Fiction

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The Girl on the Train

Airport thriller will keep you gripped on the train

Touted as this year’s Gone Girl and While you were Sleeping, The Girl on the Train accosts you on her daily commute to and from London. A dubious narrator from the start, she hangs on to you, desperately, confidential, erratically. Interlaced time frames and equally questionable narrators, build the tension and, while it is hardly high-brow, I was gripped with anxiety. Suffice it to say, it might be imperfect and disposable, but it is also thrilling entertainment and perfect for that commute to work….

 

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Myself a Mandarin – Memoirs of a Special Magistrate

Highly amusing Hong Kong anecdotes of a local magistrate

Out of print and a cult book amongst long-term Hong Kong devotees, it will take more time to locate a copy than to read it. We follow the young Coates, a civil servant from London, who is posted to Hong Kong in 1949 and learns by trial and error how to fulfill his role as “Special Magistrate”. Recounted with great humour and humility, it is insightful, witty, and judicious. A must read for anyone with ties or interest in Hong Kong – and any modern day want-to-be Solomon. Good luck finding it though (although they seem to have a few copies on Amazon.co.uk).

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The Truth

Palin’s eco thriller examines the Meaning of Truth

The book’s epigraph is “Truth is a very complex thing.” Indeed it is and Michael Palin’s second novel tackles that question within the world of publishing and environmental causes. Given the title of the book (and the hint in the epigraph) it is hardly a spoiler to suggest that nothing is quite what it seems. Thus the stage is set for Michael Palin’s eco-thriller, which raises some relevant questions about the definition of truth, the price of truth, and the meaning of being “true to oneself”.

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The Discreet Hero

Funny and sensual from Nobel Prize winner Vargas Llosa

Peruvian Nobel Prize Winner Mario Vargas Llosa is a rarity amongst Nobel Prize winners: a funny, accessible writer. I really enjoyed his erotic novel In Praise of the Stepmother, a tale of sexual morality and loss of innocence. His latest book The Discreet Hero is a page-turning mystery story written with humour and sensuality. It probably won’t be considered Vargas Llosa’s most important book, but it’s definitively worth the read.

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The Goldfinch

A success, and enjoyable in its own right, but a disappointing Pulitzer

There has been a lot of hype about this book and some very polarising reviews. Comparisons have been made to Dickens – which likely refer more to the rather convoluted and dramatic storyline (Oliver Twist’s endless “mishaps” for example), and improbable rescues, than the style or language of writing. Donna Tart’s strength in fact is (as she has shown us with The Secret History) her ability to inhabit a younger voice with credibility and she does not fail us here, wielding her secret weapon – great dialogue – with pace and reality. We like Theo for all his self-absorption and watch the oncoming twists and falls that meet him on the way with mixed dread and hope. It is not without its faults – unlikely plotline convergences (what a coincidence!) and the last pages would have benefited from some heavy editing as it descends into syrupy philosophy (“We can’t escape who we are”) but it is nevertheless a book worth reading. From the first calamitous event, we are pulled along the roller-coaster story: gripping, achingly sad, action-packed, fateful, and very unputdownable.

 

Gorsky by Vesna Goldsworthy

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Gorsky

The seductive sounds and smells of Russian billions, Great Gatsby style

I couldn’t resist the gorgeous cover of Vesna Goldsworthy’s Gorsky and the promise of a contemporary Great Gatsby-esque story, featuring Russian billionaires in London. Goldsworthy unashamedly follows the storyline of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great classic (one of my absolute favourites so I was a bit wary…), but it works! It works because of Goldsworthy’s beautiful writing, her succinct take on extreme wealth and our fascination with Russian oligarchs. If this book doesn’t turn into one of this summer’s big beach reads I’ll eat my hat…

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God Help the Child

Veneer from venerable Morrison

It’s rare these days that I wish a book were longer, but that’s what I did with Nobel laureate Toni Morrison’s latest book God Help the Child (to be published on 23 April). For the wrong reasons, unfortunately. Morrison’s writing is beautiful, as always, but this novel about child abuse felt like a thin veneer of a story. One in which I constantly wanted to scratch the surface for more information.

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To Kill a Mockingbird

Still good after all these years

There’s something wonderfully innocent and warm about this 1950s classic, despite its dead serious subject matter of racism. Life is simple; the goodies are good, the baddies are bad. Fundamentally, the book is about tolerance, for the lonely, weirdo neighbour, for the sick, angry, old lady down the road and, of course, for blacks, otherwise ostracised by 1930s Alabamian white society. I read this book 20 years ago and found it a joy to re-read, although my older more cynical self did think it a bit sentimental at times.

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Dept. of Speculation

Snapshots of a marriage

Jenny Offill’s little gem of a book Dept. of Speculation was on The New York Times’ list of 10 best books of 2014, and with good reason. It’s an unusual novel, written in snapshots, in much the same fragmented way our memory works. It’s the sum of those memories that create the narrative of our past or, in this case, the story of a relationship. In Dept. of Speculation, Offill tells an age-old tale in a refreshingly new way and creates something truly different.

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The Buried Giant

An ogre too far?

It’s been a decade since Kazuo Ishiguro’s sinister, sci-fi-esque Never Let Me Go, a novel I really liked. In The Buried Giant Ishiguro yet again embarks on a genre bending project. This time it’s fantasy. We’re in 6th century post-Roman Britain and a mist has descended on the landscape and peoples’ minds, obscuring memories of recent wars. Axl and Beatrice, an elderly couple go on a journey to find their son and stumbles over dragons, ogres, knights and monks as well as recollections of a violent past. Despite the beautiful, atmospheric writing and profound message, I found The Buried Giant hard work. Will this only be the case for fantasy-sceptics like me?

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