Recently in Modern fiction Category
A lovely book - the kind where when you get to the last page you return to the start again and read everything with fresh insight. As with other Salley Vickers' novels, art comes to into play, ending up centre stage - I really enjoy the vicarious art education I get from her books. And if you're reading the hardback, take note of the dust jacket.
I had not realised that Salley Vickers had a former 'life' as an analyst; I presume she has drawn upon her experiences from that time in writing The Other Side of You, particularly in capturing the characters, their stories and inner thoughts and self analysis. It's not a happy book, but I found it a real page turner - given the opportunity I would have read it in one sitting. Instead it was evenings and a train/replacement rail journey between St Pancras and Milton Keynes.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Other Side of You - Salley Vickers
An entirely fortuitous loan from the library, I had no idea that the setting for this novel would be so close to where I ended up reading it - the foothills of the Himalaya - albeit in Sikkim rather than Bhutan, where I was.
Set in the 1980s there's a big cast, with most characters carrying on their post-colonial lives in and around Kalimpong, close to India's border with Nepal. Despite their best efforts, the modern world manages to intrude quite cruelly - both in the person of Biju (who makes it to America to find that the streets are not paved with gold particularly for illegal immigrants) and in the Gorkha independence uprising (which inevitably turns from idealism to self aggrandisement).
Amazon.co.uk: The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
Not wanting to start my Christmas present reading and having tried (in vain) Alison Weir's Eleanor of Aquitaine I resorted to raiding Phil's reading, and Girlfriend in a Coma came recommended.
The novel tells the story of Richard and Karen, with occasional accompaniment from their circle of friends and parents, from young love and teenage togetherness in the twilight of the 1970s, through the 20 years of Karen's coma most of which sees Richard lost in any number of emotional wildernesses despite the fact that 9 months after falling into her coma Karen has their daughter, culminating in a strange sci fi / parallel universe / zombie horror section which sees the rest of mankind killed off by a mysterious sleeping sickness and including god/ghostlike intervention from "unexpectedly dead at 16" schoolfriend and high school jock Jared.
I really enjoyed the first two sections, but the third and final part of the novel left me a cold and it felt like Douglas Coupland had really lost the plot by the end. One of the Amazon reviews describes the novel as "ultimately extremely uplifting" - I'm afraid I found it depressing, because having reached the end of the novel I had no expectation that Richard, Karen and co would make a better job of their lifetimes second time round.
Another of Michael's recommendations that took me far too long to get round to reading. A gripping tale of young women in London whose paths cross during the Blitz, and continue to cross and recross in the years that follow. The characters are strongly portrayed and engaging, and the narration isn't linear, which I enjoyed - finding out about past encounters and relationships shifted my perception of what I'd read before.
The other point of interest is that relationships are both straight and lesbian, and the lesbian relationships and people's reactions to them offer an insight into metropolitan life in the 1940s which is rarely found.
Recommended.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Night Watch - Sarah Waters
I loved this - read it in one sitting, on my last day of holiday in Shanghai. I'm sure it's a novel that will resonate more with thirtysomethings than other age groups, and particularly those who grew up outside London, but it is a great story of events in a tricky teenage year, told from the perspective of an articulate (albeit stammer-afflicted), emotionally well developed boy/young man.
In terms of style - and David Mitchell does have a reputation for his Cloud Atlas and Ghostwritten structure - Black Swan Green's "normal" narrative makes a refreshing change from the plot/character/literary style onion skins of previous novels.
Amazon.co.uk link: Black Swan Green - David Mitchell
David Malouf tells the story of one Australian man, Digger Keen, and the people in his life.
Digger's story starts with his mother's arrival from England at the start of the 20th century. Having established a home and a store at Keen's Crossing, children follow, but only Digger and his elder, "simple" sister Jenny survive to adulthood.
Digger's experiences as a soldier and prisoner of war in Malaya and Thailand introduce us to the tales' other key character, Vic Curran - a chap of conflicting characteristics whose life post war bring wealth and happiness, albeit built on slightly dodgy foundations. Having formed during their harsh PoW experience, and not always understood by either of them, the mateship between these two men is strong enough to endure the passing decades and the divergent paths their lives take.
It is a long novel, and the pace is slow - but this slow motion journey allows you to see and appreciate so much more about the characters and the times, places and events they live through. I loved every minute of it.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Great World - David Malouf
In need of a change from travel writing, I picked up this novel from Returns shelf in the library. It turned out to be a good choice - a modern novel set in New York and sharing with us the life and thoughts of Leo Gursky, a lonely old man who fled from the Nazis leaving his family, friend and home in Poland, and teenager Alma Singer whose father died some years previously and who just wants her mum to find happiness with a new partner.
Whilst there are too many characters, connections and timeshifts to keep on top of (which I'll confess did irritate me rather a lot), it's the main characters you engage with, and whose sadness will bring tears.
Amazon.co.uk link: The History of Love - Nicole Krauss
Another enjoyable, angst ridden novel by Maggie O'Farrell, although in this one the path of true love does seem to run a little bit more smoothly than in After You'd Gone.
One half of this is the tale of Scottish-Italian twins, with brief glimpses of the love and lives of their parents and grandparents, their relationships with one another (good) and the significant relationships with people they encounter from schooldays onwards (generally bad).
The other half tells the story of another cultural hotchpotch - Jake, born of a short lived on-the-road-relationship between his hippy Welsh mother and vanished Scottish father, and brought up from birth, single-handedly by his mother in Hong Kong.
Maggie O'Farrell reveals details of her characters piecemeal all the way through the novel, and jumps between times and locations right up to the very end. Some might find this frustrating, but to me it is rather like the way in which you find out about the history, hopes and hang ups of the friends you make in real life.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Distance Between Us - Maggie O'Farrell
An unexpected delight. I remembered thoroughly enjoying Cloud Atlas, and I'd not expected this earlier novel to use a simpler version of the linked stories theme, and I enjoyed it just as much.
Each chapter features a different genre, time and place, and largely separate characters - but there are just the occasional chance connections between people that link all of them together - although you probably don't realise the significance at the time. The result is a novel that illustrates the butterfly effect theory, although in this case it is hard to work out who is the butterfly and which (where?) is the tornado.
Amazon.co.uk link: Ghostwritten - David Mitchell
An unexpected delight. I remembered thoroughly enjoying Cloud Atlas, and I'd not expected this earlier novel to use a simpler version of the linked stories theme, and I enjoyed it just as much.
Each chapter features a different genre, time and place, and largely separate characters - but there are just the occasional chance connections between people that link all of them together - although you probably don't realise the significance at the time. The result is a novel that illustrates the butterfly effect theory, although in this case it is hard to work out who is the butterfly and which (where?) is the tornado.
Amazon.co.uk link: Ghostwritten - David Mitchell
I really wanted to finish this novel, but my dogged perserverance was doomed to failure. I've enjoyed other novels by Rose Tremain, notably The Colour, and that combined with the Parisian setting suggested that I'd whizz through this book, but sadly no. After first The Body Farm and then Neither East Nor West leapfrogged their way onto my bedside table, I recognised that I was destined to remain ignorant of the fates of 14 year old Lewis, his translator mother and would-be DIY dab hand dad, and the various members of Russian and African immigrant communities that people The Way I Found Her.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Way I Found Her - Rose Tremain
I really wanted to finish this novel, but my dogged perserverance was doomed to failure. I've enjoyed other novels by Rose Tremain, notably The Colour, and that combined with the Parisian setting suggested that I'd whizz through this book, but sadly no. After first The Body Farm and then Neither East Nor West leapfrogged their way onto my bedside table, I recognised that I was destined to remain ignorant of the fates of 14 year old Lewis, his translator mother and would-be DIY dab hand dad, and the various members of Russian and African immigrant communities that people The Way I Found Her.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Way I Found Her - Rose Tremain
Set in a small NSW town in the modern Australian outback, with strong characters and a focus on the past, I found this to be a book with depth, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Ignore the blurb on the back which talks of romance between two apparently mismatched temporary residents of Karakarook - yes, that does eventually come, but the book is about modern Australia and the few generations of white man and women who write and determine the history of this far more ancient land, and features relationships and attitutes that are far more complex, and rewarding, than the blurb suggests.
If you like Tim Winton's West coast Australian novels, I think you'll like this East coast equivalent.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Idea of Perfection - Kate Grenville
Set in a small NSW town in the modern Australian outback, with strong characters and a focus on the past, I found this to be a book with depth, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Ignore the blurb on the back which talks of romance between two apparently mismatched temporary residents of Karakarook - yes, that does eventually come, but the book is about modern Australia and the few generations of white man and women who write and determine the history of this far more ancient land, and features relationships and attitutes that are far more complex, and rewarding, than the blurb suggests.
If you like Tim Winton's West coast Australian novels, I think you'll like this East coast equivalent.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Idea of Perfection - Kate Grenville
An easier read than The Kingdom by the Sea and, although enjoyable, The Island isn't a great read. The tale of four generations of Cretan women from the early 20th century to the start of the 21st century, the bulk of the book focuses on the twin coastal communities of Plaka and Spinalonga - the former home to the family at the centre of the tale and the latter a leper colony to which sufferers from all over Greece are sent. Sandwiched around this is the 21st century element, with the main characters' twenty-something British descendant returning to Crete and discovering her family's complicated history.
At times you can tell that this is a first novel - but the detail and history in the novel push it beyond chick lit and you come away having learned a lot about the history of Crete, leprosy and attitudes to it. Don't be put off by the leper element - one of the key themes of the book is that lepers are normal human beings too.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Island - Victoria Hislop
A beautiful, haunting set of short stories from Tim Winton, featuring the generations of families who live and grow up in the coastal town of Angelus, Western Australia. Although the stories can be read in isolation, this collection is home to a relatively small set of characters whose lives intertwine, intersect and overlap.
It was only towards the end of the book that I realised quite how small the cast was, and how many times we've been shown different stages and key events in the same life. Sometimes from their perspective, sometimes from that of those close to them. Myths, mysteries and misunderstandings abound.
One of those rare books that did actually cause me to go back and start reading from the beginning again, to spot more connections and to understand the complex characters a little better. Definitely a book that I'll come back to, and those are few and far between.
amazon.co.uk link: The Turning - Tim Winton
Unlike recent reads, I really enjoyed this Aurelio Zen mystery, although the man himself didn't make an appearance until well past page 40. Set in the independent minded mountain borderlands between Italy and Switzerland, this Zen outing provides a darker by more credible plot stetching back 30 years, and Zen's sleuthing reveals relationships and careers based on lies and deceit. Zen seems at his best when he's an outsider, and when Michale Dibdin keeps Zen's personal life playing a remote second fiddle to his detective work and police force politicking.
Amazon.co.uk link: Medusa - Michael Dibdin
I've read a lot of Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen series, but Thanksgiving is a very different book. For starters, it's more of a novella, and its plot is less finely/densely woven. The narrative jumps in time, location and voice, but each chapter builds on and informs the last to produce a though provoking tale of love, loss and longing. A tale that lingers in the memory and a title that accumulates meaning along the way. Recommended.
Amazon.co.uk link: Thanksgiving - Michael Dibdin
I picked this out of Phil's bookshelf as a filler in between finishing The 8.55 to Baghdad and finding time to get some fresh reading out of the library, or in the form of Christmas presents, whichever came sooner.
All too nihilistic for me, Generation X is the tale of three disillusioned American twenty/thirysomethings whose lives and desires have diverged from the routine career /life paths followed by their contemporaries and envisaged by their families. Instead, Andy, Claire and Dag choose to live in the faded glory of Palm Springs, a dying town on the edge of the desert, to work in low paid jobs free from both career path and (for the most part) stress, and to share time telling stories and drinking hard.
Amazon.co.uk link: Generation X - Douglas Coupland
Another of the second hand book haul from Hereford, and an easy read albeit a bit weepy in places as we follow the emotional highs and lows of the late teenage years in the life of Sam, who, together with her beloved twin Anna was adopted as a baby. When Anna is killed in a road accident, Sam decides to track down her biological parents.
Buy it: Amazon link
I've seen this in many a bookshop's Bestsellers pile over the past few months, so spotting it at the library I picked up a copy, having already bought a copy for Karen for her birthday a few months ago.
Although it's clearly of the Da Vinci Code genre, it's got different historical emphasis, much stronger female characters and a few drops of mysticism. Not to be taken too seriously, it's an enjoyable read with the twin tales set in the 13th century and the 21st intertwining throughout the novel, and not surprisingly coming together at the end.
Buy it: Amazon link
Read on the recommendation of Phil, selected due to running out of library books and the media coverage surrounding the publication of JPod, and very good it was too.
Although of more immediate appeal to those of us with an interest in technology, Microserfs is actually also worth reading if you've ever wondered what people whose work involves "programming" or "the internet" actually *do*. Or, more accurately given that this was written in the late 1990s, "did". It's also an excellent snapshot of the coming together of a generation of geekoids, the technical developments / opportunities they could both envision and create with the venture capitalist investment and proliferation of IT in both workplaces and homes which resulted in the dotcom boom.
But it's not an altogether alien world of techno-speak and nerds. Yes, the book is set on America's west caost, in the high tech towns of Seattle and San Francisco, but Dan, Karla and the rest are characters that recognisable in their foibles and their fears - even if some of their fads and fetishes aren't quite so familiar. There are lots of funny moments, and poignant ones too, and I really liked the way the main characters are given a wider family setting, so that you get a sense of how they have ended up who and where they are.
Buy it: Amazon link
Luckily Katie had brought in Tears of the Giraffe as well as No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency for me to borrow, so I was able to carry on reading about the sleuthing and romancing of Mma. Ramotswe, Bostwana's only lady private eye. In this, the second novel in the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith again creates a cast and a plot that balance the good and the bad of Botswana - ranging from fostering orphans to solving the long-ago murder of an idealistic young american to out-witting lazy and dishonest house-keepers.
Precious Ramotswe is a good woman, and in Alexander McCall Smith's novels (so far at least) decency, kindness, optimism and common sense win out.
Buy it: Amazon link
Lent to me by Katie Carter, I raced through No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in one cool, wet Bank Holiday Saturday spent in the caravan at Walton-on-the-Naze.
Like many others (I'm sure), I'd picked up the first of Alexander McCall Smith's tales featuring ("starring", surely?) Precious Ramotswe many a time, in the library, at the airport, in bookshops... but I'd never actually bought it - the blurb just didn't sound enticing enough.
My mistake! Yes, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency reads like a gentle, calm tale, but it's one that carries many a sting: death and abandonment, murder and witchcraft; but Mma. Ramotswe and her merry men and women steer a safe, thoughtful and overwhelmingly positive path through it all to the happiness and contentment you can't but help feel they deserve.
A modern day Aesop's fable - I'm amazed this book hasn't got more Amazon reviews.
Buy it: Amazon link
An enjoyable birthday present from Karen, a mixture of modern and historical fiction in the mould of The Da Vinci Code. As the name suggests, The Last Templar features the Knights Templar , but this time the leading couple (both americans in this version, with the female as the academic, and her love interest a New York FBI agent) unearth a different long hidden secret that explains and the Templars' strained relationship with the Roman Catholic church.
A definite page turner, which you'd expect as the author - Raymond Khoury - is a script writer, but if you didn't find The Da Vinci Code erudite enough, I suspect this isn't a novel for you.
Buy it: Amazon link
I've not read Matthew Kneale's English Passengers, although I have thought about it.... so spotting this more recent publication in the Barbican Library I decided to give it a whirl, and I'm glad I did. I like short stories, and in this collection Matthew Kneale writes about characters whose acts do disservice to themselves, or those they encounter. Sometimes you feel on their side, at other times not.
The story that sticks in the mind comes near the start of the collection, where a modern London family tries out independent travel for the first time and cause the execution of a man who did nothing but help them and be perceived as being a bit "odd" - hardly surprising given he lived in a Chinese city off the beaten track for western visitors. One other is about a respectable London solicitor who finds more profit and job satisfaction as a drugs dealer, until his late teenage children find out. Lots of familiar settings for a young metropolitain type such as I am.
Buy it: Amazon link
Phil bought this for Christmas 2004.... and it has sat on the "Books to read" bookshelf ever since.... It's not that I didn't want to read Cloud Atlas, just that as a hefty hardback I knew that it would be awkward to read in bed, which is where I do most of my reading.
However, it turned out to be a classic "I've started so I'll finish", in the sense that I just kept having to turn the pages, to read "just one more chapter". I loved the way the book's structure and story set mirror a book's physical make up of each of the signatures (I've just had to look that up on Wikipedia), where you only get a continuous selection of text printed on the middle pair of pages.
I also really liked the way David Mitchell gradually revealed the connections between the stories and their narrators, and carried forward a narrative stretching from the 19th century to an unspeficied number of centuries in the future.
If you enjoy fiction in flavours raning from historical, to modern, to science, then read this novel!
Buy it: Amazon link
The third of my London Heathrow haul, and although it is taking me a while to read, it's not due to lack of interest. I'm enjoying a novel that tells the tale of a young gay man enjoying the opportunities that come his way in 1980s London, the decade of my teenage years.
Buy it: Amazon link
Another of my London Heathrow haul, The Shadow of the Wind was a punt, based on the blurb and deciding not to let myself be snobby about a Richard and Judy book club recommendation.
It proved to be a good choice; one that lasted me all the way home.
A strong story, with characters I felt for and a plot that taught me much about the difficulties of living in Barcelona in the years following the Spanish Civil War. Even though I guessed the solution to the mystery early on, my certainty wavered as I read on and the gaps in my understanding opened and closed, and opened again.
But it is not just a novel in modern historical setting. There is comedy, there is horror, there is love - unrequited and fulfilled. And it is most definitely not a 'Spanish Da Vinci Code'.
Buy it: Amazon link
Sitting at LHR with only my part-read copy of Allan Massie and part- read- and- abandoned- a- while- ago copy of William Dalrymple's White Mughals, and starting to feel increasingly nervous about our 13 hour cross Atlantic flight from Madrid to Santiago, I decided that I absolutely *had* to buy some more gripping reading materials.... and induldged in a 3 for 2 offer at Books etc: The Shadow of the Wind, The Line of Beauty, and Dan Brown's Deception Point. Not prizes for guessing that the latter was the first in my sweaty little palms.
I'd like to think that it was the Arctic american setting that swung it, but in fact it was a toss up between this and Digital Fortress, and I know that Hazel has a borrow-able copy of that.
Dan delivered, much to my relief. Spurred on by the prospect of some lighter fare, I ploughed on through The Evening of the World to the bitter end, and somewhere over Brazil I started on Deception Point. Dan kept me turning the pages as we changed planes at Santiago and flew southwards to Puerto Montt and Punta Arenas, and, on Christmas eve, eastwards from Patagonia to the Mount Pleasant and the Falkland Islands. I finally reached the end on Christmas Day, but only after we'd unwrapped our presents and gorged ourselves on a feast of festive food.
Buy it: Amazon link
A stroke of luck in my pre-Yalta holiday foray into the Barbican library, finding Angels and Demons in the Adventure carousel made up for my fruitless search for a travel guide and/or map for the Ukraine.
As with The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown provides a compelling page turner with plenty of twists and turns. Less of the historical in the sleuthing for Robert Langdon this time, and a lot more of the gore, but no less readable for that. The only aspect I didn't like was the fact that the baddie in this white western world was neither white nor western - but perhaps that is me being too PC.
Buy it (and join the millions who have!!): Amazon link
I'd been on the look out for another Maggie O'Farrell novel after loving After You'd Gone, and My Lover's Lover didn't disappoint. The novel plots the relationship between naive Lily and self-centred Marcus, with occasional insights from Marcus' friend and flatmate Adam, and Marcus' former girlfriend Sinead.
The early parts in particular provide an eerie read, which the later parts unpick and normalise. Throughout, the novel dissects relationships of all shapes and sizes, and people's commitment to them. The only disappointment was the end.... it was just a little too neat for my liking.
Buy it: Amazon link
I'd not realised that Susan Howatch had progressed to producing religious reads set in the present day City of London, and if I'd not known that she was the author, then I would never have guessed. I read a lot of her historical novels as a teenager, and although these modern descendents are just as blockbuster-y in size, they are much less sweeping in scope in terms of timescale and cast.
Phil's mum lent us this novel because of its Barbican setting, and it was interesting to compare Susan Howatch's descriptions of the place where we live, and similarly for the wider City context in which I work. Having the main character living in a flat in a ficticious fourth tower was a bit of a let down, but given that it wound up being haunted (or did it...?) she probably felt obliged to.
The early sections of the book, telling of the work-life (im)balance of City lawyers rang true, but as I'm not a very religious reader, I did find the Christian message that emerged in the later parts a bit heavy going in places. That said, it was balanced by aetheist arguments and psychoanalysis. The details on the spectral plane, the occult and spiritualist sects were all rather unnerving for late night reading in the eerie silence of rural Herefordshire.
Buy it: Amazon link
The blurb and the plaudits didn't entice, but to have continued to overlook this book would have been my loss. Small Island follows the lives of two couples, one from Jamaica the other from England, focussing on their experiences during World War II and the years that followed when Empire faded into Commonwealth, and Jamaicans moving to England became immigrants rather than fellow war veterans and members of the Empire.
The strong and individual voices of the characters make this a powerful, thought-provoking novel, when it could easily have been far more heavy-handed and less convincing.
Buy it: Amazon link
Now, do I go back to give The Star of the Sea another go.... or abandon that ship for another of the recent selection from the Barbican library's fiction section.....?
The first Tim Winton novel I've read that hasn't been set in Australia, and I'm still trying to work out whether the European setting for this novel affected my reading of it, or his writing of it. Full marks to the Barbican library for stocking it in any event, and luck that I spotted it in my pre-holiday library book selection spree.
It is very different from his other novels - I enjoyed it, but I don't think I fully appreciate the signficance of the title, or the scene in the novel it refers to, and within the book there were lots of unknowns and questions that remain unanswered when you reach the end.
One thing that has stayed with even after finishing the book is the way in which Tim Winton conveys the changing feelings and reactions the main character, Scully, as events unfold and his life unravels. From the excitement and apprehension of taking on a run down old cottage in a remote part of Ireland, to the frantic return to and flight from Greece and the increasingly surreal and unreal times in Paris and Amsterdam where the atmosphere becomes more claustrophobic and chaotic.
Buy it: Amazon link
A superior sort of 21st London-set chicklit, dealing with bereavement as well as boyfriends and bosses, and domestic violence and depression. The book doesn't patronise, pity or preach, and it doesn't try to pretend that Getting Over It is a quick business or something that affects everyone in similar ways. But it's not all deep and meaningful, and there are some great scenes..... I particularly enjoyed the one where Jasper's wicker furniture took its final flight.
Buy it: Amazon link
Ah, a lovely bit of frivolity after my recent spate of more worthy works.... and a delightful bit of light-hearted chicklit about two families who escape the rat race for the rural idyll.... and the tale of the friendship and business (ad)venture of the two wives/mothers that form the core of both.
Buy it: Amazon link
Easy chick lit reading, and a complete contrast from Kinsey Millhone, P.I., although the later chapters of the book are set in the USA (NYC and Connecticut rather than California mind you).
The gist of the story is: Plain Jane gets swept of her feet by long lusted after (from afar) friend of her brother and now wealthy City slicker, who transforms her into a sophisticated and doting wife who turns a blind eye on his philandering ways until their move to the US changes their world and their lives.....
Not at all a strenuous brain work out and I didn't find it emotionally evocative as Bookends, for example, but that's probably because I have no links at all to the fabulously wealthy world in which the story is set. Although the pace is a bit slow compared to most chicklit, Spellbound it a fatter book than many.
Buy it: Amazon link
I'd seen other people reading the book, and picked it up many a time, but the blurb on the back put me off, so I'm glad Hazel bought this at Gatwick. We both read it whilst on holiday in Kerala, a mere state away from where the story starts in Pondicherry.
It's a crazy-sounding, but increasingly plausible tale of an Indian boy, Pi, who is shipwrecked en route to Canada, and manages to save himself plus a baboon, a hyena, a zebra and a royal bengal tiger, all also en route to new lives as a result of Pi's father owning and running a zoo.
This is where the blurb misleads.... I had expected a cosy surreal chat between the species to while away the days until they were miraculously saved, but it is not so. Pi's story deals with the survival of the fittest, leaving no room for queasiness or cowardice as he figures out how to survive with a hungry tiger, a life-raft and emergency kit and supplies for company.
And survive he does (as you find out before the cast-adrift story starts, so no spoiler there!), but by dint of determination, ingenuity and good luck.
Buy it: Amazon link
Do believe the Hype!
This present-day-historical-whodunnit-cum-religious-conspiracy gripped me, and I read it in a day, not wanting to take a break even for the daily G&T on the verandah (and that's saying something).
Hazel and I were not the only ones devouring Da Vinci - I don't think there was a single party on Le Meridien Kovalam Beach's beach who didn't have a copy for their holiday read.... we saw versions in English, Spanish, Swedish and German.
Buy it: amazon link
...... although reading the reviews on the website, I'd say that if you are a Holy Grail connoisseur, or looking for something deep and meaningful in a novel, this holiday blockbuster isn't the book for you.
On the other hand, if you're after a bit of escapist holiday/commuting/bedtime reading, which teases out half remembered bits of information on christianity and (western) european history, and weaves them all together into a believable narrative (so long as - like me - you don't analyse every plot line), then you should enjoy this book!
Currently devouring this one, when I can drag myself away from OU revision....
A good range of characters, multiple storylines, and a couple of twists and turns en route.
My main tip is don't read the quotes at the front - there are a few spoilers in there which, I think, you're better off avoiding.
Buy it: Amazon link
I started, but couldn't finish - the first few pages just felt a little bit too much like hard work (OU coursework and looming exams, combined with flat buying, is making September a stressful month).... so I've put this to one side whilst I try out Salley Vickers' Mr Golightly's Holiday.
Buy it: Amazon link
A slim novel, but it certainly packs a punch.
The last of my Hereford Holiday Reads (I've started but I've yet to finish Stanley Stewart's In the Empire of Genghis Khan), and the definitely better of the more worthy novels (The Reading Group is still chick lit in my book, albeit of a superior nature). That may be due to the fact that the private lives of comprehensive school teachers is a more familiar world than Donna Tartt's Deep South, or it might simply be because the telling of this dark story is more to my taste, based on the incerasingly sinister relationship between an aging blue stocking spinster and a bohemian 40-something whose private and professional life she envies.
Buy it: Amazon link
Set in the Deep South of the U S of A, this reads like a modern day take on To Kill A Mockingbird, with a cast of likeable and unlikeable characters meeting out justice, southern style.
I was interested enough in the two main protagonists, 11 year old Harriet (good) and 20-something Danny (bad), and their related kith and kin, to read on to the end - but I certainly didn't race there.
Buy it: Amazon link
I admit defeat. I just can't face another chapter of this part sci-fi / part recent history novel covering the lives of 3 generations of an Indian family.
Buy it: Amazon link
Another Western Australian novel by Tim Winton. A slimmer volume than Cloudstreet, but with a narrower focus. It's set in the waning days of the fictional whaling town of Angelus, casting glances back over the area's 150 years since the first white whalers arrived. Not so much of the mythical here, but a candid telling of the old clashing with the new.
I suspect that it's based on the real South Western town of Albany, where Hazel and I spent a solemn afternoon at the whaling museum, and a more uplifting few hours visiting the geographical marvels along the coast, which the book mentions too.
Buy it: Amazon link
A beautiful, passionate, heartbreaking novel on love and loss.
One of the best books I've read this year.
Buy it: Amazon link
I must have looked at this book countless times in libraries and bookshops, but somehow something always put me off. I'm glad that I broke through that "bible" barrier in my last Barbican browse as The Poisonwood Bible is a fantastic book. It provides a great story, told by 5 of the female players, with the action moving from the root of the saga set in 1960s colonial Africa, onwards through events and locations in 1970s and 1980s in both America and Africa.
Buy it: Amazon link
Serendipity led to my actually finishing this one... I started it over the Bank Holiday weekend in Walton (to take my mind of horrendous period pain and my first Open University assignment, a truely unenjoyable combination), and found it too depressing to persevere with until yesterday. A post-TMA 1 shopping trip with Hazel, spending her money on things for her post-transformation pad, meant I needed something to read on the bus, and Hotel World was all I had (cue another trip to the Barbican library). And having managed another chapter, the Guardian had an article on top 50 books as voted for by Hay festival goers (I think), which ranked Hotel World highly.
So I finished it last night.
I can see why it's rated - It seems well written, and the variety of perspectives well grounded and insightful - but I think first person narratives about death aren't really ever going to be my cup of tea.
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Evocative descriptions of 1950s England and Australia, a fine cast and a strong story, I loved this novel. Read from cover to cover in 2 days.
I might try A town Like Alice next; I've always been rather deterred by the fact it was a film - unfairly perhaps.
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So far, so good, making allowances for this being Tim Winton's first book. Two mates on a coastal camping trip, and not too many descriptions of fish!
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My first, and I think my last, taste of Paulo Coelho. Just a little too whimsical for me, with the none-too-subtle subtext telling the reader that they should make the most of their life in a rather patronising Pollyanna style. A few interesting character and a sympathetic slovenian setting just about saved it, as did the slight 191 pages.
Glad it was a flat-clear-out-loan from Hazel.
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An inspired birthday present from Karen, read in a flash. I'd been put off from buying it by the later reivews, which emphasised the misogynic aspects of Afghan society. I'm glad Karen got it for me - it's a good read and provides insights into history, society, culture and personal relationships, told through tales from a family's life over the past 20 odd years. It's an uncomfortable read at times - but then the Khan clan live in a very different world from mine.
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Another Anne Tyler classic: a window into the world and thoughts of Rebecca Davitch - all american mom, step-mum, grandmother and the centre of her married-into family - as she wonders whether she made the right choice between college sweetheart Will and long-dead husband Joe.
I think of Anne Tyler is the american equivalent of Anita Brookner - although I'm not sure if that would hold up to literary criticism!
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If you think that genetic engineering, potatoes and market gardening had much of a place in 21st century fiction, you should read Tim Pears' novel! It's more high tech big business than Ambridge.
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