On the Dickensian bandwagon

Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

When Nicholas’s father dies he, his mother and sister, Kate, are left penniless. The family seek help from his wealthy uncle Ralph, who takes an immediate dislike to his young nephew. While Kate is found work as a dressmaker, Nicholas is offered a position as a tutor at Dotheboys Hall but soon discovers that the headmaster, Wackford Squeers, is a grotesque ogre and that one boy in particular is struggling to survive his harsh regime.

In Charles Dickens’ blackly comic masterpiece Nicholas embarks on an adventure that takes him from loathsome boarding schools to the London stage and confronts issues of neglect and cruelty.

It’s 900 plus pages of comedy and melodrama covering years in the ups and downs of young Nickleby’s rather bizarre life. Hugely entertaining though although really quite dark at times and the action never really lets up. Highly recommended, as with the other more popular current BBC adaptations.

Deptford calling

Tamburlaine Must Die by Louise Welsh

It is 1593 and London is a city on edge. Under threat from plague and war, strangers are unwelcome and severed heads grin from spikes on Tower Bridge. Playwright, poet and spy, Christopher Marlowe has three days to live. Three days in which to find the murderous Tamburlaine, a killer who has ascaped from between the pages of his most violent play…Tamburlaine Must Die is a swashbuckling adventure story of a man who dares to defy both God and state – and discovers that there are worse fates than damnation.

A really entertaining Elizabethan thriller which is brief, sparse and yet remarkably intense. Welsh is an excellent writer and this is an extremely powerful novella. To describe it as ‘swashbuckling’ is a tad misleading though.

Norwich City top of the league?

The dangers of fantasy football

The bargain of FIFA 12 for iPad proved irresistible as a Christmas gift to self (at 69p) and has delivered top drawer entertainment over the festive period. Using the easy setting have now got into the following, rather unbelievable, league position:

And, having failed to let that lead slip, the final result was a first for the Canaries:

Well, it might happen one day. Just hope it’s not tempting fate.

Wolfish

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

‘Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning,’ says Thomas More, ‘and when you come back that night he’ll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks’ tongues, and all the gaolers will owe him money.’ England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey’s clerk, and later his successor. Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. Ruthless in pursuit of his own interests, he is as ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages. From one of our finest living writers, ‘Wolf Hall’ is that very rare thing: a truly great English novel, one that explores the intersection of individual psychology and wider politics. With a vast array of characters, and richly overflowing with incident, it peels back history to show us Tudor England as a half-made society, moulding itself with great passion, suffering and courage.

Terrific stuff. a hugely enjoyable historical novel and Cromwell is an outstanding portrayal. One of the best books have read this year (and OK should have got to it before now). Anyway, highly recommended.

Thieving honorably

The Sacred Art of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre

Their eyes met across a crowded room. She was just a poor servant girl and he was the son of a rich industrialist. Er, no, this is a Christopher Brookmyre novel, although the eyes meeting across a crowded room part is true. Where it differs from the fairy tales is that the room in question was crowded with hostages and armed bank-robbers, and his eyes were the only part of him she could see behind the mask. He is an art-thief par excellence and she is a connoisseur of crooks. Her job is to hunt him to extinction; his is to avoid being caught and he also has a secret agenda more valuable than anything he might steal. There are risks he can take without jeopardising his plans. He can afford to play cat-and-mouse with the female cop who’s on his tail; it might even arguably be necessary. What he can’t afford is to let her get too close: he could could end up in jail or, even more scary, he could end up in love

Brookmyre is a pretty impressive writer and I must admit I really enjoy his intelligent and pacy thrillers. This one is no exception and is certainly one of his better ones. I suspect he is particularly pleased with the endorsements from two leading literary journals:

‘If you enjoy intelligently written crime thrillers with a healthy dollop of satire, then this will be the answer to your prayers.’ MORNING STAR

And

‘An entertaining read.’ NEW WOMAN

Festive indulgence

Festive indulgence for all the family

A top notch nativity scene has been acquired

Plus essential accessories:

At last, Christmas has arrived.

French fancies

Thérèse Raquin by Emile Zola

 

 

The first major work of the father of French Naturalism, “Thérèse Raquin” is the shocking initial success of Zola’s impressive writing career. Published in 1867, the plot revolves around a young woman, Thérèse, who is unhappily married to her cousin Camille, largely due to her domineering, if well-intentioned, aunt, Madame Raquin. After moving the little family to Paris, the selfish Camille meets up with an old friend, Laurent, who quickly becomes Thérèse’s lover. The terrible lengths the two of them go to be together eventually become their undoing, proving them to be the ‘human beasts’ that Zola scientifically observed for temperament in his grisly experimental novel. A sinister story of adultery and murder in lower class Parisian society, “Thérèse Raquin” is a dreadfully realistic novel that remains one of Zola’s most masterful works.

Just outstanding and can’t believe I’ve never read before. Excellent portrayal of the dark underside of Paris and of human nature. Grim and thoroughly gripping right to the very end.

Solar flares

Solar by Ian McEwan

 

 

Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. A compulsive womaniser, Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering. But this time it is different: she is having the affair, and he is still in love with her. When Beard’s professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, an opportunity presents itself for Beard to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career and save the world from environmental disaster. Ranging from the Arctic Circle to the deserts of New Mexico, SOLAR is a serious and darkly satirical novel, showing human frailty struggling with the most pressing and complex problem of our time. A story of one man’s greed and self-deception, it is a profound and stylish new work from one of the world’s great writers.

Enjoyable but at times excruciating. Beard really isn’t at all likeable and I don’t think I found the book quite as amusing as some reviewers. Nevertheless, really well written and pretty compelling. Understandable why the reviews for the book are so mixed given the unpleasantness of Beard and the difficulty of dealing with the issue of global warming in this way. But still worth a read.

Asking for it

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte

Milo Burke – husband to a ‘touched-out’ wife, father to a three-year-old son, fund-raising officer at a third-tier university – has just joined the swelling ranks of the unemployed. As he grasps after odd jobs to support his wife and child, Milo is contacted by Purdy Stuart, a wealthy, one-time university friend with a sinister agenda. It is the start of a hilarious and harrowing odyssey through several degrees of peculiarly 21st-century hell– a journey recorded by Milo with the caustic eloquence that is his only means of defence. The Ask is the best book yet from one of America’s finest comic writers, an author who can prompt Chuck Palahniuk to write: ‘I laughed out loud – and I never laugh out loud’. A critical sensation on both sides of the Atlantic, this is a ridiculously accomplished, ridiculously entertaining novel that sympathises even as it skewers.

I was hoping this would be a caustic campus novel. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find there is little university-related entertainment here. Actually there is precious little entertainment anywhere to be found. It’s all just a bit unpleasant really. And not terribly comic at all.

Tinkering around

George Smiley, small, podgy and at best middle-aged, is one of the meek who do not inherit the earth. Yet he is also a senior British Intelligence officer, as devastating as he is self-effacing.

In Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy we meet him in short-lived retirement, deserted by his beautiful wife, wrestling with idleness and disillusionment. And haunted by the secret fear that one day, out of a past so complex that he himself could not remember all the enemies he might have made, one of them would find him and demand a reckoning.

At the dead of night, in the house of a member of the Cabinet Office, a mission is put to George Smiley. ‘You’ll take the job, clean the stables? Go backwards, go forwards, do whatever is necessary?’ As Smiley retraces path after path into his own past there is no longer any difference between the two: forwards or backwards, George Smiley has embarked on a blind night walk with God knows how many bodies at the end.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a world of hoods and lamplighters, scalphunters and pavement artists, where men are turned, burned or bought for stock; a world of moles, legmen, listeners and watchers. And George Smiley is one of le Carré’s most memorable heroes: a troubled man and superb professional of infinite compassion.

Inspired to read this by the recent film adaptation but really should have done the other way round. Nevertheless, it’s a cracking tale and intelligently written. Quite compelling and really well worth reading if you’ve not done before. And preferably before seeing the film (or the TV adaptation on DVD).