Book Reviews
Recommended Books
There are some great reads available at the moment that are ideal for those either staying in the UK or for those travelling to learn more about your destination. (All books reviewed are available from Amazon - click on the banner above for great value deals).
We've grouped our favourite books by country (where appropriate), and hope that you'll find something of interest for your bookshelf...
Africa
The Shadow of the Sun is subtitled 'My African Life', and tells the fascinating story of the forty years that acclaimed Polish journalist Ryszard Kapusscinski spent on the Dark Continent. A partial view of African culture, politics, and the legacy of European colonialism and African despotism. An extraordinary book and a must for anyone travelling to Africa.
Asia & India
The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh is an epic set against the backdrop of Britain's war-torn decline as an imperial power in Burma, Singapore, and India. Weaving the story of one extended family, this is a story of personal triumph and suffering, of a glittering civilisation destroyed by competing invaders, and of characters caught up in a maelstrom of change. A 'forgotten' chapter of recent Asian history brought to life by a masterful writer.
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Perhaps best known for his book (and the subsequent film starring Anthony Hopkins) "Remains of the Day", Kazuo Ishiguro's latest work When We Were Orphans is a poignant narrative of one man's obsession with solving the mysterious disappearance from Old Shanghai in the 1920's of his parents. Returned to England an orphan, the narrator becomes a leading detective and society figure, yet is forever haunted by his Shanghai childhood and the shadowy events that unfolded there so many years before. Moving between the London and Shanghai of the inter-war years, When We Were Orphans is a story of sacrificing the present and future to an obsession with the past. A fascinating and moving novel.
Australia & The Pacific
Bill Bryson's Down Under is an affectionate and humourous travel story with Australia at centre stage. The quirks, hidden corners, and inhabitants of the Great Southern Land are put under Bryson's rose-tinted microscope, with engaging results.
A great read for summer that just may have a few Aussies pining for home, and encourage others to look beyond the fly-blown, beer-guzzling stereotype. Bryson is the perfect travelling companion as he seeks out the places and people that make Australia unique.
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Lifting the scab on a less savoury chapter in early Australian history, English Passengers by Matthew Kneale is the ultimate culture clash experience, fascinatingly told in the first person by each of the main protagonists. Reverend Geoffrey Wilson is the man at the centre of the dramas that unfold as he seeks to find the biblical Garden Of Eden in far flung Tasmania. Chartering a ship from London, the expedition team are soon at each others throats, while the Captain has other problems to deal with...
Set in the 1850's, English Passengers tells the parallel story of the extinguishment of the Tasmania Aboriginies by a combination of misguided colonial assistance and wanton cruelty at the hands of the settlers. Peevay (a half-caste Aboriginal) is the voice of this dying race, and soon to be caught up in Reverend Wilson's increasingly mad expedition. The story of Peevay is a searing indictment on the impact of Victorian colonialism, and we also gain a brutal insight on the lives on those other unfortunates - the convicts.
Funny, moving, ironic - English Passengers was deservedly shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Highly Recommended.
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A chilling recount of the sinking of a ship called the Essex by a whale in the early 19th century waters of the Pacific, In The Heart of The Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick is the ultimate shipwreck story. In a 'Survivor' challenge that you won't see on the ITV series, the crew are reduced to eating each other as they drift helplessly across the vast expanse of the Pacific.
A true story - and the inspiration for Moby Dick - the strength of Philbrick's narrative is his reconstruction of the peak years of the whaling industry, and a potted history of the once-famous whaling port of Nantucket. As the crew take to the ocean on a three year round voyage, the fact that you know the horrible fate that awaits them makes their unfolding lives all the more poignant.
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Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton brings to life the infamous 'spice wars' of the seventeenth century, when England and Holland fought for a bloody foothold in the Spice Islands (now part of modern Indonesia). A great window into the era of empire-building, but not for the faint hearted!
Giles Milton is also the author of The Riddle and the Knight (see below).
Britain
The Road to Nab End is the fascinating and bitter-sweet childhood memoirs of William Woodruff. Set in the bleak mill town of Blackburn during the 1920's and 1930's, this extraordinary autobiography is filled with hilarious and sad anecdotes, and poignant observations of a bygone and poverty-stricken era. From the grandmother who died in the workhouse, the father gassed in the trenches of France, to the mother who kept the family together, this is a book of remarkable characters and of both human desperation and triumph. Highly recommended.
The Remains of the Day won the Booker Prize more than a decade ago, and was made into an Oscar-winning movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. This reflective novel charts the travels and memories of an ageing butler as he heads across southern England to meet up with a former employee. A fascinating account of a butler's existence in an old English country house, and a haunting study of lost love.
Turning Thirty by Mike Gayle is a bitter-sweet reflection on turning 30, and finding that life and love haven't quite turned out to plan. Returning to his home town of Birmingham and childhood friends, Matt Beckford struggles with reaching this milestone while having one eye set on the future, but one foot firmly set in his past.
A funny, reflective novel that will strike a chord with anyone who has looked back and thought 'what if', while grappling with career and relationship issues.
After You've Gone is Maggie O'Farrell's first book and it is one you won't want to put down.
The prologue describes the strange, out of the ordinary actions of Alice Raikes (a young Scottish woman), which ultimately lead her to step into busy traffic outside Kings Cross Station. The rest of the book describes the complex reasons for Alice's behaivour, taking us on an emotional journey through a life lived on the edge of 'belonging'.
Set in Victorian times and against the backdrop of the Crimean War, Master Georgie tells the story of surgeon and photographer George Hardy. Followed to the death and disease of the battlefield by his adoptive sister Myrtle, the eccentric Doctor Potter, and the mysterious Pompey Jones, Master Georgie is an enigmatic hero in an enigmatic book.
While short (at just 212 pages), Beryl Bainbridge's Booker Prize-shortlisted novel is nevertheless evocative, unpredictable, and darkly memorable.
Joanne Harris is flavour of the month since her book was adapted into the Academy Award-nominated Chocolat, and follow-up Blackberry Wine is every bit as impressive.
Blackberry Wine tells the story of a middle-aged writer on the slide, plagued by memories of his teenage holidays and the friendship forged with a mysterious old man. Weaving past and present seamlessly, Harris takes us on a fascinating personal journey that is in part inspired by the unusual properties of the book title's vintage.
Ian McEwan's Atonement was a favourite in many quarters for the 2002 Booker Prize, and is an intricate and powerful story of simple events unravelling the relationship of a wealthy English family in the 1930's. A despicable crime and mistaken identity lies at the centre of this masterful story, and as Britain descends into the dark days of the Second World War, a fleeting chance for atonement presents itself...
Melvyn Bragg's excellent The Soldier's Return tells the story of a British soldier returning from the Second World War to the constricting town and married life he left behind. A story of alienation, fear, and the glue of love that manages to keep a family from breaking apart.
A sequel - Son of War - continues this compelling saga.
Egypt & The Middle East
Ahdaf Soueif's The Map Of Love was a strong contender for the 1999 Booker Prize, and has been acknowledged as a unique study of Egyptian quest for independence in the early years of the 20th century and of the clash of European and Egyptian cultures.
The Map Of Love is much more than that though. This fictional 'flash back' of a scandalous and ultimately tragic interracial love story is a moving and challenging canvas for a fascinating chapter in Egyptian history.
The heart of this book is the mighty Nile River, the main artery of Egyptian life for many millenia. Stanley Stewart's Old Serpent Nile charts the author's quest to travel the length of the Nile - from the Delta to the fabled Mountains of the Moon in Africa.
The episodic retelling of this remarkable and often harrowing journey through lawless lands, endless desert, and on the river itself eschews the usual methods of the genre, and is all the fresher for it. A fascinating book that has deservedly won a number of awards.
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Wilfred Thesiger is one of the last great explorers - a British romantic who lived for many years during the middle of last century with the Bedu of the Arabian Peninsula and the Marshmen of Iraq. Desert, Marsh, and Mountain is a distillation of his remarkable experiences amongst these and other nomadic peoples, and of dangerous travels to far flung corners of the world. Tragically, this is also the last chapter of a lost world - when camel trains still plied across desert sands, the nomads still migrated across vast lands, and the modern world had yet to undermine a traditional way of life unchanged by the passage of centuries.
A fascinating insight into India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka, The Age of Kali by William Dalrymple is an insightful, poignant, and disturbing study of age-old societies entering a period of great change and danger. All the more relevant gioven recent political events, this is a must-read for anyone travelling to the region.
The Riddle and the Knight by Giles Milton tells the fascinating tale of medieval traveller Sir John Mandeville, one of the best known writers of the Middle Ages. Mandeville's hugely-influential travel writings told of mysterious lands, strange creatures, and bizarre civilisations.
Discredited in later centuries - as the Age of Exploration opened up previously unknown lands and cultures - Milton retraces Mandeville's steps, arguing that Mandeville did indeed explore many of the lands described. Part detective story, part Middle Eastern travelogue, The Riddle and the Knight may have solved an age-old and contentious mystery.
France
If you have enjoyed Joanne Harris's previous books - Chocolat and Blackberry Wine - you will also love her most recent novel Five Quarters of the Orange. This book, like the others, builds great empathy with the cast of characters, particularly Framboise Simon (whose childhood memories form the basis for the events that unfold).
Set in a small town in France, Framboise Simon spends much of her time reliving the childhood memories that at the time seemed so innocent to her and her siblings, but proved to have much greater consequences than they could ever imagine. Now elderly, Framboise knows that time is running out to uncover the mysteries of her childhood, and in particular the life of her mother. Her mother's album - a collection of recipes, notes and confessions - provides the key to unlocking the secrets of the past.
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Hardly a new release - in fact the first instalment was released in 1859 - A Tale of Two Cities is a gilt-edged classic. Charles Dickens remains England's dominant literary voice nearly 140 years after his death, and this is one novel that amply displays his remarkable gift for crafting a compelling story, memorable characters.
A Tale of Two Cities is a grim epic, recounting the terrible excesses of the French Revolution as the tyranny of the aristocracy was swept away by the tyranny of the mob. At once an intensely personal novel of French exiles in London and their return to the anarchy of Paris, and a story of the grand sweep of events, this masterpeice will long remain seared into your consciousness.
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A small peice of Britain stranded at the bottom in France and in the first decades of the twentieth century is evocatively recreated by Giles Waterfield in The Long Afternoon. Set in Menton - a town on the Riviera favoured by British invalids - the dreamlike life of one family is lovingly recreated.
Garden parties, the tennis club, the interaction of staff, family, and society all bring us echoes of a long-vanished world - a way of life threatened by the approaching stormclouds of war and the fragmentation of the family.
Germany
Antony Beevor's masterful book of Berlin in the last months of the Second World War is a gripping account of desperation, fear, heroism, and slaughter on a grand scale. This real life saga provides a chilling account of Nazi Germany's dying gasp, and the brutal, brave Russian onslaught against the rotten heart of Hitler's empire.
The Dark Room was shortlisted for 2001's Booker Prize, and tells the story of three ordinary Germans against the backdrop of pre-war Berlin, the last days of the Second World War, and a search fifty years on for the truth. A compelling story of guilt and the blurred lines of war-time morality, Rachel Seiffert forces us to challenge our own views on the individual caught up in events that cannot be controlled.
Ireland
Round Ireland With A Fridge by Tony Hawks recounts the authors bizarre hitchhiking journey around Ireland with only a small fridge for company - all to win a drunken bet with friends.
The book abounds with strange and funny incidents, Irish hospitality, and the author's own unfailing sense of humour.
It takes a good Kiwi lass to get him laid though...
McCarthy's Bar by Pete McCarthy is a hugely popular best-seller, and the authors gentle sense of the absurd is one of the reasons why. An affectionate 'homecoming', McCarthy's Bar has an interesting insider/outsider perspective on a traditional society undergoing great change, told with a rich vein of humour.
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