Featured
img_1857

In her published acknowledgements, author Rebecca F. Kuang describes her novel as “in large part, a horror story about loneliness in a fiercely competitive industry”, which is perhaps modest, but maybe also just a tad too reductive. Others have alighted on the satirical treatment of publishing, racial inequalities and the pernicious nature of social media. Certainly the tale is set within the intensely combative arena of fiction writing/publishing and a continuum which encompasses best-selling novelists to aspiring wannabes. That some ‘make it’, while other talented writers languish undiscovered may be arbitrary, but as the book implies, may also be subject to conscious bias and begs the question, how far will the characters go to inveigle the trappings of ‘success’? What constitutes a legitimate opportunity and how does one calibrate an acceptable level of ruthlessness?

Athena Liu and June Haywood both attended Yale and a prestigious MFA course, yet their trajectories have been very different, though their superficial friendship endured. One, the hottest new prodigy (book deals, award nominations and now a TV deal), beautiful and exotically cool, the other with a debut novel that sank without trace, making ends meet through educational support for the kids of wealthy aspirational parents. Jealousy though feels more like fear at June’s sense of comparative inadequacy. Until, in a whiskey-fuelled catch-up at her lavish apartment, Athena dies and June encounters her friend’s newly completed manuscript. It’s an ‘opportunity’ with the capacity to transform June’s life, dependent on the decisions she makes and the inner rationale she can sell to her conscience, to excise the guilt.

The reader is swept along with the paradox confronting June (rebranded Juniper Song) as she tastes the life she intended, but ‘what goes around, comes around’ and the almost fateful journey experienced by the main character is skilfully managed by the author. Tragedy and success intimately interwoven in a plot that perhaps cautions against achievements benchmarked by others, which may reward monstrous behaviour. Yet, given the angst accompanying the deployment of AI, the book may also be timely and point toward future challenges around the complex appropriation of intellectual property.

Already a bestselling author, in this novel Ms Kuang has described a fictional industry unencumbered by scruples. The experience for the reader may partially hinge on the moral lens through which the book is viewed, but it’s a glorious tangle. I’d hesitate to ascribe to the ‘horror story’ suggestion, but it is a satisfying read and I’m sure we will hear much more from this author in future, industry willing…

Rating: 4 out of 5.
Featured

Sharing the twilight….

img_1861

Ordinarily, I rarely source a book after seeing the movie it inspired. There’s something about forming the characters in my own imagination from scratch. Once the movie has been seen, the characters may be etched into place. Still, having watched a random movie on TV starring Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, I broke my own rule and bought a copy of the original novella, of the same name, “Our Souls at Night”. Of course, the Netflix version starring two Hollywood legends was really good and, as it turned out, followed the author’s story very closely. Still, I’m pleased to report that there is real depth to the late Kent Haruf’s final book, which dredges pathos from the reader and seeks to challenge the notion of older people becoming asexual, or content to remain unhappy in their often socially-constructed isolation. It was a moving experience.

Far from being a sordid secret, the unusual relationship between the main characters (Addie and Louis) was in fact beautifully drawn and the purity of their companionship made the way it was ultimately compromised all the more cruel. The dislike I experienced for the couple’s respective children and their uninvited interference, glowered over the page, every bit as intensely as for the screen. Yet, the author still managed a final twist to salvage the reader’s satisfaction.

Not a traditionally romantic story perhaps, but certainly one unashamedly about ‘love’ and a glorious epitaph to a gifted writer. I shall be seeking out other titles by Mr Haruf.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

250th Birthday Celebration in ‘A Promised Land’….

img_1831

Being a man of a certain age, I can recall 1976 and the bi-centennial celebrations to mark the 200th ‘birthday’ of the USA. Gerald Ford was president and as part of the celebrations, more than 10,000 people were naturalised as citizens in mass ceremonies held in Chicago, Detroit and Miami. While in New York, tall ships formed a flotilla with hundreds of smaller vessels. It was quite the party! Fast forward 50 years (which seems scarcely possible) and I felt I should mark the latest milestone in similarly lavish fashion.And thus I settled down to the audiobook version of ‘A Promised Land’ by Barack Obama. This first volume of the former president’s memoirs is quite a tome (I have a hard copy on my TBR shelf) and yet the prospect of a presidential address lasting 29 hours 10 minutes felt like the kind of extreme indulgence, as befits the occasion.

There’s no question the author can write and tell a compelling story (even one we’ve lived through) and there are plenty of sobering plot-lines (Covid; the financial crisis; Iraq; Afghanistan; racial and gender inequality), some well known villains, but also a large cast of good people, who are credited with some seismic achievements, as Obama tentatively lifts the veil on the machinations of the American political establishment. Indeed, for a curious outsider, having the unique perspective of the POTUS to walk the reader/listener through a series of international challenges, political frictions, electoral battles and attendant risks was fascinating, made all the more profound laid alongside the domestic considerations that also attend a young husband and father, trying to maintain a sense of balance and stay grounded, in the rarified atmosphere of the White House.

What I liked most about the account was the sense of having a ringside seat for history in the making. Albeit a retrospective view, to hear the competing factors to be weighed, compromises to be made and the tactical nouse necessary to advance any policy is mind boggling and there are no easy hits. Foreign or domestic policies, fiscal and budgetary constraints, health, defence, education, each arena fraught with partisan loyalties and the need to keep even loyalists onside. The sheer breadth of the President’s field of vision, even allowing for specialist advisers, is truly remarkable.

And yet, in the face of the many challenges eventually to be confronted by the 44th President, what also came across was the humanity of the man. From humble background, to senator, to leader of the western world. A family man, with a love of basketball and the occasional cigarette, able to connect with his closest staff, as well as national leaders, a gifted communicator that from this side of the pond appears to be a tough act to follow.

I shall look forward to the second volume with interest, but this first instalment is well worth the investment in time and narrated by the author the audiobook was definitely enriched. The main advantage of the hardcopy is access to some tremendous photographs and a detailed index. I don’t review many non-fiction books here, but this one is quite insightful and enabled me to look back at a pandemic, war and a serious financial crisis, if not with nostalgia, at least with satisfaction for the leadership shouldering a succession of crises.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

And Now the Shipping Forecast…

It is perhaps the destiny of the island nation/s to become a little obsessive about the state of the waters lapping its shores. Particularly if the nations are heavily dependent on trade and particularly if the surrounding bodies of water are as notoriously changeable as the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the Irish Sea and the English Channel! Indeed, as I learnt from Charlie Connelly’s book, “Attention All Shipping”, it was the consistent threat to vessels navigating the fickle waters off the British Isles and beyond that led to the introduction of a national institution designed to mitigate the perceived perils. The shipping forecast, first broadcast in 1920, has been informing the nation of impending storms and gales for generations, suffusing the airwaves of the BBC at daily, time-honoured intervals and like the bongs of Big Ben, succinctly assuring seafarers and landlubbers alike that all is well. A simple formulation of around 350 words, the forecast starts with ‘Viking’ and proceeds in a roughly clockwise direction, around the 31 areas, to SE Iceland. Familiar names such as North Utsire, Cromarty and German Bight, Biscay, Fitzroy and Rockall. There’s a certain irony that the communique is drafted by the Met Office in landlocked Bracknell (Berkshire) and yet despite the proliferation of multi media, the forecast has retained its imposing position, rather like the network of lighthouses around the coastline, aged, but retaining a certain utility, as well as fondness, in the public’s imagination.

I first became familiar with the shipping forecast, on BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service), a quintessentially British reminder of home, but though I loved the lyrical rendering of the report and feared for the sailors battening down hatches in gale force winds and high seas, my mental map of the respective areas was at best sketchy. Step forward, journalist, Charlie Connelly and a year-long adventure to “travel the shipping forecast”, starting and finishing at the Cutty Sark pub, at the heart of Britain’s maritime heritage in Greenwich. The challenge, to visit each area (including those with no coastline) and take the reader along for the ride.

It proved to be quite the odyssey and the author’s amiable style manages to thread together the patchwork of areas through an interesting blend of historical detail and contemporary anecdote. Eccentric (how could it not be), extraordinary (certainly), but also awe-inspiring and funny. A simple idea, but well executed and a dead ringer for Radio 4 Book of the Week. For those of us unlikely to put to sea any time soon, the shipping forecast may appear quaint, an anachronism, in a world of satellite navigation and yet it has been a trusted part of the maritime infrastructure for more than a century, alongside lighthouses and lifeboats, designed to protect ships and crews and thereby support our connections to the wider world. Along the way, doubtless saving countless lives. Reason enough then to explain the significance of the shipping forecast as a cultural reference point. However, I am obliged to Charlie Connelly for reinforcing the concept in our national consciousness and lifting the veil on some of our seafaring tradition.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Bosch Rises in the East!

I have returned to the Harry Bosch series (Book 14, originally published in 2009) to follow the irascible detective as he steps out of his home environment of L.A. (albeit for just a short visit) to Hong Kong., where his ex-wife (and ex-FBI agent), Eleanor Wish and their 13 year-old daughter (Madelaine) are living.

The murder triggering the involvement of Bosch and his current partner, Detective Ferras, is on home soil and whilst fairly mundane on the face of it, suggests the work of a local triad.

In trademark fashion, the author examines a different strand of the rich social tapestry that is Los Angeles, through the eyes of her most driven law enforcer, albeit distracted by his own familial concerns. Bosch, the maverick this reader has come to regard with a mixture of admiration and incredulity, is again tested, almost to destruction, besieged by a less committed partner and the rule of law, for which the main character so often needs a workaround.

Given the panoply of characters, developed across the series, there’s always a frisson of excitement when the plot enables paths to cross again and the reintroduction of Eleanor Wish and Mickey Haller (defence attorney and half-brother to Harry Bosch), even for cameo appearances, keeps the pot bubbling.

Not the best novel in the series perhaps, but the forensics are interesting and the foundation for a profound change for Harry Bosch moving forward has been set. Bring it on!

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Blue-Eyed Dissident

There is something fascinating about Russia. For so long hidden behind the ‘iron curtain’, the world’s largest nation (geographically speaking) is an enigma, a private, pariah state. Indeed, for an entity so colossal it seems odd that our impressions in the west are largely forged by the dominant presence on the international stage of Vladimir Putin and a few oligarchs drifting around the world in super yachts, buying up football teams and the most expensive property in vulgar, ostentatious displays of wealth. However, we also know that in its cultural heyday, Mother Russia has contributed some of the most profound works of literature, music, art, philosophy and dance, the world has ever witnessed. Still, the country that gave us Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky, Chagall and Nureyev has also cultivated an important line of dissident figures: Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, Nemtsov and most recently Alexei Navalny.

This compelling biography is Navalny’s life in his own words. New York Times bestseller, Sunday Times bestseller, British book awards 2025, the international accolades all the more remarkable, when the reader remembers the poisoning of the author in 2020 by the Russian security services. It was a global event, in the wake of which, Navalny began to write. Once recovered that he was driven to return to his homeland, in spite of the consequences, is a measure of the man and the book includes his prison diaries, published here for the first time. In 2024 Navalny died in a brutal Siberian prison. Yet, this book is remarkably uplifting and speaks to the spirit of a man unwilling to be silenced, unwilling to look the other way, determined to challenge the corruption that he believed has blighted his nation.

“The only moments in our lives that count for anything are those when we do the right thing, when we don’t have to look down at the table but can raise our heads and can look each other in the eye. Nothing else matters.”

I listened to the audiobook version (which I had reserved on ‘Borrowbox’ and it was well worth the wait), narrated superbly by Matthew Goode. 16 hours, 47 minutes. Harrowing at times, bleak and at the same time absorbing, unfailingly positive and to my surprise, inspirational. 

I immersed myself in ‘Patriot’ soon after ‘Politics on the Edge’ by Rory Stewart and while I was struck by the courage of the British politician, Navalny assumed the status of a different order. Few men (or women), in my lifetime, have reached genuine ‘hero’ status – Mandela; Obama; Churchill; but I am now minded to add Navalny! Perhaps, we can still count on Russia to fascinate… and to horrify at times, but even in adversity, we may also find voices to amplify and admire. This posthumous critique of contemporary Russia, is a fine example, from a self-confessed patriot.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

A Love Letter to the ‘Bard of Avon’

img_1510

Can there be a finer advocate for the joy of Shakespeare than one of the plays’ greatest contemporary performers? Dame Judi Dench is undoubtedly a ‘national treasure’ and this book (part biography) reads like the transcript of a conversation between friends, or a very informal interview, but alights on various plays by the Bard and enables Ms Dench to reminisce about her career in key roles, but also to unpack the stories from the actor’s perspective. There is more than a hint of nostalgia and given her long career, the author has played alongside a who’s who of British theatre (e.g. Olivier, Gielgud, Branagh) and worked with the finest directors, but the book is far more than a vehicle for name-dropping, replete with thoughtful insights into Dame Judi’s approach and her actor’s take on the emotional underpinning of a range of characters. The to and fro with Brendan O’Hea also gives the narrative depth and keeps it interesting throughout. Much more than a simple bio’ (though clearly the author has the material), it felt like eavesdropping a far more interesting exchange.

“There’s something for everybody in Shakespeare. Everything you have felt or are yet to feel are all in there in his plays: oppression, ambition, loneliness, remorse, everything. If you need to understand jealousy, read Othello or Winter’s Tale; if you’re in love, listen to Romeo and Juliet……his writing has the capacity to make us feel less alone.”

Of course, over her career, Judi Dench has nurtured a special relationship with the work of William Shakespeare (he is after all credited with paying the author’s rent), but for those of us who have not had that opportunity, or might be curious, this book provides a wonderful glimpse into why Shakespeare remains a cultural and literary touchstone, over four hundred years after his death. And for those who are familiar with the plays, the perspective of one of the bard’s greatest living exponents offers fascinating insights into his continuing relevance.

Check out too, the grand dame’s accompanying sketches, which lend a further informality and interest to a really worthwhile read.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Eva Molenaar – Hunted & Hunter

Overall I have enjoyed the five book series describing Eva Molenaar’s wartime adventures, which, in this final episode, tracks into an uncertain post war period, wherein powerful forces are seeking to dominate a new international order. With intrigue aplenty, there’s still a role for the diverse skillset of Eva, Brandt, de Witte, et al, drawn together, despite the diminishing drumbeat of conflict, for one last hurrah.

The book has the feel of a finale, with the familiar cast of characters reassembled for one last bow. Even spymaster, Chainbridge, is winkled out of retirement, but having survived the war, can their luck hold? For Eva and Brandt particularly, their relationship having withstood recent years of separation (the latter having been incarcerated in some Russian hell hole), the stakes are set high. It’s to the author’s credit that Mr Craven manages the plot threads of drama and romance, turmoil and poignancy, humanity and tyranny with the assuredness of an accomplished storyteller. The villains are despicable, the heroes unassuming, but determined and similarly ruthless.

The ending also takes no prisoners, though having bought into the group’s journey across five volumes, the culmination of their collective sacrifice seemed somehow deflating. Perhaps, the message is deliberately philosophical, when it comes to war, there can be no ‘winners’….

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

The Ingenious Gentleman of LA…

img_1508

I picked this book up in a charity shop, buoyed by my recent enjoyment of ‘Victory City’ (see October 2024 review) and a vague recollection of my introduction to ‘Don Quixote’ at school. Indeed, Salman Rushdie acknowledges the Cervantes classic provided inspiration and underpinning themes for this contemporary take, but set in modern USA, the journey taken by Quichotte ( pronounced ‘Key-Shot’) plunges the reader into a fascinating and at times surreal odyssey, which explores the very nature of reality in a world where ‘truth’ is so relentlessly contested. Given the gravity of the author’s body of work, the reader was not surprised by the depth of the tale’s scope. However, the evolution of the plot gave the impression of a Russian doll, each layer of the complex story-within-a story providing sumptuous food for thought, yet willing the key characters on through their respective mirages.

In-keeping with it’s illustrious forebear, Quichotte lends itself to cerebral challenge on multiple levels. That the author has taken “a travelling man of Indian origin, advancing years and retreating mental powers” and set him on a romantic quest in pursuit of the most unlikely recipient of his love is curious. That Quichotte’s fictional journey towards his beloved should enable the reader to explore so many strands of contemporary life, meticulously interwoven with the parallel story of ‘brother’ (Sam Duchamp), the author/inventor of Quichotte, so intricately plaited together, tapering to a satisfying and beribboned end, is quite miraculous!

Still, underlying the fiction is also a thinly veiled commentary on the erosion of culture and the apparent willingness of society to be in thrall and to indeed collude with its manipulation. “The world before the birth of the monster the internet became, before the age of electronically propagated hysteria, in which words have become bombs that blow up their users.”

Through the invention of Sancho (Quichotte’s son) the reader is afforded a blank canvas, a child’s eye view, trying to make sense of a confusing world, an ‘age of anything-can-happen’, even when it’s nonsensical. Indeed, Sancho wonders whether the human race is “mistaken, or perhaps deluded, about its own nature. It has become so accustomed to wearing its masks that it has grown blind to what lies beneath…”

The author’s caustic observations tinged with apparent dismay at the immersion of society in ‘junk culture’ and the castigation of its architects, in the guise of Evel Cent, appear to rail against a dementing process underway. In that sense, Quichotte may represent a metaphor for the addled confusion through which he experiences the world. “Yesterday meant nothing and could not help you build tomorrow. Life had become a series of vanishing photographs, posted every day, gone the next. One had no story any more. Character, narrative history were all dead. Only the flat caricature of the instant remained….” Pessimistic perhaps, but at least the existence of love is portrayed as a potentially redeeming possibility.

This reader found the dystopian and acrid dissection of western culture uncomfortable at times and even belying the simple retelling of a classic tale and yet the aftertaste burns and the author may have a point, such perceptions should be unpalatable. Certainly this book forges an extraordinary take on the genre of magical realism. What a fascinating dinner guest Sir Salman Rushie would be!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Sounds Like a Breakthrough….

I have not always got on with audiobooks. It’s not that I am sniffy about them, one of my favourite reviewers, Mike Finn, is an excellent advocate for the form, it’s just something about how I prefer to ‘consume’ and ‘digest’ books. For example, I listened with rapt attention to “The Handmaid’s Tale” and its sequel “The Testaments” by Margaret Atwood, spoken by Ann Dowd et al. Despite their huge profile, I hadn’t ‘read’ the books previously and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience….and then went and bought my own copies! Somehow, it didn’t feel like I’d done the work – the reading – and I guess I enjoy it. Imbibing fiction through my ears was not as complete, or satisfying (for me) as poring over the written word. However, I have persevered and in “Victory City” by Salman Rushdie, I can report something of an epiphany.

It may be that I inadvertently alighted on an excellent example, as the book won the AudioFile Earphones Award 2023, but the reader, Sid Sagar, is just perfect to my Anglo-Saxon ears and the 11 hours 49 minutes it takes to recount the epic saga was simply breathtaking at times.

The book relates the 247 years of life divinely granted to the heroine, Pampa Kampana and shares the rise and eventual fall of the city and empire of Bisnaga, the ‘Victory City’, from its mythical foundation, its kings and queens, lavish culture and the familiar human frailties that eventually erode its pre-eminence. Across her two centuries, Pampa Kampana enjoys a ringside seat for the creation of regional history, while her husbands, lovers and children arrive and depart, a necessary consequence of the main character’s accursed longevity.

The sheer scale of the author’s ambition in this tale is extraordinary and must surely endorse Salman Rushdie’s reputation as one of the finest storytellers of his generation. That he should transport a formerly unenlightened audio ‘reader’ so completely is also to be gratefully acknowledged!

Rating: 5 out of 5.