Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and "Joy Division" - Deborah Curtis
A superb, insightful and chillingly honest portrayal of Ian Curtis and his life with Joy Division. Its all too easy to reflect on dead musicians as icons especially when they made such heart-stopping music as Joy Division. Truly no-one ever wrote lyrics like Curtis and the depth and soul of his delivery will ensure that his legend will live on.
However, what this book tells us is the other side: the young northern man prone to jealousy, emotional manipulation and adultery. Walking a fine line between genius and homewrecker, confusion and cruelty, Curtis comes across more human than ever as is unable to deal with his domesticity and the dark soul of Joy Division.
As his illness increases, so does the band's success and his split (on the one hand a poetic, intense man with depth and vision and on the other a brutal, immature boy with attention-seeking qualities) becomes more and more polar until his inevitable inability to hold the two disparate sides of his life together.
A wonderful book, well-written and very close to the bone. Deborah Curtis has succeeded in showing the lesser-known side of Ian Curtis without resorting to the type of bitching so frequent of biographys. Complete with lyrics (of their entire catalogue and unreleased stuff) and discography etc. this is an essential book for any music fan.
Gang War: The Inside Story of the Manchester Gangs - Peter Walsh
In the mid-1980s, a Chicago-style gang war erupted on the streets of one of Britain's major cities that continues unabated to this day. Gangsters with automatic weaponry brought terror to the streets of Manchester. Investigative author Peter Walsh traces the inside story of the Manchester mobs and their bloody internecine feuding. He reveals how top villains took over the drug trade and nightclub security, leaving more than three dozen dead, and tells how a new gang culture evolved unlike anything seen before in the UK.
What A Carve Up - Jonathan Coe
This is the first Coe book I've read and I loved it. It's funny and clever, develops the plot in a fragmented, looping chronology with multiple perspectives, sources, and interlocking stories - all presided over by a very unhappy and frustrated lead narrator. You know, the sort of things you find in Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, and Will Self novels (and seemingly all serious films since at least 'Pulp Fiction'). But it is more straightforward, with less literary ambition, or pretension, than what I've read from those authors. The story is much easier to follow, and one can say exactly what happens at the end, rather than speculating on the desultory and stridently ambiguous finishes those other authors frequently give us.
The unfashionable clarity is a result of the book's overt politics. I find that Amis and Self bury their political commentary in stories that focus on how tormented their characters feel by the unexplained vagaries of life and how irreversibly complex it's all become. Coe, on the other hand, is willing to identify and blame the forces that have made society such a mess and living so hard to figure out. It's not some Fat Controller with supernatural powers, nor a mysterious seeming-friend doing improbable things with the money system to play out a personal grudge. It's right-wing politicians and businesses who, among other things: control our news sources and fill them with meaningless gossip or misleading agitprop, stoke up wars and profit on arms sales, industrialise food production at the expense of the ecology and consumer health, and intentionally ruin our public services to serve their theological devotion to laissez faire economics. In this way, Coe actually has more intellectual heft than the authors who imply that the world is just cosmically, unfathomably unfair and unpleasant. He's telling us that the malignant forces are entirely within our control, were we willing to stand up to the bent plutocratic filth that are allowed to run our governments and economy.
The House of Sleep - Jonathan Coe
Without a doubt 'The House of Sleep' is one of the best books I've ever read. I started reading it expecting it to be a slow starter... and I could hardly put it down. It created many late nights for me. The late episode with the footnote is hilarious - I had to bite my lip to stop myself disturbing my housemates in the middle of the night by laughing out loud. My only uncertainty is to do with the conference scene - it was perhaps a little too long and too detailed. It also didn't seem to quite fit with Gregory Dudden's character, but these are minor in comparison with the overall impact of this book. I would unequivocally recommend it to anyone who wants to be drawn in to a different world - I ended the book not entirely sure why it was so good - in essence it is fairly easy to read, although complicated - but knowing for sure that it WAS good. When the image of the film still and the identity of one of the characters - I won't say which in case you've not read it - is revealed I was left marvelling at the cleverness at the same time as wondering why I hadn't spotted it before. There is no doubt that Jonathan Coe is a writer deserving to be acknowledged as one of the greats of our time.
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad.
Sultan Khan is the head of a prosperous Kabul family. A bookseller by trade, he has seen his books burnt by one regime, defaced by another, then burnt again. As the Taliban regime falls in 2001, he meets Norwegian war correspondent, Seierstad. They agree that Seierstad should live with his family for several months. This book is the stunning result.
It reads like fiction -- penetrating, prejudicial and convincing but, although names have been changed, it is an honest, warts and all, account of life in Kabul. Khan, seemingly urbane, educated and liberal, is the tyrannical head of large family – mother, siblings, two wives and five children. Khan’s subjugation of the women in his family is shocking from a Western point of view: As Seierstad moves into his home, Khan takes a second wife, a sexy, uneducated sixteen-year-old, dishonouring and cutting to the quick his loyal and educated first wife: his youngest sister is treated as little more than a slave. And it is this that is the meat of the book; the personal power struggles that exist within the family – struggles which Khan will always win.
The shocking portrait of women’s lives, even under the liberalising regime of Afghan leader Karzai, is frightening, repulsive even from a western perspective, but there is nothing here to suggest that Khan is anything other than a typical head of the family. His mother, sisters, wives and daughters, seem to lose identity under the burqa, which hides not only their femininity and personality, but also their imaginations. Not here will you find justification of the regime: these women resent, in different ways, their position. Nor do the other men of the family fair much better: Khan’s 19 year old, sexually frustrated, son learns from a friend how to exploit helpless, penniless war widows, safe in the knowledge that if he caught, it will be the women who are condemned: but he too resents Khan’s iron fist, particular when it falls on a wretched carpenter who steals postcards. Khan, driven by his sense of honour, insists on full punishment, despite the fact that this will make the carpenter’s family destitute. Khan’s youngest son is forced to work 12 hours a day selling sweets in a hotel foyer when he would rather be a school, something which Khan could easily afford.
Seierstad clearly feels for the women, but also for the country: the sense of what Afghanistan was – a prosperous, beautiful land– what it became through years of strife, conflict and war, and what it could be, pervade every chapter.
No doubt this book will nestle against numerous Afghanistan travelogues in the bookshops but don’t be fooled. Reading it is a unique experience. Some will see Seierstad’s expose as disrespectable to Khan, to women, to Afghanistan and to Islam. Perhaps it is. But it nonetheless provides a unique insight into a country that has so long been closed to western eyes.
Court Martial - Sven Hassell
This has to be the best Sven Hassel novel. Having said that it's also his most bloody. His series of short stories of Tiny, Porta, the Old Man, the Legionnaire and the rest fighting on the Eastern Front will keep you up at night. If you like to put a book down and forget it then this is not something you should read, the stories will get into your head and never leave you. I should know I've read this multiple times over the last 15 years since I first picked up a copy of it.
All Quiet On The Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
When I read this brilliant book I felt so many emotions, but I suppose the underlying emotion would be sadness. I felt when I was reading this classic book, that every schoolboy should be made to read this book, for it depicks war as it is, without all the glamour and hero worship that some books and films portray. I thought birdsong was a great book showing how people change from a traumatic experience such as world war 1. But all quiet on the western front leaves It for dead in this area in my opinion. I will never forget this incredible educational and wonderful book. I am so glad It was written from the German perspective, because it shows us that underneath our exterior frames, we are the same. We have the same fears and dreams. My last words about this book is read it if you dare the experience will live with you forever.
White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves - Giles Milton
Writer and journalist Giles Milton specializes in the history of travel and exploration. His latest literary adventure, White Gold, is the story of Thomas Pellow, a Cornish cabin boy who was captured at sea by a group of fanatical Islamic slave traders—the Barbary corsairs, taken in chains to the great slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Salè in Morocco and sold to the highest bidder. Pellow’s purchaser happened to be the tyrannical sultan of Morroco, Moulay Ismail, a man committed to building a vast imperial pleasure palace of unsurpassable splendour built entirely by Christian slave labour. After enduring long periods of torture Pellow converted to Islam and became the personal slave of the sultan for over two decades—including a stint as a soldier in the sultan’s army—before finally making a dramatic escape and return to Cornwall. The account is supported by the unpublished letters and manuscripts of slaves and the various ambassadors sent to free them. This is an excellently written account of the history of the white slave trade. Pellow’s story is an extraordinary one but the real interest lies in the picture Milton builds of life in the slave pens and especially of daily life at the court of the spectacularly barbaric Moulay Ismail.
Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket - Richard Holmes Erik
The battlefield museum of Waterloo, Richard Holmes comments in Redcoat, tells us much about Napoleon, Wellington and their senior commanders but far less about the men they led. Holmes aims, in this massively researched history, to redress the balance. He does so by piling up facts, information and anecdotes, many of them culled from memoirs of the period, to illustrate the everyday life of British soldiers in the 18th and 19th centuries, from the Battle of Blenheim to the Crimean War. In the hands of a less gifted historian this might have made for a dry, daunting and overpowering text. Holmes, however, has a sharp eye for the telling details and the memorable stories that bring the past to life. He pays as much attention to the small-scale as to the larger picture: a soldier is promoted because "his beautiful black eyes and whiskers had attracted the notice of his colonel's lady"; Crimea-bound infantrymen play cricket in "what the scorebook calls Sultan's Valley, Asia Minor"; black musician-soldiers enrich the repertoire of a regimental band; a respected military surgeon is revealed, after death, to have been a woman dressed as a man. Yet Holmes is always aware of that larger picture and of the hardships and dangers of the military life. His chapters on the floggings and punishments inflicted on the common soldier and on the terrible wounds that battle could bring--which again make vivid use of period memoirs--are often very moving. Anyone wanting to find out how the ordinary soldier of the 18th and 19th centuries was recruited, how he was drilled, how he fought, how he lived and (often) how he died, need look no further than this impressive work of popular history.
Secret Smile - Nicci French
I too am a huge fan of Nicci French, having read every single one of her previous books (I consider Land of the Living, Killing me Softly and Beneath the Skin her best) but I was strangely disappointed by Secret Smile.. The style of writing is as engaging as always, the narrative well-written and enjoyable, but the plot just seemed to ramble on without "taking off".. I found it very annoying how the heroine just couldn't get her point across and how everyone else was so enamoured of the "bad guy".. Every time she tried to warn people about him she just clammed up and said "never mind, what's the point" and on and on it went like that...
Having said that, the book does keep you wondering about the outcome, but even that is pretty disappointing.. the "surprise" kind of falls flat. If you're already a fan of Nicci French just wait for the next one.. if you're not familiar with her books, don't start with this one, start with the ones mentioned above...
Both Sides of the Fence:A Life Undercover by Dave Corbett.
As one of a handful of UK police officers trained in SAS deep-cover surveillance, David Corbett infiltrated the toughest communities, living among junkies, prostitutes, murderers and firearm dealers, in order to gather evidence that would lead to dozens of convictions. His rapport with hardened criminals was forged during his youth on the mean streets of Glasgow, where he ran with the gangs, joyriding and stealing. But when his friends began disappearing into borstals, Corbett decided it was time to take himself in hand and followed his father into the police force. His ability to mingle with gangsters was soon identified as an asset and, after serving time in the CID - where he was involved in investigating the murder of Arthur Thompson Junior, the son of Glasgow's Godfather - he became an undercover agent with the Crime Squad. He trained in urban and rural surveillance and invented a fictional past for himself.
Like Donnie Brasco, the legendary US cop who won the trust of the Mafia, Corbett risked his life every day: one false move and his cover would have been blown. The pinnacle of his career was an operation in the former pit town of Blyth, where there had been 15 drug-related deaths in 12 months. Leaving his wife and family, he spent five months undercover, wired up, winning the confidence of the dealers, and had to cope with having his life endangered by a corrupt officer. Corbett's work led to 31 convictions and commendations from the Chief Constable and a Crown Court judge but, without any form of counselling, the stress took its toll and he was forced into early retirement. Now, betrayed by the force that sent him out on these dangerous missions, Corbett reveals the gripping story of life in the perilous world of an undercover cop.
Mad Dod:The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C' Company by David Lister and Hugh Jordan.
A mindless sectarian psychopath or a loyalist folk hero who took the war to the IRA's front door? The name Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair is synonymous with a killing spree by loyalist terrorists that took Northern Ireland to the brink of civil war. From humble beginnings as a rioter and glue-sniffer on Belfast's Shankill Road, Adair rose through the ranks of the outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters to head its merciless killing machine, "C Company". Surrounded by a group of trusted friends, his reign of terror in the early 1990s claimed the lives of up to 40 Catholics, picked out at random as Adair's hitmen roamed Belfast. Determined to lead from the front, his men even fired a rocket at Sinn Fein's headquarters, writing themselves into loyalist mythology and embarrassing the IRA in its republican heartland. Its desperate attempts to kill Adair culminated in October 1993, when a bomb on the Shankill Road, intended for the loyalist godfather, claimed the lives of nine Protestant civilians. "Mad Dog" describes in graphic detail Adair's criminal empire and an egomaniac's bloody war against Catholics and anybody else who got in his way. Adair's friends and enemies talk for the first time about the murders he ordered, his sordid personal life, and his attempts - ultimately disastrous - to become Northern Ireland's supreme loyalist figurehead. Using sensational new material, the authors expose the mass murderers who did Adair's bidding and provide new insights into some of the biggest secrets of the Troubles, including the controversial murder of Patrick Finucane, the Catholic solicitor. With Adair back in jail until 2005, the final chapter of this story has yet to be written. One thing, however, is certain: we have not heard the last from a man who is unlikely to live out the rest of his life in obscurity
The Simeon Chamber - Steve Martini.
When lawyer Sam Bogardus agrees to see Jennifer Davies, little does he realize he is putting his life at risk. Jennifer is trying to trace her father, her only clue being four pages of the journal of Sir Francis Drake. And it seems that someone is willing to kill to prevent Sam achieving his goal.
Pompeii - Richard Harris
Certain thriller writers burst upon the scene with considerable impact: Forsyth with The Day of the Jackal, Cruz Smith with Gorky Park and Robert Harris with the masterly Fatherland. Interestingly, of these three authors, by far the most consistent has been Harris, and his new novel, Pompeii is in some ways his most audacious offering yet, a brilliantly orchestrated thriller-cum-historical recreation that plays outrageous tricks with the reader's expectations.
As in the equally adroit Enigma, Harris takes a familiar historical event (there, the celebrated code-breakers at Bletchley Park, here the volcanic obliteration of an Italian city in AD79) and seamlessly weaves a characteristically labyrinthine plot in and around the existing facts. But that's not all he does here: few novelists who (unlike Harris) make a speciality of ancient history for their setting pull off the sense of period quite as impressively as the author does here. As the famous catastrophe approaches, we are pleasurably immersed in the sights, sounds and smells of the Ancient World, each detail conjured with jaw-dropping verisimilitude.
Harris's protagonist is the engineer Marcus Attilius, placed in charge of the massive aqueduct that services the teeming masses living in and around the Bay of Naples. Despite the pride he takes in his job, Marcus has pressing concerns: his predecessor in the job has mysteriously vanished, and another task is handed to Marcus by the scholar Pliny: he is to undertake crucial repairs to the aqueduct near Pompeii, the city in the shadow of the restless Mount Vesuvius. And as Marcus faces several problems--all life threatening--an event approaches that will make all his concerns seem petty.
Other writers have placed narratives in the shadow of this most famous of volcanic cataclysms, but Harris triumphantly ensures that his characters' individual dramas are not dwarfed by implacable nature; Marcus is a vividly drawn hero: complex, conflicted and a canny synthesis of modern and ancient mindsets. Some may wish that Harris might return to something closer to our time in his next novel, but few who take this trip into a dangerous past will be able to resist Harris's spellbinding historical saga
Wellington -The Iron Duke - Richard Holmes
We associate Wellington so much with the battle of Waterloo that it's easy to forget that, before the battle, he had had a long military career already and that, after it, he had an even longer career as politician, prime minister and pillar of the establishment. Richard Holmes's admirably clear and succinct biography of the Duke has a chapter on his youth as a slightly awkward loner from the Anglo-Irish nobility and a concluding chapter which races swiftly through the 37 years of his post-Waterloo life. However the bulk of the book, unsurprisingly, is given over to a description and analysis of his military exploits.
As viewers of his TV series and readers of his previous books will know, Holmes is a brilliant interpreter of battlefields and what took place on them. He has visited most of the sites of Wellington's battles, not only those in Europe but those in India where the young Arthur Wellesley, as he then was, gained his first experiences as a general. (Wellington himself, in later life, claimed that his finest military achievement was not Waterloo but the winning of the Battle of Assaye during the Maratha Wars in 1803.) He uses his knowledge of the battle sites and his familiarity with all the extensive literature on the Peninsular War and Waterloo to produce a vivid account of Wellington's string of successes as a general. As the quotes in this book from his writings and despatches show, Wellington had a gift for the striking phrase and for concise description of complicated events. It's a gift his biographer shares and Holmes has produced a very readable and enjoyable book.
Driving Big Davie - Colin Bateman
For many years Dan Starkey has been a journalist of some repute – mainly ill. Now he is back with his wife Patricia, and while they try for a baby he is aiming to keep himself out of trouble. Had he not been caught in a rather awkward position when he received a phonecall from Big Davie Kincaird, he might not have decided to return to the village of Groomsport. And had he not drunk too much in order to cover the awkwardness of seeing this friend he hasn’t known for 25 years, he might not have found himself agreeing to go on honeymoon... in Florida... for three weeks... with Big Davie. What else could possibly go wrong?
Starter for Ten - David Nicholls
I read this in two sittings as I couldn't wait to find out the conclusion of the bitter-sweet story of Brian and the lovely Alice. As a fan of "University Challenge" as well as having been a student during the 1980s, this was the perfect book. I groaned with Brian as he made every effort to be cool; I recognized his anguish and uncertainty and laughed loudly at the many funny yet true observations which he made. The author has not forgotten what it was like to be a new student during freshers' week, and his description of a first week party was just as I remembered it. Read this on the train and offer to read snippets to those sitting around you. It will surely cheer them up.
'The Cameo Murders - Barry Shortall
I found this book far too pedantic and scholarly,(notwithstanding the type errors)compared to other accounts of the Cameo Murders, particularly the earlier "The Cameo Conspiracy". Unlike the author of that book, Mr Shortall merely hints at the quite obvious police and judicial conpiracy which took place in 1949-50. His attitude to the devilish Inspector Balmer and the two "hanging judges" Oliver & Cassels in both trials, is also ambivalent. As was said about Basil Neild KC, one of the defence counsel at the first trial, the author seems "willing to wound but afraid to strike."
The "Bounty" Mutiny - Edward Christian
On an April morning in 1789 near the island of Tonga, William Bligh and eighteen surly seamen were expelled from the Bounty and began the greatest open-boat voyage in history, sailing some 4,000 miles to safety in Timor. The mutineers, led by Fletcher Christian, sailed off in the Bounty and were never heard of again. Contains: the full text of Bligh's Narrative of the Mutiny, the minutes of the court proceedings gathered by Edward Christian in an effort to clear his brother's name, and the correspondence between Bligh and Christian, and a selection of later Bounty narratives.
Big Bad Wolf - James Patterson
As with all Patterson books once you have started you find it incredibly difficult to put it down, I really enjoy Alex Cross and the 'big bad wolf was no exception' but really 'James' where is the rest of it, there is a new book not yet published Im wondering is this the sequal, I really need to know what happens to little Alex and who is the Wolf, in true Patterson fashion he's keeping us hanging but not only to the last page Im disapointed that I have to wait for another book to get to the climax. You'll enjoy it but it will really leave you wanting more!!!
I, Claudius and Claudius the God - Robert Graves
Robert Graves writes a majestic, hilarious and moving portrayal of ancient Rome extending from the benevolent reign of Augustus, through the tyranny of Tiberius and the insanity of Caligula, to the triumphs and tribulations of Claudius. Drawing on a huge knowledge of ancient history to present a (largely) factual account of the times, Graves fills the gaps with a wonderful array of salacious events, and gives each character fullness, especially Claudius himself who is one of the great characters in modern fiction. These two books are never dry and stuffy, by contrast they are overflowing with freshness and vitality. As relevant to today's events than any contemporary work, I Claudius and Claudius the God are essential reading.
King of the World - David Remnick
You'd think there wouldn't be much left to say about a living icon like Muhammad Ali, yet David Remnick imbues King of the World with all the freshness and vitality this legendary fighter displayed in his prime. Beginning with the pre-Ali days of boxing and its two archetypes, Floyd Patterson (the good black heavyweight) and Sonny Liston (the bad black heavyweight), Remnick deftly sets the stage for the emergence of a heavyweight champion the likes of which the world had never seen: a three-dimensional, Technicolor showman, fighter and minister of Islam, a man who talked almost as well as he fought. But mostly Remnick's portrait is of a man who could not be confined to any existing stereotypes, inside the ring or out.
In extraordinary detail, Remnick depicts Ali as a creation of his own imagination as we follow the wilful and mercurial young Cassius Clay from his boyhood and watch him hone and shape himself to a figure who would eventually command centre stage in one of the most volatile decades in our history. To Remnick it seems clear that Ali's greatest accomplishment is to prove beyond a doubt that not only is it possible to challenge the implacable forces of the establishment (the noir-ish, gangster-ridden fight game and the ethos of a whole country) but, with the right combination of conviction and talent, to triumph over these forces.
The Forgotten Soldier: The True Story of a Young German Soldier on the Russian Front - Guy Sajer
If like me you are a little nervous picking up books about war and think that they may only glorify the great scale of battles, victories and tactics then I would recommend the Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer. This book is a first person account of life on the eastern front from the perspective of a young, naive man, which simultaneously depicts the fall of nazi Germany and the destruction of the illusions of the German people.
When, as the teenage son of a French father and a German Mother Sajer signs up to join the German army, his enthusiasm for war is unbounded. However, three years of experience in the either scorched or frozen desolation of wartime eastern Europe reveals an unremitting crushing of his idealism. From the cruel army regime and its sometimes deadly training approach, through frostbite, starvation and the slaughter of friends, enemy and innocents, this account graphically reveals the true horror of war.
Many of the scenes in the book will haunt the reader for days afterwards. The sense of futility and the suspension of reason in the mad world of war grows throughout the book and the reader is drawn in deep; to the extent that you genuinely feel like you are sharing in the experience.
This book deserves to be compulsory reading for anyone who is interested in twentieth century history. It is worth a hundred dry historical accounts and demonstartes above all the power of the individual as a witness to a world and circumstances out of his control.
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
If there's any justice, it is only a matter of time before the work of the curiously-named DBC Pierre becomes essential reading for anyone interested in cutting-edge writing today. Vernon God Little is a book that has a totally individual (and very quirky) identity, from a writer with a finger on the pulse of contemporary society (particularly its less comfortable aspects). Pierre is also a satirical writer in the vein of such talents as Terry Southern, and there is a manic quality to his work that makes the experience of reading him both disorienting and exhilarating. As a first novel, this is a remarkable achievement.
Teenager Vernon Gregory Little's life has been changed by the Columbine-style slaughter of a group of students at his high school. Soon his hole-in-the-wall town is blanketed under a media siege, and Vernon finds himself blamed for the killing (rather than the real culprit, a friend of Vernon's). Eulalio Ledesma is his particular nemesis, manipulating things so that Vernon becomes the fulcrum for the bizarre and vengeful impulses of the townspeople of Martirio. After a truly surrealistic set of events, Vernon finds himself heading for a fateful assignation in Mexico with the delectable Taylor Figueros (everyone in the book has names as odd as the author's).
By setting his novel in the barbecue-sauce capital of Central Texas, Pierre ensures that his narrative is going to be some distance from naturalistic writing. And as a scalpel-like satirical incision into the mores of contemporary America, reality TV and media hysteria, Vernon God Little often reads like a fractured modern-day take on such novels as John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces
Ilium (Gollancz S.F.) - Dan Simmons
Genre-hopping Dan Simmons returns to science fiction with the vast and intricate masterpiece Ilium. Within, Simmons weaves three astounding story lines into one Earth, Mars and Jupiter-shattering cliffhanger that will leave readers aching for the sequel.
On Earth, a post-technological group of humans, pampered by servant machines and easy travel via "faxing," begins to question its beginnings. Meanwhile, a team of sentient and Shakespeare-quoting robots from Jupiter's lunar system embark on a mission to Mars to investigate an increase in dangerous quantum fluctuations. On the Red Planet, they'll find a race of metahumans living out existence as the pantheon of classic Greek gods. These "gods" have recreated the Trojan War with reconstituted Greeks and Trojans and staffed it with scholars from throughout Earth's history who observe the events and report on the accuracy of Homer's Iliad. One of these scholars, Thomas Hockenberry, finds himself tangled in the midst of interplay between the gods and their playthings and sends the war reeling in a direction the blind poet could have never imagined.
Simmons creates an exciting and thrilling tale set in the thick of the Trojan War as seen through Hockenberry's 20th-century eyes. At the same time, Simmons's robots study Shakespeare and Proust and the origin-seeking Earthlings find themselves caught in a murderous retelling of The Tempest. Reading this highly literate novel does take more than a passing familiarity with at least The Iliad but readers who can dive into these heady waters and swim with the current will be amply rewarded.
Ronnie: The Autobiography of Ronnie O'Sullivan - Ronnie O' Sullivan
In Ronnie O'Sullivan's autobiography, Ronnie, the language is uncompromising, the subject matter challenging and the approach unflinching. Even in an age when inner demons are considered to be an essential part of a star's entourage, Ronnie O'Sullivan's autobiography is a class apart. Undisputedly the most charismatic talent in the game of snooker, the public's successor to Alex Higgins and Jimmy White in the lineage of gunslinger, wide-boy heroes, O'Sullivan began rewriting the record books as a child prodigy, and reached the summit of his game as world champion in 2001--but all along, his life was falling apart.
Ronnie (written with Guardian journalist Simon Hattenstone) is a stark affirmation for those of us who would believe that there must be more to being a top professional sportsman than simply working hard to develop talent--that there are often dark, elemental forces driving achievers to go beyond the point where most of us would cease to care. Ronnie's relationship with his parents is at the heart of the story, underpinning his struggle for contentment, his descent into depression and addiction. We learn that the tabloid facts--his father ran a string of sex shops, was convicted of killing a man in a fight and sentenced to life imprisonment; later his mother was also imprisoned, for tax evasion--are just the half of it.
The style is confessional without being mawkish, and thankfully, O'Sullivan's brand of openness, particularly when chronicling his periods in therapy (including with former England cricket captain turned psychiatrist Mike Brearley) and at the Priory, is free of the awful self-aggrandisement and "me-isms" that blight the official public accounts of many celebrities.
Ultimately this is a tale of redemption, of a young man dismantled by experience, now putting himself back together. O'Sullivan closes the book looking back to the beginning of his public life, his mid-teens, when he first tied his fortunes to professional snooker. He sees it as a golden era, off and on the baize, a period of personal happiness and sporting success the like of which he at last believes has not been lost forever.
The Innocent - Ian McEwan
The setting is Berlin. Into this divided city, wrenched between East and West, between past and present; comes twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham, assigned to a British-American surveillance team. Though only a pawn in an international plot that is never fully revealed to him, Leonard uses his secret work to escape the bonds of his ordinary life – and to lose his unwanted innocence. The promise of his new life begins to be fulfilled as Leonard becomes a crucial part of the surveillance team, while simultaneously being initiated into a new world of love and sex by Maria, a beautiful young German woman. It is a promise that turns to horror in the course of one terrible evening – a night when Leonard Marnham learns just how much of his innocence he's willing to shed.
Striptease - Carl Hiaasen
Congressman David Dilbeck has a bad problem. "I should never," he says, "be around naked women." But he just can't stay away. And late one night, at a gaudy Fort Lauderdale strip joint, Dilbeck loses control. He leaps onto the stage with the performers and proceeds to demonstrate his affections in a most unconventional way. The congressman barely escapes the scene, but not before being recognized by an odd little customer known as Mr. Peepers - an unlikely blackmailer, but (it turns out) a cunn ...
The Gospel of St Mark - Morna Dorothy Hooker
Morna Hooker's analysis is an extremely thorough study of almost every single facet of Mark's original gospel. She backs up every point she makes with a plethora of Old Testament references, invaluable when writing gobbets. The only thing stopping her from achieving 5 stars is that her text is at times rather inaccessible or dense, and so this book is really only for advanced students. It probably goes without saying, but it is not a novel - it is a study aid.
The Krays: The Final Countdown - The Ultimate Biography of Ron, Reg and Charlie Kray - Colin Fry
The Krays were a product of their age, nurtured by a doting mother and created by their community, the East End of London. Their name alone conjures up images of power, violence and greed - and even brother Charlie counldn't steer the twins Ron and Reg clear of murder mayhem as they killed their way to the top of the criminal tree. They lived by their own rules. And died by them. The three brothers will never be forgotten. They are an indelible part of our history, whether we like it or not. From media-manipulation to control-freak paranoia, the Krays were masters of deception. Even at the end Reg Kray was still portraying himself as just an ordinary East Ender - mistreated by the Home Office and the police, misunderstood and mistakenly labelled "Godfather of Crime" by the media. This biography traces their history from childhood and early adolescence to manhood and death. It explores the brothers' fantasy lives, full as they were of mind games and false memories. Only now can the truth be revealed - without fear of intimidation, retribution or revenge. The Krays are dead and buried, but the myth lives on.
The Fight - Norman Mailer
This is the story of the world heavyweight championship fight between George Foreman and Muhammed Ali in 1975. As the weeks to the fight ticked away, Ali's preparation was sluggish and his attitude fatalistic, in contrast to the machine-like and confident Foreman.
Papa Jack - Randy Roberts
This is probably the best book on a heavyweight champion that I have read, alongside Thomas Hauser's "Muhammad Ali:His Life and Times". However, it is more than just an account of a great fighter's incredible life and career; Roberts' book provides a fascinating insight into a less liberal and open-minded age, yet still one that that has parallels with today's society.
Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, began his career in "battle royals", sickening spectacles that involved a dozen or so blacks in a ring fighting each other until only one was left standing. Overcoming prejudice and discrimination, regulary referred to as "coon" and "nigger" in newspaper reports of his fights, he overcame the so-called "colour bar" to eventually became heavyweight champion of the world.
His victory made him a hero to blacks, and spread horror throughout the white establishment, causing frantic calls for a "great white hope" to "wipe the smile off the uppity nigger's face". Johnson's triumph over one of these hopes, the former champion Jim Jeffries, led to race riots across America.
However, as Roberts argues, Johnson was far from a liberal crusader fighting for the rights of his people. The only person's plight that Johnson cared about was his own. He squandered his ring earnings on prostitution and the high life, mercilesly ridiculed his white opponents, and was brutal to his wives, friends and associates. Ironically , he even drew the colour bar against his own race; Johnson sought relationships only with white women, and also refused to defend against the top black contenders of his era such as Langford, Jeannette and McVey.
All in all, this is a lucid, vivid and captivating account of one of the most fascinating sporting figures of the early 20th Century. Essential reading.
Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family - Nicolas Pileggi
Pileggi materfully interdisperses the quotes from the book's main protagonist, Henry Hill, and his wife, with thoughtful and dispassionate analysis. While this book largely reflects mob life during the 1970s in New York, it's bredth and pragmatism have elevated it to timeless classic. There's little here to fault. The central narrative of Hill's life is expertly interwoven with a variety of scams, gangsters and mafia politics, and the result is a serious, unglamorised portrayal of a life rarely separated from crude stereotypes and generalisations of the popular media. Wiseguy is the best of the genre by a significant distance, and it's only real competition is the book 'Casino' also by Pileggi. If organised crime is something that interests you, this book is a must. If it's not, you should read it anyway for the skilled workmanship of suburb author.
Night Train: A Biography of Sonny Liston - Nick Tosches
In 1962, Sonny Liston became boxing's world heavyweight champion. He was a poor plantation boy and a bruiser for the mob who had done time for armed robbery, but he had fought his way to the top. Those he met in the ring said he was unstoppable, even dangerous. Sonny, however, knew differently. His mob connections and his violent drunkeness made him an unpopular but feared champion; and when he lost his title to Muhammad Ali with barely a struggle, no one, least of all Liston, seemed to care. He had begun his descent into the depths, which only ended with his mysterious death. In prose as hard-hitting as Liston's left hook, Nick Tosches excavates the life of Sonny Liston from the murky underworld which never let him go.
Dark Destroyer - Nigel Benn
Many books on fighters give a very limited and one-sided view but after reading this you feel that you know more about Nigel Benn than just that he could hit hard.He has been very open about things that he has done in his life and allowed the reader to make there own judgement.Aside from concentrating on his fight career that we all know about he gives a fascinating insight into his private life before, during and after his career, as well as giving the reader a chuckle on more than one occasion when revealing some escapades that he and his friends have encountered.All-in-all a very entertaining and enlightning read.
Fire and the Fury - Anita Mills
In 12th century England, Elizabeth of Rivaux was the beautiful eldest daughter of one of the most powerful families in England. But after her disasterous first marriage, she wants no husband and goes to defend her family's castle which is threatened in the fight between the Empress Matilda and King Stephen. Giles of Moray saves Elizabeth's life when she is attacked on the road. Despite the fact that she thinks he is a lout, Giles decides he wants a woman with her courage and fierceness. But he is only a lowly Scottish lord who had to kill to regain his birthright. His suit would never be accepted by proud Elizabeth or her family, so, Giles kidnaps her.
Elizabeth agrees to marry Giles. Through his passion, Giles slowly helps Elizabeth overcome the hurt done to her by her first husband. But Giles has been supporting King Stephen while Rivaux supports the Empress. Giles must resolve his political loyalties to truly win over his wife and her family.
Amerika - Franz Kafka
This is like a stone wall scrawled with graffiti... a note found screwed up in the bottom of a waste paper basket... an impenetrable pool of murky puddle water and more than that... Kafka’s great-unfinished symphony. Because of this, Amerika took me a good three of four attempts to really relax into what Kafka was trying to achieve... (largely because the narrative and central concept are so alien to what the writer had attempted before, but also because of the strong use of language and descriptive phrasing). Kafka’s literature is one of absolute evocation in which his choice of words build on top of one another to paint us a portrait of a time and place that is totally visible within out mind’s eye.
Here, his concern is in the recreation and depiction of events seen through the eyes of a naive idealist. His construction of America itself is the view of an outsider, by an outsider... Kafka had never set foot in America in the entirety of his life, and therefore creates the burgeoning metropolis from his imagination. Through this, we end up with a work that could almost be described as science fiction, though with a strong underlining sense of social-realism and of course, Hollywood melodrama. The images that were conjured in my mind whilst reading the book were like some bizarre juxtaposition of varying cinematic styles, with elements of Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Metropolis (a film visually inspired by the city-scapes of New York city) by way of John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath, shot through with the kind of visual pretension seen in Lars von Trier’s underrated Europa.
There was also a touch of Fellini’s surrealist musical ...And the Ship Sails On with the opening chapter set within the small, claustrophobic cabin of an ocean-liner. Here Kafka’s words practically trip over themselves, as he layers various descriptions that each contradict the nature of the story, to instead, create a visual narrative that will run concurrently alongside the plot. Much of this book relies upon the readers to inject their own imagination into the proceedings, or otherwise, Kafka’s writing becomes almost mechanical in its descriptive delivery. Admittedly, the book is somewhat harder than most in terms of grasping that thread that will lead us into the narrative and allow us to develop that all important connection, but if you are a long-time fan of Kafka (who has already experienced the Trial, the Castle and his celebrated short stories) then I’m sure you’ll find this work worth the extra strain.
The continually dark and noirish atmosphere coupled with the recreation of this surreal and mysterious landscape developed deep within my imagination was the principal factor that I held on to when I first attempted to delve into this book. It finally got me through, as I was desperate to find out whether or not Kafka could keep up this hypnotic use of language throughout... he does. However, the ending is an anti ending due to the fact that Kafka never actually finished the book before he died (another factor that marks out Amerika as a problematic document), but if you are committed to this writer then you shouldn’t let this fact put you off. Half the fun of this book is to continually re-read the work and each time create an ending that you find suitable, and creatively valid (I told you imagination played a big part). Amerika will never be as essential as either the Trial or the Castle (both landmarks of literature) though it is certainly worth a look for those who think they may be up to the challenge.
