Adventures in Capitalism – Toby Litt

Eighteen short stories that articulate some whacky ideas including: living life on the advice of advertising slogans; the perils associated with collecting for charity dressed as a pink fluffy bunny; the embarrassment of an unfortunate sartorial faux-pas; and the difficulties of dealing with a sunflower sprouting on one’s face.

These were the ones that worked best for me, along with the one with the ghost in the (washing) machine.  Others were less memorable, more experimental or I found too ‘arty’.

But that is what you get with a collection of short fiction - a bit of a pick and mix with some to your taste and others, frankly, not.

I Let You Go – Clare Mackintosh

The story starts with a shocking incident and rapidly moves into damage limitation.

In an effort to forget the traumatic event the narrator heads for the hills, and the coast; in other words, the cliffs of South Wales.  There she ekes out a solitary and frugal existence, at least until new possibilities dawn.

Meanwhile DI Ray Stevens and his sidekick DC Kate Evans are throwing resources at the case, without much luck.  Even when the case is officially shelved they continue to work on it out of hours.  And that is not going to ease the marital tension at the Stevens home any.

The two narratives work out side by side, inexorably moving closer.  A breakthrough occurs that seems to crack the case – or does it; DI Stevens has his doubts (that the readers probably share).  A third voice joins the narrative and things get more complicated and much, much darker.

Pace gathers, pages turn, tension ratchets up; and twists twist until they can twist no more.  Then there is a resolution, and satisfaction in a well plotted, assuredly written first book from this ex-policewoman.

Ghostwritten – David Mitchell

Billed as a novel in nine parts, this reads more like nine novellas loosely linked.

The settings move east to west with the sun – Japan, Hong Kong, China, Mongolia, Petersburg, London, the Western Isles of Scotland, and the east coast of the USA.  In each location a different lead character engages the reader in their life, sometimes a single day and at the other extreme, lasting cradle to grave. There is some overlap of characters in the stories, though this is incidental and teasing rather than necessary for plot development.

If there is a common theme it may be the need to escape, physically or mentally, from a situation, or to search for a solution.  If there is an overarching resolution it is left to the reader to fathom.

Nevertheless the assemblage provides interesting reading, skilfully employing a variety of styles to address a variety of modern themes.

The Mirror World of Melody Black – Gavin Extence

Melody Black appears late in the book; the actual narrator is Abby Williams and the reader lives in her skin throughout.  She is bubbly and lively, not to mention quirky as evidenced by her reaction to finding a neighbour dead in the flat next door.  That incident is the catalyst to a rise in her article-writing fortunes, and her mood with it.

But with a bi-polar diagnosis such rises are a risk and Abby goes into a manic phase inevitably followed by a depressive slide.

Extence deals with both sides of the coin with apparent authenticity and the settings – home, therapists, institution and remote retreat are convincingly drawn.  Abby is an engaging and vulnerable character, making her easy for the reader to empathise with and root for.

Oh, and Melody Black turns up eventually with an unfortunate link to Abby’s past and with an interesting theory on why people ‘go nuts’.  Apart from that, the book manages to be both informative on bi-polar disorder and an entertaining read.

I Am Malala – Malala Yousafzai

“The girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban” is not only the sub-title of Malala’s autobiographical account but probably the sum total of what most people know about her.  This book puts that right by providing not only her own background but that of her young country and its brief troubled history.

Though the book starts with a prologue describing the dreadful shooting it quickly shifts into a conventional time line as Malala describes her family and early memories in Swat, a princely state that was absorbed into the newly formed Pakistan making up its northwest frontier with Afghanistan.  As well as her daily life in her home, she describes the political context in a clear and balanced manner (perhaps credit here to the co-writing support of foreign correspondent Christina Lamb).

It is an eye-opening account of life under threat from both the Taliban and the Pakistani military authorities who vie for control of the valley.  Civil government is a fiction in these parts.  Despite that, her father’s passion for education defies the odds by founding, developing and maintaining a school that, whatever the risks, allows girls to attend and learn.

Malala is an ace student and a vocal advocate for her and her gender’s right to education.  Her profile on the country rises, along with her father’s, and both know the dangers that entails but refuse to kowtow.

Events take their course.  The prologue has given away the strike, and the book’s existence testifies to her recovery.  Not just recovery, but triumph; of which this remarkable book, written by a sixteen year old (albeit with support), is part.

Transcription – Kate Atkinson

The book starts in 1981 with the end; Juliet Armstrong, aged 60, knocked down by a car and lying in a London street.  The part of her life that flashes back to her is the last time she was in England in 1950 working for the BBC producing schools programmes for the radio.

That has its challenges, particularly for a woman, but Julia is good at her job and usually gets her way.  But she is troubled when Godfrey Toby, a colleague from her job ten years previous, blanks her in the street.  Then other strange things happen that causes her to reflect back on those times.

That was in 1940, the early days of the war, when as a nineteen year old she volunteered and like many young educated women was recruited as a clerk in the intelligence service.  Godfrey Toby was a double agent running a ring of Nazi sympathisers in London; and when they met to talk sedition in his flat their conversations were recorded next door by Cyril the technician and transcribed by Juliet the clerk typist.  When Juliet is given the opportunity to participate in some low risk field work she jumps at the chance and does well, discovering a talent for dissimulation and lies.  But even low risk operations and transcribing have potential for cock-ups and danger.

And still in 1950, as well as the day job at the Beeb, Juliet is pressed into a favour from time to time by her old bosses.  She is no longer a teenage ingénue, but when a minor op again goes awry danger of a different sort raises its head.

The narrative is light, the plot arc deceptively simple and the time shifts, for once, are straightforward.  That leaves plenty reader attention available to be paid to the period nostalgia and the charming interplay between Juliet and the (mainly male) hierarchy in the secret service and the BBC.

But how much of all that is a front; and what is it hiding?  

The Kind Worth Killing – Peter Swanson

Ted Severson meets Lily in an airport bar, shares a drink; then more, as the flight is delayed.  He also shares his recently discovered marital problems, finding Lily sympathetic to his position and surprisingly supportive of a solution he is considering – to kill the cheating bitch.

In alternate chapters Lily’s back story and Ted’s preparations are revealed in unhurried chilling detail.  It takes nearly half the book before the first twist upends the reader; then more follow in an accelerating spiral to the end.

It is cleverly plotted with interesting main characters who narrate their own intersecting contributions to the unfolding drama.  For those who like their thrillers dark and twisting this is definitely one of the kind worth reading.

Fall of Giants – Ken Follett

This gigantic book, and it is just volume one of a trilogy, aims to whizz the reader through a dozen pivotal years of the early twentieth century that encompasses the First World War.  Follett uses a relatively small cast of main characters, spread geographically and sociologically to make this manageable.  As a result these few representatives of the millions caught up in the maelstrom have experiences and encounters to rival those of Forrest Gump.

Lord ‘Fitz’ Fitzherbert is landed gentry; his land included coal mines in South Wales and a big manor house there.  He sits in the Lords so has the inside track on British war preparations, and his wife is a Russian Princess so he has aristocratic connections there; but he is not above slumming it with his local chambermaid.  Once the war starts he takes up his role as commander in chief of the local regiment and sees service in France and (oddly) Russia.

Lady Maud Fitzherbert, sister of Fitz and of independent mind, is a keen suffragist and political activist not shy of bending the ear of her brother’s influential houseguests.  Pre-war these include young diplomats from the US and Germany, and inconveniently she falls for one of the wrong nationality.

Billy Williams is a young collier in Fitz’s mine, then a young soldier in his regiment; a thorn in the side of the bosses in both cases.  His sister Ethel is a bright-eyed and capable chambermaid at the big house before being shipped out of harm’s way in London.  There she teams up with Lady Maud to promote the suffrage cause.

Gus Dewar and Walter von Ulrich are the junior diplomats from USA and Germany who attend the pre-war unofficial gathering at Fitz’s house.  They may be young and junior but they both have important connections.  Gus is aide to President Wilson and Walter’s father is high up in the German military.  Back in the US, Gus is engaged to Olga Vyalov, daughter of a Russian émigré businessman/gangster.  Walter, having met Maud is keeping his matrimonial powder dry.

Over in Russia the revolution is brewing.  That means trouble for Fitz’s brother-in-law Prince Andrei.  At the other end of the spectrum, it hints at the end of oppression for the likes of Gregori Peshkov, a metal worker who gets active in the soviets that are starting to exert influence.  His brother, Lev, is more interested in getting to America, which he achieves via South Wales (and a brush with Billy).  Once in the USA he gets work as a chauffeur with the Vyalovs and unwisely takes a shine to Olga.  Meanwhile as war and revolution take hold in Russia, Gregori rises high enough to get involved with Lenin and Trotsky.

As the war spreads, characters share meeting rooms in London, battlefields in France, and political manoeuvring in Russia.  Confusing? Not really; it is pretty well put together and the broad sweep is well enough known.  Suspend disbelief in the coincidental nature of the characters’ inter-connectivity and enjoy the insiders’ view of the cataclysmic early years of the century.

And there is more to come for those who need to know how the next generation fare.

The Sellout – Paul Beatty

Where to start?  With the narrator; black, educated – home educated by a social scientist father with his own take on race and street educated by dint of living in the city suburb of Dickens, albeit on an urban smallholding.  Or with Dickens itself; a ghetto community on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles, whose twinning overtures are turned down by Juarez who see it as too violent, Chernobyl as too polluted, and Kinshasa as too black.  Or with the alleged crime: violation of the thirteenth amendment through the ownership of a slave.

It matters not as once the machine gun prose of Paul Beatty starts everything gets shot at as the narrator seeks to explain how he ended up in front of the Supreme Court despite his well-meaning efforts to recreate the self-respect and community spirit of Dickens.  OK, his methods were unconventional and counter-intuitive, not to mention often hilarious.

With each paragraph packed with meaning (and peppered with expletives) it is not a quick read, but in the main it is a fun read.  Sure, serious points are made but more in exasperation than anger.

Readers not black nor American (like me) may miss some of the jokes and references but that still leaves plenty to laugh at and think about.

The Art of Racing in the Rain – Garth Stein

Enzo knows how to race in the rain, motor racing that is, despite being a dog.  He has learnt it all from Denny, with whom he lives.  Denny is a man, an amateur racing driver, who puts the sport on TV all the time: movies like Grand Prix and Senna; Formula One and NASCAR races; and even driver-view videos of the great racetracks.  Enzo knows when trouble hits the track, like rain, the best drivers respond positively, embracing the conditions, keeping the car on the road until things improve.

Enzo has learnt much more from watching daytime TV documentaries while Denny is at work.  One of these aired the Mongolian belief that good dogs reincarnate as humans.  He decides to prepare himself for that by careful study of mankind, which enables him to narrate the novel from his canine point of view intelligently and articulately.

He adapts when Denny’s girlfriend Eve moves in and is protective when their daughter Zoe is born.  But happy families can be a short game.  When tragedy, conspiracy, injustice and rank bad luck hit Denny he must, with Enzo’s help, apply the art of racing in the rain to keep his life on the track.

Accept the premise and the book flows well enough.  The slings and arrows that rain down are predictable but nonetheless affecting; ditto the conclusion.  Affinity with dogs and/or motor racing no doubt adds to the enjoyment but is not a prerequisite.

For me it was reminiscent of the inevitably superior ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ but with simpler prose; after all this one is narrated by a dog not a philosophy lecturer.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman

At least that I what she tells her social worker, her only visitor as she keeps herself to herself.  She lives alone, kept company by cheap bottles of vodka that help her through weekly conversations with her apparently institutionalised mother.  At work she keeps her head down and gets the job done.

Her life changes when she wins tickets to a music gig and is stricken by the lead singer of the support act.  It is love at first sight, for Eleanor at least; Johnnie Lomand is oblivious to her existence.

Eleanor realises that alterations are necessary to woo Johnnie – hair, clothes, social skills all need an upgrade – and stepping into the unknown to achieve them leads her into a whole new world of social interaction, including social media.  For help with her computing needs she seeks help from friendly but unprepossessing IT geek Raymond; her social pointers come from streetwise hairdresser Laura.

All the while hints emerge of the darkness in her past that has left her scarred (physically and emotionally).  And as the book progresses into the second half Eleanor’s life becomes a tug of war between the draw of her new life and the anchor of her past.

                                                                           

It is well written with plenty of humour in Eleanor’s discovery, not to mention dismay, of the modern world.  The portrayal of her older, darker, life that clings to her is equally well done.  Which will gain the upper hand?  By the end the reader fervently hopes that indeed Eleanor Oliphant will be completely fine.

Notes from an Exhibition – Patrick Gale

The eponymous exhibition is of paintings and ephemera of artist Rachel Kelly, recently deceased; and the notes that accompany each item form chapter headings that introduce aspects of her world.  The chapters slowly build a picture of her life and family, but the chronology is sliced and diced to tease and keep the reader engaged to the end, though the reveals confirm rather than confound expectations.

Rachel Kelly’s portfolio is broad with portraits, landscapes and abstract works on show; and Gale follows suit.  He sets many a scene with loving descriptions of the Cornwall landscapes.  He portrays an artist at work, a mother less than perfect, and a family as dysfunctional as most, bringing out emotional turmoil every bit as effectively as Kelly’s non-representative art.

It is well enough put together but as the family’s dramas are exposed those relating to the survivors – husband Anthony, sons Garfield and Hedley, and wayward daughter Morwenna – turn out to be low key and rather uninteresting.  It is left to those of the dead – Rachel and son Petroc who died young – to provide the mystery and spice in the tale.

The Cellist of Sarajevo – Steven Galloway

Sarajevo, 1992, is a city under siege.  The men on the surrounding hills rain shells and mortars down.  Less indiscriminately, and so more cruelly, they also pick off soldiers and civilians alike with deadly sniper fire.  When a shell hits the market place killing twenty-two people queuing for bread, a cellist who witnessed the strike from his window takes the extraordinary decision to commemorate the lost lives by playing a haunting piece of music at the site for twenty-two consecutive days.

That much is true, and around the event the author relates slices of three fictional lives in the city.  Arrow is a young female sniper recruited from the university shooting team and given the brief to retaliate, shooting the snipers and other military on the hills.  Kenan takes his twice weekly trek across town to the brewery springs to collect life-sustaining water for his family.  For Dragan, who got his family out early in the conflict, it is the daily journey to work at the bakery (a job that exempts him from conscription) that takes him onto the streets.

Life under siege and under fire in what was a modern civilised city of half a million people is a real eye-opener.  The effect on the urban infrastructure and the lives of those still trapped is vividly portrayed.  As well as the physical dangers and fears there are psychological effects to contend with.  The likes of Arrow, Kenan and Dragan have to question why they continue to resist the enemy without in order to save a city that is rapidly losing its soul to the paramilitary chiefs and profiteering gangsters that thrive within. 

They may come up with different answers but each, like many others, draws strength from the music of the cellist of Sarajevo.

A tense, gripping and surprisingly positive paean to the fortitude of the human spirit under dire circumstances.

The Underground Railroad – Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railroad was the name given to the network of supported routes north which runaway slaves of the southern states took in their bid for freedom.  Safe houses, food drops, false-bottomed wagons all featured, but to these Colson Whitehead adds a physical manifestation of underground trains and rails with drivers, conductors and station-masters.  That is the only bit of magic realism in this gritty telling of the slaves’ lot; generally the realism is brutal and shaming.

Young slave girl Cora’s flight is the peg on which is hung a sequence of fact-based events.  She flees from a life on the plantation in Georgia already filled with cruelty, injustice, beatings and rape; spends months in an attic in South Carolina; and finds respite of sorts in North Carolina, only to discover acceptance comes with sinister conditions.  Only in Indiana does she find any semblance of normality, and even there threat lurks.

Along the ‘railroad’ she encounters other runaways, abolitionist sympathisers, racists and slave-catchers.  Across the spectrum people get damaged, people die.

It is not an easy read but Cora’s plight keeps the reader engaged.  And it is not one-dimensional fare.  Cora is seeking not only freedom but her mother, who ‘ran’ before her, leaving her baby daughter on the plantation.  The slave-catchers’ motives have unexpected complexities and there are nuances within the abolitionists to expose.

A thought provoking book that puts the reader uncomfortably inside Cora’s skin, a skin that many at that time and place refused to look beyond.

The Last Runaway – Tracy Chevalier

As the two Bright sisters head off to America in 1850 it is Grace who does so in expectation of an exciting future, while for Honor it is more to do with leaving the past behind.  Grace is betrothed to a man already settled in Ohio whereas Honor’s engagement back in Bridport has just been broken off.

They are Quakers, and after an arduous Atlantic crossing they head overland through Pennsylvania to the recently established township of Faithwell where many of their faith have put down roots.  En route Honor encounters two people who do not share her faith but are destined to play a significant part in her future – larger than life milliner Belle Mills and arrogant but handsome Mr Donovan.

In Faithwell there is little enough to do but make quilts, something Honor is very adept at, but that changes when circumstances pitch Honor up at the Haymaker dairy farm, which transpires to be on the route of the fabled ‘underground railroad’.  The railroad isn’t real but a network of anti-slavery activists and sympathisers that provide safe houses and work to assist runaway slaves escape north to freedom.

In the community there are helpers (like Belle), hunters (like Donovan), and those in between who sympathise with the runners but who are fearful of the consequences of getting involved.  Honor must make her choices.

Told from Honor’s viewpoint, supplemented by first person letters home, there are well penned descriptions of Honor’s new world – the landscapes, the changing seasons, and the new society she finds herself in.  Even the quilts are different here.

Slaves pass through, some safely, some not; but it is not so much about them as about how Honor wrestles with conflicting loyalties (family, faith, law, friendship, humanity and her own feelings as a woman).  It is also quite a lot about quilts, which may or may not be a metaphor that passed this reviewer by.

As befits a tale of Quaker folk it is a gentle read (the sex and violence are quickly and efficiently dealt with) but be prepared for lots of thee’s and thou’s in the dialogue that while adding verisimilitude to the text eventually grate on the modern eye.

The Burgess Boys – Elizabeth Strout

The Burgess boys – Jim and younger brother Bob - left their home town of Shirley Falls in Maine for New York years ago.  Jim has made it big as a celebrated defence lawyer, married well and with the children now off to college life is fine in their swanky brownstone apartment.  Less so for Bob; confidence dented by a childhood tragedy he’s divorced, living in what his brother terms ‘a student dorm’ but making a decent living reviewing legal appeal cases.

Left back in Shirley Falls is their sister, Bob’s twin, Susan.  She phones with the news that her son Zach, withdrawn since his father left home, has committed a misdemeanour with religious overtones and political implications in the town struggling to come to terms with an influx of Somali refugees.

The Burgess boys are mobilised and while Jim uses his contacts to get Zach a top lawyer Bob heads home to provide emotional support.

The case drags on and even Jim has to slum it for a few days back in Maine; and as the siblings get back together old tensions and recriminations surface.  By the end lives - Jim’s, Bob’s, Susan’s, even Zach’s – have changed.

Strout’s portrayal of family relations is very good, capturing the mix of irritation, loyalty, resentment, love and envy with subtle but effective writing.  The pulse doesn’t race but the heart goes out to characters all too human, and by the finish there is deep concern that each will be left with their lives set on a favourable course.

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep – Joanna Cannon

Ten year old Grace Bennet lives at no.4 The Avenue, somewhere in England, the only child of Derek and Sylvia.  It is the sweltering summer of ’76 and something is amiss in the cul-de-sac of eight dwellings.  Mrs Creasy has gone missing.

It has been reported to the police by Mr Creasy and among the adults in The Avenue speculation is rife.  Grace and her best friend Tilly decide to help find the ‘lost’ Margaret Creasy with an approach culled from a confusing sermon by the local vicar, who advises that the way to avoid getting lost is to ‘find God’.  Grace and Tilly proceed to look for God among the neighbours.

Thus we are introduced to the residents and while Grace narrates throughout, her daily updates are alternated with private glimpses into the lives, past and present, of the likes of the officious Mr Forbes and his dominated wife, the thoughtful but ineffective Eric Lamb, the nervous ‘thin’ Brian who lives with his mum Mrs Roper, and the brassy single mum Sheila Dakin.  Then there is Walter Bishop who lives alone at no. 11 and is shunned by the rest for a perceived misdemeanour years previously.

It is a multi-layered read.  The innocent perspicacity of Grace’s comments on the adults’ behaviour is brilliant; her deep affection for Tilly, punctuated by casual cruelty, rings true.  The unfolding of the adult relationships is darker and the gradual revelation of past misdeeds is very well done – right to the very end.  In all the use of language is original and vivid.

That there is good and bad in everyone is made clear enough.  Although the vicar’s sermon tells of how God will separate the sinful goats from the righteous sheep, for Grace, as a mere human, the trouble is that it is not always easy to tell the difference.

Educated – Tara Westover

Tara Westover’s memoir reads fresh, as it should as she is still a young woman and the events she relates took place within the last quarter century, a fact that often is hard to believe.

Born and raised in the wilds of Idaho in a Mormon family dominated by a father of increasingly extreme beliefs, she was denied registration of birth, access to mainstream healthcare and formal education for most of her childhood.  As were her six siblings to a greater or lesser extent; all expected, required even, to help out in the family concerns.  Father ran a scrapping and building business and her mother was a midwife and herbalist ministering to the many in the state who distrusted hospitals, doctors and drugs.  It was a dangerous environment but one that built resilience and fortitude.  It also made for bullying and submission to the paternal dogma of distrusting the government, its agencies and anyone outside the family.

Tara’s gradual, painful tearing away from her roots, not without false starts and setbacks, is related in searing fashion as her lack of elementary education clashes with her thirst for knowledge and her evident natural talent for academic study.

That conflict pales against that which forms the main theme of the book – family expectations and upbringing against the individual and self-determination, and her repeated and fruitless attempts to satisfy the demands of both.

The book succeeds on all fronts.  It is a fascinating and scary account of life in the backwoods; a harrowing account of a powerless girl at the mercy of her father and brothers; and an uplifting sermon on how an education can liberate and enable the mind to encompass, analyse and deal with seemingly irreconcilable forces.

Stone’s Fall – Iain Pears

The book starts not with businessman extraordinaire John Stone’s fatal fall from his study window on to a London street in 1909, but with his widow’s funeral in Paris 44 years later.  That event releases a bundle of papers, part of the estate of one Henry Cort, into the care of the elderly Matthew Braddock.  And it is Braddock who narrates his story first as a preface to those of Cort and Stone that he finds in the documents.

Braddock tells of his involvement in the events of 1909 when as a young reporter he was employed by Stone’s widow, Elizabeth, a woman he finds both attractive and intimidating,  to compile a biography of the deceased.  Except the job turns out to be much more than that; intrigue and danger abound as well as shady characters like Henry Cort.

Cort’s narrative comes next and concerns his time as a young man in Paris in 1890, having been recruited as an unofficial agent of HM Government.  This brings him into contact with John Stone just as the international industrialist is first introduced to Elizabeth, an exiled Hungarian countess who holds influential salons in the French capital.  A crisis emerges and Cort finds it is up to him to save the day.

The third narrative takes the reader back further, to 1867 in Venice where a young John Stone arrives as part of a year’s travelling.  The city, then a mere backwater, exerts an enervating hold on many who wash up there, but not Stone who is beginning to put his business ideas into practice while engaging in a dangerous affair.

The stories have resonance in that each feature a young man pursuing a goal, confident he is control of events, while others in the background are trying to manipulate or use him for their own hidden ends.  The similarities of Braddock, Cort and Stone require a clear mind to be kept on whose story is whose.  In each period the historical, political and economic context is detailed and rings true.

Each narrative alone would make a decent novel.  Combined subtly and intriguingly, and topped off with an ingenious denouement, they make for a richly satisfying book – for those who have the time and patience to read the 600 pages with sufficient care (or like this reader, have the foresight to make notes of significant names, dates, linkages and potentially key events).

The Return – Roberto Bolano

Read as leg 7 (Chile) of the Bookpacking reading journey.

Although the author is Chilean by birth and upbringing, these short stories reflect his wider world view and experience, spanning the Americas, Europe and Russia.

Many take as their subject a portion of an individual’s life, retold second hand in a style almost verbatim.  As for the ‘heroes’ – they are anything but; criminals, gangsters, pimps, whores, porn stars and, worse of all, poets, all feature heavily.

The best for me was the title story in which a recently deceased narrator observes with understandable distaste the unpleasant fate of his corpse at the hands (thankfully only the hands) of a necrophiliac.

This collection is not for those who like a good tale with a punchy ending; most of the stories simply share a slice of the unusual before fading away without resolution, and so maybe reflect life rather than art.

The Gates – John Connolly

The hardback cover is striking and attractive – a blue, black, and amber rendition of the night sky, the suburban streets, silhouettes of figures (human and otherwise) and, in front of an indeterminate redness, a set of black wrought iron gates dangerously ajar.

For these are the gates of Hell and unseemly things are on the way out, summoned by a combination of Mrs Abernathy’s séance in the basement of 666 Crawley Avenue and an unexpected event at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

A small boy and his dog witness the former and soon become the main obstacles to the achievement of Hell on Earth.  Using courage, ingenuity, school friends with useful skills (cricket and a knowledge of black hole physics) and a helpful demon with a grudge, the battle is waged.

The premise and prose style indicate a target readership of young adult, but what age?  The hero is about eleven but the humour is dark and the footnotes introduce serious science.

The perils of choosing a book by the cover became evident - loved its artwork but felt a few decades old for the text.

Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity Fair is Thackeray’s name for the milieu in which the polite society of the early nineteenth century mill around, show off, seek amusement, manoeuvre and score points.

Becky Sharp should not really be part of it, convention decrees that her lack of pedigree and means condemn her to serve the great and the good rather than join in their games.  But she is young, attractive, accomplished, witty and quite without scruples when it comes to social climbing.

Amelia Sedley, equally young, equally attractive if not so vivacious, has better pedigree and more means, at least initially.  But while Becky schemes for her own benefit, Amelia puts others first.  As Becky sees and exploits weakness, Amelia is blind to faults and is indiscriminately loyal.

The story of the two women, and the men they attract for good or ill, meanders over 600 pages.  For the modern reader too many of these pages are choked with Thackeray’s asides gently satirising his time.  In the rest the tale develops at a steady pace, widening to embrace the ups and downs of two moneyed families, the Osbornes and the Crawleys, whose scions (George and Rawden) have a major impact on the heroines.

Country estates, London town, the Battle of Waterloo, and the spas of Europe all feature over the twenty year or so span of the book before a climax of sorts enables the reader to exit the fair with good grace and a sense of both achievement and relief.

The Man Who Disappeared – Clare Morrall

That is Felix Kendall, accountant, who disappears before the police can arrest him for his money-laundering part in a wider criminal network.  All well and good for him to escape, but what about the family he leaves behind?

Wife Kate and the two children face a future at first uncertain and then all too real as their creature comforts - big house, private schools, the leisure to study for an art history degree - are peeled away.  Kate must take over the role as breadwinner and family rock and the kids have to adapt; and what is worse in their world, becoming part of a single parent family or having a dad labelled as a criminal?

It is an interesting premise, and Morrall unfolds the narrative from all angles with an understanding and empathy that reflects the daily slog each must make against a misfortune whether or not of their making.  Kate, suffering guilt by association, searches her past for missed clues; similarly the holed-up Felix examines his history for where it all went wrong. The children have minor dramas, but to no obvious purpose.

In truth not much happens for much of the book; what dramatic tension there is revolves around whether Felix will resurface or not, and if he does how will the family react?  There is a flurry of action just before the end, and a resolution of sorts for those still reading.

The Sixteen Trees of the Somme – Lars Mytting

The narrator, Edvard Hirifjell, lives with his grandfather Sverre on an isolated farm in rural Norway.  There are reasons beyond geographic for their isolation.

Edvard’s parents died while holidaying in France when he was just three, the circumstances unusual if not mysterious, particularly as he was with them, survived, and was found days later many miles away.  His grandfather, tarred by his eastern front service in the Nazi-supporting Norwegian Legion, is largely shunned by the local community so it no surprise Edvard is a bit of a loner.

When Sverre dies (no spoiler - it happens early in the book) Edvard gains access to photos and documents that rekindle his curiosity over his family tragedy.  Now totally alone he starts asking other people questions that his grandfather had previously fended off.  What was his mother (‘a French drifter’ according to his grandmother) doing in rural Norway in 1965 before she had met his father?  Why did  Sverre’s brother Einar, a skilled cabinet maker, leave Norway for good in 1939; if he was, as reported, executed by the Germans in 1944, then who has made and sent the distinctive coffin for Sverre’s burial?

That item has come from Shetland and Edvard resolves to travel there and pick up the trail of his family history, leaving the farm in the hands of old flame Hanne.  She fails to appreciate his new obsession but agrees to mind the shop in his absence.

In Shetland revelations abound.  Einar’s trail is picked up; a young Scottish heiress is encountered who has an agenda of her own that may coincide or conflict with his; more documents are unearthed; false identities and hidden truths emerge; and all point to a certain sixteen trees that grew in the Somme in 1914.

The book is multi-layered and intricately plotted with atmospheric descriptions of wild and starkly beautiful locations.  Edvard’s journey is both physical and emotional, almost bringing to mind that of Pip in Dickens’ Great Expectations (there are even echoes of Satis House and Estella).

The outcome is uncertain to the last but what is not in doubt is the lasting good impression of an epic tale that drags in history, mystery and even a little carpentry.

A God in Ruins – Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson returns to the Todd family featured in ‘Life After Life’, but this time it is Ursula’s brother Teddy who takes centre stage.  Mercifully, however, we get just one version of his life, albeit in time jumbled slices.

The centrepiece of Teddy’s life, and the book, is his time in the RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War.  That experience forged his personality in the contradictions of combat - a good, kind, brave man who risked his life to kill unnumbered, unknown, and largely blameless foreigners with his deadly ordinance.  A time he looks back on with both pride and guilt.

Around that is spun his relationships with his wife, daughter and grandchildren.  No spoilers here, it is the unfolding of the stories with teasers and revelations that provide most of the appeal.  But suffice to say there is love, loss, misunderstandings, tragedy, estrangement, re-connection, closeness and peace at last.

It is no surprise that it is well-written, meticulously researched and a pleasure to read.  Atkinson excels in family relationships, ensuring they are seen from multiple angles, and in her hands the Todd family are well worth getting to know.

Look Who’s Back – Timur Vermes

It is not difficult to guess, the cover on the paperback features the distinctive black hairline, and the title in black type is placed to double up as a toothbrush ‘tache.

Yes Adolf Hitler finds himself back from the dead, unchanged seventy years on from his Germany’s Armageddon.  He may not have changed but Germany, and the world, has.  Initially he finds it all very confusing but you don’t get to become Reich Chancellor without being able to assimilate facts quickly and adapt rapidly to changes in circumstances.

Two broad strands develop.  In one Hitler, as with any time traveller from the past, gets to comment on the absurdities of the modern world with his outsider’s eye.  In the other he pursues his (unchanged) political objectives, finding modern Germany a fertile ground for his national socialist rhetoric.

But these days the road to social change is not through politics (or violence) but through social media.  He quickly becomes a controversial TV personality and gains traction through the ‘internetworking computer thing’.

A knowledge of the rise and fall of the Third Reich helps with the satire (otherwise an appendix provides a succinct biography of the historical figures) and familiarity with modern German politics would probably makes the comments thereon funnier than to an outsider.

For the non-German it is still an amusing read though probably a longer one than the joke requires.

Paper Money – Ken Follett

This is one of Ken Follett’s early works (1976), first published under the splendid pen name of Zachary Stone, and it resembles his more well-known blockbusters in neither content nor volume.  The length is a mere 300 pages and the setting is London of its day.

The action takes place over a single day in the capital, narrated from multiple points of view, the key players being a politician, a hoodlum, a social climbing entrepreneur, a businessman in trouble, and his wife who is also mistress to another.  Their activities seem unconnected, but not for long.

Their stories are pulled together by some ingenious plotting, which the reader can see better than a Fleet Street reporter and editor who try to juggle incoming fragmented reports of the same events – a curious hi-jack, a hospitalised MP, a company takeover and a potential bank failure.  At first these compete for the front page but eventually the dots start to join up into a potential major scoop.

In addition to the half dozen main movers there are as many in support – thieves, tarts, a radio ham, security guards, bankers and brokers – so many that each can only get a thumbnail sketch of character, just sufficient for their bit part roles.

It is fast and fluently written, and if the characters are stock the construction isn‘t.  Neither is the plot - that’s convoluted but clearly expounded and perfectly feasible with an unconventional ending.

For this reader an enjoyable introduction to Ken Follett and nothing here to put me off trying one of those blockbuster trilogies.

Before the Fall – Noah Hawley

Artist Scott Burroughs has been on the skids for a while but after rediscovering a boyhood obsession with long distance swimming he is on the up.  Alcoholism is on hold; the artwork is going well with a meeting due with a New York gallery to discuss an exhibition; and there’s even an offer of a lift into the city on a private jet.

The offer is from Maggie who is returning from holiday at Martha’s Vineyard with her millionaire husband David Bateman, their two young children, Rachel and JJ, and the family bodyguard.  Also getting a lift is dodgy financier Ben Kipling and his wife Sarah.

The planned flight is just a short hop. The actual flight is even shorter as the plane ditches in the Atlantic minutes after take-off.  Somehow Scott survives the impact, as does the boy, JJ.  Scott’s swimming strength is tested to the limit but somehow he manages to reach the shore with JJ on his back.

In the aftermath Scott struggles with roles of both hero and guilty survivor, questioned by crash investigators, the FBI (who were about to indict Kipling), anti-terror state authorities, and a media bully looking for dirt and someone to blame.

The unfolding story is punctuated by the backstories of those who didn’t survive – six passengers and the crew of three – that slowly piece together the events leading to the tragedy.

Noah Hawley, known for his Fargo TV scripts, puts together a good story, wordier than most of its genre, giving voice to Scott’s inner musings on the meaning of life, art and the modern media.

There is what seems to be one continuity error, but it need not spoil the enjoyment of a decent and slightly off-beat thriller.

The Road to Little Dribbling – Bill Bryson

Twenty years since ‘Notes from a Small Island’ was published Bill Bryson takes time, and a trip, to re-appraise the state of his adopted nation, and finds like many of his generation, it is slipping slowly away from his understanding.

The notional geographical peg for his wildly meandering route is a straight line that is the longest possible within mainland Britain, running from Bognor Regis on the south coast to Cape Wrath in the far north of Scotland.  Fear not those of you off this corridor for he still visits a place close to you.

His observations are inevitably shot with perspicacity, wit and laugh out loud humour.  From sitting his British citizenship test at Eastleigh to his bemused arrival at Cape Wrath lighthouse he both celebrates and pokes fun at the British way of life.

So far, so Bryson; but as is often the case the acquisition a bus pass leads to an onset of grumpiness, which surfaces often in this volume.  He rails at many changes in society – the decline of the high street, the ubiquity yet uselessness of computers, the intrusive noisiness of folk on mobile phones – that rankle, before shrugging them off and continuing his search for the positive.

As well as humour and grumpiness is a rich vein of informative storytelling as he roots out little known or under-reported facts, such as the ‘system’ for numbering roads, and sheds light on local people and places whose position in history has undeservedly been neglected.

Funny, wise, acerbic, informative, and above all entertaining.

A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan

“Time’s a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?” So says Bennie Salazar to his old mate Scotty in the final chapter of the book, finally unlocking the mystifying title. By then both have them have been pushed around quite a lot, as have another dozen or so characters, who pop in and out of each other’s lives as snippets of their stories emerge in no chronological order.

Meeting them at various stages of their life from wild youth to staid middle age (though some don’t make it that far) illustrates how people change, adapt, or in some cases stay just the same in the face of events, circumstances or experience. Egan even has a dip into the near future with some astute projections that are already recognisable in 2018 some eight years since publication.

Each chapter’s narrative style reflects its main protagonist; quite a feat given their variety in age, gender and personality. And each provides an entertaining, well written piece for the reader to try to slot into the jigsaw that is the havoc wreaked by the Goon Squad.

An entertaining, invigorating and memorable read.

Review of 2017

The fortnightly reviews were successfully maintained throughout 2017, which meant 26 books reviewed, of generally high standard. Only eight authors had been previously read, and authors new to me included five encountered on the Bookpacking journey commenced in the year (South America has been reached).

From the books read seven are picked out to be particularly recommended: four good serious reads (though each contains some humour); a humorous novel (that has serious things to say); a young adult novel (of import to old adults too); and a non-fiction book for anyone interested in maths, the Simpsons or preferably both. Thumbnail sketches are given below for each (to see the full review go to the bracketed month).

Books for serious readers:

Skippy Dies – Paul Murray (Mar) – A sprawling roller-coaster of a book relating the pulsating events of one term at Seabrook College for Boys; humour, angst and tragedy affect students and staff alike and though Skippy dies, life is re-affirmed.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk – Ben Fountain (May) – Bravo Platoon’s ‘victory tour’ following its televised fire-fight in Iraq culminates at Dallas Cowboys’ thanksgiving game where contradictory forces can no longer be contained.

The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood (Jul) – Three ladies who lunch in Ottawa each try to deal, in their own way, with the return from the dead of a common friend whose funeral they had attended and each, for their own reasons, celebrated.

The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen (Sep) – A forensic examination of grown-up family relationships in which each member has a turn centre stage before their stories and viewpoints coalesce in a fine denouement.

Humour:

A Man Called Ove – Fredrik Backman (Oct) – A grumpy widower’s attempts to join his beloved wife initially make him a figure of fun, but as the back story emerges and his social horizons widen, there is more to Ove than meets the eye.

Nonfiction:

The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets – Simon Singh (Feb) – Many of the scriptwriters for the Simpsons TV series are maths grads and often sneak titbits of mathematical significance into the show, as explained here in entertaining fashion.