Recently in Modern fiction Category
A slow read.
Set in a fictional Devon seaside town, King of the Badgers starts with the abduction of a local girl with echoes of Shannon Matthews, and ends with her release. In between we follow the lives of, amongst others, London escapees/retirees, snobbish middle class academics living beyond their means, and the open and hidden the gay scene on sea.
Amazon.co.uk link: King of the Badgers - Philip Hensher
Catherine Musgrave's mother died when she was 6 months old, leaving her daughter a Memory Box. Thirty years later, as she at last tries to understand the significance of each item her mother put into the box, Catherine discovers that there is more about herself and her family's relationships than she'd previously allowed herself to appreciate.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Memory Box - Margaret Forster
A modern parable - a north London family's response to the father of the house turning from a cynical newspaper columnist to a Totally Good Person after the laying on of hot hands by DJ Good News.
Amazon.co.uk link: How to be good - Nick Hornby
Running out of reading in Walton, I picked up this West Wing-esque political blockbuster. A page turner, but the main female character sits uneasily with me.
Amazon.co.uk link: Favourite Son - Steve Sohmer
Twin, entwined tales of a falling in love in Cairo: Iris and Xan's wartime romance, and grand daughter Ruby and Ashraf's more modern encounter 60 years later.
Definitely not chick lit.
I"ll be looking out for more books by Rosie Thomas.
Amazon.co.uk link: Iris and Ruby - Rosie Thomas
Another wonderful novel from Salley Vickers, spent in the company of Violet Hetherington and her fellow passengers on a transatlantic cruise. Wherein we discover that still waters run deep.
If you like Anita Brookner, you'll like this. And vice versa. And you'll learn the idiomatic origins of a number of familiar phrases.
Amazon.co.uk link: Dancing Backwards - Salley Vickers
Quite how Kate Atkinson gets inside Isobel's head I've not idea: we follow fantastic flights of fancy, terrible trains of thought. En route Kate Atkinson provides the Fairfax family history, teenage love-from-afar, social and sexual reinvention, ad hoc time-shifts, incest and death. Lots of it.
Amazon.co.uk link: Human Croquet - Kate Atkinson
A great read!
What, or who, is real: Pran Nath, Rukhsana, Chandra, Pretty Bobby or Jonathan Bridgeman?
Amazon.co.uk link: The Impressionist - Hari Kunzru
I started this in Walton, twice. I'm glad I persevered to get beyond the initial mystical omen scene. A fantastic read, right through to the end... which kept me up until 3am and left me in tears - not for the first time in this Indian epic, set in the lush lands of the Coorg.
If you liked Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, I think you will love Tiger Hills.
Amazon.co.uk link: Tiger Hills - Sarita Mandanna
A slim book of short stories by Hilary Mantel, possibly (semi)autobiographical? Quick to read, and left me a bit cold.
Nothing at all like Wolf Hall.
Amazon.co.uk link: Learning to Talk: Short stories - Hilary Mantel
Lovely, and far deeper than I'd been led to expect. This is not some trite tale an artificial annual rendezvous of two lovers manque, but instead it tells us what Emma and Dexter's lives look like on the anniversary of the day / night they spent together in 1988, at the end of their university days. 15 July is an anniversary of sadness and happiness in our family too.
Thank you Charlotte for the loan.
Amazon.co.uk link: One Day - David Nicholls
Betrayal: of self; of others; of trust; of hope.
Amazon.co.uk link: Your Blue-Eyed Boy - Helen Dunmore
I recall loving Snow Falling on Cedars, which prompted me to pick this up when last in Barbican Library. A slow story, and the setting and focus on a young man's search for solitude and meaning, brought to mind Into the Wild. Thankfully The Other is without the selfishness and stupidity inherent in that story. My only irritation with this novel was towards the end, with the sudden shift of narrator to John William Barry's father.
A read for quiet, contemplative times.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Other - David Guterson
I'm glad I didn't let myself get put off by the endorsement from the author of "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian", as I enjoyed the satire of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, and Dr Jones' own voyage of self discovery.
Amazon.co.uk link:
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday
A novel about growing up in Libya under Gadaffi. It's been on my bookshelf since I asked for it as a pre-Libya trip birthday present. Events in Egypt spurred me on. Worth reading for a sense of how life under a North African dictatorship is (was?) like if you don't toe the line.
amazon.co.uk link: In The Country Of Men - Hisham Matar
I was sure I'd read this before, but there's no entry for it on "Reading", so I decided that either I hadn't or it had been so long ago that I'd forgotten....
As it turns out, I have read it before, but re-reading Instances of the Number 3 was no hardship - I just twigged the twist earlier this time round. Peter Hansome's accidental death results in his three lovers crossing paths in a style that's a little bit 'Anita Brookner', but with a twist.
Amazon.co.uk link: Instances of the Number 3 - Salley Vickers
Very enjoyable tale of southern English life in the early part of the 20th century, switching from London to Suffolk, and crossing the classes from debutantes to potter's boys.
Frustratingly I only got as far at chapter 33 before I had to return it to the library, so the remainder is at present unread....
Amazon.co.uk link: The Children's Book - A S Byatt
Some people are not as they first appear, and don't have stay the way they are.
Amazon link: The Private Lives of Pippa Lee - Rebecca Miller
Bought second hand in Frinton, and an OK literary read. Not a page turner, and no real surprises with the plot: actress meets politician, they have an affair and fame gets in the way.
Amazon link: Half in Love - Justin Cartwright
Slower, and with more serious undertones, I didn't enjoy The Gum Thief as much as other Douglas Coupland, zeitgeit-capturing, novels I've read.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland
Ex pat escapism set in 1990's rural France, but beset with Jewish guilt, Oxford academia and a failed entrepreneur's swimming pool obsession.
Good!
Amazon.co.uk link: The Swimming Pool Season - Rose Tremain
A snapshot of seven women (and assorted male acquaintances), who live in a northern town and who are connected to/by the cancer clinic in their local hospital.
Very good.
Amazon.co.uk link: Is There Anything You Want? - Margaret Forster
Set in a remote, rural Canadian farming community; split screen (twin time tracks) narrative; hinging on two very different brothers and the events that take place on the bridge of the title. Beautiful, spare, writing.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Other Side of the Bridge - Mary Lawson
Part one of the Twilight Saga - a birthday present from the Central KM team at work, and the perfect reading for Marrakech and our flight back from Morocco: fun, frothy and full of the emotions I remember as a fifteen year old. A guilty pleasure.
Amazon.co.uk link: Twilight - Stephenie Meyer
Two stories offering an explanation for the disappearance of a wife and mother. Which one is 'real'?
Amazon.co.uk link: Mapping the Edge - Sarah Dunant
A fictional account of the siege of Sarajevo told from a variety of perspectives, and based on real people and events. It's hard to believe this happened in my lifetime, but all the more important to read because of that.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Cellist of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway
Odd little collection of short stories. My reading of the title story didn't match up with the impression given by the blurb. There were others I preferred.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Darkness of Wallis Simpson - Rose Tremain
A good read, in which we follow two accounts of the childhood and early womanhood of Roseanne Clear. Roseanne's own account, of growing up and falling in love in a small coastal community in the northwest of the island of Ireland in the early part of the twentieth century, is beautifully told.
Interspersed and interleaved we have her psychiatrist, Dr Grene,'s narrative, which draws upon the written records of Roscommon Mental Hospital and the institutional system in which Roseanne has spent most of her adult life. Using both accounts, Sebastian Barry illustrates Irish social, religious and political attitudes and history of the past 100 years.
The only downside? The Eastenders-eque denouement.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry
Starting in 1970s, The Northern Clemency focuses on the lives of two families, the Sellers, and the Glovers. When Mr Sellers' job takes him and his family from London to Sheffield, they move into house opposite the Glovers', in a superior suburb on the outskirts of the city.
Even before the Sellers arrive in Rayfield Avenue, we are taken behind that community's lace curtains and smiling party faces to witness Mr and Mrs Glover's marital crisis, the sexual escapades of their eldest son Daniel, the literary aspirations of 14 year old daughter Jane and the obsessions of ten year old Tim.
We move through the Abigail's Party themed 1970s, meeting money laundering florist Nick and Daniel Glover's and Sandra Sellers' teenage friends en route, to the early manoeuvres in the miners' strike and the start of Jane Glover's London career in the 1980s. The novel ends in the late 1990s, with both sets of parents still living in their respective houses on Rayfield Avenue, and their offspring having - eventually - flown their nests.
It's a hefty tome but with beautiful period detail throughout, The Northern Clemency is well worth the read.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Northern Clemency - Philip Hensher
A relatively old novel by Helen Dunmore, telling the twin tales of independent women two generations apart.
Teenage Nadine is lured away from home by her exotic experienced older man, Kai, whose plans for her involve satisfying a British politician's secret sexual preferences. With parents focused on her disabled younger sister, it isn't long before Nadine falls out of the "system" and is persuaded to move in with Kai, into a Georgian terraced house ("ripe for renovation"), and sitting tenant Enid firmly ensconced in the attic.
As the two women become friends, we learn more about Enid's life and loves, and Nadine's self sufficiency.
Amazon.co.uk link: Burning Bright - Helen Dunmore
A pair of parallel stories about the Latter Day Saints - one revealing the faith's early history from a number of narratives focused around Ann Eliza Young, Prophet Brigham Young's 19th wife, whose divorce and subsequent crusading public speaking against polygamy split the Saints and was a cause célèbre in late 19th century America.
The second is set in the present day and focuses on the Firsts, a group that separated from the LDS mainstream over the issue of multiple wives, under the leadership of Ann Eliza's brother. Told from the perspective of Jordan, excommunicated as a teenager for holding hands with one of his sisters, who returns to his roots after his mother is charged with the murder of her husband.
There's plenty of detail, not just on the Mormons' religious beliefs, lifestyle and characters from both eras, but also on the early settlement and development of Utah - at the time still a Territory - and the wagon train exodus from the East and emigration from Europe that preceded it.
For me, the murder mystery element was less interesting - serving merely to show Mormon fundamentalism in a 21st century setting.
Amazon.co.uk link: The 19th Wife - David Ebershoff
My first taste of Cormac McCarthy, courtesy of my Annapurna Circuit-er Sean, and a novel where you need to pay attention as you read. There's a mixture of languages and a lot left unsaid, together with complex relationships to untangle and cowboy-talk to understand.
Young cowboys John Grady Cole and his friend Lacey Rawlins have grown up in the American West as it leaving it's wild days behind, and decide to escape to Mexico to look for work on the cattle ranches there. En route they pick up another runaway, and a whole heap of trouble.
A novel that offers beauty and brutality side by side.
Amazon.co.uk link: All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
Recommended by a number of people on my Central Asia trip last year, I finally managed to get my teeth into this 900 page monster... and flew through it. It's an epic story, with plenty of sex, drugs and rock and roll, Mumbai-style, based on the author's eight years there.
Through Gregory David Roberts' eyes we see daily life in the slum where he lives, the criminal underworld he joins and the melting pot of nationalities that comprise Mumbai and their involvement in the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
But it's also the story of one, fallible, man's journey to redemption, and the part that man's love for fellow man plays in that.
Amazon.co.uk link: Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
Wikipedia link: Shantaram (novel)
As respectable Middle-English woman Lois tells the story of how she came to be serving a lengthy prison sentence, there are echoes of Notes on a Scandal and obsessive love.
When Lois chances upon her dead drug addict son's family, she soon begins to find wily ways of providing her toddler grandson with a better life. Lois starts small, with toys and clothes that his junkie mother Jane-Gay sees no point in providing. Things escalate rapidly once she decides to rent the house next door to them and is soon taking and making every opportunity to look after her grandson, giving him the love, care and attention that's been missing from his life so far, until ultimately the only fly in the ointment is Janie-Gay.....
Amazon.co.uk link: Fly in the Ointment - Anne Fine
Revenge is a dish best served cold.... and at a distance.
The plot focuses on David and Elizabeth, and American couple living in London and apparently enjoying the wealthy lifestyle that comes from David's high flying City career as an investment banker. However, when über control freak Elizabeth discovers that her husband is having affair with a co-worker, she first retreats into self-starvation and then demands that the family moves back to America, finding a beautiful farmhouse in Virginia for David to buy and for her to redecorate and furnish with the best that his money can buy. But her lavish spending spree is only one small part of Elizabeth's revenge...
Amazon.co.uk link: Canarino - Katherine Bucknell
A good summer holiday read, which has similarities in setting and themes with Atonement and The House at Riverton. In 1960s Suffolk, the three sisters Mortland are each in love with the young artist who is spending the summer at the family pile painting the sisters' portrait, and all observed by Davy, local village boy made good. When tragedy strikes, the apparent idyll unravels into tales of envy and guilt, and the novel fastforwards thirty years to follow through the repercussions.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Landscape of Love - Sally Beauman
In The Outcast Sadie Jones shows us the lives and lies that lie beneath society's norms and conventions, and the brutality and despair that can exist behind closed doors and minds.
Set in the repressive suburban world of 1940s and 1950s home counties, we first meet Lewis Aldridge as a young boy when his soldier father returns from the war. We then follow him on the journey into teenage rebellion and self discovery in central London's jazz joints that follow his mother's death. Rebellion and repression turns into revolt, and Lewis is sent to prison.
Returning home two years later still struggling with his personal demons, Lewis meets Kit Carmichael, tomboy daughter of the local gentry and together they find hope of redemption and escape.
Not an easy read, but definitely a rewarding one. Don't let the Richard & Judy recommendation put you off.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Outcast - Sadie Jones
The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series is back on form, with Mma Ramotswe searching for a lady's missing family and dealing with poison pen letters. Meanwhile, Mr J.L.P. Matekoni searching for a miracle cure for their adopted daughter Motholeli and Mma Makutsi dealing with the aftermath of bed buying with fiance Phuti Radiphuti and the arrival of the seasonal rains to Gabarone. In the end everyone discovers something unexpected, which makes them look at other people with fresh eyes.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Miracle at Speedy Motors - Alexander McCall Smith
A book of two parts, the first a day by day account of the silence of Isabelle and her parents parallel struggles to find a way to deal with it and to break it; the second Isabelle's own realisation that she needs to end her self-imposed silence, and her eventual escape.
I don't agree with the back cover blurb that this novel is "Wholly involving and ultimately uplifting....". For me part one went on too long, with seemingly endless examples of Isabelle and her parents' suffering; part two was better, with a faster pace even if I found it hard to believe the trigger for Isabelle's eventual utterances was enough to break such a destructive, controlling cycle.
I love the writings and quiet observations of Anne Tyler and Anita Brookner; this isn't in the same league.
Amazon.co.uk link: December - Elizabeth H Winthrop
I recall really enjoying Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, but this collection of (quite long) short stories was hard work. The common factor was that each story relates to 19 March 1929, but I found the style too fey and full of flights of fancy for my taste. I didn't really warm to any of the characters and found the theme of love to be elusive.
Amazon.co.uk link: Tales of the Night - Peter Hoeg
A family saga, in elegant short form. Each chapter deals with a new generation, from the son of a Scottish fisher family who escapes the sea to Canada and marries the only daughter of a farming family, to their great grandchildren, Sasha and Sophie who find themselves uprooted from Paris to New York by their grieving father after their mother's death.
Progress, opportunity and need carry the generations from 1930s Saskatchewan to Toronto to Paris and present day New York; sturdy yet surprising Davis and Margaret, their independent only daughter Hilda, her daughter passionate Danielle who marries London-Turkish husband Osman, and their children Sasha and Sophie.
Amazon.co.uk link: Lost Geography - Charlotte Bacon
Set in a remote Appalachian Mountain community in the American south, Prodigal Summer tells of relationships and love, for people, plants and animals.
We meet incomer Lusa who finds herself widowed and running a farm, a task for which her expertise in moths leaves her ill equipped, as well as struggling with her husband's family. Hermit-like forest ranger Deanna finds herself an unexpected lover, and struggles with the threat he poses to the newly returned coyote families growing up in the safety of the mountain forest. Grumpy Garnett pours his love into rescuing the American Chestnut, and battles his pro organic neighbour, Nannie.
Lots of lovely characters, a beautiful setting and wonderful focus on nature and man's relationship with it.
Amazon.co.uk link: Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver
A novel I read rather than enjoyed. The language is beautiful, but the narrative rather too dreamy for me. Possibly one to re read when life is a little more zen and rather less hectic.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Sea - John Banville
A tale of relationships built on the ties of blood, marriage, business and friendship, of infidelity, secrets and depression.
You learn early on that Kath, the central character, is dead, although the photograph of the title only surfaces many years later, causing family and friends to reassess their views, memories and ultimately the truths of their own lives as well as hers.
It's time to read more Penelope Lively I think.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Photograph - Penelope Lively
A very misleading title.... and a chance find at Corner Cottage, our St Ives honeymoon hideaway. I'd seen this book countless times in the library and in bookshops, and always veered away from it as early chicklit-lite. I was wrong.... I don't think I should really classify The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing as chicklit; "modern fiction" is definitely more appropriate as the novel deals with emotional development, through a series of snapshot scenes in main character Jane Rosenthal's life.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank
I loved Amitav Ghosh's The Glass Palace, and The Hungry Tide serves up a similar helping of east Asian life, this time bringing together marine biologist Piya, a middle class second generation Indian American, and Kanai, a successful New Delhi entrepreneur and man of the world.
After an initial meeting on the train from Kolkata to Port Canning, the novel's setting settles in the Sunderbans, the little known tidal waterworld of the Ganges river delta, with the plot shifting between the generations just as the politics, people and rivers shift endlessly around in the delta.
A beautiful and thought-provoking read.
Amazon.co.uk: The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh
Lilian Singer's life stretches from an Edwardian middle class childhood in semi-rural suburbia to being a bag lady in central Sydney. En route, Kate Grenville describes the transition from awkward debutante teen to mental breakdown and institutionalisation, first in a mental asylum and, in later years, prison. Lilian is not an immediately appealing character and her story is not an obviously happy one, but by the end of the book I was in tears, but half-happy ones.
Amazon.co.uk: Lilian's Story - Kate Grenville
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
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
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.
Buy it: Amazon link
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.
Buy it: Amazon link
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!
Buy it: Amazon link
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.
Buy it: Amazon link
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.
Buy it: Amazon link
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!
Buy it: Amazon link
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.
Buy it: Amazon link
The story of the lives of families and friends revolving around the Water's Edge Hotel on the Bournemouth seafront.
A good read, although not for those who dislike even the slightest whiff of classical mythology.
Buy it: Amazon link
I'm currently reading this ... and so far, it's as great read, the story of two half-brothers, one growing up in luxury, the other destitute on the streets of Calcutta.
Buy it: Amazon link
I had to persevere with this one, which is set in the Western Isles of Scotland at the turn of the 19th/20th Century. I did finish it, but I don't thik I'll be trying any more Elizabeth Know novels - they just don't have enough detail for me.
Buy it: Amazon link
A few pages in, I realised that I'd read this novel before - but given that I'd not recognised it from reading the blurb on the back and leafing through a few paragraphs, it was no less enjoyable second time around.
The book tells the stories of X residents of Union Street, in working class Newcastle(?) not so very long ago. Each has their own story to tell, and the narrators are mainly women. Through these (fictional) women's stories, Pat Barker shows you childhood, rape, a backstreet abortion, childbirth and death and whilst there is a backdrop of poverty, their lives are not entirely without love or hope.
Buy it: Amazon link
A fantasitc modern Australian novel, which starts in a town north or Perth, and then sets off along the sparsely populated coast of Western Australia, heading into the poisonous hinterland around the mining town of Wittenoom en route to Broome and the Kimberley, and thence onwards to the northern coastline between there and Kununurra. Placenames which will be all the more meaningful if you've been to this part of the world, and could inspire you to visit if you have not.
The landscapes Tim Winton crafts en route is simply a backdrop to the lives of the characters living their lives in these remote parts, where life is more like the Wild West than Home and Away. And all the better for that.
One of the best novels I've read this year.
Buy it: Amazon link
I think I may be nearing the end of my Anita Brookner phase. Tales of single women (and occasionally me) of a certain age and their quiet London lives are just too small scale for me at the moment. The horizons in travel writing are set that much higher.
Still, I enjoyed this slim tale of an abandoned wife, although I couldn't help but be irritated by her rather naive attitude towards the sponging step-mother and toddler duo she falls in thrall to.
Buy it: Amazon Link
I thoroughly enjoyed this contemporary novel, with its twin settings of London and Venice, splashes of history, romance and travel. So thank you to Lindsey for getting it for me as a birthday present!
Buy it: Amazon link
One of the Greenwich second hand stall purchases, which I unearthed recently.
It's shaping up to be another Anne Tyler gem - as one of the reviewers on amazon.co.uk says, "Her characters are attractive, but they all have flaws, which makes them real."
And it made me look up where Baltimore/Maryland is/are....
Verdict: Haddock Review
Buy it: Amazon link
Purchased in a Frinton charity shop on Easter Saturday expedition with Phil.
Started reading this collection of short stories on the train/tube/bus journey home, and should finish the collection by the end of today/tonight.
Done!
Verdict: Haddock Review
Buy it: Amazon link
A bit of a nostalgia trip, harking back to Christmas 1998 when H and I were in Perth, and on the WA leg of our Australian Adventures. Add in some history, real characters to the mix of sun and suburb, and you've got a gem.
Verdict: Haddock Review
Buy it: Amazon link
I spent a lot of my teenage years and early 20s reading blockbusters of various types, largely working my way through historical novels, of which I rate Dorothy Dunnett's 2 Scottish series most highly (but more about Lymond and Niccolo elsewhere). Since joining the Clapham commuting masses, the opportunities for indulging in longer works of fiction have been reduced. However, The Map of Love proved worth lugging between CJ and Moorgate, and even all the way out to Walton.
The novel deals with the story of a London widow who travels to Egypt in the closing years of the 19th century seeking inner peace after the death/demise of her husband.
A true blockbuster complete with parallel love themes, the novel also educates the European reader on "Victorian",
Readers who liked this, also liked Molesworth
I first encountered this book as a kid, lurking on the bookshelves at The Davids - family friends who also introduced Tom and me to Richard Scarry and Josephine Tey (and Jacob's Sheep and Laphroaig).
Short enough for an under-10 to read over a weekend, and deceptively categorised as a 'children's novel', this slim (5mm) gem of a story (with great illustrations by Fritz Wegner) is a gentle lesson in tolerance and co-existance, between individuals and families, nations and races.
One to read, read and read again - to yourself and to nephews and neices - in fact any 'kid' of any age you know.
I've still got my (battered) copy, 45p RRP and still going strong if you want to borrow it......