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American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld |
Alice Lindgren is contemplative, kind, moderate and votes Democrat. Charlie Blackwell is loud, crass, an alcoholic and a staunch Republican. He sweeps her off her feet, and they end up President and First Lady (modelled on GW and Laura Bush). Alice has a secret which haunts her - in fact she has several - and the story unfolds in extended flashback. It's a pretty good read (if you can accept that Dubya would use the word "septuagenarian" correctly).
(bwl 57 Summer 2010) |
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Antigona and Me by Kate Clanchy |
A thought-provoking account of the friendship that develops between a North London writer and the Kosovan refugee she hires, on impulse, as a cleaner. Antigona's story unfolds erratically, not chronologically, much as you would expect of any history told across a kitchen table, with memories triggered by a word, circumstance or carefully placed question. Through it Clanchy explores the nature and ramifications of freedom, ingrained tradition, motherhood, guilt and privilege. Sounds preachy but isn't.
(bwl 56 Spring 2010) |
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Can Any Mother Help Me? by Jenna Bailey |
In 1935 a cri de coeur published in "The Nursery World" spawned the Cooperative Correspondence Club, a shifting group of women from varied social and educational backgrounds, who together wrote a fortnightly annotated round robin "newsletter". The CCC endured for over 50 years, in a spirit of mutual support and friendship. Although many of the contributions have not survived, which makes this collection a bit piecemeal despite Bailey's helpful biographical in-filling, what remains is absorbing, sometimes hilarious, and often moving.
(bwl 49 January 2009) |
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Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher |
In 1935, 14-year-old Judith Dunbar is left at boarding school in England when her mother and sister join her father in Singapore. In a coming-of-age story spanning some 10 years (and nearly 1000 pages), Judith weathers life, love and loss against a well-drawn backdrop of WW II and a continuing search for a place she can call home. Against expectations, I found it unputdownable.
(bwl 25 August 2004) |
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Experience by Martin Amis |
Vivid memoir of love, loss, dental trauma, and life in the shadow of the author's father, Kingsley. Typically intelligent, though at times perhaps more self-conscious than self-aware, Amis clearly delights in demonstrating his command of English and employs extensive footnotes to (admittedly) good structural effect. Compelling, candid, witty and occasionally irritating, this book kept me up late and has propelled Kingsley's Letters to the top of my must-read list.
(bwl 14 July 2002) |
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Fury by Salman Rushdie |
A rolling, turbulent book, and a disturbing read in the wake of the events of 11th September. Malik Solanka, erstwhile professor and doll-maker, takes his well-stoked anger, confusion and murderous thoughts with him as he flees to New York, leaving his wife and child in England. Rushdie employs his facility for rich and precise language to navigate Solanka through a series of bizarre adventures, rages and passionate encounters. Not for the faint of heart.
(bwl 12 January 2002) |
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Grave Secrets by Kathy Reichs |
Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist, is in Guatemala identifying the remains of victims of a 20 year old political massacre. She is pulled off this project to assist the local police when a body is found in a motel septic tank: four teenage girls have disappeared, one being the Canadian ambassador's daughter. Crisscrossing plot lines, a well paced story set in Guatemala and Quebec, strong characters, a hint of romance - all made for great beach-reading.
(bwl 19 June 2003) |
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No and Me by Delphine de Vigan |
Lou Bertignac is thirteen with an IQ of 160, a tendency to obsessive behaviour, and parents who've never recovered from the death of her baby sister. At a train station, Lou encounters No - eighteen, filthy and mercurial - and decides to interview her for a class presentation on homelessness. When No temporarily moves in with Lou, things change - but in unexpected ways. Written from Lou's perspective, the story is told with honesty and charm.
(bwl 61 Summer 2011) |
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One Day by David Nicholls |
Emma (working class, political, strong-minded) and Dexter (country house upbringing, trades on his looks) have a one-night post-graduation fling on 15 July 1988. They and their shifting relationship are revisited every St Swithin's Day for the next twenty years. I didn't like it much at first, but got drawn in - it's funny enough and honest enough to keep you reading.
(bwl 57 Summer 2010) |
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Oxygen by Andrew Miller |
Alice Valentine is dying in England. Her sons, Alec, a self-diagnosed failure, and Larry, a falling star, return home to care for her. In Paris, the life of Laszlo Lazar, a Hungarian exile whose play Alec is translating, is marred only by his sense of having betrayed a comrade forty years before. In an evocative, witty, at times claustrophobic book, they play out their deftly paralleled stories, each struggling in his own way to draw breath....
(bwl 12 January 2002) |
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Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
Fifteen year old Kambili and her brother Jaja are products of a privileged home ruled with an iron fist by their father, a wealthy Nigerian businessman and fanatical Catholic. Following a military coup they are sent to stay with their aunt, a struggling university teacher, and her three outspoken children; in their company Kambili and Jaja experience a wholly different sort of family life. A beautifully written consideration of freedom against repression, and love against fear.
(bwl 57 Summer 2010) |
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Second Glance by Jodi Picoult |
In his quest to be reunited with his dead fiancée (and given his seeming inability to die), Ross Wakeman has become a paranormal investigator. Hired to probe mysterious happenings in a Vermont town where an Indian tribe asserts that a plot of land scheduled for development is a burial ground, Ross gets more than he bargained for, from both the dead and the
living. A departure from the Picoult formula, and surprisingly compelling
(bwl 48 November 2008) |
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Small Island by Andrea Levy |
Gilbert, an ex-RAF Jamaican, returns to London expecting a hero's welcome. His wife, Hortense, joins him there in hope of a better life. They rent a room from Queenie, whose husband Bernard has failed to return from his wartime post. When he does, he is appalled to find black immigrants living in his house. Four unique narratives reveal the protagonists' individual passions and prejudices in a book that is both funny and touching.
(bwl 72 Spring 2014) |
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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See |
In 19th century China, girls are worthless unless they marry well and bear sons, and their futures depend on the size and shape of their feet. At seven Lily is paired with Snow Flower in a relationship determined by their horoscopes. Between visits they exchange phrases in coded writing on a fan. Through the mutual agonies of foot-binding, family tragedies, arranged marriages and childbirth, their bond deepens - until the relationship founders on a misunderstanding. Fascinating.
(bwl 51 May 2009) |
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Started Early, Took my Dog by Kate Atkinson |
Atkinson's fourth novel about former police officer turned occasional private investigator, Jackson Brodie, features stolen children, murdered prostitutes, lost loves, failing faculties, impulse acquisitions of dependents and assorted concatenations of events spanning some thirty years. Infused with a keener sense of melancholy than previous Brodie novels, and containing fewer neatly tied up ends, this one is nevertheless as witty, engaging and ultimately human as the rest.
(bwl 62 Autumn 2011) |
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Starter for 10 by David Nicholls |
Anyone who was at university in the mid 80s, as I was (albeit on a different continent) will probably enjoy this just for the memories it brings back. Brian, obsessed with the beautiful Alice, decides that achieving greatness on University Challenge will win her heart. Silly, but fun - a bit like student life.
(bwl 29 April 2005) |
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The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith |
Alex-Li Tandem, a Chinese-Jewish professional dealer in celebrity autographs, has been writing weekly letters to reclusive actress Kitty Alexander for 13 years. At last, an autograph arrives in the post. Is his end achieved, or is this only the beginning of another quest? An entertaining examination of the effects of celluloid culture, though rather more dark than the dust jacket would have you believe.
(bwl 29 April 2005) |
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The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway |
Early in the siege of Sarajevo, a cellist played Albinoni's Adagio every day for 22 days at the site where as many people had died under mortar fire while queuing for bread. Around this fact Galloway weaves the stories of three ordinary people who find themselves going about their
lives in extraordinary - and harrowing - circumstances. Apart from the first chapter (irritating) and the ending (flat), I found this deftly written, unsentimental and revealing.
(bwl 51 May 2009) |
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The Human Stain by Philip Roth |
The Clinton scandal is at its height. Prurience and political correctness abound in equal measure. Coleman Silk, once revered classics professor, has resigned in disgrace in the face of false allegations of racism. As his world crumbles, Coleman holds fast to an astonishing secret he has kept for fifty years. Despite the odd unconvincing plot device, there is unparalleled linguistic dexterity and a gripping foray into the nuances of truth. Worth reading again.
(bwl 12 January 2002) |
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The Little Friend by Donna Tartt |
In a Mississippi small town, Harriet, bossy and bull-headed, aided by her devoted playmate Hely, undertakes to solve and avenge the murder of her nine-year-old brother which happened 12 years ago. Unlike Tartt's first novel, The Secret History, this one concentrates more on depth of character and atmosphere than it does on plot. Its rich, unhurried prose makes one forget that nothing much has happened for ages and when something does, it's suspenseful and credible.
(bwl 19 June 2003) |
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The Snowman by Jo Nesbo |
When the snow falls, wives and mothers disappear. Inspector Harry Hole of the Oslo police, tough and wryly subversive, simultaneously battles the killer, the bottle, his politically motivated superiors and his feelings for his ex-girlfriend and her son. Hard to put down, and harder to stop thinking about after you've turned out the light, this is gripping, page-turning, breath-holding stuff. Not for the squeamish, though.
(bwl 60 Spring 2011) |
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Underground Time by Delphine de Vigan |
Mathilde is a widowed mother who is being bullied out of her job by her boss. Thibault has just broken up with the woman he loves because he realises she will never love him back. Over 24 hours they travel through Paris, contemplating their options, never quite meeting and each doing an awful lot of self-indulgent moaning. I'm afraid I struggled to have any sympathy with either of them!
(bwl 61 Summer 2011) |
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Vernon God Little by D B C Pierre |
Vernon Little's best friend has murdered several of their classmates before turning the gun on himself. In a small Texas town that thirsts for vengeance, 15 year old Vernon is in the firing line. A conniving wannabe media star, a passive-aggressive mother and a host of other largely unsympathetic characters people Vernon's tale of attempted escape and search for the truth. Irreverent, agonising and hilarious.
(bwl 29 April 2005) |
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Wideacre, The Favoured Child, Meridon by Philippa Gregory |
A sweeping 18th century soap opera, this trilogy traces the fortunes and misfortunes (and the latter are legion) of three generations of Lacey women: Beatrice, proud, passionate and driven to desperate measures by a blind desire to possess Wideacre, the Laceys' ancestral estate; Julia, loving and generous yet drawn despite herself into the legacy of her mother's obsession, and Meridon, raised by gypsies, canny, cold and hard, who dreams of a place called 'Wide'. Murder, incest, inevitability, romance, rightful heirs and a smattering of social commentary all rolled into one long saga. And a happy ending to boot, at least if you read all three in succession.
(bwl 26 October 2004) |
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