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Notable books: March 2011

1st March 2011 / / 2 Comments

This month’s list of forthcoming books that have caught my eye.

Kevin Barry, City of Bohane

This novel of a near-future Ireland has been on my list of books to investigate ever since I first heard about it. After reading a sample chapter when the book was selected for the Waterstone’s 11, I was left undecided as to whether I wanted to read the whole thing; but I will be keeping an eye on its reviews.

Kevin Brockmeier, The Illumination

An interesting concept — pain and illness begin to produce light.

Stuart Evers, Ten Stories About Smoking

I’m intrigued by this book for a number of reasons, from the mere fact that it’s a debut short story collection appearing from a mainstream publication, to its packaging (designed to resemble a box of cigarettes), and the fact that I’ve followed Evers on Twitter for some time and been curious to see what his work is like.

Tom Fletcher, The Thing on the Shore

Fletcher is, in my view, one of the most exciting new horror writers around. I’ve loved everything I have read by him so far; naturally, then, I’m keen to read his new novel.

Téa Obreht, The Tiger’s Wife

This enigmatic-sounding novel would have caught my interest even had it not been selected for the Waterstone’s 11; that I liked the sample chapter so much has only increased my interest.

Karen Russell, Swamplandia!

Theme parks, alligator-wrestling, an affair with a ghost… sounds delightfully odd, and therefore right up my street.

Conrad Williams, Loss of Separation

Williams is another key horror writer, consistently excellent as far as I’ve read him; I’m very much looking forward to reading his new novel.

Sarah Winman, When God Was a Rabbit

Another of the Waterstone’s 11 that went straight on my to-read list, and one for which the quality of the sample chapter was the deciding factor.

February wrap-up

1st March 2011 / / 0 Comments

A new month begins, so here’s a look back at what appeared on this blog during the last one.

Book of the Month

I should read non-fiction more often, and I’d love it to all be as good as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot’s wide-ranging account of how one woman’s cancer cells became, unbeknownst to her family, a key tool in modern medical science. It was the best book I read in February.

Reviews

Full-length reviews:

Shorter write-ups:

… and my blogging of Volume I of The Oxford Library of Classic English Short Stories continued.

Features

The obligatory Clarke Award speculation post

28th February 2011 / / 3 Comments

It’s that Clarke Award time of year again, and the list of submissions has been published over at Torque Control, in advance of the shortlist being announced this Friday. Fifty-four titles submitted, and it looks a pretty comprehensive list to me – I can’t think of any books I’ve read that have been undeservedly omitted; and the only other title of which I can think that perhaps should be there Walcot by Brian Aldiss. But it’s a very good pool all the same.

In terms of what may appear on the shortlist, it is a very open field this year. There’s only one title I’d consider a certainty to be shortlisted, and that is Ian McDonald’s excellent The Dervish House. The rest is wide open, though I’d imagine that some titles are more likely to reach the shortlist than others.  Before I make my prediction of the shortlist, I’ll go through what strike me as some of the more notable or unusual submissions.

Chris Beckett’s The Holy Machine has had a rather ‘interesting’ publishing history, and only received its debut UK publication last year, despite being originally published in 2004. I haven’t read any of Beckett’s novels, but his short fiction is excellent, and I’d imagine this book is a strong contender.

It’s left to each year’s Clarke jury to decide what constitutes ‘science fiction’ and a ‘novel’; perhaps no title amongst the 2011 submissions would have tested those parameters more than Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty, a semi-fictional history of the Soviet planned economy. It has been highly regarded, but will the judges have considered it valid for the Clarke Award?

Joanna Kavenna’s The Birth of Love, Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, and Steven Amsterdam’s Things We Didn’t See Coming are all mainstream-published titles which I meant to get around to reading last year but never did. They’ve had mixed reviews, so I’m not sure how the judges will have viewed them; but, if there are going to be any wildcard entries on this year’s shortlist, I suspect these three are the most likely candidates.

Tom McCarthy’s C of course made the Booker shortlist. It’s debatable whether it can be read as sf, but it would certainly be an interesting addition to the shortlist.

Of all the submissions, Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl is the one I’ve previously tried to read and given up on doing so; I just couldn’t get into it. I’m sure it is no coincidence that the book is set in the same world as the story in Pump Six with which I struggled the most. I will give it another go at some point, though; and that’ll be sooner rather than later if it makes the Clarke shortlist.

China Miéville, of all authors, can’t be ruled out of Clarke contention; but still I’d be surprised to see Kraken on the shortlist. I think its claim to being science fiction (rather than fantasy) is more tenuous than for any of his other novels, and too tenuous for it to be a contender. Never say never, but I don’t think it’s likely.

What do I think may be on the shortlist, then? A combination of wishful thinking and what I know of the books and their reputations leads me to suggest the following:

Paolo Bacigalupi, The Windup Girl

Chris Beckett, The Holy Machine

Ian McDonald, The Dervish House

Adam Roberts, New Model Army

Tricia Sullivan, Lightborn

Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

If you’d like to make your own guess, you can do so here, where anyone who guesses correctly by Wednesday night will win a copy of the entire shortlist.

The Great Transworld Crime Caper

2nd February 2011 / / 3 Comments

Following on from last year’s Summer Reading Challenge, Transworld are running another book bloggers’ challenge over the next couple of months, this time focusing on debut crime novels. Everyone chooses three books from a list of twelve, and mine are:

1. Belinda Bauer, Blacklands

2. Christopher Fowler, Full Dark House

3. Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death

That should give an interesting mix of approaches and settings. (The above titles will, as ever, become links as I blog about the books.)

Notable books: February 2011

1st February 2011 / / 1 Comment

To begin the month, my round-up of forthcoming books that have caught my eye:

Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Periodic Tales

Subtitled ‘The Curious Lives of the Elements’, this book promises to range across art and history as well as science in exploring the chemical elements. Sounds interesting, and a great cover too.

Aimee Bender, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

I love fiction that brings a tinge of fantastication to the everyday, so this sounds right up my street: a girl discovers that food carries for her a taste of people’s emotions.

Francesca Beauman, Shapely Ankle Preferr’d

I like books that look at history from an unusual angle, and this history of the lonely hearts ad sounds like just such a book.

Carol Birch, Jamrach’s Menagerie

Canongate publish some great books, and this seafaring historical adventure looks promising.

Ellen Bryson, The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno

It’s the setting — Barnum’s American Museum — that intrigues me about this one.

Lucy Caldwell, The Meeting Point

This Bahrain-set novel sounds as though it could have some interesting contrasts.

Jon Courtenay Grimwood, The Fallen Blade

Grimwood turns from science fiction to fantasy, and I’m interested to see what he’ll do with the genre in this tale of vampires in 15th-century Venice.

Sophia McDougall, Romanitas

A reissue (revised, I believe) of the first volume of McDougall’s trilogy in which the Roman Empire has survived to the present day. I missed it the first time around, but am curious to see what this is like.

Matthias Politycki, Next World Novella

I would read this because the synopsis intrigues me (‘shifting realities’ as a man gains a new view of his marriage after the death of his wife), but I’d also read it just because it’s published by the reliably-excellent Peirene Press.

Gordon Reece, Mice

There’s quite a buzz about this tale of suspense centred on a mother and daughter who have retreated to the countryside, and then find their cottage broken into — it sounds to be  worth a look.

Jane Rogers, The Testament of Jessie Lamb

I read a couple of very good books from Sandstone Press last year (Up the Creek Without a Mullet and Love, Revenge & Buttered Scones), so I’ve high hopes for this new title of theirs, a novel about a girl living in a world affected by bio-terrorism.

Nat Segnit, Pub Walks in Underhill Country

A novel written (at least at first) in the form of a walkers’ guide. I’m interested to see how that works.

A squad of debuts: the Waterstone’s 11

28th January 2011 / / 9 Comments

This week, Jackie from Farm Lane Books has blogged about why she loves debut authors, and now her thoughts on the Waterstone’s 11. This is not a football team, but their selection of eleven debut novels, all to be published in the UK during 2011. A sample chapter of each book is on offer available at the Waterstone’s 11 website; Jackie has read all those and posted her reaction.

Well, I also like debut novels, so I thought I’d do the same as Jackie and see how our opinions compare. Many of the selected books were already on my radar, so naturally I am interested to find out what they’re like; and I’m intrigued by the ones that are completely new to me.

So, following the same order as Jackie, here we go:

David Bezmosgis, The Free World

1978: a family of Jewish refugees are travelling from Latvia to a new life in Chicago; this opening section follows them from Vienna to Rome. I liked the prose at the beginning, but found the extract as a whole difficult to grasp — partly, I think, because I’m unfamiliar with the subject matter. I gain the impression of a talented writer and a significant book; but, like Jackie, I’ll be waiting to see what others think before I decide whether to read on.

Anticipation rating: ***½

Sophie Hardach, The Registrar’s Manual for Detecting Forced Marriages

A Kurdish refugee enters Germany, and, years later, a German registrar (now working in Paris) who once knew him questions of the legitimacy of a forthcoming wedding. I love the writing in this extract — the opening scene is especially vivid — so this novel is definitely going on my list of books to investigate.

Anticipation rating: ****

Kevin Barry, City of Bohane

Mainstream-published books that could be read as speculative fiction will always pique my interest, and this near-future tale of crime bosses in an Irish city is no exception. Jackie didn’t much care for this extract; like her, I found the dialect quite heavy going, but I am intrigued and suspect I will return to the book.

Anticipation rating: ***½

Amanda Hodgkinson, 22 Britannia Road

A woman travels with her son from Poland to England, where she will be reunited after six long years with her husband, who had been serving in the Polish Corps and now has a house for the family in Ipswich — but the years apart have changed them. I’m ambivalent about this book — I think it’s well written, but at the same time, it doesn’t grab me. I’ll put it down as a ‘maybe’.

Anticipation rating: ***½

Shehan Karunatilaka, Chinaman

A dying sports journalist resolves to find a cricketer whom disappeared years ago — a cricketer he considers great, but who is otherwise largely unknown. Jackie doesn’t like cricket, and couldn’t drum up any enthusiasm for this extract. Fair enough. I don’t like cricket, either, but I thought this was great; the prose is vigorous and quirky, and I want to read more — I have a real sense that I could fall in love with this book.

Anticipation rating: *****

Stephen Kelman, Pigeon English

Narrated by a Ghanaian boy now living on a London estate, this was Jackie’s favourite extract of the eleven. Myself, I think Kelman creates the boy’s voice very well, and I can already see some interesting contrasts being established –yet I don’t have the instinctual feeling that the book is for me. I’ll be seeking out other opinions, I think.

Anticipation rating: ****

Sam Leith, The Coincidence Engine

The most clearly speculative title in the selection, with its “Directorate of the Extremely Improbable” and a hurricane that spontaneously builds an aeroplane from junk, this most certainly goes on my list. It could go either way — depending, I suspect, on how tongue-in-cheek it tries to be — but there’s enough interesting strangeness in this opening extract to make me want to find out.

Anticipation rating: ****½

Téa Obreht, The Tiger’s Wife

In 1941, German bombers ruin a city in the Balkans, and a tiger escapes from the zoo, eventually making his way to the village where the narrator’s grandfather (then a boy) lives. For that boy, it is an occurence as wondrous as if Shere Khan himself had come to life. The synopsis of the book (which points to intriguing developments beyond the scope of this opening extract) alone would persuade me to read on; now I’ve read the sample, the prose does likewise. Put both factors together, and…

Anticipation rating: ****½

Johanna Skibsrud, The Sentimentalists

At the start of this extract, the narrator moves her ailing father to another town, to live with the father of his friend who died when the two were serving in Vietnam. I have less of a sense from reading the sample of what the novel as a whole might be like than I’ve had with any of the previous titles on the list; though I’m broadly in agreement with Jackie — the writing is nicely descriptive, but I’m not really inspired to read further.

Anticipation rating: ***

Mirza Waheed, The Collaborator

Kashmir, 1993: a teenage boy is made to collaborate with the Indian army; in the opening extract, he is sent to collect weapons and ID cards from the fallen bodies. There’s an effective contrast drawn between the boy’s valley before and after the army arrived, and the prose has considerable momentum. I don’t think it’s a book for my must-read list, but I can imagine returning to it in time.

Anticipation rating: ***½

Sarah Winman, When God Was a Rabbit

It’s quite difficult to give a flavour of this extract without going into too much or too little detail; to say it focuses on a girl growing up in the 1970s is too bald a description, but so much happens and is hinted at that it’s hard to summarise. But that doesn’t matter, because the prose is brilliant. Jackie wonders if the novel will be too busy for its own good, and that’s a possibility; but I’m optimistic, and I know I’ll be reading this book on its publication.

Anticipation rating: *****

===

So, out of eleven books, there are four I will definitely be reading (Chinaman, When God Was a Rabbit, The Coincidence Engine, and The Tiger’s Wife); several more I may read at some point; and, though not all the extracts are to my taste (nor would I expect them to be), there’s nothing that makes me go, ‘what were they thinking?’ I think this is a list which genuinely has something for everyone. Good work.

John Galsworthy, ‘Spindleberries’ (1918)

12th January 2011 / / 1 Comment

Scudamore, a celebrated painter, reflects on his memories of his cousin, Alicia, who, he feels, has needlessly squandered the opportunities that life brought her way. I’ve got to admit that I don’t know what to make of this story — it is not clear to me whether Galsworthy intends his readers to approve of Scudamore’s stance or to have more sympathy for Alicia. It frustrates me to have to leave a story unreviewed like this, but I have nothing else to say about the piece.

The bestselling books in the week I was born

10th January 2011 / / 1 Comment

There’s a page here on BibliOZ.com that lets you look up the New York Times bestselling books in the week you were born. I tried it out, and this is what I got:

Fiction bestsellers

1. James A. Michener, The Covenant
2. Ken Follett, The Key to Rebecca
3. Stephen King, Firestarter
4. E.L. Doctorow, Loon Lake
5. Cynthia Freeman, Come Pour the Wine
6. Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, The Fifth Horseman
7. Sidney Sheldon, Rage of Angels
8. Lawrence Sanders, The Tenth Commandment
9. Irving Wallace, The Second Lady
10. Helen MacInnes, The Hidden Target
11. Jean M. Auel, The Clan of the Cave Bear
12. Danielle Steel, The Ring
13. Robert Elegant, Manchu
14. J.R.R. Tolkien, Unfinished Tales
15. Irving Stone, The Origin

Non-Fiction bestsellers

1. Carl Sagan, Cosmos
2. Douglas R. Casey, Crisis Investing
3. Woody Allen, Side Effects
4. Wayne Dyer, The Sky’s the Limit
5. Craig Claiborne with Pierre Franey, Craig Claiborne’s Gourmet Diet
6. William Manchester, Goodbye, Darkness
7. Roger Tory Peterson, A Field Guide to the Birds
8. Ingrid Bergman and Alan Burgess, Ingrid Bergman: My Story
9. Betty Crocker’s International Cookbook
10. Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great
11. Studs Terkel, American Dreams
12. Milton & Rose Friedman, Free to Choose
13. Shelley Winters, Shelley: Also Known as Shirley
14. Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons
15. Robert G. Allem, Nothing Down

There are many books there that I don’t know, which I suppose is only to be expected, given that these bestseller lists are American and I’m not. But I do have a few thoughts:

  • Even though it’s the fiction list that intrinsically interests me most, having Carl Sagan’s Cosmos at the top of the non-fiction list is pretty cool.
  • I have never heard of James Michener or The Covenant, but I looked it up; and, as it’s over 1,200 pages long in paperback, it is unlikely to go on my TBR pile any time soon.
  • I didn’t realise Ken Follett had been writing for so long.
  • I’ve only actually heard of four of these books (Cosmos, Firestarter, The Clan of the Cave Bear, and Unfinished Tales), but not read any of them. so that preculdes me from being able to say anything interesting about them. Ho-hum.

Literary Blog Hop: a brief reading history

7th January 2011 / / 10 Comments

Literary Blog Hop

The latest Literary Blog Hop question asks: How did you find your way to reading literary fiction and nonfiction? This is an interesting question for me, because, for a long time, I didn’t – or, perhaps, I did, but didn’t think of it that way.

I’m not sure that my school studies put me off the idea of ‘literature’, but they certainly got me out of the habit of reading it: closed-book exams were my principle reason for not studying English Literature at A Level (though I did study English Language, and went on to read History at university, so I didn’t drift too far away). As a result, there was – and remains – a big literary classics-shaped hole in my reading history.

What I was reading as a teenager was mostly fantasy (and, to a lesser extent, science fiction). A key turning-point came at the age of seventeen, when I found a cheap copy of the Clute-Grant Encyclopedia of Fantasy in a book sale; it changed my reading world, because it advocated a different conception of fantasy from the one to which I was used, one that cut across types of fiction that looked dissimilar on the surface – one that emphasised imaginative quality. I thought, yes, this is describing what I want to read.

Fast-forward several years to university, and my dissertation on Victorian and Edwardian children’s fantasy as a source for the history of childhood, where I tried to apply some of the theoretical concepts that I knew from reading the Encyclopedia. Looking back at that dissertation now, I can see the seeds of my style as a reviewer. I started reviewing books online in 2004, again mostly (exclusively, to begin with) sf and fantasy, now with some horror added to the mix. My guiding principle was that these genres deserved to be taken seriously (I must acknowledge the influence of John Grant’s reviews for Infinity Plus, which had a big influence on my approach and style).

In 2006, I began writing for Laura Hird’s website, my first venue as a reviewer that didn’t have an sf/fantasy focus. I barely had to change my approach, and that should have been the first hint of what I’ve only really come to realise in the past couple of years, since I started this blog: that what I value most in my reading is not a particular type of work, but a set of qualities – good writing, a strong sense of craft, something out-of-the-ordinary – and that I can find those qualities in many kinds of books. That’s my idea of ‘literary’, and I wouldn’t want it any other way now.

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