviv where she falls in love with Johnny who, she discovers, plays more than a peripheral role in 'persuading' the British to leave.
(bwl 8 April 2001) |
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Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze - and 114 other questions by Mick O'Hare (editor) |
Hard pressed for another stocking filler, this follow-up to Does Anything Eat Wasps? (bwl 33) could be the answer. Published by New Scientist magazine, it answers scientifically many of the things you might want to know but have never liked to ask, such as: Why are dogs' noses black? Why do Flying Fish Fly? Which Way is Up? and What time is it at the North Pole? A book to curl up with after the turkey!
(bwl 37 December 2006) |
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Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys |
In this richly imaginative novel, Rhys gives a voice to the mad Creole wife in Jane Eyre. If Rochester was the victim of the machinations of their families, surely she was equally wronged? Who was Bertha Antoinette Mason? Were she, her mother and brother really congenitally mad? What might have turned this beautiful, ardent heiress into the biting, malicious monster in the attic? Sacred ground perhaps but as she points out: "There is always the other side". Rhys's masterpiece.
(bwl 67 Winter 2013) |
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Will She Do?: Act One of a Life on Stage by Eileen Atkins |
Many years ago a young couple moved into the flat above us. This was Eileen Atkins and Julian Glover. We socialised a bit and they even baby-sat a few times. She regaled us of her childhood, how she'd been taken round the working-men's clubs as baby Eileen, how her mother expected her to be a dancer but acting was her dream. Now she has written this memoir and it is all there - a wry, humourous account of the highs and lows of an aspiring actress. Act Two will surely follow.
(bwl 103 Winter 2022) |
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Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom |
This highly-charged, fast-moving saga vividly depicts war-time Spain. A traumatised Dunkirk veteran is recruited by the British to spy on a former school friend, now a shady businessman in Madrid, whose girlfriend is secretly searching for her former lover who vanished during the Civil War. The characters might be a bit stereotypical but the author does not spare us or them from the harshness of reality or from facing unpleasant truths. A great film perhaps?
(bwl 38 February 2007) |
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Women in Love by D H Lawrence |
If only Lawrence had been able to use a word-processor. I can visualise him scribbling at his desk, dipping pen in ink, throwing closely written pages on the floor. Then reading them and the effort it would be to prune, edit, cut and paste before making a fair copy for his publisher. We've got used to honed language so perhaps that's why I found this so impossible to read. Yet this is his masterpiece which makes me a philistine.
(bwl 89 Summer 2018) |
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Word 2000 Quick Fix by Edward Peppitt |
Are you fed up with trying to understand Word 2000 either from the Help menu or from some incomprehensible manual? If so, you will find this book extremely handy. It's cheap, only £4.99, small, beautifully laid out and written in a clear, concise way without any gobbledegook. It's one of a series and I can't wait to get my hands on some of the other titles.
(bwl 10 August 2001) |
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Zennor in Darkness by Helen Dunmore |
1917, Lawrence and his German wife seeking refuge from the war in the idyllic setting of this small Cornish village, meet and inspire Clare, a young artist, in love with her shell-shocked cousin. But rumours of spies are rife, U-boats lurk in the Channel, tongues wag, the peacefulness of the landscape is an illusion. Dunmore writes in her usual evocative style bringing her characters, their thoughts and feelings and the paranoiac atmosphere vividly to life.
(bwl 55 Winter 2010) |
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