JOHN LE CARRE Silverview ***(*)

The last book by the late great novelist. Enjoyable, but not one of his best.

Julian, a 30-something former City high-flier has opened a bookshop in a Suffolk seaside town. Very soon he is visited by the charming Edward, an ageing Polish emigre, who befriends him and effortlessly cajoles him into running the occasional errand or allowing him to use the bookshop's computer. Edward is a former (?) British agent who lives in Silverview, a large house owned by his dying wife, Debbie, another star of the intelligence service. 

Then there's the love interest: Edward and Debbie's daughter, Lily. 

Meanwhile Stewart, a spy chief based in London, becomes aware of a dangerous leak, which leads him to this quiet seaside town... As well as being a spy story, but with the usual Le Carre refusal to get drawn into such vulgarities as car chases and shoot-outs, it's a story of love, loss and regret, and private morals versus public duty. And it's short - just 210 pages.

SEBASTIAN FAULKS 

Snow Country *** 

This is a good book by a great novelist, but it didn't really grab me.

It's set in the first half of the last century as the world recovers from one world war and a second is looming.

The main characters are Austrians Anton, a journalist, and Lena, the spirited daughter of an alcoholic single mother. 

In Vienna Anton meets Frenchwoman Delphine with whom he falls madly in love and whom he can never forget. But the the first world war separates them for ever.

Lena is also looking for love. But to make ends meet she has to resort to prostitution. That's how she meets Anton, although he soon forgets her. She leaves Vienna to work as a maid at the snow-capped Schloss Seeblick - a sanatorium for the mentally ill which was the setting for 'Human Traces' - the first novel in what will be a trilogy.  Here, years later, she meets Anton again (although he doesn't recognise her) because he's been sent to write about the work of the sanatorium. 

It's about sex and love, hope and despair, death and new life, and psychology and psychiatry. And I found it a bit heavy-going.

ROBERT PESTON 

The Whistleblower ****

An entertaining thriller by political and financial journalist, Robert Peston.

The detail is highly autobiographical. Our hero, Gil, the narrator of the story, is a political and financial journalist working for the "FC" (Financial Chronicle) - not to be confused with the FT, for which Peston worked. The most informative element of the book is the insight it gives on the Lobby system in Parliament and how the journalists work.

The plot is set in the weeks leading up to the 1997 General Election, when a Tory government is about to be swept from power by a revivified Labour party under a charismatic young leader. (Sounds familiar). 

Gil's sister Claire, who was a top civil servant advising the government, has been tragically killed in a cycling accident, leaving two young sons. It soon becomes clear to Gil, if not the authorities, that she's been murdered. It's all to do with skulduggery with a huge media company doing naughty things with its pension fund, the chancellor of the exchequer being blackmailed, and lots of sleazy people at the top. Gil is determined to clear his sister's name and find out the truth - which nearly comes to him being murdered too - twice.

A ripping yarn which would make a great TV series.

JONATHAN FRANZEN Crossroads ****

The latest novel from 'Great American Author' Jonathan Franzen.

It's long (nearly 700 pages) and incredibly intense, with every character's thoughts, feelings and actions analysed and questioned. It's not an easy read, but it was worth it and it will stay with me for a long time.

Set in 1971 and 1972 it's the story of the Hildebrand family. Russ is associate pastor of a suburban church on the edge of Chicago. Then there's his wife, Marion, 20-year-old college student Clem, 18-year-old Becky, 16-year-old Perry and 10-year-old Judson. Each chapter takes the story on from the point of view of one of them (except Judson).

Each of them is trying to break free in their own way. They've reached a crossroads in their life. 

Russ's 'career' in the church is getting nowhere and he hates the youth minister, Rick. Under Rick's leadership the youth group, Crossroads, is flourishing. But it's yukkily touchy-feely and all about 'honest interactions', earnest eye contact and 'personal growth'. Russ loathes it - especially when his three older children get involved. What's more his marriage is breaking down and he's lusting after a flirty young widow. But he's a Christian, so he feels guilty all the time.

Marion, who at first appears to be a middle-aged doormat of a woman, has had enough of it all and wants out. Unbeknown to anyone else she's got a racy and very sad past and wants more from life.

Clem hates the Vietnam war, and as a student he's been able to avoid being called up. But he hates that too - why should he, a middle-class kid, be able to keep himself safe while black working-class boys are being killed ever day? So to the horror of his girlfriend and family, he writes to say he no longer wishes to be deferred from military service and drops out of college.

Beautiful Becky is the social queen of her high-school class, while at the same time remaining quite aloof. She experiences a sort of conversion - but it doesn't make her the nicer person she wants to be.

Perry is brilliant but heavily into using and selling drugs and seems intent on ruining his life.

For all of them God is there - to be embraced or to run away from. It's a sad story, but the possibility of redemption is there on the horizon. Maybe it'll come in the next two books in Franzen's planned trilogy.

JO JORDAN Beyond Dragons ***

This self-published book was on sale where Rachel and I were holidaying. The complex of cottages (or barns) is owned by Jo Jordan, the author of the book. Normally I'd give this sort of thing a miss, but the barns and Jo's own house are so fabulous, beautiful, quirky and utterly unique I thought I'd give it a try as it promised to fill in the story behind the amazing architecture. And it succeeds. What's more Jo turns out to be a fantastic writer.

Jo and her husband Nick, who sadly died early in 2021, were travellers with a magpie instinct. When Nick inherited Belle Grove, his parents' rundown farm in Suffolk he and Jo were determined to build something unique - a grand design full of bits and pieces from India, Bali, and North and East Africa - not to mention car boot sales and salvage yards.

It was a self-build too, over the space of five years, and they managed to do it for less than £300,000! 

To help fund it they converted the outbuildings into holiday lets. These 'barns' were early 1950s rebuilds of sheds destroyed by a wartime bomb. Government payments at the time required that they be rebuilt on the original footprint and for their original use - even though they were redundant when they'd been destroyed. But today these buildings look as if they've been there for hundreds of years - thanks to cladding with old timber, re-roofing with old tiles, and the use of ancient timbers inside. To complete the effect all the light switches are the classic brown bakelite.

Since completion the house has won architectural awards and the holiday barns have been named holiday let of the year.

Would anyone who hasn't stayed at Belle Grove be interested in this book? Probably not, unless they have a passion for self-builds and quirky architecture. But I really enjoyed it. The only criticism is the quality of the numerous black and white photographs which too often are like black and dark-grey postage stamps.

 RICHARD OSMAN The Man Who Died Twice *****

I normally save 5 stars for books which have depth and great writing, but this was such an enjoyable read I'm giving it top marks as well, even if it's unlikely to win any great literary prizes.

It's the follow-up to The Thursday Murder Club and is at least as good.

In case you don't know, it's about four friends who are residents of a retirement village who start off looking at cold cases provided by former spy, Elizabeth, but then graduate to solving real murders - as you do.

This time it involves twenty million pounds worth of diamonds which have gone missing, the local drug baroness, the mafia, and MI5. 

As the bodies start piling up our septuagenarian heroes (hooray!) set about finding the truth and administering their own version of justice, with the aid of two local police officers who they've befriended.

It's witty and warm and great fun.

PIP WILLIAMS The Dictionary of Lost Words ****

In 1901, the word 'bondmaid' was found to be missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. That's a fact.

This is the fictional story of the girl who stole it. A story that Rachel and I both loved.

Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, the garden shed in Oxford where her father works alongside James Murray, the first editor of the OED, and a team of lexicographers. Their task is to gather words and examples of their use for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme likes to sit and crawl beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day, she sees a slip containing the word 'bondmaid' flutter to the floor unclaimed.

As the years pass Esme realises that some words were considered more important than others, and that they had to have been written down and published to make it into the dictionary. This meant a lot of working class words were unrecorded - in particular words relating to women's experiences. So Esme sets out to collect words for another dictionary: Women's Words and Their Meanings. To do this she regularly goes to the market in Oxford, writes down the words she hears and gets the women to define them and put them in a sentence.

Pip Williams writes that her novel “began as two simple questions. Do words mean different things to men and women? And if they do, is it possible that we have lost something in the process of defining them?” From the local suffragettes Esme learns that “sisters” can mean comrades. She puzzles over the definition of “mother” and whether it excludes a woman who has a stillbirth, or who gives her daughter up for adoption, or whose son dies in the first world war.

It's a fascinating and moving story, especially if like me you enjoy words.

SORRY!

Sorry for the long hiatus.

I started this blog about 15 years ago so that I’d have a reminder of the books I’d read. 

But now that nearly all of my reading is done on my iPad I’ve felt less need to write things down because I can see all the covers neatly collected on the screen, year by year.

The trouble is I can’t always remember what I thought about a book, or why I liked or disliked it. So I’m coming back to reviewing them – primarily for my own sake. But if others appreciate it, all the better.

I’m kicking things off with 6 of my favourite reads of the year.

FRANCIS SPUFFORD Light Perpetual *****

Francis Spufford is my find of 2021. This is the first of three books of his that I’ve read this year.

On November 25^th 1944 a V2 rocket hit a packed Woolworths store in New Cross Road, South London, killing 168 people. This fabulous novel imagines what might have happened to five 4- and 5-year-olds who were among the victims.

 

What if the rocket hadn’t landed and they had lived rather than being obliterated in a blinding flash? Spufford answers that question by giving us a series of snapshots of the children’s lives in 1949, 1964, 1979, 1994 and 2009. He could have done that without reference to the bomb and their deaths – they’re imaginary characters after all – but it’s fascinating how having planted that idea in the reader’s head it alters how you respond to the developing story.

This is the sort of book I love – one that’s beautifully written, has characters you’re rooting for, and makes you think. 

FRANCIS SPUFFORD Golden Hill *****

Another fantastic novel by Francis Spufford - his first, published 5 years ago.

Set in New York in 1746, when it was just a small town, it tells the story of a mysterious young man who’s arrived from London with a bill of exchange for the huge sum of £1000. Who is he? What’s his plan? 

It purports to be written in the style of Tom Jones or Tristram Shandy, but does so with such a lightness of touch it doesn’t grate. There’s humour, pathos, love, a supreme sense of what life must have been like at the time, and a great twist at the end.

A short description doesn’t do it justice, so you might want to Google the New Yorker or Guardian reviews. Then read it!

FRANCIS SPUFFORD Unapologetic ****

On the strength of the writing in his novels (which are a recent departure for him) I had a go at this – one of Francis Spufford’s earlier books – and this is great too – a breath of fresh air.

Spufford is a Christian, married to a Canon at Ely Cathedral, and is fairly liberal in his understanding of the creeds. I particularly like his 'definition' (he wouldn't like the term) of sin as HPtFtU - the Human Propensity to Fuck Things Up. Not he insists just the Human Propensity to Fuck Up in the abstract - but to Fuck Things Up - our active inclination to break stuff - relationships, moods, promises etc. 

 

“It's a book for believers who are fed up with being patronised, for non-believers curious about how faith can possibly work in the twenty-first century, and for anyone who feels there is something indefinably wrong, literalistic, anti-imaginative and intolerant about the way the case for atheism is now being made.”

KAZUO ISHIGURO Klara and the Sun *****

Klara, the narrator of the novel, is a solar-powered ‘Artificial Friend’ or AF (i.e. a robot with amazing artificial intelligence). So I suppose this is science fiction, which normally leaves me cold. But not this book, which is brilliant.

The AFs of this world (set somewhere in America) have been designed for children who for some reason don’t go out much – children like Josie, a pale, thin teenager who persuades her mother to buy her from the store where Klara is on display. Josie has some mysterious illness and Klara becomes her best friend.

Klara worships the sun (her life-source) which she calls on to help Josie.

It’s been called a novel about Life, Love and Mortality, and that sums it up nicely.

ANN PATCHETT Bel Canto *****

A re-read of a great book by a great novelist. 

The blurb gets it right:

“Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honour of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening–until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. 

"But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love, lead characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion and cannot be stopped.” 

CLARE CHAMBERS Small Pleasures ****

I started reading this book on the basis of glowing reviews on TV and in The Guardian, not knowing that much of it is set literally just a couple of streets away from where we live in Hayes! 

It’s a wonderfully compelling story.

The year is 1957 and the book paints a vivid picture of life at the time, seen through the eyes of an unmarried 39-year-old woman, a reporter on the local paper, as she investigates the story of a possible virgin birth (!) and gets to know the young mother, her daughter, and her husband... 

Topping and tailing the novel is the true story of the Lewisham train crash of December 1957, in which 90 people died - most of them on a train bound for Hayes. 

STEPHEN KELMAN Pigeon English **

What a disappointment this Booker-shortlisted novel was to me.

Obviously triggered by the real life murder of Damilola Taylor this novel tells the story of 12-year-old Harri, who has recently arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister to live in a flat in inner-city London.

He’s a very innocent lad, fascinated by a local gang and also by a pigeon which comes to his flat’s balcony.

When a boy is knifed to death on the street and Harri starts to investigate it threatens to become dangerous for him.

But I don’t know what happened in the end because I never finished the book. I got really annoyed by the faux-naif tone, and especially by the poetic monologues given to the pigeon, for heaven’s sake.

SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE The Emperor of All Maladies ***

I bought this book on the strength of an interview with the author on the ‘Today’ programme, and for the most part enjoyed it.

Mukherjee is a cancer specialist, but he can also write, which is why he won the Guardian first book award last year.

It’s described as ‘a biography of cancer’, and it is a fascinating account of this disease (or collection of diseases) and tells the story of centuries of discoveries, setbacks and achievements, and the different ways of looking at the disease.

I found it interesting how the different medical specialists tend to have taken blinkered views of cancer. The surgeons were convinced that if you could only cut out enough tissue that would sort it. The radiotherapists thought it was just a case of being able to target the tumours precisely enough. And the chemotherapists were looking for the one drug that would kill all cancers. And now there are the gene therapists.

I have to admit I did skip some pages when the science – especially the chemistry – got a bit too heavy for me, but because there are plenty of human stories in there I soldiered on and learned a lot.

ANNE TYLER The Beginner’s Goodbye ****

The latest novel from probably my favourite author.

It’s great, of course, but not her best, even if it does have one of the most wonderful opening lines of any novel: “The strangest thing about my wife’s return from the dead was how other people reacted.”

Aaron works in the family’s old-fashioned publishing business. He has a paralysed arm and leg and has been cosseted by his mother and sister – which he hates. So when he meets no-nonsense doctor Dorothy they’re made for each other. Their unfussy, undemonstrative routine suits them both.

But then Dorothy is killed in a freak accident, and Aaron feels as if he’s “been ripped in two”.

Apart from the accident this is a typical Anne Tyler novel in that nothing dramatic happens. It’s a very gentle, very loving look at grief and how someone starts to put their life back together again.

My only complaint is that I couldn’t believe Aaron was in his mid-30s. He seems to be 55 at least. Maybe that’s the point.

SIMON MAWER The Girl Who Fell From The Sky ***(*)

Apparently those who have read Simon Mawer’s previous Booker-nominated novels think it’s another case of someone from the literary top drawer lowering his standards to produce something more commercial.

But I haven’t read him before so could just enjoy this book for what it was – a well-written, atmospheric and gripping thriller.

Marian is half French and half-English and is recruited to go undercover in wartime France – officially to work with the Resistance, but unofficially to persuade Clément, a nuclear physicist on whom she had an adolescent crush, to be smuggled out of Paris to London.

It’s fun. And a real page-turner.

ANDREW MILLER Pure ****

A strange but compelling novel which won the Costa prize.

It’s set in 1785, just before the French Revolution. A young engineer, Jean-Baptiste Baratte, is given the job of demolishing Les Innocents, a stinking, leaking cemetery in Paris. He’s attacked, he falls in love, there’s a rape, a murder and suicide – all stemming out of the corruption of Les Innocents.

The cemetery is of course a metaphor for Paris and pre-revolutionary France in general – decaying and about to face momentous change, wanting to hang on to the past and at the same time needing to sweep it away.

The atmosphere Andrew Miller creates is very dark and gloomy, but he writes very poetically and you want to keep reading.

IAIN BANKS Stonemouth ***

If I was writing a school report on Iain Banks it would say, “Could do better” (like all my school reports).

It’s a good read, but I felt Iain Banks’s heart wasn’t in it.

Stewart Gilmour is back in the town of Stonemouth, near Aberdeen, for a funeral. He’s been allowed back for the weekend after five years of exile in London.

What annoyed me is that although it’s told in the first person, information is deliberately kept from us, although there’s no reason why Stewart would do that.

But it soon emerges that it’s to do with his relationship with the beautiful Ellie, the daughter of the town’s biggest crime family, and the dishonour he is deemed to have brought upon them.

It’s exciting and it’s funny, but it’s not Iain Banks at his best.

JOHN LANCHESTER Capital ****

This is another state-of-the-nation novel – but done with a fabulously light touch.

It starts in 2007 – before the financial crash – and it’s all about the characters who live and work in Pepys Road in north London. Without lifting a finger all the people who own the houses in the street are ‘rich’, because their houses are now worth more than a million pounds.

In one house is the city trader who’s also got a house in the country and a wife with very expensive tastes and too much time on her hands. Then there’s the old lady who moved into the house when she got married 50 years back, a young African footballer and his dad, the Asian family at the corner shop, the illegal immigrant traffic warden, and the Polish builder.

The amazing thing is you end up caring for each of them. I never felt I wanted to get back to another character’s story. It’s funny and it’s compassionate.

JOHN O’FARRELL The Man Who Forgot His Wife ***(*)

An entertaining but to be honest rather slight comic novel.

The central character, Vaughan, wakes up on the tube and finds he’s totally lost his memory, as well as his wallet. He has no idea who he is. Eventually his best friend finds him in hospital and takes him home with him. On the way Vaughan spots this gorgeous woman on the street and is told that she’s Maddie, his wife, and that they’re approaching the end stages of an acrimonious divorce.

The rest of the book is about how Vaughan attempts to woo Maddie once more and repair the damage his previous self did.

There are some laugh-aloud moments and some slightly creaky set pieces, but it’s a thoroughly enjoyable read.

CLAIRE TOMALIN Charles Dickens: A Life ****(*)

Having enjoyed her biography of Samuel Pepys (see below) I tackled this book with confidence, which turned out to be thoroughly justified. It’s brilliant.

I was captivated by the story of this amazing man. At the age of 12 he was sent to work in a blacking factory but rose to become not only a great novelist (although his novels aren’t to my taste) but a father of ten children, a demonically hardworking journalist, a director and actor, and a campaigner for social justice. Talk about hyperactive.

But he still managed to keep secret the existence of a long-standing mistress.

It’s a gripping portrait of a complex personality.

HELEN SCHULMAN This Beautiful Life ****

This reminded me of Christoph Tsiolkas’s ‘The Slap (see below) – in that it looks at the potent consequences of one tiny action.

It’s set in New York. 15-year-old Jake goes to a party where a 13-year-old girl tries to get him to have sex with her. He tells her she’s too young. When she emails him an explicit video of herself, with the message, “Do you still think I’m too young?” he unthinkingly forwards it to his best friend – who forwards it to other school friends. In next to no time it’s gone viral and scandal envelops Jake and his family.

It’s a powerful story that touches on loads of contemporary issues.

CLAIRE TOMALIN Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self ****

I thought this might be a bit too heavy-going for me despite the rave reviews and awards. But I finally took the plunge and didn’t regret it.

To be honest I’d always thought of Samuel Pepys as a bit of a Pooter-ish twit who wrote a mildly witty and self-obsessed diary. I also knew he was quite high up in the admiralty but until I read this I hadn’t realised how important a figure he was. And certainly no twit.

He lived in dangerous times through the Civil War, the Commonwealth and then the Restoration and managed to steer a safe course through all of them and keep his head (literally), which was quite an achievement.

He kept his famous diary for ten years, and the brilliant insight that Claire Tomalin has is that he writes it as if observing a third party. Samuel Pepys is very interested in an almost scientific way in what Samuel Pepys does and thinks. And in passing he gives us a remarkable insight into seventeenth century family life and the sort of arguments that husbands and wives had then.

PENELOPE LIVELY How It All Began ****

This may not be up with her best, but any Penelope Lively novel is worth reading. She’s a wonderful writer.

For once she’s playing with a formula rather than seeing where her characters lead her. The formula is similar to a game of consequences. Because something happens to A, this has an effect on B, and that involves C and their relationship with D and so on.

So when feisty pensioner Charlotte is mugged and breaks her hip, it means her daughter Rose has to look after her and can’t accompany her boss to a lecture he’s giving in Manchester, which means his niece Marion has to go instead, which means she sends a text to her lover which is intercepted by his wife, etc. etc. etc.

It’s really enjoyable seeing this almost mathematical equation work itself out and it was a pleasure meeting these people, most of whom are kind and doing their best.

An easy but rewarding read.

WILLIAM BOYD Waiting for Sunrise ***(*)

Another enjoyable thriller from a great writer who I can’t but help think is slumming it.

Compared with ‘Any Human Heart’ or ‘The New Confessions’ this is lightweight stuff. But it is great fun.

It starts in Vienna in 1913, when a young English actor with the fabulous name of Lysander Rief, has his first appointment with an English psychiatrist (remember this is the time of Freud and Jung) for help with a sexual problem. In the waiting room he meets Hettie, with whom he shortly begins a passionate love affair (the sexual problems don’t last for long!). But war is imminent and Lysander gets caught up in it as a spy.

Who are the villains? Who can he trust? Will our hero survive? Dan-da-da-da-dah!

IAN RANKIN The Impossible Dead ***(*)

I like Ian Rankin. The difference between him and Robert Harris, below, is that the central characters are so well drawn.

Malcolm Fox (Rankin's new hero, since the demise of Rebus) is part of the police Complaints department, and therefore hated by almost all other policeman - which makes for a good opening premise. He's a believable, well-drawn person.

The difficulty, and the thing that stops me giving it four stars outright, is that Fox and his colleagues have to be welded to a thriller-style plot, because this is a crime thriller.

They're sent to Fife to find out whether fellow cops covered up for a corrupt colleague, but as they dig deeper they discover connections with Scottish nationalism and 1980s terrorism, and there are murders, explosions, shootings and car chases - all pretty unbelievable.

The trick is to suspend disbelief and enjoy seeing how a three-dimensional character like Fox would react if these fantastical things were happening.

ROBERT HARRIS The Fear Index ***

I'm not sure why I keep reading Robert Harris.

Apart from The Ghost I tend to get frustrated by his books. They're super-efficient at getting you turning the pages. They contain some fairly erudite information about the chosen theme - be it the destruction of Pompeii and Roman aquaduct building, or - in this case - how hedge funds work, but the characters have no depth.

The fear index of the title actually exists, it's the nickname for a measure of expected stock market volatility for the next 30 days. In the book a brilliant mathematician has developed this several stages further, using artificial intelligence to calculate emotional reactions to news and thereby to predict movements in the markets and make billions of pounds.

But then the machines, using their artificial intelligence start to take over and our mathematician friend gets caught up in a Frankenstein-style nightmare. And it all gets a bit silly.

CHRIS MULLIN A view from the foothills ***(*)

I'm not sure I've read any political diaries before this one, but I enjoyed it.

I've always liked Chris Mullin - a very decent, principled man of the left. And this book shows him to have a lovely self-deprecating wit as well.

It covers the middle years of New Labour.

At the start, Mullin is appointed a Junior Minister in Transport and the Environment. He hates it. He's got far less power than he had as a backbencher, chairing an influential committee. He fights the system that tries to insist he has a ministerial car, when he wants to carry on taking the bus. They let him do that - but the car still has to be paid for! They also try to insist that he takes his red boxes home at the weekend and has a pager so that he can be contacted - but he refuses as weekends are sacrosanct and for his family.

There are lots of fascinating (and horrifying) insights into what life is like in government. He's very funny on the mind-numbing speeches that apparatchiks have written and he's expected to read.

He was the only Labour MP to vote against the Iraq War and subsequently be given a ministerial post by Tony Blair.

I ended up liking him even more and feeling sad that he's no longer an MP.