Guardian top 10 book lists, part 5 (July 2013 onwards)
This is a continuation of the topic Guardian top 10 book lists, part 4 (Sept. 2011 onwards).
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1Cynfelyn
A word of housekeeping. The original content is the Guardian's. You can get to the original column by clicking on the word "Guardian" at the top of each column. Below The Line comments tended to be opened for articles on adult books, and not opened for articles on children's books. I tend to note half a dozen of the titles mentioned BTL.
For what it's worth, I get the impression that c.2012-c.2016 was the golden age of the column, with an adult and a children's column most weeks. But remember that it is often a bit of fluff, written by UK or Anglosphere authors with a new book to push, with the top ten titles and the BTL comments also heavily weighted to the UK / Anglosphere.
Finally, this is not a private walled garden; please feel free to post bouquets and brickbats.
For what it's worth, I get the impression that c.2012-c.2016 was the golden age of the column, with an adult and a children's column most weeks. But remember that it is often a bit of fluff, written by UK or Anglosphere authors with a new book to push, with the top ten titles and the BTL comments also heavily weighted to the UK / Anglosphere.
Finally, this is not a private walled garden; please feel free to post bouquets and brickbats.
2Cynfelyn
Paul Wilson (2)'s top 10 books about disability.
Guardian, 2013-07-03.
"Great books take us where we haven't been, illuminate dark corners and leave our own familiar world subtly changed, as if its axis has been marginally tilted. But despite literature's fervour to explore the far reaches of human experience, disability is for the most part disregarded, or at best pushed to the margins. Disabled protagonists are few and far between.
"In my latest book, Mouse and the Cossacks, Mouse is a young girl who hasn't spoken for four years. She is an elective mute. She is also the narrator of the novel, through whose eyes and ears ("My ears work fine, it's just my voice that doesn't work") we come to understand not only her world but that of the perplexing old man whose farmhouse she and her mother are renting, and her young neighbour who has a learning disability. Of my previous novels, Someone to watch over me, Do white whales sing at the edge of the world? and Noah, Noah all feature characters with a learning disability, and The visiting angel is based in part on my experience of working for the Richmond Fellowship in mental health therapeutic communities.
1. Harper Lee, To kill a mockingbird.
Although the three children, Scout, Jem and Dill, are increasingly upset by the community's prejudice towards Tom Robinson, the black man being defended by Scout's father against an unjust accusation of rape, they themselves exhibit a similar prejudice towards their neighbour, Boo Radley, a man with a learning disability. Hidden away behind his front door, Boo Radley exerts a powerful hold over the children's imaginations until his own brief and dignified appearance centre-stage towards the end of the novel.
2. John Steinbeck, Of mice and men.
In migrant farmworkers George and Lennie, Steinbeck creates a touching but ill-fated friendship between two very different men clinging to their piece of the American dream. Although Lennie serves largely as a metaphor for the death of innocence in a hardened, Depression-era America, he also sheds light on the way that learning disability can be exploited unless it is nurtured and feared because it is "different".
3. William Faulkner, The sound and the fury.
The first 60-page section of Faulkner's landmark novel are presented through the eyes of Benji Compson, a man with a profound learning disability. In a shift away from the realist fiction of Dickens and Hardy, this is a spectacularly brave attempt to see the world through the eyes of someone whose disability brought such shame on the family that when his condition became apparent he was stripped of his original Christian name so as not to dishonour the uncle he was originally named after.
4. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick.
There's an ongoing debate in disability politics over to what extent disability should be seen as a deficit or as a difference. Melville's classic sticks rigidly to the former view, but creates a memorable tale of would-be revenge sought by the one-legged Captain Ahab against his nemesis, the whale.
5. Mark Haddon, The curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Haddon's is a remarkable act of ventriloquism. Illuminating the difference that is an autistic mind, he allows us to do what Scout's father, Atticus, encourages his children to do in To kill a mockingbird – to walk around for a while in another person's shoes to see the world as they see it.
6. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The secret garden.
The secret garden made a great impression on me when I read it as a child. Published in 1911, its central character, Mary Lennox, befriends Colin, a boy who uses a wheelchair and, never venturing outside, is in every sense an "invalid". With the help of young Dickon, they bring back to life not only Colin but the "secret garden" once loved by Colin's mother.
7. Albert Camus, The first man.
Serving as a bridge between my fiction and non-fiction choices is the autobiographical novel of Camus's childhood spent in an impoverished district of Algiers, the draft of which was found in the wreckage of the car crash in which he died. Camus's illiterate and deaf mother, who worked as a cleaning woman, features prominently in the novel, as does his deep attachment to her. The football-loving Camus and his friends stage their games in the grounds of the Home for Disabled Veterans. Camus, who remained loyal to the poor, the sick, the deformed and dispossessed, remarked that, "Poverty prevented me from judging that all was well under the sun and in history".
8. Elizabeth McCracken, The giant's house.
If other people suddenly discovered they could fly, would my flightlessness make me disabled? Disability, as opposed to impairment, is so often a social construct and it's this that can make it so isolating. In McCracken's book, James Carlson Sweatt grows to be over eight feet tall, and the way his height both is and isn't a disability creates a luminous offbeat story of love between him and unassuming librarian Peggy Cort.
9. John Irving, A son of the circus.
Irving isn't shy of writing about physical difference (Owen Meany, Patrick Wallingford, Billy, the bisexual narrator of In one person). In A Son of the Circus, he explores the challenges of achondroplasia, circus life and poverty in a beautiful hymn of Dickensian intricacy which opens boldly with the line, "Usually, the dwarfs kept bringing him back"' but never descends into either voyeurism or pathos.
10. Andrew Solomon, Far from the tree.
Published earlier this year after 10 years of research, Solomon's mammoth tome offers stunning insights into what it is to raise children who are different to yourself. With chapters on Down's Syndrome, deafness, disability, autism, dwarfism and schizophrenia, built around hundreds of interviews with parents, it is humane and deeply moving.
------
Half a dozen BTL comments and recommendations:
Carson McCullers, The heart is a lonely hunter.
Keri Hulme, The bone people. "Profound deafness and social disability caused by abuse. Maoritanga is central and the author Keri Hulme is part-Maori. Won the (then) Booker Prize."
Lewis Wolpert, Malignant sadness. "the best non-fiction book on depression there is."
Philippe Djiann, Betty Blue. "the most visceral account of the quiet catastrophe of the slow descent into madness."
"In terms of Mark Haddon's output, I think if anything I prefer his screenplay for Coming down the mountain, a wonderfully sensitive account of the ripples sent out when there's someone in the family with a disability. ... I'm guessing One flew over the cuckoo's nest is left out because it's too obvious. And of the classics, including Catch 22 would make for interesting discussion."
Elizabeth Flock, Inside I'm screaming. "written as a memoir of someone experiencing a breakdown and being committed as a result - a good read."
Guardian, 2013-07-03.
"Great books take us where we haven't been, illuminate dark corners and leave our own familiar world subtly changed, as if its axis has been marginally tilted. But despite literature's fervour to explore the far reaches of human experience, disability is for the most part disregarded, or at best pushed to the margins. Disabled protagonists are few and far between.
"In my latest book, Mouse and the Cossacks, Mouse is a young girl who hasn't spoken for four years. She is an elective mute. She is also the narrator of the novel, through whose eyes and ears ("My ears work fine, it's just my voice that doesn't work") we come to understand not only her world but that of the perplexing old man whose farmhouse she and her mother are renting, and her young neighbour who has a learning disability. Of my previous novels, Someone to watch over me, Do white whales sing at the edge of the world? and Noah, Noah all feature characters with a learning disability, and The visiting angel is based in part on my experience of working for the Richmond Fellowship in mental health therapeutic communities.
1. Harper Lee, To kill a mockingbird.
Although the three children, Scout, Jem and Dill, are increasingly upset by the community's prejudice towards Tom Robinson, the black man being defended by Scout's father against an unjust accusation of rape, they themselves exhibit a similar prejudice towards their neighbour, Boo Radley, a man with a learning disability. Hidden away behind his front door, Boo Radley exerts a powerful hold over the children's imaginations until his own brief and dignified appearance centre-stage towards the end of the novel.
2. John Steinbeck, Of mice and men.
In migrant farmworkers George and Lennie, Steinbeck creates a touching but ill-fated friendship between two very different men clinging to their piece of the American dream. Although Lennie serves largely as a metaphor for the death of innocence in a hardened, Depression-era America, he also sheds light on the way that learning disability can be exploited unless it is nurtured and feared because it is "different".
3. William Faulkner, The sound and the fury.
The first 60-page section of Faulkner's landmark novel are presented through the eyes of Benji Compson, a man with a profound learning disability. In a shift away from the realist fiction of Dickens and Hardy, this is a spectacularly brave attempt to see the world through the eyes of someone whose disability brought such shame on the family that when his condition became apparent he was stripped of his original Christian name so as not to dishonour the uncle he was originally named after.
4. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick.
There's an ongoing debate in disability politics over to what extent disability should be seen as a deficit or as a difference. Melville's classic sticks rigidly to the former view, but creates a memorable tale of would-be revenge sought by the one-legged Captain Ahab against his nemesis, the whale.
5. Mark Haddon, The curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Haddon's is a remarkable act of ventriloquism. Illuminating the difference that is an autistic mind, he allows us to do what Scout's father, Atticus, encourages his children to do in To kill a mockingbird – to walk around for a while in another person's shoes to see the world as they see it.
6. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The secret garden.
The secret garden made a great impression on me when I read it as a child. Published in 1911, its central character, Mary Lennox, befriends Colin, a boy who uses a wheelchair and, never venturing outside, is in every sense an "invalid". With the help of young Dickon, they bring back to life not only Colin but the "secret garden" once loved by Colin's mother.
7. Albert Camus, The first man.
Serving as a bridge between my fiction and non-fiction choices is the autobiographical novel of Camus's childhood spent in an impoverished district of Algiers, the draft of which was found in the wreckage of the car crash in which he died. Camus's illiterate and deaf mother, who worked as a cleaning woman, features prominently in the novel, as does his deep attachment to her. The football-loving Camus and his friends stage their games in the grounds of the Home for Disabled Veterans. Camus, who remained loyal to the poor, the sick, the deformed and dispossessed, remarked that, "Poverty prevented me from judging that all was well under the sun and in history".
8. Elizabeth McCracken, The giant's house.
If other people suddenly discovered they could fly, would my flightlessness make me disabled? Disability, as opposed to impairment, is so often a social construct and it's this that can make it so isolating. In McCracken's book, James Carlson Sweatt grows to be over eight feet tall, and the way his height both is and isn't a disability creates a luminous offbeat story of love between him and unassuming librarian Peggy Cort.
9. John Irving, A son of the circus.
Irving isn't shy of writing about physical difference (Owen Meany, Patrick Wallingford, Billy, the bisexual narrator of In one person). In A Son of the Circus, he explores the challenges of achondroplasia, circus life and poverty in a beautiful hymn of Dickensian intricacy which opens boldly with the line, "Usually, the dwarfs kept bringing him back"' but never descends into either voyeurism or pathos.
10. Andrew Solomon, Far from the tree.
Published earlier this year after 10 years of research, Solomon's mammoth tome offers stunning insights into what it is to raise children who are different to yourself. With chapters on Down's Syndrome, deafness, disability, autism, dwarfism and schizophrenia, built around hundreds of interviews with parents, it is humane and deeply moving.
------
Half a dozen BTL comments and recommendations:
Carson McCullers, The heart is a lonely hunter.
Keri Hulme, The bone people. "Profound deafness and social disability caused by abuse. Maoritanga is central and the author Keri Hulme is part-Maori. Won the (then) Booker Prize."
Lewis Wolpert, Malignant sadness. "the best non-fiction book on depression there is."
Philippe Djiann, Betty Blue. "the most visceral account of the quiet catastrophe of the slow descent into madness."
"In terms of Mark Haddon's output, I think if anything I prefer his screenplay for Coming down the mountain, a wonderfully sensitive account of the ripples sent out when there's someone in the family with a disability. ... I'm guessing One flew over the cuckoo's nest is left out because it's too obvious. And of the classics, including Catch 22 would make for interesting discussion."
Elizabeth Flock, Inside I'm screaming. "written as a memoir of someone experiencing a breakdown and being committed as a result - a good read."
3sarahemmm
Cynfelyn, thanks so much for this huge effort! I avidly read the posts and add some to my TBR list.
BTW, are you from Ceredigion?
BTW, are you from Ceredigion?
4Cynfelyn
>3 sarahemmm:: Thanks for the thanks, but (after an initial attack of over-enthusiasm) it's only one a day, and even then not every day. And with the radio on the computer, there's always something else on at the same time: currently Michael Rosen talking to Michael Morpurgo on BBC Radio 4's 'Word of Mouth'.
I've lived over two-thirds of my life in Ceredigion, but no, not from Ceredigion. Although there are an awful lot of incomers, Ceredigion remains one of those places where to be a local you need to be able to trace your people back locally seven generations. Okay, I'm stereotyping outrageously, but based on the mediaeval Welsh law defining a freeman as opposed to a bondsman. I hope my library and I are reasonably naturalised, though I'll never be better than a L2 Welsh speaker and reader.
I've lived over two-thirds of my life in Ceredigion, but no, not from Ceredigion. Although there are an awful lot of incomers, Ceredigion remains one of those places where to be a local you need to be able to trace your people back locally seven generations. Okay, I'm stereotyping outrageously, but based on the mediaeval Welsh law defining a freeman as opposed to a bondsman. I hope my library and I are reasonably naturalised, though I'll never be better than a L2 Welsh speaker and reader.
5Cynfelyn
Jonathan Grimwood's top 10 French Revolution novels.
Guardian, 2013-07-10.
"We know how the French Revolution begins, in proclamations and riots and the storming of the Bastille, how it develops into murderous terror, and ends with the rise of Napoleon; or perhaps, years later, on the battlefield of Waterloo. How the later restoration of the Bourbons (who, as Talleyrand famously put it, learned nothing and forgot nothing) simply led to the Revolution of 1848, which led to Napoleon III and history repeating itself as farce. At least that's what we know if we take our history from novels!
"There is – for me at least – something haunting about historical novels that deal with points where we say the world altered its course. My own novel, The last banquet, opens in the early 1700s with Jean-Marie d'Aumout sitting beside a dung heap in the ruins of his father's chateau eating beetles, and ends after endless feasts, in the shadow of the Terror. In between it takes in Voltaire and de Sade, European and American politics and Jean-Marie's obsession, food.
"The novels below, given in date order, because anything else effectively announces this chalk is better than that cheese, deal with the changing of the world, why it changed, how it changed, and what came after."
1. Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Les liaisons dangereuses.
Morality tale, shocking exposé of aristocratic corruption or tragic love story? De Laclos' scandalous 1782 novel featuring Vicomte de Valmont, the Marquise de Merteuil and perversity at war with innocence exposed to an avid French public the squalor and malice of court life (and may or may not have helped bring the revolution closer). In 1985 Christopher Hampton reworked it as play and it's been the basis for several films.
2. Charles Dickens, A tale of two cities.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …" One of the most famous historical novels ever written, and, with 200m copies sold, probably the most successful, Dickens's dour 1859 novel unfolds the story of dissolute English barrister Sydney Carton and honest French aristocrat Charles Darnay, doppelgängers, whose fates become fatally linked. 'Les Mis' without the songs (Les Mis is the 1832 Paris Rebellion or it would be on this list.)
3. Baroness Emma Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Sir Percy Blakeney has a secret from his estranged French wife Marguerite and the rest of high society. He's a handkerchief-waving wealthy fop to those who don't know him; to the very few who do he's the steely-eyed leader of a group of English aristocrats dedicated to saving their French counterparts from the dreaded guillotine. Orczy's 1905 bestseller was followed by other Pimpernel titles, none quite so wonderfully ridiculous, overheated or successful as the original.
4. Joseph Conrad, The duel.
"To the surprise and admiration of their fellows, two officers, like insane artists trying to gild refined gold or paint the lily, pursued a private contest through the years of universal carnage …" Based on a real series of duels fought with swords, rapiers and sabres over the course of 19 years beginning in 1794, Conrad's 1908 novella brilliantly mirrors the absurd rise and fall of Napoleon. Ridley Scott's 1977 film is almost as good.
5. Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche.
The existential potboiler is a pretty niche genre, but Sabatini nails it perfectly with this 1921 historical novel. Andre-Louis Moreau is a swashbuckling young lawyer who becomes a revolutionary to avenge a friend's murder, using his dead friend's words to whip up the crowd, and promptly finds himself on the run. The novel's opening line, "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad," is carved on Sabatini's grave.
6. Daphne du Maurier, The glass blowers.
Most novels of the French Revolution take place at the centre, in Paris or Versailles. Du Maurier's heartfelt 1963 reworking of her family history concentrates on the War in the Vendée, the brutal royalist counter-revolution that raged in the mid 1790s. Told through the eyes of Sophie Busson, the daughter of a master craftsman, it deals with a family excitedly swept up in revolution and the heartache of trying to rebuild life afterwards.
7. Anthony Burgess, Napoleon symphony.
Bad breath and genius … Structured around Beethoven's 'Eroica', which the composer originally dedicated to Napoleon, believing him to embody the virtues of the French Revolution, Burgess's "misunderstood" 1974 novel in four parts covering Napoleon's early victories, rise to first consul and coronation, empire and fall is obviously an experiment. In what is never quite explained.
8. Hilary Mantel, A place of greater safety.
If you're planning to write the definitive French revolutionary novel then grabbing Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins and Maximilien Robespierre as characters is a good place to start. Mantel's 1992 work introduces them as newly-arrived provincials and uses the originals' own words as dialogue. Although not as great as her later work, the brilliance is already there.
9. Duncan Sprott, Our Lady of the Potatoes.
If Boucher hadn't painted Irish immigrant Marie-Louise O'Murphy naked on a bed when she was fourteen it's unlikely she'd be even a footnote to history. Duncan Sprott's elegant 1995 novel brings the young Irish girl and the tawdry glamour Versailles to life, outlines her rise to Louis XV's mistress and takes her and us through the last days of court life and into revolution.
10. Andrew Miller, Pure.
This 2011 novel folds the corruption of the ancien régime into the corruption of Les Innocents Cemetery in Paris. Andrew Miller has his hero, Breton engineer Jean-Baptiste Baratte, clear the rancid graves as a metaphor for what will have to be cleared when the revolution comes; brilliantly making the political personal for his characters.
------
Half a dozen of the BTL comments and recommendations:
Marquis de Sade, The 120 days of Sodom. "Actually that's a brilliant suggestion. De Sade is always overlooked." "It's almost like he's being punished!"
"Or you could read material from the period itself - instead of flowery fiction? Godwin's Things as they are and Caleb Williams are essential period reading. Caleb Williams was banned in Britain - but Sheridan popularised the piece by producing a stage version under a different name, The iron chest, and sidestepped the censors. The music for The iron chest was by Mozart's chum Stephen Storace."
Leon Garfield, Revolution!. "Why confine ourselves to works for grown-ups?"
François-René de Chateaubriand, Mémoires d'outre-tombe. "Quite a monument of french litterature, and takes place before, during, and after the Revolution. Chateaubriand was a noble, and not precisely a "sans-culotte", but it largely covers the events of the Revolution. His book is considered an expression of the purest classical French style in litterature."
Annemarie Selinko, Désirée.
Anatole France, Les dieux ont soif, or 'The gods will have blood'. "A wonderful, small novel about the Revolution by a member of the Académie Francais. Surprised it doesn't make it straight onto the list."
Guardian, 2013-07-10.
"We know how the French Revolution begins, in proclamations and riots and the storming of the Bastille, how it develops into murderous terror, and ends with the rise of Napoleon; or perhaps, years later, on the battlefield of Waterloo. How the later restoration of the Bourbons (who, as Talleyrand famously put it, learned nothing and forgot nothing) simply led to the Revolution of 1848, which led to Napoleon III and history repeating itself as farce. At least that's what we know if we take our history from novels!
"There is – for me at least – something haunting about historical novels that deal with points where we say the world altered its course. My own novel, The last banquet, opens in the early 1700s with Jean-Marie d'Aumout sitting beside a dung heap in the ruins of his father's chateau eating beetles, and ends after endless feasts, in the shadow of the Terror. In between it takes in Voltaire and de Sade, European and American politics and Jean-Marie's obsession, food.
"The novels below, given in date order, because anything else effectively announces this chalk is better than that cheese, deal with the changing of the world, why it changed, how it changed, and what came after."
1. Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Les liaisons dangereuses.
Morality tale, shocking exposé of aristocratic corruption or tragic love story? De Laclos' scandalous 1782 novel featuring Vicomte de Valmont, the Marquise de Merteuil and perversity at war with innocence exposed to an avid French public the squalor and malice of court life (and may or may not have helped bring the revolution closer). In 1985 Christopher Hampton reworked it as play and it's been the basis for several films.
2. Charles Dickens, A tale of two cities.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …" One of the most famous historical novels ever written, and, with 200m copies sold, probably the most successful, Dickens's dour 1859 novel unfolds the story of dissolute English barrister Sydney Carton and honest French aristocrat Charles Darnay, doppelgängers, whose fates become fatally linked. 'Les Mis' without the songs (Les Mis is the 1832 Paris Rebellion or it would be on this list.)
3. Baroness Emma Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Sir Percy Blakeney has a secret from his estranged French wife Marguerite and the rest of high society. He's a handkerchief-waving wealthy fop to those who don't know him; to the very few who do he's the steely-eyed leader of a group of English aristocrats dedicated to saving their French counterparts from the dreaded guillotine. Orczy's 1905 bestseller was followed by other Pimpernel titles, none quite so wonderfully ridiculous, overheated or successful as the original.
4. Joseph Conrad, The duel.
"To the surprise and admiration of their fellows, two officers, like insane artists trying to gild refined gold or paint the lily, pursued a private contest through the years of universal carnage …" Based on a real series of duels fought with swords, rapiers and sabres over the course of 19 years beginning in 1794, Conrad's 1908 novella brilliantly mirrors the absurd rise and fall of Napoleon. Ridley Scott's 1977 film is almost as good.
5. Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche.
The existential potboiler is a pretty niche genre, but Sabatini nails it perfectly with this 1921 historical novel. Andre-Louis Moreau is a swashbuckling young lawyer who becomes a revolutionary to avenge a friend's murder, using his dead friend's words to whip up the crowd, and promptly finds himself on the run. The novel's opening line, "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad," is carved on Sabatini's grave.
6. Daphne du Maurier, The glass blowers.
Most novels of the French Revolution take place at the centre, in Paris or Versailles. Du Maurier's heartfelt 1963 reworking of her family history concentrates on the War in the Vendée, the brutal royalist counter-revolution that raged in the mid 1790s. Told through the eyes of Sophie Busson, the daughter of a master craftsman, it deals with a family excitedly swept up in revolution and the heartache of trying to rebuild life afterwards.
7. Anthony Burgess, Napoleon symphony.
Bad breath and genius … Structured around Beethoven's 'Eroica', which the composer originally dedicated to Napoleon, believing him to embody the virtues of the French Revolution, Burgess's "misunderstood" 1974 novel in four parts covering Napoleon's early victories, rise to first consul and coronation, empire and fall is obviously an experiment. In what is never quite explained.
8. Hilary Mantel, A place of greater safety.
If you're planning to write the definitive French revolutionary novel then grabbing Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins and Maximilien Robespierre as characters is a good place to start. Mantel's 1992 work introduces them as newly-arrived provincials and uses the originals' own words as dialogue. Although not as great as her later work, the brilliance is already there.
9. Duncan Sprott, Our Lady of the Potatoes.
If Boucher hadn't painted Irish immigrant Marie-Louise O'Murphy naked on a bed when she was fourteen it's unlikely she'd be even a footnote to history. Duncan Sprott's elegant 1995 novel brings the young Irish girl and the tawdry glamour Versailles to life, outlines her rise to Louis XV's mistress and takes her and us through the last days of court life and into revolution.
10. Andrew Miller, Pure.
This 2011 novel folds the corruption of the ancien régime into the corruption of Les Innocents Cemetery in Paris. Andrew Miller has his hero, Breton engineer Jean-Baptiste Baratte, clear the rancid graves as a metaphor for what will have to be cleared when the revolution comes; brilliantly making the political personal for his characters.
------
Half a dozen of the BTL comments and recommendations:
Marquis de Sade, The 120 days of Sodom. "Actually that's a brilliant suggestion. De Sade is always overlooked." "It's almost like he's being punished!"
"Or you could read material from the period itself - instead of flowery fiction? Godwin's Things as they are and Caleb Williams are essential period reading. Caleb Williams was banned in Britain - but Sheridan popularised the piece by producing a stage version under a different name, The iron chest, and sidestepped the censors. The music for The iron chest was by Mozart's chum Stephen Storace."
Leon Garfield, Revolution!. "Why confine ourselves to works for grown-ups?"
François-René de Chateaubriand, Mémoires d'outre-tombe. "Quite a monument of french litterature, and takes place before, during, and after the Revolution. Chateaubriand was a noble, and not precisely a "sans-culotte", but it largely covers the events of the Revolution. His book is considered an expression of the purest classical French style in litterature."
Annemarie Selinko, Désirée.
Anatole France, Les dieux ont soif, or 'The gods will have blood'. "A wonderful, small novel about the Revolution by a member of the Académie Francais. Surprised it doesn't make it straight onto the list."
6Cynfelyn
Kaite O'Reilly's 'Left out: the authors who know disability from inside'.
Guardian, 2013-07-11.
I was disappointed to read Paul Wilson's top 10 books about disability – what a missed opportunity. One of the slogans of the disability rights movement is "Nothing About Us Without Us" - and there was very little "us" in last week's selection.
Since Aristotle, characters with disabilities have appeared in western drama and impairment has long been used in fiction as a metaphor for mortality, evil, pity – the human condition. However, few of the writers have been disabled themselves, and although I don't believe you have to experience something in order to write about it (I'm a female playwright who writes male characters), a selection that favours books written by non-disabled writers misses far too much.
Many depictions of disabled characters are outdated, incorrect, and far from the reality of living with a physical, sensory, or intellectual impairment. They are invariably rooted in social norms, defining (and often devaluing) the individual according to their medical diagnosis. Apart from the frustration of such limiting characterisation, and inaccuracies being peddled as truth, there is another, more sinister trend – the rising incidence of disability hate crime. Disabled investigative journalist Katherine Quarmby's eye-opening Scapegoat : why we are failing disabled people is a timely study of the root causes of violent crime against people who are "different", a sobering wake-up to western society's ingrained prejudices and our limited definition of what is "normal".
Which is another good reason for exploring work written from within difference rather than outside it. Writers who embrace a disability identity, and the unique perspective their impairment or condition gives them, can radically change other worldviews, too. Anne Finger's Call me Ahab (University of Nebraska Press) is a fantastic collection of stories, reinventing the lives of figures from art and literature we think we know: Vincent van Gogh holed up in a New York hotel, surviving on food stamps; Helen Keller and Frida Kahlo merging as one in a Hollywood flick …. It's a prose "crip" version of Carol Ann Duffy's The world's wife with the same wit and verve, but it goes further, challenging how we understand and look at our own and other bodies.
Or how about Clare Allan's multi-award winning Poppy Shakespeare, brilliantly subverting notions of sanity as she terrifyingly dismantles our mental health system? Informed by her 10 years in a mental health unit, she explodes the myth of the madwoman in the attic, revealing how we are complicit in our society's social constructs. Such work is illuminating, making me perceive existence in a different way.
Characters with different perspectives have been fashionable for years, usually those with intellectual impairments, or who are on the spectrum. How extraordinary, then, to engage with such material, not from an outsider's imagined posturing, but from the embodied experience of being in a disabling world?
Look me in the eye : my life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison (Ebury), Daniel Tammet's memoir Born on a blue day or almost anything written by Donna Williams will bring more clarity and revelation than any Curious incident of a dog in the night-time ever could. Temple Grandin's extraordinary Animals in translation : using the mysteries of autism to decode animal behaviour is a prime example of how radical this work can be. As professor of animal science at Colorado State University, she uses her autism to empathise with and understand how animals feel.
And there are so many more – "Poet of cripples" Jim Ferris's The hospital poems (Main Street Rag), Christopher Nolan's Dam-burst of dreams (Littlehampton Book Services), Terry Galloway's acerbic Mean little deaf queer (Beacon Press), Beauty is a verb : the new poetry of disability, edited by Sheila Black, Jennifer Bartlett and Michael Northern … I could go on and on. But what books would you suggest?
------
Wow. I think that's the first time the Guardian's top ten books column has linked to a sort of 'Right of reply' / rebuttal article on the Guardian's books blog column, and it's well worth re-posting here. I see the books blog contains "about" 7,465 articles, dated 2006-2021; maybe skimming through it would be a worthwhile future project.
Half a dozen comments and recommendations from the only nineteen BTL messages:
Fit to work : poets against Atos "(A) project featuring work by many of the UK's leading disabled poets writing openly, honestly, and at times with a suitable degree of anger, about what it means to be disabled in today's society, which recently won the Morning Star's Activism in Poetry award".
(Apparantly not so much a publication as a database, if it still exists. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/522133 might be somewhere an interested party might start).
Rahila Gupta, Don't wake me : the ballad of Nihal Armstrong.
"Two fictional accounts: Sylvia Plath's The bell jar is a brilliant account of what it feels like to suffer from 'mental-illness', and an indictment of the treatment of those so defined - which is still very relevant today. Kafka's Metamorphosis is a fictional examination of 'otherness' and prejudice - and I imagine Kafka identified powerfully with his main protagonist."
"If I where to nominate a book, then it would be Rosemary Sutcliff's The eagle of the Ninth, alongside her autobiography Blue Hills remembered. There is so much that is personal to her in Eagle, and I couldn't imagine an author like Simon Scarrow writing about a disabled soldier."
Joanne Greenberg, I never promised you a rose garden. "a semi-autobiographical novel that has stuck with me for a number of years as a small, illuminating light into the sometimes shadowed world of mental illness."
"A book I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned here is The diving bell and the butterfly. Once read, never forgotten. I can't listen to the Beatles 'A day in the life' without thinking of it."
Guardian, 2013-07-11.
I was disappointed to read Paul Wilson's top 10 books about disability – what a missed opportunity. One of the slogans of the disability rights movement is "Nothing About Us Without Us" - and there was very little "us" in last week's selection.
Since Aristotle, characters with disabilities have appeared in western drama and impairment has long been used in fiction as a metaphor for mortality, evil, pity – the human condition. However, few of the writers have been disabled themselves, and although I don't believe you have to experience something in order to write about it (I'm a female playwright who writes male characters), a selection that favours books written by non-disabled writers misses far too much.
Many depictions of disabled characters are outdated, incorrect, and far from the reality of living with a physical, sensory, or intellectual impairment. They are invariably rooted in social norms, defining (and often devaluing) the individual according to their medical diagnosis. Apart from the frustration of such limiting characterisation, and inaccuracies being peddled as truth, there is another, more sinister trend – the rising incidence of disability hate crime. Disabled investigative journalist Katherine Quarmby's eye-opening Scapegoat : why we are failing disabled people is a timely study of the root causes of violent crime against people who are "different", a sobering wake-up to western society's ingrained prejudices and our limited definition of what is "normal".
Which is another good reason for exploring work written from within difference rather than outside it. Writers who embrace a disability identity, and the unique perspective their impairment or condition gives them, can radically change other worldviews, too. Anne Finger's Call me Ahab (University of Nebraska Press) is a fantastic collection of stories, reinventing the lives of figures from art and literature we think we know: Vincent van Gogh holed up in a New York hotel, surviving on food stamps; Helen Keller and Frida Kahlo merging as one in a Hollywood flick …. It's a prose "crip" version of Carol Ann Duffy's The world's wife with the same wit and verve, but it goes further, challenging how we understand and look at our own and other bodies.
Or how about Clare Allan's multi-award winning Poppy Shakespeare, brilliantly subverting notions of sanity as she terrifyingly dismantles our mental health system? Informed by her 10 years in a mental health unit, she explodes the myth of the madwoman in the attic, revealing how we are complicit in our society's social constructs. Such work is illuminating, making me perceive existence in a different way.
Characters with different perspectives have been fashionable for years, usually those with intellectual impairments, or who are on the spectrum. How extraordinary, then, to engage with such material, not from an outsider's imagined posturing, but from the embodied experience of being in a disabling world?
Look me in the eye : my life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison (Ebury), Daniel Tammet's memoir Born on a blue day or almost anything written by Donna Williams will bring more clarity and revelation than any Curious incident of a dog in the night-time ever could. Temple Grandin's extraordinary Animals in translation : using the mysteries of autism to decode animal behaviour is a prime example of how radical this work can be. As professor of animal science at Colorado State University, she uses her autism to empathise with and understand how animals feel.
And there are so many more – "Poet of cripples" Jim Ferris's The hospital poems (Main Street Rag), Christopher Nolan's Dam-burst of dreams (Littlehampton Book Services), Terry Galloway's acerbic Mean little deaf queer (Beacon Press), Beauty is a verb : the new poetry of disability, edited by Sheila Black, Jennifer Bartlett and Michael Northern … I could go on and on. But what books would you suggest?
------
Wow. I think that's the first time the Guardian's top ten books column has linked to a sort of 'Right of reply' / rebuttal article on the Guardian's books blog column, and it's well worth re-posting here. I see the books blog contains "about" 7,465 articles, dated 2006-2021; maybe skimming through it would be a worthwhile future project.
Half a dozen comments and recommendations from the only nineteen BTL messages:
Fit to work : poets against Atos "(A) project featuring work by many of the UK's leading disabled poets writing openly, honestly, and at times with a suitable degree of anger, about what it means to be disabled in today's society, which recently won the Morning Star's Activism in Poetry award".
(Apparantly not so much a publication as a database, if it still exists. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/522133 might be somewhere an interested party might start).
Rahila Gupta, Don't wake me : the ballad of Nihal Armstrong.
"Two fictional accounts: Sylvia Plath's The bell jar is a brilliant account of what it feels like to suffer from 'mental-illness', and an indictment of the treatment of those so defined - which is still very relevant today. Kafka's Metamorphosis is a fictional examination of 'otherness' and prejudice - and I imagine Kafka identified powerfully with his main protagonist."
"If I where to nominate a book, then it would be Rosemary Sutcliff's The eagle of the Ninth, alongside her autobiography Blue Hills remembered. There is so much that is personal to her in Eagle, and I couldn't imagine an author like Simon Scarrow writing about a disabled soldier."
Joanne Greenberg, I never promised you a rose garden. "a semi-autobiographical novel that has stuck with me for a number of years as a small, illuminating light into the sometimes shadowed world of mental illness."
"A book I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned here is The diving bell and the butterfly. Once read, never forgotten. I can't listen to the Beatles 'A day in the life' without thinking of it."
7sarahemmm
>4 Cynfelyn:
to be a local you need to be able to trace your people back locally seven generations
Oh yes! We moved from the Midlands to Yr Wyddgrug (Mold) in 1967. Locals would start speaking Welsh when we walked into a shop. Now I have lived in Norfolk over 30 years, and it was similar here, though with a lot more incomers, so diluted.
to be a local you need to be able to trace your people back locally seven generations
Oh yes! We moved from the Midlands to Yr Wyddgrug (Mold) in 1967. Locals would start speaking Welsh when we walked into a shop. Now I have lived in Norfolk over 30 years, and it was similar here, though with a lot more incomers, so diluted.
8Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Jeremy Strong's top 10 funniest fictional families.
GuardianM, 2013-07-11.
Jeremy Strong is the author of over 80 children's books, including the series The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog and My Brother's Famous Bottom series. His latest book is My brother's famous bottom gets crowned and he's on the hunt for the Nation's Funniest Kid. The deadline for entries is Friday 19 July and full details of how to enter are at jeremystrong.co.uk/pages/nationsfunniestkid2013.
"It's an odd word - funny. When I was a child and I was talking with friends one of us might say, 'I've got something funny to tell you.' And we'd say back, 'Funny ha ha or funny peculiar?' Because that word, 'funny,' can mean weird, strange, yukky as well as meaning laugh out loud, and it seems to me that most families, no, ALL families are a bit odd! Maybe that's why authors like writing about them so much. Who do you think is the oddest in your family? Be careful, perhaps it's you.
"Most of us love reading about families because we can measure our own families against all those others out there and we laugh and cry and grumble and get angry and split our sides as we read about them and we think - I'd never be like that family! But in truth we are probably more like them than we'd like to admit, so watch out."
1. Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾.
One of the most famous and funniest families in Britain. Adrian Mole has been tickling us with his frustrated life and unfulfilled ambitions for years. Sue Townsend has a way of picking out the tiniest details and magnifying them until they gigantic proportions. Bliss.
2. A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh and The house at Pooh Corner.
Ok, so they are not exactly a "proper" family but Christopher Robin's toy animals always feel like a family. Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Tigger, Kanga and Roo have delighted readers since the 1930s. The stories are warm and funny to both adults and children. My two favourites both centre around Eeyore - playing pooh-sticks and getting Tigger down from the tree.
3. Louise Rennison, The Georgia Nicolson diaries.
With titles like Angus, thongs and full frontal snogging and Knocked out by my Nunga-Nunga's, Lousie Rennison took us by storm. A kind of girly version of Adrian Mole, but with feisty, sparky, irreverent Georgia as heroine, these stories are a great read. Boys - read them! If you want to understand girls all will be revealed!
4. Roald Dahl, Matilda.
Hmmm. It required some hard thinking to decide which of Dahl's funny ha-ha and funny peculiar families I should choose, but the Wormwoods are right up there with the best of them, or should that be the worst? Even Matilda, heroine as she is, has a dark side. Pure Dahl, pure gold.
5. Michael Rosen, Quick! Let's get out of here.
Ok, so this is a book of poems. But many of them are about Michael Rosen's own family and nobody, but nobody writes better family poems than Michael. There are many funny, no, hilarious ones too - the chocolate cake incident, smuggling booty inside the watch and so on. Michael makes the most astute and cringingly correct observations about how we behave with our parents and siblings.
6. Gerald Durrell, My family and other animals.
This is a classic from the 50s and important to me because it kick started the reading habit for me when I was about 13. (I'd stopped more or less, for a couple of years.) It's a beautifully observed account of the time when, as a young boy, Durrell's family moved to Corfu to live. (Sigh! If only....!) Crazy characters, daft dialogue and animals everywhere. It's all true too. Full of warm Mediterranean sunshine and equally warm people.
7. Lauren Child, The Charlie and Lola Series.
Here's something for younger children, but adults will love these stories too. Lauren Child focuses on those small things that happen when we are young and spins wonderfully warm and funny stories out of them, then illustrates them with perfectly matched pictures of her own. (I wish I could draw.)
8. Jeff Kinney, Diary of a wimpy kid.
Greg Heffley and his family is well known to millions around the globe and rightly so, but this family will also be familiar because in many ways it is like so many, with constant internal strife, warfare, coming back together, splitting apart again, sibling treachery and so on. There's laughter on every page of Jeff Kinney's monster success.
9. A. F. Harrold, Fizzlebert Stump.
This is a personal favourite from a relative newcomer on the children's writing scene. A. F. Harrold writes with a very distinctive, unusual and utterly charming voice in this warm and funny tale of the boy who runs away from the circus to join the library. (Yes, you read that correctly!) Meet the lion with rubber teeth and Fish the sea-lion - all part of Fizzlebert Stump's extended family and what a fine family they are too. Fabulous.
10. Allan Ahlberg, Funnybones.
A longstanding series of several titles, Funnybones is the first in line and introduces us to this wonderful collection of skeletons. The story rattles along (sorry!) and is matched with terrific illustrations. Great stuff for a youngster's bedtime story and adults will love reading it out loud. And when that one is finished there are more titles to look forward to.
GuardianM, 2013-07-11.
Jeremy Strong is the author of over 80 children's books, including the series The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog and My Brother's Famous Bottom series. His latest book is My brother's famous bottom gets crowned and he's on the hunt for the Nation's Funniest Kid. The deadline for entries is Friday 19 July and full details of how to enter are at jeremystrong.co.uk/pages/nationsfunniestkid2013.
"It's an odd word - funny. When I was a child and I was talking with friends one of us might say, 'I've got something funny to tell you.' And we'd say back, 'Funny ha ha or funny peculiar?' Because that word, 'funny,' can mean weird, strange, yukky as well as meaning laugh out loud, and it seems to me that most families, no, ALL families are a bit odd! Maybe that's why authors like writing about them so much. Who do you think is the oddest in your family? Be careful, perhaps it's you.
"Most of us love reading about families because we can measure our own families against all those others out there and we laugh and cry and grumble and get angry and split our sides as we read about them and we think - I'd never be like that family! But in truth we are probably more like them than we'd like to admit, so watch out."
1. Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾.
One of the most famous and funniest families in Britain. Adrian Mole has been tickling us with his frustrated life and unfulfilled ambitions for years. Sue Townsend has a way of picking out the tiniest details and magnifying them until they gigantic proportions. Bliss.
2. A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh and The house at Pooh Corner.
Ok, so they are not exactly a "proper" family but Christopher Robin's toy animals always feel like a family. Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Tigger, Kanga and Roo have delighted readers since the 1930s. The stories are warm and funny to both adults and children. My two favourites both centre around Eeyore - playing pooh-sticks and getting Tigger down from the tree.
3. Louise Rennison, The Georgia Nicolson diaries.
With titles like Angus, thongs and full frontal snogging and Knocked out by my Nunga-Nunga's, Lousie Rennison took us by storm. A kind of girly version of Adrian Mole, but with feisty, sparky, irreverent Georgia as heroine, these stories are a great read. Boys - read them! If you want to understand girls all will be revealed!
4. Roald Dahl, Matilda.
Hmmm. It required some hard thinking to decide which of Dahl's funny ha-ha and funny peculiar families I should choose, but the Wormwoods are right up there with the best of them, or should that be the worst? Even Matilda, heroine as she is, has a dark side. Pure Dahl, pure gold.
5. Michael Rosen, Quick! Let's get out of here.
Ok, so this is a book of poems. But many of them are about Michael Rosen's own family and nobody, but nobody writes better family poems than Michael. There are many funny, no, hilarious ones too - the chocolate cake incident, smuggling booty inside the watch and so on. Michael makes the most astute and cringingly correct observations about how we behave with our parents and siblings.
6. Gerald Durrell, My family and other animals.
This is a classic from the 50s and important to me because it kick started the reading habit for me when I was about 13. (I'd stopped more or less, for a couple of years.) It's a beautifully observed account of the time when, as a young boy, Durrell's family moved to Corfu to live. (Sigh! If only....!) Crazy characters, daft dialogue and animals everywhere. It's all true too. Full of warm Mediterranean sunshine and equally warm people.
7. Lauren Child, The Charlie and Lola Series.
Here's something for younger children, but adults will love these stories too. Lauren Child focuses on those small things that happen when we are young and spins wonderfully warm and funny stories out of them, then illustrates them with perfectly matched pictures of her own. (I wish I could draw.)
8. Jeff Kinney, Diary of a wimpy kid.
Greg Heffley and his family is well known to millions around the globe and rightly so, but this family will also be familiar because in many ways it is like so many, with constant internal strife, warfare, coming back together, splitting apart again, sibling treachery and so on. There's laughter on every page of Jeff Kinney's monster success.
9. A. F. Harrold, Fizzlebert Stump.
This is a personal favourite from a relative newcomer on the children's writing scene. A. F. Harrold writes with a very distinctive, unusual and utterly charming voice in this warm and funny tale of the boy who runs away from the circus to join the library. (Yes, you read that correctly!) Meet the lion with rubber teeth and Fish the sea-lion - all part of Fizzlebert Stump's extended family and what a fine family they are too. Fabulous.
10. Allan Ahlberg, Funnybones.
A longstanding series of several titles, Funnybones is the first in line and introduces us to this wonderful collection of skeletons. The story rattles along (sorry!) and is matched with terrific illustrations. Great stuff for a youngster's bedtime story and adults will love reading it out loud. And when that one is finished there are more titles to look forward to.
9Cynfelyn
Daisy Hildyard's top 10 literary works about ancestors
Guardian, 2013-07-17.
"I was thinking about ancestors when I started writing Hunters in the snow. One thing was an odd, old family tree which traced its line back to Neptune, god of the sea. Another was a science book on recently discovered fossilised evidence of a giant fish-like creature, with flippers, from which all mammals are descended.
"I was thinking about how these things relate to each another. I was also thinking about my own family, as everybody does, and the bits of family history I'd picked up or invented.
"I'm keeping my list within an English cultural tradition (and so, as tends to be the way in this culture's genealogies, dead white men feature prominently). I thought that readers might find some interesting ancestral lines between the works I've chosen, some of which slightly push the top 10 boundaries since they are poems or plays, but they fit my line of thinking. The list below goes back in time."
1. Jez Butterworth, Jerusalem.
Caravan-dweller "Rooster Byron" lives off speed, special brew and raw eggs, but his ancestry is majestic. A Byron boy, he says, is born with three things:
"A cloak, and a dagger, and his own teeth. He comes fully equipped. He doesn't need nothing. And when he dies, he lies in the ground like a lump of granite. He don't rot. There's Byron boys buried all over this land, lying in the ground as fresh as they day they was planted. In them's cloaks. With the teeth sharp. Fingernails sharp. And the two black eyes, staring out, sharp as spears. You get close and stare into those black eyes, watch out. Written there is old words that will shake you. Shake you down.
2. Philip Larkin, 'This be the verse'.
This poem is childlike, but knowing and grim, like several generations at once. It begins with a famous line about your Mum and Dad and ends on a cheery note: "Man hands on misery to man/ It deepens like a coastal shelf/ Get out as early as you can/ And don't have any kids yourself."
3. D. H. Lawrence, The rainbow.
At the beginning, Lawrence gives a history of the Brangwen family.
"The Brangwens had lived for generations on the Marsh Farm, in the meadows where the Erewash twisted sluggishly through alder trees, separating Derbyshire from Nottinghamshire. Two miles away, a church tower stood on a hill, the houses of the little country town climbing assiduously up to it. Whenever one of the Brangwens in the fields lifted his head from his work, he saw the church-tower at Ilkeston in the empty sky. So that as he turned again to the horizontal land, he was aware of something standing above him and beyond him in the distance."
Going back, I was surprised to see how short this section was – a couple of pages. In my memory, it was more substantial, setting up and sustaining an ancestral understanding of two novels' worth of Brangwens in The rainbow and Women in love.
4. Charles Dickens, Bleak House.
Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce is a long, bitter and, for its lawyers, pleasingly expensive inheritance suit, "from which no crumb of amusement ever falls". The storyline is a parable about the kind of ancestors we all want, the rich kind, who are probably more likely to leave us scrapping with our brothers and sisters than they are likely to leave us with a fortune.
5. Charles Darwin, On the origin of species.
Near the beginning, Darwin considers what we do not know about our ancestors.
"The laws governing inheritance are quite unknown; no one can say why the same peculiarity in different individuals of the same species, and in individuals of different species, is sometimes inherited and sometimes not so; (or) why the child often reverts in certain characters to its grandfather or grandmother or other much more remote ancestor."
6. John Clare, 'The eternity of nature'.
This poem traces ancestors backward to Adam and Eve, and descendants forward to children still "in the womb of time". But Clare is more interested in a relationship with other living things, which endure for longer than human generations. It could be cliched (the title, which may have been added by early editors, is unpromising), but Clare's anatomical scrutiny gives an ant's-eye view which sees "eternity" in consistency: he mentions a bee's thighs, the five spots inside a cowslip flower; and how a daisy "strikes its little root". These things give the speaker the nerve to write down his poem – "thoughts sung not for fame" – taking an example from another careful observation: "(b)irds, singing lone, fly silent past a crowd".
7. John Aubrey, Brief lives.
This collection of what we would now call biographies is a good read, whether Aubrey is writing on Descartes or Milton or on some now-forgotten bookseller. We learn, for example, that William Harvey, a Renaissance physician who first described how blood circulates, was thought "crack-brained" by many contemporaries; he liked to meditate in a cave; was sleeping with his maid; "did call the modern authors shitt-breeches"; and left Thomas Hobbes £10 in his will.
Aubrey traces his subjects' heritage, sometimes through interesting but mistaken routes. Shakespeare, he says, was a butcher's son, and "when he was a boy he exercised his father's trade, but when he killed a calf, he would do it in a high style, and make a speech".
8. William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part I (around 1597).
This play would seem to promote the inborn nobility of the monarch's blue bloodline, if it were not for the fact that Prince Hal's fat sidekick steals the show.
9. Holinshed, Chronicles.
Shakespeare's history plays are directly descended, or stolen, from Holinshed's huge history. (There's a good version online.) Much of the history is about fighting, and much of the fighting is over the reading of family trees. The chronicles were written by several individuals, and the histories they tell are strange and wide-ranging.
10. The Bible.
The Old Testament, in particular, has many long and boring lists of who begat whom. The Bible is the ancestor to each of the works listed above, and the first or only book that many of our own ancestors were able to read.
------
Only four BTL comments, three to do with the Bible. The other one includes:
"Neil Shubin's Your inner fish, perhaps? His more recent book, The universe within, resonates nicely with Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics, which takes the most universal view possible of our ancestors in following the unspeakable Qfwfq from the big bang onwards."
Guardian, 2013-07-17.
"I was thinking about ancestors when I started writing Hunters in the snow. One thing was an odd, old family tree which traced its line back to Neptune, god of the sea. Another was a science book on recently discovered fossilised evidence of a giant fish-like creature, with flippers, from which all mammals are descended.
"I was thinking about how these things relate to each another. I was also thinking about my own family, as everybody does, and the bits of family history I'd picked up or invented.
"I'm keeping my list within an English cultural tradition (and so, as tends to be the way in this culture's genealogies, dead white men feature prominently). I thought that readers might find some interesting ancestral lines between the works I've chosen, some of which slightly push the top 10 boundaries since they are poems or plays, but they fit my line of thinking. The list below goes back in time."
1. Jez Butterworth, Jerusalem.
Caravan-dweller "Rooster Byron" lives off speed, special brew and raw eggs, but his ancestry is majestic. A Byron boy, he says, is born with three things:
"A cloak, and a dagger, and his own teeth. He comes fully equipped. He doesn't need nothing. And when he dies, he lies in the ground like a lump of granite. He don't rot. There's Byron boys buried all over this land, lying in the ground as fresh as they day they was planted. In them's cloaks. With the teeth sharp. Fingernails sharp. And the two black eyes, staring out, sharp as spears. You get close and stare into those black eyes, watch out. Written there is old words that will shake you. Shake you down.
2. Philip Larkin, 'This be the verse'.
This poem is childlike, but knowing and grim, like several generations at once. It begins with a famous line about your Mum and Dad and ends on a cheery note: "Man hands on misery to man/ It deepens like a coastal shelf/ Get out as early as you can/ And don't have any kids yourself."
3. D. H. Lawrence, The rainbow.
At the beginning, Lawrence gives a history of the Brangwen family.
"The Brangwens had lived for generations on the Marsh Farm, in the meadows where the Erewash twisted sluggishly through alder trees, separating Derbyshire from Nottinghamshire. Two miles away, a church tower stood on a hill, the houses of the little country town climbing assiduously up to it. Whenever one of the Brangwens in the fields lifted his head from his work, he saw the church-tower at Ilkeston in the empty sky. So that as he turned again to the horizontal land, he was aware of something standing above him and beyond him in the distance."
Going back, I was surprised to see how short this section was – a couple of pages. In my memory, it was more substantial, setting up and sustaining an ancestral understanding of two novels' worth of Brangwens in The rainbow and Women in love.
4. Charles Dickens, Bleak House.
Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce is a long, bitter and, for its lawyers, pleasingly expensive inheritance suit, "from which no crumb of amusement ever falls". The storyline is a parable about the kind of ancestors we all want, the rich kind, who are probably more likely to leave us scrapping with our brothers and sisters than they are likely to leave us with a fortune.
5. Charles Darwin, On the origin of species.
Near the beginning, Darwin considers what we do not know about our ancestors.
"The laws governing inheritance are quite unknown; no one can say why the same peculiarity in different individuals of the same species, and in individuals of different species, is sometimes inherited and sometimes not so; (or) why the child often reverts in certain characters to its grandfather or grandmother or other much more remote ancestor."
6. John Clare, 'The eternity of nature'.
This poem traces ancestors backward to Adam and Eve, and descendants forward to children still "in the womb of time". But Clare is more interested in a relationship with other living things, which endure for longer than human generations. It could be cliched (the title, which may have been added by early editors, is unpromising), but Clare's anatomical scrutiny gives an ant's-eye view which sees "eternity" in consistency: he mentions a bee's thighs, the five spots inside a cowslip flower; and how a daisy "strikes its little root". These things give the speaker the nerve to write down his poem – "thoughts sung not for fame" – taking an example from another careful observation: "(b)irds, singing lone, fly silent past a crowd".
7. John Aubrey, Brief lives.
This collection of what we would now call biographies is a good read, whether Aubrey is writing on Descartes or Milton or on some now-forgotten bookseller. We learn, for example, that William Harvey, a Renaissance physician who first described how blood circulates, was thought "crack-brained" by many contemporaries; he liked to meditate in a cave; was sleeping with his maid; "did call the modern authors shitt-breeches"; and left Thomas Hobbes £10 in his will.
Aubrey traces his subjects' heritage, sometimes through interesting but mistaken routes. Shakespeare, he says, was a butcher's son, and "when he was a boy he exercised his father's trade, but when he killed a calf, he would do it in a high style, and make a speech".
8. William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part I (around 1597).
This play would seem to promote the inborn nobility of the monarch's blue bloodline, if it were not for the fact that Prince Hal's fat sidekick steals the show.
9. Holinshed, Chronicles.
Shakespeare's history plays are directly descended, or stolen, from Holinshed's huge history. (There's a good version online.) Much of the history is about fighting, and much of the fighting is over the reading of family trees. The chronicles were written by several individuals, and the histories they tell are strange and wide-ranging.
10. The Bible.
The Old Testament, in particular, has many long and boring lists of who begat whom. The Bible is the ancestor to each of the works listed above, and the first or only book that many of our own ancestors were able to read.
------
Only four BTL comments, three to do with the Bible. The other one includes:
"Neil Shubin's Your inner fish, perhaps? His more recent book, The universe within, resonates nicely with Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics, which takes the most universal view possible of our ancestors in following the unspeakable Qfwfq from the big bang onwards."
10Cynfelyn
Alexandra Strick and Sean Stockdale's top 10 inclusive children's books.
Guardian, 2013-07-19.
Sean Stockdale and Alex Strick are the authors of Max the champion (illustrated by Ros Asquith and published June 2013 by Frances Lincoln), a picture book about a sports-mad little boy, also featuring dozens of subtle visual references to disability and inclusion. Alex Strick works as a consultant to Booktrust and is co-founder of Inclusive Minds and Outside In World, while Sean Stockdale works for Nasen (the National Association of Special Educational Needs).
"We developed Max the Champion after years of bemoaning the absence of inclusive children's books. It's not that there are no good books with disabled characters out there at all, but just that they are very few and far between, and they don't always receive the profile that they deserve. These books are important to ensure that all children feel included, but also to 'usualise' disability and improve understanding.
"So what sort of books are we talking about? Well, for starters, we need books which simply include disabled children naturally in the landscape, alongside non-disabled peers. Children also need to see disabled protagonists, without disability necessarily having to be an 'issue' or the central theme of the book. We need books which counter the myths and stereotypes of the past, books which remind us that it's not just pirates who wear eye patches, that 'disability' does not always mean wheelchairs, and that disabled people aren't either bitter and twisted or saintly objects of pity. We need to gently familiarise people with the 'social model' of disability, which explains that people are only disabled by society and its attitudes, not by the impairments. Finally, we also need books by authors who are disabled themselves. In the case of our own book, we drew on personal experience of disability, but also (crucially, we believe) worked closely with some passionate young disabled people in the planning and editing of the project. We hope our list represents a good starting point, but do also visit www.bookmark.org.uk, www.inclusiveminds.com, www.letterboxlibrary.com and www.childreninthepicture.org.uk for more inclusive book ideas."
1. Mark Chambers, Best friends.
This is a delightful pop-up book which is first and foremost a celebration of friendship and imaginative play, and one of the two children happens to use a wheelchair. What we love here is the sense of vibrancy, equality, friendship and fun. There's also a subtle reminder that wheelchair-users don't spend their lives permanently glued into their chairs – here the boy transfers out to steer a spaceship, his chair parked neatly away at the back of the cockpit.
2. Mary Hoffman & Ros Asquith, The great big book of families.
This list focuses on disability, but children's books should reflect all aspects of our diverse society. This book is a glorious example of how this can be done, and done naturally. It celebrates how every family and individual is unique – families come in every shape, size and structure. Best of all, the illustrations are effortlessly diverse in every sense of the word. The sequel takes a similar approach to the subject of feelings.
3. Carol Thompson, One, two, three … jump.
The most naturally inclusive publisher of books for babies and young children simply has to be Child's Play. Children with eye patches, helmets, walking frames, hearing aids and cochlear implants can all be found having a whale of a time in the pages of their books. Jump takes a simple concept and fuses it with wonderful inclusive images to make something utterly delightful and compelling. The books have a real sense of energy, reflecting the excitement of children as they explore the world through movement.
4. Julia Donaldson, illus. Karen George, Freddie and the fairy.
So far, we've focused on casual inclusivity, but we're not suggesting that one shouldn't also be able to learn something from an inclusive book. This picture book is about a hard of hearing fairy and has a lot to say about deafness (a subject where Julia Donaldson has direct personal experience), but also shares a universal message about the value of communicating effectively and clearly. And it does it all in such a fun way.
5. Michael Foreman, Seal surfer.
This book has been around since the mid 90s and yet remains one of the best examples of how subtle the inclusive elements of a book can be. The exquisite artwork shows a boy and his grandfather befriending a family of seals. One might easily fail to notice that the boy has a wheelchair, crutches and an adapted surfboard. It's one of the books recently chosen by Blackwell Books' Tim Kilmartin for their excellent list of inclusive children's books.
6. Lindsay MacLeod, illus. Stephen Lambert, Mia's magic uncle.
Books need to include disabled adults, too. This book is about a girl and her (young) uncle. He has "spaghetti legs" and often experiences frustration and poor health. Particularly convincing are the descriptions of children asking their embarrassed parents "what is wrong" with Robbie's legs. There is most definitely a place for a book like this, alongside the books in which the disabled character is strong, healthy and happy and books which do not even refer directly to the disability at all.
7. John Boyne, The terrible thing that happened to Barnaby Brocket.
This book, from the author of The boy in the striped pyjamas, is our wild card. It's a rather quirky novel about a young boy who is born defying the laws of gravity – much to the mortification of his painfully "normal" parents who, quite frankly, cannot and will not cope with the humiliation of having a child who is different. What we loved here were the messages about society's perceptions of 'normality' and the desire to correct those who don't fit the norm. We also liked the inclusion of various other diverse characters including a same-sex couple.
8. Lois Keith, A different life.
Unlike most of the books on the list, this one is actually "about" being disabled. It is the first teenage novel I (Alex) remember reading which is both by a disabled author and about a disabled character – and it had a huge impact on me. It's the story of 15-year-old Libby whose life changes dramatically overnight after swimming in the sea on a school trip. She contracts an unspecified illness which leaves her unable to walk. The book tracks Libby's own journey, but also the varied reactions of those around her, including her friends, parents and school.
9. Chrissie Keighery, Whisper.
Deaf protagonists are rare enough, but really rare is a book like this, which reflects the true spectrum of views and experiences of deafness. Whisper lays bare the conflicts and emotions of a teenager and her struggle to come to terms with losing her hearing. It touches on the politics, the choices, the challenges, the attitudes of others and the beauty and power of sign language. Yet it is also immensely readable. Any teenager will empathise with the feelings of insecurity and struggling to find one's own identity, in this case heightened still further by Demi's hearing loss.
10. Sally Gardner, Maggot Moon.
This young adult novel is currently receiving a wealth of awards and accolades – and rightly so. Set against the backdrop of a harsh, dystopian society, it is a highly original tale of self-sacrifice, love and courage against the odds, with a highly memorable (dyslexic) hero. It's extremely harrowing at times, and some of the colourful language may jar for some, but it's an extraordinary read. It doesn't just help to dispel some of the myths about dyslexia – incidentally, Gardner has dyslexia – it is also a powerful exploration of what it means to stand up for what you believe in.
------
No. 1 does not appear to be on LT yet, the first time I have had to say that in a very long time, so the link is to a university library copy.
This column was not originally published as a 'Children's top ten', probably so they could open the BTL comments. As it turns out, there were only four comments, three of them general messages of praise for the column, and the fourth pushing the commenter's own book.
Guardian, 2013-07-19.
Sean Stockdale and Alex Strick are the authors of Max the champion (illustrated by Ros Asquith and published June 2013 by Frances Lincoln), a picture book about a sports-mad little boy, also featuring dozens of subtle visual references to disability and inclusion. Alex Strick works as a consultant to Booktrust and is co-founder of Inclusive Minds and Outside In World, while Sean Stockdale works for Nasen (the National Association of Special Educational Needs).
"We developed Max the Champion after years of bemoaning the absence of inclusive children's books. It's not that there are no good books with disabled characters out there at all, but just that they are very few and far between, and they don't always receive the profile that they deserve. These books are important to ensure that all children feel included, but also to 'usualise' disability and improve understanding.
"So what sort of books are we talking about? Well, for starters, we need books which simply include disabled children naturally in the landscape, alongside non-disabled peers. Children also need to see disabled protagonists, without disability necessarily having to be an 'issue' or the central theme of the book. We need books which counter the myths and stereotypes of the past, books which remind us that it's not just pirates who wear eye patches, that 'disability' does not always mean wheelchairs, and that disabled people aren't either bitter and twisted or saintly objects of pity. We need to gently familiarise people with the 'social model' of disability, which explains that people are only disabled by society and its attitudes, not by the impairments. Finally, we also need books by authors who are disabled themselves. In the case of our own book, we drew on personal experience of disability, but also (crucially, we believe) worked closely with some passionate young disabled people in the planning and editing of the project. We hope our list represents a good starting point, but do also visit www.bookmark.org.uk, www.inclusiveminds.com, www.letterboxlibrary.com and www.childreninthepicture.org.uk for more inclusive book ideas."
1. Mark Chambers, Best friends.
This is a delightful pop-up book which is first and foremost a celebration of friendship and imaginative play, and one of the two children happens to use a wheelchair. What we love here is the sense of vibrancy, equality, friendship and fun. There's also a subtle reminder that wheelchair-users don't spend their lives permanently glued into their chairs – here the boy transfers out to steer a spaceship, his chair parked neatly away at the back of the cockpit.
2. Mary Hoffman & Ros Asquith, The great big book of families.
This list focuses on disability, but children's books should reflect all aspects of our diverse society. This book is a glorious example of how this can be done, and done naturally. It celebrates how every family and individual is unique – families come in every shape, size and structure. Best of all, the illustrations are effortlessly diverse in every sense of the word. The sequel takes a similar approach to the subject of feelings.
3. Carol Thompson, One, two, three … jump.
The most naturally inclusive publisher of books for babies and young children simply has to be Child's Play. Children with eye patches, helmets, walking frames, hearing aids and cochlear implants can all be found having a whale of a time in the pages of their books. Jump takes a simple concept and fuses it with wonderful inclusive images to make something utterly delightful and compelling. The books have a real sense of energy, reflecting the excitement of children as they explore the world through movement.
4. Julia Donaldson, illus. Karen George, Freddie and the fairy.
So far, we've focused on casual inclusivity, but we're not suggesting that one shouldn't also be able to learn something from an inclusive book. This picture book is about a hard of hearing fairy and has a lot to say about deafness (a subject where Julia Donaldson has direct personal experience), but also shares a universal message about the value of communicating effectively and clearly. And it does it all in such a fun way.
5. Michael Foreman, Seal surfer.
This book has been around since the mid 90s and yet remains one of the best examples of how subtle the inclusive elements of a book can be. The exquisite artwork shows a boy and his grandfather befriending a family of seals. One might easily fail to notice that the boy has a wheelchair, crutches and an adapted surfboard. It's one of the books recently chosen by Blackwell Books' Tim Kilmartin for their excellent list of inclusive children's books.
6. Lindsay MacLeod, illus. Stephen Lambert, Mia's magic uncle.
Books need to include disabled adults, too. This book is about a girl and her (young) uncle. He has "spaghetti legs" and often experiences frustration and poor health. Particularly convincing are the descriptions of children asking their embarrassed parents "what is wrong" with Robbie's legs. There is most definitely a place for a book like this, alongside the books in which the disabled character is strong, healthy and happy and books which do not even refer directly to the disability at all.
7. John Boyne, The terrible thing that happened to Barnaby Brocket.
This book, from the author of The boy in the striped pyjamas, is our wild card. It's a rather quirky novel about a young boy who is born defying the laws of gravity – much to the mortification of his painfully "normal" parents who, quite frankly, cannot and will not cope with the humiliation of having a child who is different. What we loved here were the messages about society's perceptions of 'normality' and the desire to correct those who don't fit the norm. We also liked the inclusion of various other diverse characters including a same-sex couple.
8. Lois Keith, A different life.
Unlike most of the books on the list, this one is actually "about" being disabled. It is the first teenage novel I (Alex) remember reading which is both by a disabled author and about a disabled character – and it had a huge impact on me. It's the story of 15-year-old Libby whose life changes dramatically overnight after swimming in the sea on a school trip. She contracts an unspecified illness which leaves her unable to walk. The book tracks Libby's own journey, but also the varied reactions of those around her, including her friends, parents and school.
9. Chrissie Keighery, Whisper.
Deaf protagonists are rare enough, but really rare is a book like this, which reflects the true spectrum of views and experiences of deafness. Whisper lays bare the conflicts and emotions of a teenager and her struggle to come to terms with losing her hearing. It touches on the politics, the choices, the challenges, the attitudes of others and the beauty and power of sign language. Yet it is also immensely readable. Any teenager will empathise with the feelings of insecurity and struggling to find one's own identity, in this case heightened still further by Demi's hearing loss.
10. Sally Gardner, Maggot Moon.
This young adult novel is currently receiving a wealth of awards and accolades – and rightly so. Set against the backdrop of a harsh, dystopian society, it is a highly original tale of self-sacrifice, love and courage against the odds, with a highly memorable (dyslexic) hero. It's extremely harrowing at times, and some of the colourful language may jar for some, but it's an extraordinary read. It doesn't just help to dispel some of the myths about dyslexia – incidentally, Gardner has dyslexia – it is also a powerful exploration of what it means to stand up for what you believe in.
------
No. 1 does not appear to be on LT yet, the first time I have had to say that in a very long time, so the link is to a university library copy.
This column was not originally published as a 'Children's top ten', probably so they could open the BTL comments. As it turns out, there were only four comments, three of them general messages of praise for the column, and the fourth pushing the commenter's own book.
11Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Katherine Rundell's top 10 descriptions of food in fiction.
Guardian, 2013-07-23.
Katherine Rundell grew up in Africa and Europe. Her first book, The girl savage, was born of her love of Zimbabwe and her own childhood there; her second, Rooftoppers, was inspired by summers working in Paris and by night-time trespassing on the rooftops of All Souls College, Oxford. She is currently working on her doctorate alongside an adult novel.
"Writing about food is my favourite part of writing, just as eating is one of my favourite parts of life. As a child, I re-read food scenes for comfort, and for the joy of the keen hunger that they produced, and, once I had learned to cook, for inspiration."
1. Everything Roald Dahl wrote.
I have eaten a lot of chocolate in my life, but nothing has ever been as delicious as I know a Willy Wonka's Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight would be. Dahl injects a glorious spirit of anarchy into his food, and the food, in turn, makes the maddest story seem solid and real.
2. Louisa May Alcott, Little women.
Amy's pickled limes are both enticing and puzzling. "If one girl likes another, she gives her a lime," she say. "If she's mad with her, she eats one before her face, and doesn't offer even a suck." A few years ago I found a simple 19th-century recipe for pickled limes: scrubbed limes in a jar of water and seasalt. Possibly I didn't leave them to marinade for long enough. They were not delicious.
3. Joan Aiken, The wolves of Willoughby Chase.
"Mr Wilderness's porridge was very different from that served in Mrs Brisket's school. It was eaten with brown sugar from a big blue bag, and with dollops of thick yellow cream provided by Mr Wilderness's two cows."
This is the best description of breakfast I have ever read. Although, for years - until today, in fact – I imagined they were eating the porridge itself out of the blue bag and had always wondered how that would work: like an icing bag, perhaps.
4. A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh.
Pooh made gluttony look not only charming, but inevitable.
"When Rabbit said, 'Honey or condensed milk with your bread?' (Pooh) was so excited that he said, 'Both,' and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, 'But don't bother about the bread, please.'"
5. Meg Rosoff, How I live now.
Daisy, caught in the middle of a war, says this: "I made jam sandwiches for breakfast, and they tasted hopeful." In 10 words she evokes all the desperation and determination and love that colour the book.
6. Dodie Smith, I capture the castle.
It is almost impossible to read this, in the first pages of the book, and not fall in love, irrevocably, with Cassandra Mortmain:
"Goodness, Topaz is actually putting on eggs to boil! No one told me the hens had yielded to prayer. Oh, excellent hens! I was only expecting bread and margarine for tea, and I don't get as used to margarine as I could wish. I thank heaven there is no cheaper form of bread than bread."
7. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little house in the big woods.
"Grandma stood by the brass kettle and with the big wooden spoon she poured hot syrup on each plate of snow. It cooled into soft candy, and as fast as it cooled they ate it. They could eat all they wanted, for maple sugar never hurt anybody."
Laura Ingalls Wilder's books have danger and love and bears in them, but all I remember of them with real clarity is the food, and the wonderful piercing hunger it produced.
8. Hilary McKay, Saffy's angel.
The brilliant madcap family has brilliant madcap meals: "Indigo creates meals by saying 'That and that and that!' Then in everything goes, with chillies. Grilled cheese appears on top of everything except curry but including the birthday apple cake he made for his friend David."
9. Susan Coolidge, What Katy did.
The quiet wit and magic of this book comes out most sharply in its descriptions of food:
"The 'something delicious' proved to be weak vinegar-and-water. It was quite warm, but somehow, drank up there in the loft, and out of a bottle, it tasted very nice. Beside, they didn't call it vinegar-and-water: of course not! Each child gave his or her swallow a different name, as if the bottle were like Signor Blitz's and could pour out a dozen things at once. Clover called her share 'Raspberry Shrub,' Dorry christened his 'Ginger Pop,' while Cecy, who was romantic, took her three sips under the name of 'Hydomel,' which she explained was something nice, made, she believed, of beeswax."
10. All the picnics in Enid Blyton.
"The high tea that awaited them was truly magnificent. A huge ham gleaming as pink as Timmy's tongue; a salad fit for a king. In fact, as Dick said, fit for several kings, it was so enormous.... 'Lettuce, tomatoes, onions, radishes, mustard and cress, carrot grated up - that is carrot, isn't it, Mrs. Penruthlan?' said Dick. 'And lashings of hard-boiled eggs.'"
It may be that raw onions and radishes are no longer on most young people's dream menus, but a list of fictional food without Blyton on it would be incomplete. The food in Blyton always seems real and attainable and satisfying: and the image of a lashing of hard-boiled eggs is a good one.
------
In the absence of BTL comments, I would add two more authors, one a writer for adults, the other who claimed to write for himself and the person - child or adult - supposedly reading over his shoulder:
Ian Fleming's early James Bond books, writing for a British public still living with post-war rationing, the food 'porn' was probably as important as the espionage, sex and violence, and served the same plot device as in children's books:
"I've made two choices," she laughed, "and either would have been delicious, but behaving like a millionaire occasionally is a wonderful treat and if you're sure . . . well, I'd like to start with caviar and then have a plain grilled rognon de veau with . And then I'd like to have fraises des bois with a lot of cream. Is it very shameless to be so certain and so expensive?" She smiled at him inquiringly.
"It's a virtue, and anyway it's only a good plain wholesome meal. He turned to the maître d'hôtel, "and bring plenty of toast."
"The trouble always is," he explained to Vesper, "not how to get enough caviar, but how to get enough toast with it."
"Now," he turned back to the menu, "I myself will accompant Madamoiselle with the caviar, but then I would like a very small tournedos, underdone, with sauce Béarnaise and a cœur d'artichaut. While Madamoiselle is enjoying the strawberries, I will have half an avocado pear with a little French dressing. Do you approve?"
The maître d'hôtel bowed.
(Casino Royale (1953), ch. 8, 'Pink lights and champagne').
And Arthur Ransome, with the contrasts between the campside meals prepared by the Swallows, the provisions filtched by the Amazons from Cook's pantry, and the D's attempts to live up to the S&A's (especially the business with the hare), and the occasional meal with 'natives' and 'savages' (what a duck egg!) and end-of-story feast with Captain Flint, e.g.:
Considering that Captain Flint was having dinner with his enemies, it was a very friendly meal. Even Titty softened towards him before the end of it. He never made the mistake of calling her anything but Able-Seaman. The tongue that the Amazons had found and brought away with them was very good. So was the seed cake of the Swallows. It was no good opening pemmican tins when there was nearly the whole of a tongue to be eaten. The plum pudding fried in slices would have come last, only the potatoes took a long time to get properly done, and in the end had to be used as a sort of hot dessert.
(Swallows and Amazons (1930), ch. 26, 'He makes peace and declares war').
John and Susan saw at once that one person at least at Beckfoot had nothing against the goings-on of Captain Nancy and her mate. Cook had given a fat beef roll, like a bigger and better kind of sausage. There were enough apple dumplings to go round. There were lettuces and radishes and salt in a little tin box. There was a lot of cut brown bread and butter. There was a hunk, the sort of hunk that really is a hunk, a hunk big enough for twelve indoor people and just right for six sailors, of the blackest and juiciest and stickiness fruit cake. And then to wash these good things down, there was a bedroom jug full of pirate grog, which some people might have thought was lemonade. Lemonade or grog, whatever it was, it suited thirsty throats. Altogether this dinner among the rocks, close to the leaping splashing water of the First Cataract, was one of those after which everbody feels a little sleepy but ready for anything when the sleepiness has worn off.
(Swallowdale (1931), ch. 25, 'Up river').
They came down to the big farm kitchen, where Mrs. Dixon had their breakfast ready for them, two bowls of hot porridge on the kitchen table, this was covered with a red-and-white chequered table-cloth, and some rashers of bacon sizzling in the frying-pan that she was holding over the fire. "I'm not going to make visitors of you," she said.
(Winter holiday (1933), ch. 1, 'Strangers').
Guardian, 2013-07-23.
Katherine Rundell grew up in Africa and Europe. Her first book, The girl savage, was born of her love of Zimbabwe and her own childhood there; her second, Rooftoppers, was inspired by summers working in Paris and by night-time trespassing on the rooftops of All Souls College, Oxford. She is currently working on her doctorate alongside an adult novel.
"Writing about food is my favourite part of writing, just as eating is one of my favourite parts of life. As a child, I re-read food scenes for comfort, and for the joy of the keen hunger that they produced, and, once I had learned to cook, for inspiration."
1. Everything Roald Dahl wrote.
I have eaten a lot of chocolate in my life, but nothing has ever been as delicious as I know a Willy Wonka's Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight would be. Dahl injects a glorious spirit of anarchy into his food, and the food, in turn, makes the maddest story seem solid and real.
2. Louisa May Alcott, Little women.
Amy's pickled limes are both enticing and puzzling. "If one girl likes another, she gives her a lime," she say. "If she's mad with her, she eats one before her face, and doesn't offer even a suck." A few years ago I found a simple 19th-century recipe for pickled limes: scrubbed limes in a jar of water and seasalt. Possibly I didn't leave them to marinade for long enough. They were not delicious.
3. Joan Aiken, The wolves of Willoughby Chase.
"Mr Wilderness's porridge was very different from that served in Mrs Brisket's school. It was eaten with brown sugar from a big blue bag, and with dollops of thick yellow cream provided by Mr Wilderness's two cows."
This is the best description of breakfast I have ever read. Although, for years - until today, in fact – I imagined they were eating the porridge itself out of the blue bag and had always wondered how that would work: like an icing bag, perhaps.
4. A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh.
Pooh made gluttony look not only charming, but inevitable.
"When Rabbit said, 'Honey or condensed milk with your bread?' (Pooh) was so excited that he said, 'Both,' and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, 'But don't bother about the bread, please.'"
5. Meg Rosoff, How I live now.
Daisy, caught in the middle of a war, says this: "I made jam sandwiches for breakfast, and they tasted hopeful." In 10 words she evokes all the desperation and determination and love that colour the book.
6. Dodie Smith, I capture the castle.
It is almost impossible to read this, in the first pages of the book, and not fall in love, irrevocably, with Cassandra Mortmain:
"Goodness, Topaz is actually putting on eggs to boil! No one told me the hens had yielded to prayer. Oh, excellent hens! I was only expecting bread and margarine for tea, and I don't get as used to margarine as I could wish. I thank heaven there is no cheaper form of bread than bread."
7. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little house in the big woods.
"Grandma stood by the brass kettle and with the big wooden spoon she poured hot syrup on each plate of snow. It cooled into soft candy, and as fast as it cooled they ate it. They could eat all they wanted, for maple sugar never hurt anybody."
Laura Ingalls Wilder's books have danger and love and bears in them, but all I remember of them with real clarity is the food, and the wonderful piercing hunger it produced.
8. Hilary McKay, Saffy's angel.
The brilliant madcap family has brilliant madcap meals: "Indigo creates meals by saying 'That and that and that!' Then in everything goes, with chillies. Grilled cheese appears on top of everything except curry but including the birthday apple cake he made for his friend David."
9. Susan Coolidge, What Katy did.
The quiet wit and magic of this book comes out most sharply in its descriptions of food:
"The 'something delicious' proved to be weak vinegar-and-water. It was quite warm, but somehow, drank up there in the loft, and out of a bottle, it tasted very nice. Beside, they didn't call it vinegar-and-water: of course not! Each child gave his or her swallow a different name, as if the bottle were like Signor Blitz's and could pour out a dozen things at once. Clover called her share 'Raspberry Shrub,' Dorry christened his 'Ginger Pop,' while Cecy, who was romantic, took her three sips under the name of 'Hydomel,' which she explained was something nice, made, she believed, of beeswax."
10. All the picnics in Enid Blyton.
"The high tea that awaited them was truly magnificent. A huge ham gleaming as pink as Timmy's tongue; a salad fit for a king. In fact, as Dick said, fit for several kings, it was so enormous.... 'Lettuce, tomatoes, onions, radishes, mustard and cress, carrot grated up - that is carrot, isn't it, Mrs. Penruthlan?' said Dick. 'And lashings of hard-boiled eggs.'"
It may be that raw onions and radishes are no longer on most young people's dream menus, but a list of fictional food without Blyton on it would be incomplete. The food in Blyton always seems real and attainable and satisfying: and the image of a lashing of hard-boiled eggs is a good one.
------
In the absence of BTL comments, I would add two more authors, one a writer for adults, the other who claimed to write for himself and the person - child or adult - supposedly reading over his shoulder:
Ian Fleming's early James Bond books, writing for a British public still living with post-war rationing, the food 'porn' was probably as important as the espionage, sex and violence, and served the same plot device as in children's books:
"I've made two choices," she laughed, "and either would have been delicious, but behaving like a millionaire occasionally is a wonderful treat and if you're sure . . . well, I'd like to start with caviar and then have a plain grilled rognon de veau with . And then I'd like to have fraises des bois with a lot of cream. Is it very shameless to be so certain and so expensive?" She smiled at him inquiringly.
"It's a virtue, and anyway it's only a good plain wholesome meal. He turned to the maître d'hôtel, "and bring plenty of toast."
"The trouble always is," he explained to Vesper, "not how to get enough caviar, but how to get enough toast with it."
"Now," he turned back to the menu, "I myself will accompant Madamoiselle with the caviar, but then I would like a very small tournedos, underdone, with sauce Béarnaise and a cœur d'artichaut. While Madamoiselle is enjoying the strawberries, I will have half an avocado pear with a little French dressing. Do you approve?"
The maître d'hôtel bowed.
(Casino Royale (1953), ch. 8, 'Pink lights and champagne').
And Arthur Ransome, with the contrasts between the campside meals prepared by the Swallows, the provisions filtched by the Amazons from Cook's pantry, and the D's attempts to live up to the S&A's (especially the business with the hare), and the occasional meal with 'natives' and 'savages' (what a duck egg!) and end-of-story feast with Captain Flint, e.g.:
Considering that Captain Flint was having dinner with his enemies, it was a very friendly meal. Even Titty softened towards him before the end of it. He never made the mistake of calling her anything but Able-Seaman. The tongue that the Amazons had found and brought away with them was very good. So was the seed cake of the Swallows. It was no good opening pemmican tins when there was nearly the whole of a tongue to be eaten. The plum pudding fried in slices would have come last, only the potatoes took a long time to get properly done, and in the end had to be used as a sort of hot dessert.
(Swallows and Amazons (1930), ch. 26, 'He makes peace and declares war').
John and Susan saw at once that one person at least at Beckfoot had nothing against the goings-on of Captain Nancy and her mate. Cook had given a fat beef roll, like a bigger and better kind of sausage. There were enough apple dumplings to go round. There were lettuces and radishes and salt in a little tin box. There was a lot of cut brown bread and butter. There was a hunk, the sort of hunk that really is a hunk, a hunk big enough for twelve indoor people and just right for six sailors, of the blackest and juiciest and stickiness fruit cake. And then to wash these good things down, there was a bedroom jug full of pirate grog, which some people might have thought was lemonade. Lemonade or grog, whatever it was, it suited thirsty throats. Altogether this dinner among the rocks, close to the leaping splashing water of the First Cataract, was one of those after which everbody feels a little sleepy but ready for anything when the sleepiness has worn off.
(Swallowdale (1931), ch. 25, 'Up river').
They came down to the big farm kitchen, where Mrs. Dixon had their breakfast ready for them, two bowls of hot porridge on the kitchen table, this was covered with a red-and-white chequered table-cloth, and some rashers of bacon sizzling in the frying-pan that she was holding over the fire. "I'm not going to make visitors of you," she said.
(Winter holiday (1933), ch. 1, 'Strangers').
12Cecrow
>11 Cynfelyn:, Brian Jaques' Redwall series. I think those books are fifty percent food descriptions. He even wrote a supplementary cookbook, The Redwall Cookbook.
13Cynfelyn
Rachel Kushner's top 10 books about 1970s art
Guardian, 2013-07-24.
"I have selected 10 of the many incredible books about art in the 1970s that were piled around my desk like a miniature city as I wrote my most recent novel, The flamethrowers. They were books I'd collected over the last two decades or so and had looked at many, many times, read many times (some of them collections of essays, others, full colour-plate monographs). The 1970s were a time of freewheeling ideas but also conceptual rigour: art outside the studio, in the form of a dance, a dare, a gesture, a practical joke.
"In trying to narrate a novel through the eyes of a very young woman encountering the world of downtown New York in 1975, I looked, and then looked again, to see with freshness, what my narrator might have seen of a freer, grittier, uniquely inspired era in downtown New York City, when Gordon Matta-Clark sawed a house in half, Tehching Hsieh punched a time clock on the hour every hour 24 hours a day for a year, and Lee Lozano stopped speaking to women as a minor art project that ended up lasting the rest of her life.
"In no particular order, then, here are 10 favourites:"
1. Don DeLillo, Americana.
DeLillo's first novel, published in 1971, shows a deep understanding of visual culture and the logic of advertising, which has everything to do with the gestures and ideas of the artists who came to preeminence in that decade. "The war was on television every night but we all went to the movies," he writes. This book understands its moment and the decade to come. Its crazy penultimate and almost inexplicable scene, of people guzzling beer and having an orgy in an automotive garage, is a lesson and inspiration.
2. Lucy Lippard, Six years : the dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972.
Perhaps this book is cheating, as it's an annotated chronology listing pretty much every thing and everybody that was important to the years listed in the title. It's exhaustive, and impossible to reduce, but here's how she describes one work by the great Douglas Huebler: "Eight people were photographed at the instant exactly after each had been told: 'you have a beautiful face' or 'you have a very special face,' or 'you have a remarkable face.' Or in one instance, nothing at all."
3. Danny Lyon, The destruction of Lower Manhattan.
Danny Lyon is one of my favorite photographers. Although the images included in this book, documenting an enormous area of lower Manhattan being demolished to make way for the Twin Towers, were made in 1966 and 1967, they contribute greatly to our understanding of the early 1970s as a time when artists in New York City haunted the dying grounds of industry.
4. Richard Hertz (ed.), Jack Goldstein and the CalArts mafia.
A fascinating collection of interviews and anecdotes. Seemingly about the Southern California of the CalArts programme in the early 1970s, it's really about the artists who became known as the "Pictures Generation". The centre of this scene was the enigmatic and tragic Jack Goldstein. The book is filled with his reflections on life and art in the 1970s.
5. Steven Shore, Uncommon places.
Uncommon common places, that is. Shore is well-loved, well-known photographer, but each viewing of these images brings a new charge and delight. This may in part be due to the fact that the American worlds they depict are more or less vanished, and so it's something special to revisit them. Most stores, motels, and restaurants that aren't sterile, corporate chains are gone. The cars are gone. Most significantly for art and for a decade, what is gone is a photographic technique that merges the casual and off-hand with the hyper-deliberate: Shore used an 8x10 view camera and colour film; he had to set up each shot with a tripod, and exposures took time. The cost to produce each photo was $15, and that's in 1970s money. Now everywhere and they cost nothing. Shore's were specific, deliberate choices: life stilled for an expanded look.
6. Andy Warhol with Pat Hackett, The Andy Warhol diaries.
In the summer of 1976, Warhol bought a second Rolls Royce, an old, rare station wagon. He already owned a Rolls Silver Shadow, for which he paid cold cash but told people he traded it for art. This book of recorded phone conversations arranged as diary entries, which begin just after the purchase of the second Rolls, is important not for understanding the art of the 1970s but for understanding, instead, Warhol's total commitment by the late 1970s to money, fame, and socialites. Some people love this bitchy Andy. I don't. And yet I read and read, fascinated. Of Jim Jones's Guyana massacre, Andy laughs and says: "Just think, if they'd used Campbell's Soup I'd be so famous, I'd be on every news show, everyone would be asking me about it. But Kool-Aid was always a hippie thing."
7. Gordon Matta-Clark, You are the measure.
Matta-Clark's cuts in empty and abandoned buildings seem almost like tandem gestures to Danny Lyon's documentation of sixty acres of Manhattan turned to rubble. Both Lyons and Matta-Clark toured forlorn urban spaces on the eve of their destruction, except in the case of Matta-Clark, he took cross-sections of beam, drywall, linoleum, and displayed them as art. His most famous work, Splitting, from 1974, took place in Inglewood, New Jersey. My aunt Dee-Dee Halleck, friends with Matta-Clark, took her three sons to see the house cut in half. She was going through a divorce at the time "Noo!" her sons cried. "Don't cut that house in half!! No!" This story amuses and touches me for perhaps obvious reasons. The catalogue, from yet another timely retrospective of 70s art that I saw while writing The flamethrowers, wonderfully lays out the scope and poignancy of Matta-Clark's work and interventions.
8. Alighiero Boetti, Game plan.
The mysterious and under-sung Italian artist Alighiero Boetti had a long-awaited retrospective at the Tate Modern just as I was heading into the home stretch of finishing The flamethrowers. This show and its beautiful catalogue, including an essay by theorist Jason Smith linking Boetti to the political turbulence in Italy in the 1970s, came not a moment too soon. Boetti died in 1994, but some of his very best work was made in the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as the paintings he did using factory motorcycle colours from Moto Guzzi and Moto Gilera, works that bring together Italian factory politics and conceptual art in a way that I almost could have made up, but I didn't.
9. Robert Smithson, The collected writings.
A singular vision of nature, time, industry, culture, film, and entropy, combined with a graphomanic need to get it all down on paper. A few favourite kernels from this thick slab of ideas: "To spend time in a movie house is to make a 'hole' in one's life." "Somehow, I can accept graffiti on subway trains, but not on boulders." "I find what's vain more acceptable than what's pure … any tendency toward purity also supposes that there's something to be achieved, and it means that art has some sort of point."
10. Yvonne Rainer, Feelings are facts.
This is the motherlode, as a crash course on the art and artworld social scene of the 1960s and early 1970s in downtown New York, with in-depth portraits of the main personalities, in all their glory and sordidness. Rainer, a dancer and filmmaker, choreographed a world of dance as life: task-like, mundane. A critic once said, "Someday there will be a real murder in one of Yvonne Rainer's dances." There was not. But her personal experiences in an art world filled with egos and desire and turbulent gender politics leaves the curious-minded more than satisfied that murderous thoughts were had.
------
There are only five BTL comments, but enough recommendations for our purposes:
Colum McCann, Let the great world spin.
"One needs to buy and read Americana by Don DeLillo but one needs to, having already purchased, finish reading Underworld and White noise. How about Philip Roth's Zuckerman bound? It's not set solely in the 70s but it was mainly scribbled in that decade and sums up how a postmodern voice got louder in that decades art and literature. Another one, and possibly the best novel I've read, is Humboldt's gift - what a rip-roarer of a nov!"
Patrick White, The vivisector. "Surely a thinly disguised homage to his friend Sidney Nolan whom he dedicates the book".
Guardian, 2013-07-24.
"I have selected 10 of the many incredible books about art in the 1970s that were piled around my desk like a miniature city as I wrote my most recent novel, The flamethrowers. They were books I'd collected over the last two decades or so and had looked at many, many times, read many times (some of them collections of essays, others, full colour-plate monographs). The 1970s were a time of freewheeling ideas but also conceptual rigour: art outside the studio, in the form of a dance, a dare, a gesture, a practical joke.
"In trying to narrate a novel through the eyes of a very young woman encountering the world of downtown New York in 1975, I looked, and then looked again, to see with freshness, what my narrator might have seen of a freer, grittier, uniquely inspired era in downtown New York City, when Gordon Matta-Clark sawed a house in half, Tehching Hsieh punched a time clock on the hour every hour 24 hours a day for a year, and Lee Lozano stopped speaking to women as a minor art project that ended up lasting the rest of her life.
"In no particular order, then, here are 10 favourites:"
1. Don DeLillo, Americana.
DeLillo's first novel, published in 1971, shows a deep understanding of visual culture and the logic of advertising, which has everything to do with the gestures and ideas of the artists who came to preeminence in that decade. "The war was on television every night but we all went to the movies," he writes. This book understands its moment and the decade to come. Its crazy penultimate and almost inexplicable scene, of people guzzling beer and having an orgy in an automotive garage, is a lesson and inspiration.
2. Lucy Lippard, Six years : the dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972.
Perhaps this book is cheating, as it's an annotated chronology listing pretty much every thing and everybody that was important to the years listed in the title. It's exhaustive, and impossible to reduce, but here's how she describes one work by the great Douglas Huebler: "Eight people were photographed at the instant exactly after each had been told: 'you have a beautiful face' or 'you have a very special face,' or 'you have a remarkable face.' Or in one instance, nothing at all."
3. Danny Lyon, The destruction of Lower Manhattan.
Danny Lyon is one of my favorite photographers. Although the images included in this book, documenting an enormous area of lower Manhattan being demolished to make way for the Twin Towers, were made in 1966 and 1967, they contribute greatly to our understanding of the early 1970s as a time when artists in New York City haunted the dying grounds of industry.
4. Richard Hertz (ed.), Jack Goldstein and the CalArts mafia.
A fascinating collection of interviews and anecdotes. Seemingly about the Southern California of the CalArts programme in the early 1970s, it's really about the artists who became known as the "Pictures Generation". The centre of this scene was the enigmatic and tragic Jack Goldstein. The book is filled with his reflections on life and art in the 1970s.
5. Steven Shore, Uncommon places.
Uncommon common places, that is. Shore is well-loved, well-known photographer, but each viewing of these images brings a new charge and delight. This may in part be due to the fact that the American worlds they depict are more or less vanished, and so it's something special to revisit them. Most stores, motels, and restaurants that aren't sterile, corporate chains are gone. The cars are gone. Most significantly for art and for a decade, what is gone is a photographic technique that merges the casual and off-hand with the hyper-deliberate: Shore used an 8x10 view camera and colour film; he had to set up each shot with a tripod, and exposures took time. The cost to produce each photo was $15, and that's in 1970s money. Now everywhere and they cost nothing. Shore's were specific, deliberate choices: life stilled for an expanded look.
6. Andy Warhol with Pat Hackett, The Andy Warhol diaries.
In the summer of 1976, Warhol bought a second Rolls Royce, an old, rare station wagon. He already owned a Rolls Silver Shadow, for which he paid cold cash but told people he traded it for art. This book of recorded phone conversations arranged as diary entries, which begin just after the purchase of the second Rolls, is important not for understanding the art of the 1970s but for understanding, instead, Warhol's total commitment by the late 1970s to money, fame, and socialites. Some people love this bitchy Andy. I don't. And yet I read and read, fascinated. Of Jim Jones's Guyana massacre, Andy laughs and says: "Just think, if they'd used Campbell's Soup I'd be so famous, I'd be on every news show, everyone would be asking me about it. But Kool-Aid was always a hippie thing."
7. Gordon Matta-Clark, You are the measure.
Matta-Clark's cuts in empty and abandoned buildings seem almost like tandem gestures to Danny Lyon's documentation of sixty acres of Manhattan turned to rubble. Both Lyons and Matta-Clark toured forlorn urban spaces on the eve of their destruction, except in the case of Matta-Clark, he took cross-sections of beam, drywall, linoleum, and displayed them as art. His most famous work, Splitting, from 1974, took place in Inglewood, New Jersey. My aunt Dee-Dee Halleck, friends with Matta-Clark, took her three sons to see the house cut in half. She was going through a divorce at the time "Noo!" her sons cried. "Don't cut that house in half!! No!" This story amuses and touches me for perhaps obvious reasons. The catalogue, from yet another timely retrospective of 70s art that I saw while writing The flamethrowers, wonderfully lays out the scope and poignancy of Matta-Clark's work and interventions.
8. Alighiero Boetti, Game plan.
The mysterious and under-sung Italian artist Alighiero Boetti had a long-awaited retrospective at the Tate Modern just as I was heading into the home stretch of finishing The flamethrowers. This show and its beautiful catalogue, including an essay by theorist Jason Smith linking Boetti to the political turbulence in Italy in the 1970s, came not a moment too soon. Boetti died in 1994, but some of his very best work was made in the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as the paintings he did using factory motorcycle colours from Moto Guzzi and Moto Gilera, works that bring together Italian factory politics and conceptual art in a way that I almost could have made up, but I didn't.
9. Robert Smithson, The collected writings.
A singular vision of nature, time, industry, culture, film, and entropy, combined with a graphomanic need to get it all down on paper. A few favourite kernels from this thick slab of ideas: "To spend time in a movie house is to make a 'hole' in one's life." "Somehow, I can accept graffiti on subway trains, but not on boulders." "I find what's vain more acceptable than what's pure … any tendency toward purity also supposes that there's something to be achieved, and it means that art has some sort of point."
10. Yvonne Rainer, Feelings are facts.
This is the motherlode, as a crash course on the art and artworld social scene of the 1960s and early 1970s in downtown New York, with in-depth portraits of the main personalities, in all their glory and sordidness. Rainer, a dancer and filmmaker, choreographed a world of dance as life: task-like, mundane. A critic once said, "Someday there will be a real murder in one of Yvonne Rainer's dances." There was not. But her personal experiences in an art world filled with egos and desire and turbulent gender politics leaves the curious-minded more than satisfied that murderous thoughts were had.
------
There are only five BTL comments, but enough recommendations for our purposes:
Colum McCann, Let the great world spin.
"One needs to buy and read Americana by Don DeLillo but one needs to, having already purchased, finish reading Underworld and White noise. How about Philip Roth's Zuckerman bound? It's not set solely in the 70s but it was mainly scribbled in that decade and sums up how a postmodern voice got louder in that decades art and literature. Another one, and possibly the best novel I've read, is Humboldt's gift - what a rip-roarer of a nov!"
Patrick White, The vivisector. "Surely a thinly disguised homage to his friend Sidney Nolan whom he dedicates the book".
14Cynfelyn
Sean McMeekin's top 10 books about Austria-Hungary
Guardian, 2013-07-31.
"I first visited Vienna 20 years ago. Visiting the War Museum, I remember meeting a wizened old Austrian gentleman, who put on a great show explaining all the weapons and how they worked. I had come mostly to see the "sexy" bits – Franz Ferdinand's blood-stained uniform, the convertible he and his wife were riding in when they were shot in 1914 – but I was enraptured by everything else, too. My Austrian weapons man took particular relish in swords, and in the captured Ottoman war booty from the siege of Vienna in 1683.
"I don't think I made an impression on him; he probably would have been equally happy chattering away to anyone else. But I came away with an enduring fascination with the strange, lost world of Austria-Hungary. These are the books which bring me back to the world of the Habsburg dynasty, wherever I happen to be."
1. Norman Stone, Europe transformed 1878-1919.
It might seem strange to begin with what sounds like a simple history textbook. But Europe transformed is anything but. Stone is best known as a Turcophile who cut his teeth on Russian history. And yet his first and (to my mind) truest love was for the ill-fated Dual Monarchy uniting Austria and Hungary. The essay on Austria-Hungary is the centerpiece of the book, and well worth the price. It was written, I am told on good authority, under the influence of champagne, which must be why the tone so perfectly matches the subject: exuberant, learned, urbane, slightly tipsy, surprisingly robust, and yet wracked with a sense of impending doom.
2. Stefan Zweig, The world of yesterday.
Sent off to the publisher from Brazil the day before Zweig and his wife killed themselves, this is one of history's most moving suicide notes. Although composed against the backdrop of Nazi ascendancy (roughly from 1934 to 1942), which forced the Jewish Zweig into exile, the author's real elegy is for the Austria-Hungary of 1914, before the Great War wrecked its civilisation and Europe's alongside it (Zweig, a pacifist, spent the war in Switzerland). Similar in spirit to Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead revisited, Zweig mostly avoids sentimentality, which is remarkable in the circumstances. A wonderful memoir, which perfectly captures the textures and rhythms of life in the Dual Monarchy. One can almost taste the strudel.
3. Frederic Morton, Thunder at twilight : Vienna 1913/1914.
Like Zweig an Austrian Jewish émigré, Morton was born late enough (1924) never to have lived under the Dual Monarchy, but he still had the kind of intimate "feel" for the place one can maybe only get as a local. Thunder at Twilight is the best kind of popular history, marked by brilliant character sketches, brimming with lively anecdotes, and yet treating an extremely important subject – the outbreak of the first world war – with the gravity it deserves.
4. Manfried Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers : Österreich-Ungarn und der erste Weltkrieg (Vienna: Verlag Styria, 1993).
A real doorstopper of a book. The product of years of strenuous research on the first world war and the collapse of the Habsburg empire by one of Austria's great historians, the national equivalent of a Max Hastings or Hew Strachan. Magisterial, learned, relentless.
5. Alexander Waugh, The house of Wittgenstein. A family at war.
As the scion of one of England's great literary dynasties, who had already chronicled his own clan's history in Fathers and sons, Waugh was the perfect author to tackle a family like the Wittgensteins. Some critics found eccentric Waugh's emphasis on Paul, the one-armed pianist who lost an arm fighting the Russians on the eastern front, over Ludwig, the philosopher. And yet Paul's story embodied far better all that was uniquely, strangely Austrian about the Wittgensteins. Reads like a highbrow version of The sound of music, though with a truer-to-life ending.
6. Miklós Bánffy, The Transylvanian trilogy (The writing on the wall) (3 vols).
Bánffy wrote his trilogy between 1934 and 1940, about the same time Zweig was writing his memoirs. It comprises a sort of Transylvanian War and peace, illuminating the Hungarian side of the Dual Monarchy. Set in the pre-1914 period, when Budapest was still the capital of an enormous state, the stories deal with the affairs in all senses of the Hungarian aristocracy: their national hubris and frivolity. Superbly translated by Bánffy's daughter Katalin.
7. Luigi Albertini (transl. by Isabella M. Massey), The origins of the war of 1914 (3 vols).
Albertini's masterwork is not exclusively about Austria-Hungary but there are few studies which capture the terrible political dilemmas of the Dual Monarchy better than this one. Albertini, an Italian journalist who edited the Corriere della Sera before Mussolini forced him out in 1925, spent much of the last two decades of his life on this project, interviewing and corresponding with many key policymakers of July 1914 while they were still alive, including the two most important diplomats of Austria-Hungary, foreign minister Leopold von Berchtold and his chief of staff, Alexander Hoyos. Indispensable.
8. István Deák, Beyond nationalism : a social and political history of the Habsburg Officer Corps 1848-1918.
The title is more or less self-explanatory. Not exactly bedtime reading, Deák's study is nevertheless essential for anyone wishing to understand the most important institution in the Dual Monarchy, the multi-ethnic Common Army.
9. Friedrich Würthle, Die Spur führt nach Belgrad (Vienna: Molden, 1975).
Like Deák's, an acquired taste. Will mostly interest those with a pressing interest in getting to the bottom of the Sarajevo assassinations of 28 June 1914. At its best, it reads like a detective novel, blending together historical erudition with forensic science.
10. Karl Johannes Bauer, Alois Musil : Wahrheitssucher in der Wüste (Vienna: Böhlau, 1989).
In a just world, this biography would be read to accompany Seven pillars of wisdom, and Alois Musil would be a household name alongside TE Lawrence. Alas, history is written by the winners, and so this wandering Czech-Austrian biblical scholar who tried to unite Arabia's tribes behind the Central Powers in the first world war remains almost unknown to the world outside today's rump Austria. Musil's own writings, with their cold, unflinching analysis of Arabian tribal politics, ring far truer today than Lawrence's overwrought musings – which is not surprising when we consider that Musil, unlike Lawrence, was fluent in Arabic. A classic in the era's desert genre, this book, like Rauchensteiner's, deserves a translator.
------
9.
So much of "an acquired taste" that Friedrich Würthle has yet to make his debut on LibraryThing, and has only a German Wikipedia page.
Plus, from the meagre fifteen BTL comments:
Jaroslav Hašek, Good Soldier Svejk. "I know it's Czech, but seems to capture the decay of A-H Empire pretty well."
Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March. "And of course everything by Joseph Roth, especially Die Kapuzinergruft."
Arthur Schnitlzer, Reigen.
"A non-fiction list, which is fair enough, but I pine to see the riches of the fiction of the Austro-Hungarian period celebrated. Schnitzler, Roth, Robert Musil, Szerb, Kosztolányi, Von Rezzori, Kafka ..."
Andrzej Stasiuk, On the road to Babadag. "A modern travelogue through eastern Galicia, but evokes many A-H writers and thinkers and is infused with the ghosts of the empire."
Stefan Zweig, Ungeduld des Herzens ('Impatience of the heart'?). "Is wonderful, the fateful twist of a sad love story being triggered by the outbreak of WWI. You can truly taste, smell, feel the last summer of Old Europe. Stefan Zweig is one of my favourite writers."
Guardian, 2013-07-31.
"I first visited Vienna 20 years ago. Visiting the War Museum, I remember meeting a wizened old Austrian gentleman, who put on a great show explaining all the weapons and how they worked. I had come mostly to see the "sexy" bits – Franz Ferdinand's blood-stained uniform, the convertible he and his wife were riding in when they were shot in 1914 – but I was enraptured by everything else, too. My Austrian weapons man took particular relish in swords, and in the captured Ottoman war booty from the siege of Vienna in 1683.
"I don't think I made an impression on him; he probably would have been equally happy chattering away to anyone else. But I came away with an enduring fascination with the strange, lost world of Austria-Hungary. These are the books which bring me back to the world of the Habsburg dynasty, wherever I happen to be."
1. Norman Stone, Europe transformed 1878-1919.
It might seem strange to begin with what sounds like a simple history textbook. But Europe transformed is anything but. Stone is best known as a Turcophile who cut his teeth on Russian history. And yet his first and (to my mind) truest love was for the ill-fated Dual Monarchy uniting Austria and Hungary. The essay on Austria-Hungary is the centerpiece of the book, and well worth the price. It was written, I am told on good authority, under the influence of champagne, which must be why the tone so perfectly matches the subject: exuberant, learned, urbane, slightly tipsy, surprisingly robust, and yet wracked with a sense of impending doom.
2. Stefan Zweig, The world of yesterday.
Sent off to the publisher from Brazil the day before Zweig and his wife killed themselves, this is one of history's most moving suicide notes. Although composed against the backdrop of Nazi ascendancy (roughly from 1934 to 1942), which forced the Jewish Zweig into exile, the author's real elegy is for the Austria-Hungary of 1914, before the Great War wrecked its civilisation and Europe's alongside it (Zweig, a pacifist, spent the war in Switzerland). Similar in spirit to Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead revisited, Zweig mostly avoids sentimentality, which is remarkable in the circumstances. A wonderful memoir, which perfectly captures the textures and rhythms of life in the Dual Monarchy. One can almost taste the strudel.
3. Frederic Morton, Thunder at twilight : Vienna 1913/1914.
Like Zweig an Austrian Jewish émigré, Morton was born late enough (1924) never to have lived under the Dual Monarchy, but he still had the kind of intimate "feel" for the place one can maybe only get as a local. Thunder at Twilight is the best kind of popular history, marked by brilliant character sketches, brimming with lively anecdotes, and yet treating an extremely important subject – the outbreak of the first world war – with the gravity it deserves.
4. Manfried Rauchensteiner, Der Tod des Doppeladlers : Österreich-Ungarn und der erste Weltkrieg (Vienna: Verlag Styria, 1993).
A real doorstopper of a book. The product of years of strenuous research on the first world war and the collapse of the Habsburg empire by one of Austria's great historians, the national equivalent of a Max Hastings or Hew Strachan. Magisterial, learned, relentless.
5. Alexander Waugh, The house of Wittgenstein. A family at war.
As the scion of one of England's great literary dynasties, who had already chronicled his own clan's history in Fathers and sons, Waugh was the perfect author to tackle a family like the Wittgensteins. Some critics found eccentric Waugh's emphasis on Paul, the one-armed pianist who lost an arm fighting the Russians on the eastern front, over Ludwig, the philosopher. And yet Paul's story embodied far better all that was uniquely, strangely Austrian about the Wittgensteins. Reads like a highbrow version of The sound of music, though with a truer-to-life ending.
6. Miklós Bánffy, The Transylvanian trilogy (The writing on the wall) (3 vols).
Bánffy wrote his trilogy between 1934 and 1940, about the same time Zweig was writing his memoirs. It comprises a sort of Transylvanian War and peace, illuminating the Hungarian side of the Dual Monarchy. Set in the pre-1914 period, when Budapest was still the capital of an enormous state, the stories deal with the affairs in all senses of the Hungarian aristocracy: their national hubris and frivolity. Superbly translated by Bánffy's daughter Katalin.
7. Luigi Albertini (transl. by Isabella M. Massey), The origins of the war of 1914 (3 vols).
Albertini's masterwork is not exclusively about Austria-Hungary but there are few studies which capture the terrible political dilemmas of the Dual Monarchy better than this one. Albertini, an Italian journalist who edited the Corriere della Sera before Mussolini forced him out in 1925, spent much of the last two decades of his life on this project, interviewing and corresponding with many key policymakers of July 1914 while they were still alive, including the two most important diplomats of Austria-Hungary, foreign minister Leopold von Berchtold and his chief of staff, Alexander Hoyos. Indispensable.
8. István Deák, Beyond nationalism : a social and political history of the Habsburg Officer Corps 1848-1918.
The title is more or less self-explanatory. Not exactly bedtime reading, Deák's study is nevertheless essential for anyone wishing to understand the most important institution in the Dual Monarchy, the multi-ethnic Common Army.
9. Friedrich Würthle, Die Spur führt nach Belgrad (Vienna: Molden, 1975).
Like Deák's, an acquired taste. Will mostly interest those with a pressing interest in getting to the bottom of the Sarajevo assassinations of 28 June 1914. At its best, it reads like a detective novel, blending together historical erudition with forensic science.
10. Karl Johannes Bauer, Alois Musil : Wahrheitssucher in der Wüste (Vienna: Böhlau, 1989).
In a just world, this biography would be read to accompany Seven pillars of wisdom, and Alois Musil would be a household name alongside TE Lawrence. Alas, history is written by the winners, and so this wandering Czech-Austrian biblical scholar who tried to unite Arabia's tribes behind the Central Powers in the first world war remains almost unknown to the world outside today's rump Austria. Musil's own writings, with their cold, unflinching analysis of Arabian tribal politics, ring far truer today than Lawrence's overwrought musings – which is not surprising when we consider that Musil, unlike Lawrence, was fluent in Arabic. A classic in the era's desert genre, this book, like Rauchensteiner's, deserves a translator.
------
9.
So much of "an acquired taste" that Friedrich Würthle has yet to make his debut on LibraryThing, and has only a German Wikipedia page.
Plus, from the meagre fifteen BTL comments:
Jaroslav Hašek, Good Soldier Svejk. "I know it's Czech, but seems to capture the decay of A-H Empire pretty well."
Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March. "And of course everything by Joseph Roth, especially Die Kapuzinergruft."
Arthur Schnitlzer, Reigen.
"A non-fiction list, which is fair enough, but I pine to see the riches of the fiction of the Austro-Hungarian period celebrated. Schnitzler, Roth, Robert Musil, Szerb, Kosztolányi, Von Rezzori, Kafka ..."
Andrzej Stasiuk, On the road to Babadag. "A modern travelogue through eastern Galicia, but evokes many A-H writers and thinkers and is infused with the ghosts of the empire."
Stefan Zweig, Ungeduld des Herzens ('Impatience of the heart'?). "Is wonderful, the fateful twist of a sad love story being triggered by the outbreak of WWI. You can truly taste, smell, feel the last summer of Old Europe. Stefan Zweig is one of my favourite writers."
15Cynfelyn
Nigel Williams's top 10 books about suburbia.
Guardian, 2013-08-07.
"My new novel is set in suburbia but it is not – exactly - about suburbia; it is about some of the people who live in it.
"I suppose that is the main thing that has dictated my choice of the 10 best books (impossible task) about people who live in places not unlike Putney, where my new book is set. All these books are about utterly suburban individuals – people bound up in and absorbed by Clapham, Palmers Green or, indeed, Putney. All these books take them very seriously – especially when they are using them to provoke laughter."
1. John Carey, The intellectuals and the masses.
This superb book has as its theme the way in which high-toned thinkers responded to the newly-literate classes, enfranchised and educated by late Victorian legislation. They were the people who first occupied the suburbs – the housing put up around the new railway stations that allowed the humble to trundle into London, as they still do, to return to a house, a garden, a fireside. It is a vivid evocation – unsnobbish and beautifully written, of the clerks and respectable workers who read the kind of magazines in which Sherlock Holmes first made his appearance. It is the perfect companion to –
2. Jerome K. Jerome, Three men in a boat.
A still-hilarious account of a trip up the Thames made by three young clerks in a double sculling skiff – a boat with an awning under which they plan to sleep while leading the simple life. They are defeated, of course, like all English holidaymakers, by the weather and the impossibility of picnics. Their reason for going? They are feeling a little under the weather and one of them discovers, after a perusal of a Medical Dictionary that he has got all the diseases in it – apart from Housemaid's Knee. Things have not changed much since the Edwardian era …
3. George & Weedon Grossmith, The diary of a nobody.
Mr Pooter has become a living legend. He is one of those clerks described in John Carey's book and his adventures with tradesmen, foot scrapers and his hopeless son Lupin still engage and delight the reader. He is proud of his house, conscientious in his work and utterly devoted to his wife and family – which makes his absurdities and pomposities all the more touching.
4. Zadie Smith, White teeth.
I was brought up in Kilburn – though we called it Fortune Green in a desperate attempt to impress people – and Smith's brilliantly-plotted, funny and absorbing picture of the streets and houses I remember (though she is a lot younger than me) bring back my childhood more vividly than almost any other book I can think of. My father was the headmaster of the old Kilburn Grammar School – an excellent institution destroyed by the moronic Labour council who still seem to be in charge of Brent. Smith's book is full of life, atmosphere and the joy I still experience whenever Walm Lane comes into view …
5. Jonathan Franzen, The corrections.
Franzen's characters may roam all over the place – on nightmare cruises or ill-advised trips to Eastern Europe – but they are still bound to the suburban decencies. He writes about ordinary families with extraordinary honesty and delicacy and, though his characters are a long way from Palmers Green, their doomed attempts to do the right thing, for me, recall with almost painful clarity my own childhood, and, particularly, my father, who like the paterfamilias in this book, had a favourite chair … Incidentally, Freedom – whatever anyone may tell you – is just as good.
6. John Betjeman, Collected poems.
Betjeman is the man who said one of his great regrets was not having had enough sex. Perhaps if he had had more of it he would not have written such glorious evocations of the tennis club, Ruislip Station or any of the other landmarks of Metroland about which he enthused so charmingly.
7. Philip Larkin, Collected poems.
I never went to Larkin's street in Hull but, when I worked at the BBC, in the days when they did films about poets, I found myself looking at the outside of his house quite a lot. It looked pretty suburban to me. His poems are not as emphatically about the commuter belt as Betjeman's, but when he turns his eye on the neighbours, he quite definitely belongs on this list. Think of that poem of his "Vers de Societé" that describes so many awful suburban evenings where one has "To listen to the drivel of some bitch/Who's read nothing but Which …" And when he is in forgiving mood he can be touching about the quiet streets where we will "never see such innocence again".
8. Gavin Ewart, Late pickings.
Not all these poems are about suburbia but it does contain the best poem ever written about Putney High Street. Possibly the only poem ever written about Putney High Street. Larkin rated Gavin Ewart so highly he wrote a poem to him. Ewart is the man who wrote – "Miss Twye was soaping her breasts in her bath/ When she heard behind her a meaning laugh/ She turned and to her amazement discovered/ A wicked man in the bathroom cupboard." So, well, a genius, but also, something you may have gathered I love, a passionate advocate of the ordinary. He is not only a highly-accomplished versifier but someone who can find joy in a sign outside a café on the Upper Richmond Road that reads "BREAKFAST ALL DAY". He is greatly missed.
9. Jonathan Coe, The Rotters Club.
All Coe's novels are great but this one has the authentic suburban touch. It is about a group of grammar school boys in a city that is almost all suburb – not a remark which will please occupants of Birmingham. Mind you - I am the man who once asked that eminent Brummie fiction writer, Jim Crace, whether Birmingham had an airport …
10. Blake Morrison, South of the river.
Morrison is an excellent poet and has become a brilliant novelist. This book has many wonderful things in it. Its characters may not be quite tennis-club material but they are certainly bound by their south London location; and, for me, it has the best description of a writer failing to deliver since Gissing's New Grub Street.
------
Some BTL comments and recommendations:
"Would also add Metroland by Julian Barnes; The scent of dried roses by Tim Lott, and John Boorman's Adventures of a suburban boy". "The scent of dried roses should definitely be in the list, I agree. In fact, it makes it into my overall top ten books of any genre."
"I'll never forget my surprise at picking up The Buddha of suburbia by Hanif Kureishi and, on the very first page, finding the protagonist on a 227 bus in Beckenham - where I grew up!"
"I've always felt The sportswriter by Richard Ford was a book about suburbia."
"J. G. Ballard's transformation of Shepperton into a lush, surreal Eden in The Unlimited Dream Company is one of the greatest celebrations of suburbia I know of, full of wit and insight into tribal ritual and taboo by the Thames. Michael Frayn's Spies is another novel that gloriously addresses the tensions and strangeness that lies beneath suburban respectability, memorably symbolised by the "vulgar reek" of privet hedges in high summer."
"I'd add Mr Phillips by John Lanchester."
"Raymond Carver for me - particularly Elephant, his last collection, seven suburban stories of rare intensity."
Guardian, 2013-08-07.
"My new novel is set in suburbia but it is not – exactly - about suburbia; it is about some of the people who live in it.
"I suppose that is the main thing that has dictated my choice of the 10 best books (impossible task) about people who live in places not unlike Putney, where my new book is set. All these books are about utterly suburban individuals – people bound up in and absorbed by Clapham, Palmers Green or, indeed, Putney. All these books take them very seriously – especially when they are using them to provoke laughter."
1. John Carey, The intellectuals and the masses.
This superb book has as its theme the way in which high-toned thinkers responded to the newly-literate classes, enfranchised and educated by late Victorian legislation. They were the people who first occupied the suburbs – the housing put up around the new railway stations that allowed the humble to trundle into London, as they still do, to return to a house, a garden, a fireside. It is a vivid evocation – unsnobbish and beautifully written, of the clerks and respectable workers who read the kind of magazines in which Sherlock Holmes first made his appearance. It is the perfect companion to –
2. Jerome K. Jerome, Three men in a boat.
A still-hilarious account of a trip up the Thames made by three young clerks in a double sculling skiff – a boat with an awning under which they plan to sleep while leading the simple life. They are defeated, of course, like all English holidaymakers, by the weather and the impossibility of picnics. Their reason for going? They are feeling a little under the weather and one of them discovers, after a perusal of a Medical Dictionary that he has got all the diseases in it – apart from Housemaid's Knee. Things have not changed much since the Edwardian era …
3. George & Weedon Grossmith, The diary of a nobody.
Mr Pooter has become a living legend. He is one of those clerks described in John Carey's book and his adventures with tradesmen, foot scrapers and his hopeless son Lupin still engage and delight the reader. He is proud of his house, conscientious in his work and utterly devoted to his wife and family – which makes his absurdities and pomposities all the more touching.
4. Zadie Smith, White teeth.
I was brought up in Kilburn – though we called it Fortune Green in a desperate attempt to impress people – and Smith's brilliantly-plotted, funny and absorbing picture of the streets and houses I remember (though she is a lot younger than me) bring back my childhood more vividly than almost any other book I can think of. My father was the headmaster of the old Kilburn Grammar School – an excellent institution destroyed by the moronic Labour council who still seem to be in charge of Brent. Smith's book is full of life, atmosphere and the joy I still experience whenever Walm Lane comes into view …
5. Jonathan Franzen, The corrections.
Franzen's characters may roam all over the place – on nightmare cruises or ill-advised trips to Eastern Europe – but they are still bound to the suburban decencies. He writes about ordinary families with extraordinary honesty and delicacy and, though his characters are a long way from Palmers Green, their doomed attempts to do the right thing, for me, recall with almost painful clarity my own childhood, and, particularly, my father, who like the paterfamilias in this book, had a favourite chair … Incidentally, Freedom – whatever anyone may tell you – is just as good.
6. John Betjeman, Collected poems.
Betjeman is the man who said one of his great regrets was not having had enough sex. Perhaps if he had had more of it he would not have written such glorious evocations of the tennis club, Ruislip Station or any of the other landmarks of Metroland about which he enthused so charmingly.
7. Philip Larkin, Collected poems.
I never went to Larkin's street in Hull but, when I worked at the BBC, in the days when they did films about poets, I found myself looking at the outside of his house quite a lot. It looked pretty suburban to me. His poems are not as emphatically about the commuter belt as Betjeman's, but when he turns his eye on the neighbours, he quite definitely belongs on this list. Think of that poem of his "Vers de Societé" that describes so many awful suburban evenings where one has "To listen to the drivel of some bitch/Who's read nothing but Which …" And when he is in forgiving mood he can be touching about the quiet streets where we will "never see such innocence again".
8. Gavin Ewart, Late pickings.
Not all these poems are about suburbia but it does contain the best poem ever written about Putney High Street. Possibly the only poem ever written about Putney High Street. Larkin rated Gavin Ewart so highly he wrote a poem to him. Ewart is the man who wrote – "Miss Twye was soaping her breasts in her bath/ When she heard behind her a meaning laugh/ She turned and to her amazement discovered/ A wicked man in the bathroom cupboard." So, well, a genius, but also, something you may have gathered I love, a passionate advocate of the ordinary. He is not only a highly-accomplished versifier but someone who can find joy in a sign outside a café on the Upper Richmond Road that reads "BREAKFAST ALL DAY". He is greatly missed.
9. Jonathan Coe, The Rotters Club.
All Coe's novels are great but this one has the authentic suburban touch. It is about a group of grammar school boys in a city that is almost all suburb – not a remark which will please occupants of Birmingham. Mind you - I am the man who once asked that eminent Brummie fiction writer, Jim Crace, whether Birmingham had an airport …
10. Blake Morrison, South of the river.
Morrison is an excellent poet and has become a brilliant novelist. This book has many wonderful things in it. Its characters may not be quite tennis-club material but they are certainly bound by their south London location; and, for me, it has the best description of a writer failing to deliver since Gissing's New Grub Street.
------
Some BTL comments and recommendations:
"Would also add Metroland by Julian Barnes; The scent of dried roses by Tim Lott, and John Boorman's Adventures of a suburban boy". "The scent of dried roses should definitely be in the list, I agree. In fact, it makes it into my overall top ten books of any genre."
"I'll never forget my surprise at picking up The Buddha of suburbia by Hanif Kureishi and, on the very first page, finding the protagonist on a 227 bus in Beckenham - where I grew up!"
"I've always felt The sportswriter by Richard Ford was a book about suburbia."
"J. G. Ballard's transformation of Shepperton into a lush, surreal Eden in The Unlimited Dream Company is one of the greatest celebrations of suburbia I know of, full of wit and insight into tribal ritual and taboo by the Thames. Michael Frayn's Spies is another novel that gloriously addresses the tensions and strangeness that lies beneath suburban respectability, memorably symbolised by the "vulgar reek" of privet hedges in high summer."
"I'd add Mr Phillips by John Lanchester."
"Raymond Carver for me - particularly Elephant, his last collection, seven suburban stories of rare intensity."
16Cynfelyn
Rebecca Stead's top 10 American children's classics you may have missed.
Guardian, 2013-08-08.
US author Rebecca Stead is in the running for the Guardian children's fiction prize with her novel Liar and spy. Here she picks her favourite classic American novels for children that may be overlooked outside her home country.
1. Madeleine L'Engle, A wrinkle in time.
Meg, her unusual little brother Charles Wallace, and her new friend (crush) Calvin cross time and space to discover the truth about Meg's father, a scientist who has been missing for more than a year. Despite Meg's bad moods and doubts about herself, she holds the key to their survival.
2. Robert C. O'Brien, Mrs Frisby and the rats of NIMH.
Determined mother mouse braves the company of some very unusual rats in order to save the lives of her family. (Meanwhile, the scientifically altered, super-intelligent rats have their own agenda.)
3. E. L. Konigsburg, From the mixed-up files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler.
Claudia, feeling unappreciated, runs away from home to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City with her brother in tow (because he's good with money). There, the kids make themselves at home (standing on toilet seats at closing time to evade the guards) until questions about an angel sculpture of mysterious origin draw them back into the world.
4. Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the spy.
A New York girl with an anti-authoritarian streak and a writing habit alienates her friends when they read her notebook, where she has written what she really thinks of all of them. This one made me contemplate what it would be like if everyone at school could read my thoughts, and also what it would be like to have a townhouse and a cook.
5. Sydney Taylor, All-of-a-kind family.
The first in a series of chapter books about the lives of five sisters in a working-class, Jewish family living on Manhattan's lower east side in the early 1900s. Though entirely realistic, this one was magical to me.
6. Edward Eager, Half magic.
Kids discover a magic coin that provides exactly half of whatever is wished for. Great fun. I still remember the diorama I made for this one in grade school. It included a plastic baby suspended on invisible string. Transporting and timeless.
7. Ellen Raskin, The westing game.
Mind-bending and original in the extreme. Characters bequeathed apartments in a mysterious building have to figure out the truth about their benefactor. I somehow missed this one during childhood, but made sure my sons didn't.
8. Norton Juster, The phantom tollbooth.
An inventive, playful story about Milo, a kid bored by life who enters mysterious worlds via a cardboard tollbooth that shows up at his house one day. Accompanied by an impossible dog named Toc, he discovers odd creatures, difficult missions, and the fact that there may be one or two things to be excited about in his own universe.
9. E. B. White, Charlotte's web.
Perhaps the perfect book, this one has it all: A tale of suspense, honesty, and love in a barnyard where the stakes are life and death. Wilbur, sweet but naïve pig, is soon to be slaughtered – what can he, a wise spider and a grouchy rat do to change his destiny?
10. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little house on the prairie.
Fascinating to the kid I was and to most kids I know today, a story about what it was like to live in a poor (but loving) farming family in Midwestern America during the mid-1800s. Part of a series that follows the characters through their lives.
------
Pity in a way that this was a children's top ten books article, as in consequence the BTL comments were not opened. Any thoughts on neglected US children's classics to fill the gap?
Guardian, 2013-08-08.
US author Rebecca Stead is in the running for the Guardian children's fiction prize with her novel Liar and spy. Here she picks her favourite classic American novels for children that may be overlooked outside her home country.
1. Madeleine L'Engle, A wrinkle in time.
Meg, her unusual little brother Charles Wallace, and her new friend (crush) Calvin cross time and space to discover the truth about Meg's father, a scientist who has been missing for more than a year. Despite Meg's bad moods and doubts about herself, she holds the key to their survival.
2. Robert C. O'Brien, Mrs Frisby and the rats of NIMH.
Determined mother mouse braves the company of some very unusual rats in order to save the lives of her family. (Meanwhile, the scientifically altered, super-intelligent rats have their own agenda.)
3. E. L. Konigsburg, From the mixed-up files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler.
Claudia, feeling unappreciated, runs away from home to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City with her brother in tow (because he's good with money). There, the kids make themselves at home (standing on toilet seats at closing time to evade the guards) until questions about an angel sculpture of mysterious origin draw them back into the world.
4. Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the spy.
A New York girl with an anti-authoritarian streak and a writing habit alienates her friends when they read her notebook, where she has written what she really thinks of all of them. This one made me contemplate what it would be like if everyone at school could read my thoughts, and also what it would be like to have a townhouse and a cook.
5. Sydney Taylor, All-of-a-kind family.
The first in a series of chapter books about the lives of five sisters in a working-class, Jewish family living on Manhattan's lower east side in the early 1900s. Though entirely realistic, this one was magical to me.
6. Edward Eager, Half magic.
Kids discover a magic coin that provides exactly half of whatever is wished for. Great fun. I still remember the diorama I made for this one in grade school. It included a plastic baby suspended on invisible string. Transporting and timeless.
7. Ellen Raskin, The westing game.
Mind-bending and original in the extreme. Characters bequeathed apartments in a mysterious building have to figure out the truth about their benefactor. I somehow missed this one during childhood, but made sure my sons didn't.
8. Norton Juster, The phantom tollbooth.
An inventive, playful story about Milo, a kid bored by life who enters mysterious worlds via a cardboard tollbooth that shows up at his house one day. Accompanied by an impossible dog named Toc, he discovers odd creatures, difficult missions, and the fact that there may be one or two things to be excited about in his own universe.
9. E. B. White, Charlotte's web.
Perhaps the perfect book, this one has it all: A tale of suspense, honesty, and love in a barnyard where the stakes are life and death. Wilbur, sweet but naïve pig, is soon to be slaughtered – what can he, a wise spider and a grouchy rat do to change his destiny?
10. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little house on the prairie.
Fascinating to the kid I was and to most kids I know today, a story about what it was like to live in a poor (but loving) farming family in Midwestern America during the mid-1800s. Part of a series that follows the characters through their lives.
------
Pity in a way that this was a children's top ten books article, as in consequence the BTL comments were not opened. Any thoughts on neglected US children's classics to fill the gap?
17Cynfelyn
Michael Arditti's top 10 novels about priests.
Guardian, 2013-08-14.
"From Friar Tuck to Father Ted, clergy occupy a special place in popular culture. Even the most anticlerical reader is likely to have a favourite fictional priest, if only in childhood memories of Roald Dahl's Vicar of Nibbleswicke.
"Although in recent years polemics against religion have eclipsed novels about religious life in both bestseller lists and media discourse, there remains a huge range of literary work featuring clergy, from Sloth, the drunken priest in William Langland's Piers Plowman, and the Monk, Friar, Pardoner and Parson in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, to Father Ralph de Bricassart in Colleen McCullough's The thorn birds and Father Lankester Merrin in William Peter Blatty's The exorcist.
"I myself have written about a variety of clerical figures, from a spiritually and sexually confused ordinand in The celibate, a liberal vicar and his Christ-like curate in Easter, through an apostate bishop in The enemy of the good, to my current protagonist, an English missionary priest who fights oppression in Marcos's Philippines in The breath of night.
"In accordance with the diversity of beliefs featured in my own work, I have been deliberately ecumenical in this choice, while ranging widely in both style and setting in order to show the richness of religious-themed fiction."
1. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The brothers Karamazov.
Like all of Dostoevsky's work, The brothers Karamazov is steeped in theological conflict and debate, nowhere more so than in Book Five of this novel where, in an attempt to explain his repudiation of God to his younger brother, Alyosha, Ivan Karamazov tells the story of the Grand Inquisitor, the supreme exponent of ecclesiastical sophistry, who rejects the Christ he is supposed to serve, claiming that His return to earth threatens the mission of the church.
2. Anthony Trollope, The warden.
Clerics play as significant a role in the great English comic novels of the 18th and 19th centuries as they did in life. This process reaches its apogee in Anthony Trollope's Barchester Chronicles. Although it lacks the immortal Mrs Proudie, my own favourite of the sequence is The warden, not least for its portrait of the titular figure, Septimus Harding, the archetypal bumbling clergyman, whose intentions – as those of so many before and since – are misunderstood by the press.
3. José Rizal, Noli me tangere.
Given the Philippine setting of The breath of night, I have a particular interest in this late 19th-century novel, which was hugely influential on the development of Philippine nationalism and the country's struggle for independence from Spain. Fray Dámaso Vardolagas, the villainous curate who persecutes the hero and his family, epitomises the venal Spanish friars who had governed the Philippines for 300 years. Among Filipinos, his name remains a byword for clerical corruption.
4. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead.
Marilynne Robinson writes with almost biblical authority about John Ames, an elderly Congregationalist pastor for whom the Bible is the bedrock of life. As Ames records his memoirs for the seven-year-old son whom he knows he will never see reach adulthood, he struggles to come to terms both emotionally and intellectually with the legacy of his father and grandfather. Meanwhile, he is unsettled by the return of his dissolute godson, Jack Boughton (the hero of Robinson's subsequent novel, Home), who tests his notions of Christian forgiveness to the full.
5. Georges Bernanos, The diary of a country priest.
It is easy to see why this deceptively simple story of an idealistic young priest struggling with his own spiritual conflicts and failing health while ministering to a deeply compromised flock in a 1930s French village appealed to director Robert Bresson, who adapted it into a highly acclaimed film. Despite little in the way of plot or even character development, the novel's luminous portrayal of its protagonist, a man of singular integrity and decency, has rarely been matched.
6. Willa Cather, Death comes for the Archbishop.
Jean Latour (the "archbishop" of the title) and his friend, Joseph Vaillant, travel to the newly-established diocese of Santa Fe in 1848 shortly after Mexico ceded the territory to the US. Cather movingly chronicles the two men's attempts over the next 40 years to promulgate their faith in a singularly unwelcoming setting. With its painterly prose, this is one of the finest accounts of active Church mission.
7. Matthew Kneale, English passengers.
Matthew Kneale's award-winning novel is told in a variety of voices, but at its heart is that of the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, who charters the former smuggling vessel, the Sincerity, to sail to Australia in a bid to prove that the Garden of Eden was located in Tasmania. Kneale skilfully turns the conflict between Wilson and his travelling companion, the ethnologist Dr Thomas Potter, into the embodiment of the 19th-century battle between religion and science.
8. Shusaku Endo, Silence.
Endo, a Japanese Catholic, who suffered religious prejudice in his own country, used his outsider's perspective to great effect in this study of a 17th-century Portuguese missionary sent to Japan to investigate his former teacher's apostasy. A powerful – and semi-factual – story is here combined with a profound meditation on the nature of human sufferssing.
9. Frederick Rolfe, Hadrian the Seventh.
After dithering between Firbank's Concerning the eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli and this one for a place as joker in the pack, I've opted for the latter because, although Rolfe's leaden prose is no match for Firbank's burnished dialogue, his plot in which a failed candidate for the priesthood (a thinly veiled portrait of the author) is transported to Rome and elected pope remains the ultimate wish-fulfilment in clerical fiction.
10. Graham Greene, The power and the glory.
The phrase "whisky priest" is routinely attached to several of Graham Greene's characters, but he himself coined it to describe the unnamed protagonist of The power and the glory. In contrast to some of his later works where he uses exotic settings as little more than backdrops for western love triangles, Greene here enters fully into the struggle between church and state in 1930s Mexico and his hero's spiritual journey is deeply affecting.
------
I am supremely unqualified in this catagory, and can only bring to mind reading Morris L. West's The shoes of the fisherman and Giovanni Guareschi's Don Camillo short stories.
Half a dozen recommendations / comments / threads from BTL:
"Not even a mention for the vicar of Altarnun from Jamaica Inn?"
"I'd recommend two novels by Zola: The sin of Father Mouret, about a young idealistic priest struggling with his faith, and The conquest of Plassans, in which a sinister priest with a hidden political agenda ingratiates himself into a community. Both superb."
"The sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. Colossal test of faith and cultural misunderstanding." "Yes! And the sequel, The children of God."
"Herman Hesse's The glass bead game deserves a mention here. Joseph Knecht, the Magister Ludi, turns against the stultifying orthodoxy of hundreds of years of priestly rule in Castalia and renounces his position." "There's also Naphta, the Jesuit priest in Thomas Mann's The magic mountain. He is the binary opposite to Settembrini the humanist: theirs is a battle for the human soul and Naphta is revealed to be a wholly unpleasant piece of work." "And my final recommendation is A canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Millar, which chronicles the serial destruction of life on Earth by humanity over the next few millennia." "Actually, another one: The singer not the song by Audrey Erskine Lindop, featuring a priest and an outlaw in wild west Mexico. This was filmed as a ludicrously OTT homoerotic western starring Dirk Bogarde and (I think) John Mills. Bogarde's bandit is terrorising a Mexican village, and the newly-arrived priest confronts him, with much theological debate ensuing." "Yes, it is John Mills. And yes, it's a stunningly camp film, not least because of Bogarde's black leather trousers."
"Friar William of Baskerville and his apprentice Adso of Melk in Eco's first and best novel, The name of the rose."
"Jocelyn in The spire: heartbreaking."
Guardian, 2013-08-14.
"From Friar Tuck to Father Ted, clergy occupy a special place in popular culture. Even the most anticlerical reader is likely to have a favourite fictional priest, if only in childhood memories of Roald Dahl's Vicar of Nibbleswicke.
"Although in recent years polemics against religion have eclipsed novels about religious life in both bestseller lists and media discourse, there remains a huge range of literary work featuring clergy, from Sloth, the drunken priest in William Langland's Piers Plowman, and the Monk, Friar, Pardoner and Parson in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, to Father Ralph de Bricassart in Colleen McCullough's The thorn birds and Father Lankester Merrin in William Peter Blatty's The exorcist.
"I myself have written about a variety of clerical figures, from a spiritually and sexually confused ordinand in The celibate, a liberal vicar and his Christ-like curate in Easter, through an apostate bishop in The enemy of the good, to my current protagonist, an English missionary priest who fights oppression in Marcos's Philippines in The breath of night.
"In accordance with the diversity of beliefs featured in my own work, I have been deliberately ecumenical in this choice, while ranging widely in both style and setting in order to show the richness of religious-themed fiction."
1. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The brothers Karamazov.
Like all of Dostoevsky's work, The brothers Karamazov is steeped in theological conflict and debate, nowhere more so than in Book Five of this novel where, in an attempt to explain his repudiation of God to his younger brother, Alyosha, Ivan Karamazov tells the story of the Grand Inquisitor, the supreme exponent of ecclesiastical sophistry, who rejects the Christ he is supposed to serve, claiming that His return to earth threatens the mission of the church.
2. Anthony Trollope, The warden.
Clerics play as significant a role in the great English comic novels of the 18th and 19th centuries as they did in life. This process reaches its apogee in Anthony Trollope's Barchester Chronicles. Although it lacks the immortal Mrs Proudie, my own favourite of the sequence is The warden, not least for its portrait of the titular figure, Septimus Harding, the archetypal bumbling clergyman, whose intentions – as those of so many before and since – are misunderstood by the press.
3. José Rizal, Noli me tangere.
Given the Philippine setting of The breath of night, I have a particular interest in this late 19th-century novel, which was hugely influential on the development of Philippine nationalism and the country's struggle for independence from Spain. Fray Dámaso Vardolagas, the villainous curate who persecutes the hero and his family, epitomises the venal Spanish friars who had governed the Philippines for 300 years. Among Filipinos, his name remains a byword for clerical corruption.
4. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead.
Marilynne Robinson writes with almost biblical authority about John Ames, an elderly Congregationalist pastor for whom the Bible is the bedrock of life. As Ames records his memoirs for the seven-year-old son whom he knows he will never see reach adulthood, he struggles to come to terms both emotionally and intellectually with the legacy of his father and grandfather. Meanwhile, he is unsettled by the return of his dissolute godson, Jack Boughton (the hero of Robinson's subsequent novel, Home), who tests his notions of Christian forgiveness to the full.
5. Georges Bernanos, The diary of a country priest.
It is easy to see why this deceptively simple story of an idealistic young priest struggling with his own spiritual conflicts and failing health while ministering to a deeply compromised flock in a 1930s French village appealed to director Robert Bresson, who adapted it into a highly acclaimed film. Despite little in the way of plot or even character development, the novel's luminous portrayal of its protagonist, a man of singular integrity and decency, has rarely been matched.
6. Willa Cather, Death comes for the Archbishop.
Jean Latour (the "archbishop" of the title) and his friend, Joseph Vaillant, travel to the newly-established diocese of Santa Fe in 1848 shortly after Mexico ceded the territory to the US. Cather movingly chronicles the two men's attempts over the next 40 years to promulgate their faith in a singularly unwelcoming setting. With its painterly prose, this is one of the finest accounts of active Church mission.
7. Matthew Kneale, English passengers.
Matthew Kneale's award-winning novel is told in a variety of voices, but at its heart is that of the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, who charters the former smuggling vessel, the Sincerity, to sail to Australia in a bid to prove that the Garden of Eden was located in Tasmania. Kneale skilfully turns the conflict between Wilson and his travelling companion, the ethnologist Dr Thomas Potter, into the embodiment of the 19th-century battle between religion and science.
8. Shusaku Endo, Silence.
Endo, a Japanese Catholic, who suffered religious prejudice in his own country, used his outsider's perspective to great effect in this study of a 17th-century Portuguese missionary sent to Japan to investigate his former teacher's apostasy. A powerful – and semi-factual – story is here combined with a profound meditation on the nature of human sufferssing.
9. Frederick Rolfe, Hadrian the Seventh.
After dithering between Firbank's Concerning the eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli and this one for a place as joker in the pack, I've opted for the latter because, although Rolfe's leaden prose is no match for Firbank's burnished dialogue, his plot in which a failed candidate for the priesthood (a thinly veiled portrait of the author) is transported to Rome and elected pope remains the ultimate wish-fulfilment in clerical fiction.
10. Graham Greene, The power and the glory.
The phrase "whisky priest" is routinely attached to several of Graham Greene's characters, but he himself coined it to describe the unnamed protagonist of The power and the glory. In contrast to some of his later works where he uses exotic settings as little more than backdrops for western love triangles, Greene here enters fully into the struggle between church and state in 1930s Mexico and his hero's spiritual journey is deeply affecting.
------
I am supremely unqualified in this catagory, and can only bring to mind reading Morris L. West's The shoes of the fisherman and Giovanni Guareschi's Don Camillo short stories.
Half a dozen recommendations / comments / threads from BTL:
"Not even a mention for the vicar of Altarnun from Jamaica Inn?"
"I'd recommend two novels by Zola: The sin of Father Mouret, about a young idealistic priest struggling with his faith, and The conquest of Plassans, in which a sinister priest with a hidden political agenda ingratiates himself into a community. Both superb."
"The sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. Colossal test of faith and cultural misunderstanding." "Yes! And the sequel, The children of God."
"Herman Hesse's The glass bead game deserves a mention here. Joseph Knecht, the Magister Ludi, turns against the stultifying orthodoxy of hundreds of years of priestly rule in Castalia and renounces his position." "There's also Naphta, the Jesuit priest in Thomas Mann's The magic mountain. He is the binary opposite to Settembrini the humanist: theirs is a battle for the human soul and Naphta is revealed to be a wholly unpleasant piece of work." "And my final recommendation is A canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Millar, which chronicles the serial destruction of life on Earth by humanity over the next few millennia." "Actually, another one: The singer not the song by Audrey Erskine Lindop, featuring a priest and an outlaw in wild west Mexico. This was filmed as a ludicrously OTT homoerotic western starring Dirk Bogarde and (I think) John Mills. Bogarde's bandit is terrorising a Mexican village, and the newly-arrived priest confronts him, with much theological debate ensuing." "Yes, it is John Mills. And yes, it's a stunningly camp film, not least because of Bogarde's black leather trousers."
"Friar William of Baskerville and his apprentice Adso of Melk in Eco's first and best novel, The name of the rose."
"Jocelyn in The spire: heartbreaking."
18Cynfelyn
Lisa Tuttle's top 10 mould-breaking fantasy novels.
Guardian, 2013-08-28.
"It doesn't seem long ago that George R. R. Martin's Song of ice and fire series was being promoted as fantasy for non-fantasy readers as a way of attracting those who imagined "fantasy" was twee escapism involving fairies. (That was before the TV version of Game of Thrones changed everything.) My own novel The silver bough, about the inhabitants of a remote town at risk of being overwhelmed by Scotland's mythological past, was once criticised by a disgruntled fan as "fantasy for people who don't read fantasy". Whether used as inducement or warning, that sort of labelling implies there's a strong consensus view of what fantasy literature is, both among those who read it and those who wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.
"In his introduction to The best British fantasy 2013, editor Steve Haynes warns: "British fantasy is not what you think it is." He argues that in the short stories he's collected, writers were able to take more risks, be more experimental, and generally offer darker, more dangerous visions than are to be found in most popular novels.
"Maybe. But there have always been fantasy novels that break the mould, and it's these more distinctive, individual explorations of the fantastic that are my favourites. So, if you think you don't like fantasy – or even if you do – check these out. They don't have dragons or sexy vampires, but they're filled with real magic."
1. Jonathan Carroll, The land of laughs.
When an author has written more than a dozen books, and is still writing, he might be annoyed to have his first novel cited as his best, so let me say that all Carroll's books are worth seeking out, and any one of them will give you the brilliant, heady taste of his sinister and charming storytelling. But The land of laughs was the first I read, and will always be the closest to my heart. It's an astonishing tale, funny and scary by turn, about two people who go in pursuit of the author whose books for children have shaped their lives, only to discover that they were not the fantasies they seemed.
2. Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
Set in a magical Britain during the Napoleonic wars, this is a deeply strange and satisfying creation, elegantly written, an alternative history filled with treasures and reflections of other works of literature and historical events, real and imagined. For all its length, I wished it would never end.
3. John Crowley, Ægypt.
A fantasy of history, concerned with occult practices, memory palaces, John Dee etc, yet utterly grounded in real places and times in our world. Pierce Moffett, a child of the 60s in New York, investigates his suspicion that the world might have split at some point in the past, creating more than one true history.
4. John Fowles, The Magus.
Not usually classed as a fantasy, but I've always thought it must be. How else could even the most eccentric, wealthy old man play his "god-game" and interfere in the life of a young Englishman without recourse to magic? I read it first at an impressionable age and it became my ideal of a great novel. Still loved it when I was old enough to know better, and look forward to reading it again soon.
5. Elizabeth Hand, Mortal love.
Pre-Raphaelite painters, fairy lore, a narrative that spans the Victorian age to the present, with settings in England and America, intriguing characters, tricks with time, vivid writing … I was smitten, and as the plot – including so many of my own obsessions – unwound, I began to suspect the author must be my secret twin. Which twin was spirited away?
6. M. John Harrison, The course of the heart.
A strange ritual enacted by Cambridge students blights their lives for ever, until it seems there's hope to be found in a search for the legendary, long-vanished country known as the Coeur. This dark romance involving magic, art and history feels like a modern take on Arthur Machen, but the incisive pen portraits and quiet elegance of the prose are Harrison's own.
7. Shirley Jackson, The haunting of Hill House.
Best haunted-house story ever. It's not about special effects, gore or monsters – and try to forget the film remake. This beautifully written, creepy and disturbing book is a perfect blend of psychology and the supernatural, human nature and unnatural weirdness.
8. Graham Joyce, The silent land.
I could easily add three different titles by Graham Joyce to this list, but decided on this one because it is the kind of deceptively simple story that's very hard to get right, and he never drops a stitch. It's a love story about a married couple, and deeply moving without being sentimental or trite.
9. China Miéville, The city & the city.
Is this a detective story, a work of science fiction, a philosophical puzzle or a Kafkaesque work of magical realism? It's all those things, and a fantastically enjoyable, thought-provoking read.
10. Allison Uttley, A traveller in time.
First published in 1939, this is the story of young Penelope who, while staying in an old farmhouse in Derbyshire, finds herself able to move through time, slipping between her own 20th century and the 16th as easily as walking from one room to another. It was based on the author's vivid memories of her own country childhood, where people still spoke of a local plot to save Mary Queen of Scots as of something recent, and she had "a dream within a dream … moving through a life parallel to my own existence".
------
There are well over five hundred BTL comments to this column (as usual, click on the word 'Guardian' to go to the original column on the Guardian website). Including squabbles about what constitutes fantasy as opposed to phantasy, sci-fi, historical fiction etc. A sample half a dozen comments might include:
"Interesting list, I would also add The lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, The great & secret show by Clive Barker and Good omens by Niel Gaimen & Terry Pratchett."
"Daughter of smoke and bone, and the sequel Days of blood and starlight, by Laini Taylor. Loved them both. And, of course, the His Dark Materials trilogy.
"What about At Swim Two Birds by Flann O'Brien? Does that count as a fantasy novel? Or is it literature?"
"I'd vote for The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper." "Even better - The weirdstone of Brisingamen and its sequels, by Alan Garner. Elidor is my favourite."
"Has anyone read Harry Potter? If you can track down a copy it's very good." "The Mortal Engines series is for kids too but it is simply outstanding. I've never read 'Potter' but I know, from the glimpses here and there of text and the odd film bit, that it can't compare to this genius series." "It really can, although I will grant you that Mortal Engines is more original. Don't judge Harry Potter on the films."
"Age of misrule by Mark Chadbourn? A cracking dark fantasy trilogy set in a Britain where science and reason have failed and the old celtic gods and magic have returned. Rather accessible and a cracking read though, of course, your mileage may vary!"
Guardian, 2013-08-28.
"It doesn't seem long ago that George R. R. Martin's Song of ice and fire series was being promoted as fantasy for non-fantasy readers as a way of attracting those who imagined "fantasy" was twee escapism involving fairies. (That was before the TV version of Game of Thrones changed everything.) My own novel The silver bough, about the inhabitants of a remote town at risk of being overwhelmed by Scotland's mythological past, was once criticised by a disgruntled fan as "fantasy for people who don't read fantasy". Whether used as inducement or warning, that sort of labelling implies there's a strong consensus view of what fantasy literature is, both among those who read it and those who wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.
"In his introduction to The best British fantasy 2013, editor Steve Haynes warns: "British fantasy is not what you think it is." He argues that in the short stories he's collected, writers were able to take more risks, be more experimental, and generally offer darker, more dangerous visions than are to be found in most popular novels.
"Maybe. But there have always been fantasy novels that break the mould, and it's these more distinctive, individual explorations of the fantastic that are my favourites. So, if you think you don't like fantasy – or even if you do – check these out. They don't have dragons or sexy vampires, but they're filled with real magic."
1. Jonathan Carroll, The land of laughs.
When an author has written more than a dozen books, and is still writing, he might be annoyed to have his first novel cited as his best, so let me say that all Carroll's books are worth seeking out, and any one of them will give you the brilliant, heady taste of his sinister and charming storytelling. But The land of laughs was the first I read, and will always be the closest to my heart. It's an astonishing tale, funny and scary by turn, about two people who go in pursuit of the author whose books for children have shaped their lives, only to discover that they were not the fantasies they seemed.
2. Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
Set in a magical Britain during the Napoleonic wars, this is a deeply strange and satisfying creation, elegantly written, an alternative history filled with treasures and reflections of other works of literature and historical events, real and imagined. For all its length, I wished it would never end.
3. John Crowley, Ægypt.
A fantasy of history, concerned with occult practices, memory palaces, John Dee etc, yet utterly grounded in real places and times in our world. Pierce Moffett, a child of the 60s in New York, investigates his suspicion that the world might have split at some point in the past, creating more than one true history.
4. John Fowles, The Magus.
Not usually classed as a fantasy, but I've always thought it must be. How else could even the most eccentric, wealthy old man play his "god-game" and interfere in the life of a young Englishman without recourse to magic? I read it first at an impressionable age and it became my ideal of a great novel. Still loved it when I was old enough to know better, and look forward to reading it again soon.
5. Elizabeth Hand, Mortal love.
Pre-Raphaelite painters, fairy lore, a narrative that spans the Victorian age to the present, with settings in England and America, intriguing characters, tricks with time, vivid writing … I was smitten, and as the plot – including so many of my own obsessions – unwound, I began to suspect the author must be my secret twin. Which twin was spirited away?
6. M. John Harrison, The course of the heart.
A strange ritual enacted by Cambridge students blights their lives for ever, until it seems there's hope to be found in a search for the legendary, long-vanished country known as the Coeur. This dark romance involving magic, art and history feels like a modern take on Arthur Machen, but the incisive pen portraits and quiet elegance of the prose are Harrison's own.
7. Shirley Jackson, The haunting of Hill House.
Best haunted-house story ever. It's not about special effects, gore or monsters – and try to forget the film remake. This beautifully written, creepy and disturbing book is a perfect blend of psychology and the supernatural, human nature and unnatural weirdness.
8. Graham Joyce, The silent land.
I could easily add three different titles by Graham Joyce to this list, but decided on this one because it is the kind of deceptively simple story that's very hard to get right, and he never drops a stitch. It's a love story about a married couple, and deeply moving without being sentimental or trite.
9. China Miéville, The city & the city.
Is this a detective story, a work of science fiction, a philosophical puzzle or a Kafkaesque work of magical realism? It's all those things, and a fantastically enjoyable, thought-provoking read.
10. Allison Uttley, A traveller in time.
First published in 1939, this is the story of young Penelope who, while staying in an old farmhouse in Derbyshire, finds herself able to move through time, slipping between her own 20th century and the 16th as easily as walking from one room to another. It was based on the author's vivid memories of her own country childhood, where people still spoke of a local plot to save Mary Queen of Scots as of something recent, and she had "a dream within a dream … moving through a life parallel to my own existence".
------
There are well over five hundred BTL comments to this column (as usual, click on the word 'Guardian' to go to the original column on the Guardian website). Including squabbles about what constitutes fantasy as opposed to phantasy, sci-fi, historical fiction etc. A sample half a dozen comments might include:
"Interesting list, I would also add The lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, The great & secret show by Clive Barker and Good omens by Niel Gaimen & Terry Pratchett."
"Daughter of smoke and bone, and the sequel Days of blood and starlight, by Laini Taylor. Loved them both. And, of course, the His Dark Materials trilogy.
"What about At Swim Two Birds by Flann O'Brien? Does that count as a fantasy novel? Or is it literature?"
"I'd vote for The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper." "Even better - The weirdstone of Brisingamen and its sequels, by Alan Garner. Elidor is my favourite."
"Has anyone read Harry Potter? If you can track down a copy it's very good." "The Mortal Engines series is for kids too but it is simply outstanding. I've never read 'Potter' but I know, from the glimpses here and there of text and the odd film bit, that it can't compare to this genius series." "It really can, although I will grant you that Mortal Engines is more original. Don't judge Harry Potter on the films."
"Age of misrule by Mark Chadbourn? A cracking dark fantasy trilogy set in a Britain where science and reason have failed and the old celtic gods and magic have returned. Rather accessible and a cracking read though, of course, your mileage may vary!"
19Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Fletcher Moss's top 10 self-contained worlds in fiction.
Guardian, 2013-08-29.
Fletcher Moss is an assistant head teacher in a secondary school in Greater Manchester. A visit Alnwick Castle and its poison garden provided the inspiration for The poison boy, his first novel, which won the Times/Chicken House children's fiction competition.
"Fanboys, obsessives and fantasy-geeks call it 'world-building'; the graft that goes into creating a sustained, logical and robust other-world; a fictional landscape so vivid it almost plays the role of an additional character. Writing The poison boy meant hours spent tramping the streets of a place called Highlions, mostly by moonlight, in pursuit of a crew of teenage runaways and a murderer with a broken face. I've visited this virtual place so often that I know what district I'm in by the street slang, the shape and position of the churches and wells, or the scent of the river on the night air. Highlions is walled, and the action never leaves its streets, so there is – I hope, at least – a strong unity of place.
"In this list, I've deliberately steered clear of open worlds and chosen instead some more claustrophobic, closed locations you might not have visited before …"
1. Lindsay Barraclough, Long Lankin.
Barraclough's depiction of Bryers Guerdon, a village half-immersed in mist-clad marshes, is as vivid as it is frightening; its silent and close-lipped inhabitants are reminiscent of those of Crythin Gifford in Susan Hill's The Woman in Black. Much of our time is spent in Guerdon Hall, a sinking wreck of a house, exploring the dusty tombs of its abandoned rooms. As the action builds, the cellar and, perhaps most notably, the nearby churchyard become the focus of a gripping, supernatural climax.
2. Kenneth Oppel, Skybreaker.
I've chosen the second of Kenneth Oppel's buccaneering trilogy because it's my favourite. We spend much of its early pages on a steampunk airship called the Sagarmatha, and much of its later pages on an even better steampunk airship called the Hyperion. Though we virtually never set foot on land – a terrific action sequence in Paris aside – Oppel's loving attention to detail makes the mysterious abandoned decks and walkways of these lumbering dirigibles world enough by themselves.
3. Chris Wooding, The haunting of Alaizabel Cray.
The Old Quarter of Wooding's alternative London is a nest of foul wych-kin; wolves, ghouls, ghosts and other assorted beasties. A great spot, in short, to set a parallel world narrative in which magic and science mix, and a young boy seeks to rid a possessed girl of the demon who haunts her. Tremendous stuff.
4. Edward Hogan, Daylight saving.
Imagine pitching this one to an agent or publisher: a haunting story of forbidden love, at once chilling and poetic, set entirely in a ... holiday camp. I am, of course, doing Hogan's beautiful novel a disservice – Daylight saving is cracking stuff. We get to know the lakes and woods of Leisure World mostly by night and always in the company of its bruised and brooding narrator Daniel. His developing relationship with the mysterious Lexi is compelling, and only intensified by the re-occurance of the same locations; the great dome and swimming pool, the dark water of the lake, and the mystery waiting for them both in the pines that line the camp's edge.
5. Dodie Smith, I capture the castle.
The Suffolk castle at the heart of this book is not the only space Smith takes us to, but it is the most compelling, and the family that lives there – the eccentric and penniless Marchmains – are intoxicating and addictive company. There are scenes set at nearby Scoatney Hall, inherited by the Cotton family (the unmarried Cotton brothers are the subject of much romantic interest), there's a London sequence, and a comic scene involving a fur coat at a railway station. But always the action returns to Belmotte, its moat and barn, its maze of corridors and turrets and its freezing bedrooms. An aside: the final lines of this novel are among my favourite ever.
6. Philip Reeve, Predator's gold.
Reeve sets much of the action in this novel – the second of the Mortal Engines Quartet – on the city of Anchorage as it rumbles Westward across the ice towards North America. It's an eerie and half-abandoned traction-city ruled by Freya Rasmussen, an alluring young margravine intent on driving her citizens towards this promised land. There is, of course, trouble ahead. Anyone unfamiliar with Reeve's work (in which case, where've you been? Get to the back of the class!) should start with Mortal engines, the book that precedes this one.
7. Graham Gardner, Inventing Elliot.
I'm a huge admirer of Donna Tartt's The secret history, so when I first picked up Gardner's Inventing Elliot I was struck by that same intense mix of dystopian campus novel and persecution thriller. Gardner introduces us to a seriously disturbing fraternity at the heart of Holminster High, and our protagonist is going to get drawn into it no matter how hard he struggles. It's not for nothing that we open with a quote from Orwell's 1984.
8. Marcus Sedgwick, My swordhand is singing.
When I first read this I couldn't help but think of M. Night Shyamalan's movie The village, mostly on account of Sedgewick's setting; the small settlement of Chust, sealed in a woodland clearing. This village, however, is the eastern European type plagued by vampires; proper vampires, rather than the moon-eyed Hollywood types more inclined to fall in love with you than drink you dry. The story is intense and brutal - entirely focused on a square acre of so of ravaged woodland. When, in the final chapter, the action moves to a distant city, the relief of escape is intense.
9. Melvin Burgess, Bloodtide.
Burgess's Bloodtide is as savage a book as you might wish to read. Based on the Volsunga saga, an Icelandic epic, it tells the story of the twin children of ganglord Val Volson. Our sympathies lie with Signy, Volson's daughter, who is married off in order to secure an uneasy truce between warring families. Most memorable about this bloody and violent tale is the fate of Signy, whose husband cripples her and leaves her alone in a tower. The reach of her lonely world is tiny, but it is the relationship between the action inside and outside this prison cell that is one of the main sources of the novel's curious power.
10. J. Meade Faulkner, Moonfleet.
It seems fitting to include this particularly given its title; Moonfleet is the tiny Dorset smuggler's village where the novel is set. Faulkner's descriptions of the village at night, the roar of the sea, the hiss of shingle and the night-time adventures of our protagonist John Trenchard exert a pull as powerful as the tides that sweep this memorable coastline. As if that wasn't enough, there's a chapter in which Trenchard is lowered down a well-shaft in a bucket; a scene so compelling that something very closely related found its way into an early draft of The poison boy – before my editor wisely put a red line through it.
Guardian, 2013-08-29.
Fletcher Moss is an assistant head teacher in a secondary school in Greater Manchester. A visit Alnwick Castle and its poison garden provided the inspiration for The poison boy, his first novel, which won the Times/Chicken House children's fiction competition.
"Fanboys, obsessives and fantasy-geeks call it 'world-building'; the graft that goes into creating a sustained, logical and robust other-world; a fictional landscape so vivid it almost plays the role of an additional character. Writing The poison boy meant hours spent tramping the streets of a place called Highlions, mostly by moonlight, in pursuit of a crew of teenage runaways and a murderer with a broken face. I've visited this virtual place so often that I know what district I'm in by the street slang, the shape and position of the churches and wells, or the scent of the river on the night air. Highlions is walled, and the action never leaves its streets, so there is – I hope, at least – a strong unity of place.
"In this list, I've deliberately steered clear of open worlds and chosen instead some more claustrophobic, closed locations you might not have visited before …"
1. Lindsay Barraclough, Long Lankin.
Barraclough's depiction of Bryers Guerdon, a village half-immersed in mist-clad marshes, is as vivid as it is frightening; its silent and close-lipped inhabitants are reminiscent of those of Crythin Gifford in Susan Hill's The Woman in Black. Much of our time is spent in Guerdon Hall, a sinking wreck of a house, exploring the dusty tombs of its abandoned rooms. As the action builds, the cellar and, perhaps most notably, the nearby churchyard become the focus of a gripping, supernatural climax.
2. Kenneth Oppel, Skybreaker.
I've chosen the second of Kenneth Oppel's buccaneering trilogy because it's my favourite. We spend much of its early pages on a steampunk airship called the Sagarmatha, and much of its later pages on an even better steampunk airship called the Hyperion. Though we virtually never set foot on land – a terrific action sequence in Paris aside – Oppel's loving attention to detail makes the mysterious abandoned decks and walkways of these lumbering dirigibles world enough by themselves.
3. Chris Wooding, The haunting of Alaizabel Cray.
The Old Quarter of Wooding's alternative London is a nest of foul wych-kin; wolves, ghouls, ghosts and other assorted beasties. A great spot, in short, to set a parallel world narrative in which magic and science mix, and a young boy seeks to rid a possessed girl of the demon who haunts her. Tremendous stuff.
4. Edward Hogan, Daylight saving.
Imagine pitching this one to an agent or publisher: a haunting story of forbidden love, at once chilling and poetic, set entirely in a ... holiday camp. I am, of course, doing Hogan's beautiful novel a disservice – Daylight saving is cracking stuff. We get to know the lakes and woods of Leisure World mostly by night and always in the company of its bruised and brooding narrator Daniel. His developing relationship with the mysterious Lexi is compelling, and only intensified by the re-occurance of the same locations; the great dome and swimming pool, the dark water of the lake, and the mystery waiting for them both in the pines that line the camp's edge.
5. Dodie Smith, I capture the castle.
The Suffolk castle at the heart of this book is not the only space Smith takes us to, but it is the most compelling, and the family that lives there – the eccentric and penniless Marchmains – are intoxicating and addictive company. There are scenes set at nearby Scoatney Hall, inherited by the Cotton family (the unmarried Cotton brothers are the subject of much romantic interest), there's a London sequence, and a comic scene involving a fur coat at a railway station. But always the action returns to Belmotte, its moat and barn, its maze of corridors and turrets and its freezing bedrooms. An aside: the final lines of this novel are among my favourite ever.
6. Philip Reeve, Predator's gold.
Reeve sets much of the action in this novel – the second of the Mortal Engines Quartet – on the city of Anchorage as it rumbles Westward across the ice towards North America. It's an eerie and half-abandoned traction-city ruled by Freya Rasmussen, an alluring young margravine intent on driving her citizens towards this promised land. There is, of course, trouble ahead. Anyone unfamiliar with Reeve's work (in which case, where've you been? Get to the back of the class!) should start with Mortal engines, the book that precedes this one.
7. Graham Gardner, Inventing Elliot.
I'm a huge admirer of Donna Tartt's The secret history, so when I first picked up Gardner's Inventing Elliot I was struck by that same intense mix of dystopian campus novel and persecution thriller. Gardner introduces us to a seriously disturbing fraternity at the heart of Holminster High, and our protagonist is going to get drawn into it no matter how hard he struggles. It's not for nothing that we open with a quote from Orwell's 1984.
8. Marcus Sedgwick, My swordhand is singing.
When I first read this I couldn't help but think of M. Night Shyamalan's movie The village, mostly on account of Sedgewick's setting; the small settlement of Chust, sealed in a woodland clearing. This village, however, is the eastern European type plagued by vampires; proper vampires, rather than the moon-eyed Hollywood types more inclined to fall in love with you than drink you dry. The story is intense and brutal - entirely focused on a square acre of so of ravaged woodland. When, in the final chapter, the action moves to a distant city, the relief of escape is intense.
9. Melvin Burgess, Bloodtide.
Burgess's Bloodtide is as savage a book as you might wish to read. Based on the Volsunga saga, an Icelandic epic, it tells the story of the twin children of ganglord Val Volson. Our sympathies lie with Signy, Volson's daughter, who is married off in order to secure an uneasy truce between warring families. Most memorable about this bloody and violent tale is the fate of Signy, whose husband cripples her and leaves her alone in a tower. The reach of her lonely world is tiny, but it is the relationship between the action inside and outside this prison cell that is one of the main sources of the novel's curious power.
10. J. Meade Faulkner, Moonfleet.
It seems fitting to include this particularly given its title; Moonfleet is the tiny Dorset smuggler's village where the novel is set. Faulkner's descriptions of the village at night, the roar of the sea, the hiss of shingle and the night-time adventures of our protagonist John Trenchard exert a pull as powerful as the tides that sweep this memorable coastline. As if that wasn't enough, there's a chapter in which Trenchard is lowered down a well-shaft in a bucket; a scene so compelling that something very closely related found its way into an early draft of The poison boy – before my editor wisely put a red line through it.
20Cynfelyn
Alison MacLeod's top 10 stories about infidelity.
Guardian, 2013-09-04.
"The coup de foudre. The brief encounter. The dangerous liaison. Our usual descriptions fascinate briefly, then fizzle out. They don't reveal enough. In fiction, as in life, I'm drawn to questions of who and how we love, the losses we fear, and what we'll risk – absurdly or boldly – to feel alive under the skin.
"For most of us, the thrill of a story about an infidelity is less about sex than it is about intimacy, that magnetic line of connection between two bodies and their secret selves. Intimacy shared with another person is often the first real betrayal to any union, and the first plunge out of one's depth.
"In fiction, characters misjudge the depth of the fall. Others rush headlong into the stuff of life. As they do, they're laid bare – literally (almost certainly) and metaphorically (always). We see what it is to be human: to yearn, to feel joy, to suffer and to see the world transformed."
1. Gustav Flaubert, Madame Bovary.
Who can forget Emma and Léon's furious cab ride through the streets of Rouen, their illicit passion concealed from view? In 1857, following publication, the Second Empire tried Flaubert for offences to morality and religion. He was acquitted, and the novel became an immediate bestseller. From the distance of the 21st century, it is easy to lose sight of just how radical Madame Bovary was when it first appeared, not only in its new "objective" style of prose, but also in its refusal to either romanticise or sermonise. Flaubert confessed to weeping at times as he wrote; he sympathised so much with Emma in her final days that he felt physically ill.
2. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
Anna and Vronsky. The busy train compartment. That first passing glance, as if of recognition … In 1872, Tolstoy saw the wrecked body of a woman who was abandoned by her married lover, a landowner friend of the family. The woman had thrown herself under a train. Was it a tragedy or a grim reinstatement of the natural order of marriage and family? Tolstoy initially planned to tell the story of a woman who "ruined herself" with an extramarital affair, but Anna instead emerged vivid and bright.
3. Anton Chekhov, Lady with lapdog.
Short stories, in their brevity and intensity, are natural vehicles for the study of illicit love and infidelity. In Lady with lapdog, the married cad Gurov spots Anna Sergeyevna, his next victim, while dallying in the seaside resort of Yalta: "A young woman walking along the promenade: she was fair, not very tall …" Anna is half Gurov's age and passionate, but he considers her unremarkable. She departs for home and husband, but Gurov is changed: "He felt profound compassion, he longed to be sincere, tender …" Chekhov was branded the "high priest of unprincipled art" because he refused to pass authorial judgment upon his characters.
4. D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's lover.
Frieda Lawrence reportedly told friends that her husband had been impotent, an apparent symptom of his tuberculosis, since 1926. Frieda, we're told, took lovers. If these turbulent details of the marriage are true, one can imagine the personal sense of loss and grief that fuelled the transformation of that personal tale into the story of Constance Chatterley, whose upper-class landowner husband was paralysed from the waist down during the Great War. Sections of text were omitted on its UK publication by Martin Secker. Only later, in the famous obscenity trial of 1960, would the hoo-ha be hosed down for good – and the jurors were thanked by Penguin Books in the dedication to a new, triumphant edition.
5. Graham Greene, The end of the affair.
Has a prose style ever been so sharp and so nuanced? The complications of a love triangle come into devastating focus in this story of love between the bomb blasts of the second world war: "We paid no attention to the sirens. They didn't matter. We weren't afraid of dying that way." Sarah Miles – modelled loosely upon Greene's lover, Catherine Walston – is the wife of the kindly, but seemingly deadbeat, civil servant Henry Miles. There is much more to Henry than meets the eye, but this is really the story of Sarah's lover. Maurice Bendrix, a middle-aged writer, is our narrator and a man who, years later, after Sarah's death, is haunted by her exasperating and mysterious decision to end their affair.
6. Eileen Chang, Lust, caution.
In Japanese-occupied Shanghai, a beautiful student actress named Jaizai is asked by a student rebel group to take part in a "honey-trap" operation to help arrange the assassination of Yi, a middle-aged collaborator and an official in the puppet government. Firstly she befriends his wife and then stealthily moves into their social circle. In the translation I read, I often found it difficult to get a feeling for the quality of the prose. But this story of infidelity – Yi's calculated passion, Jaizai's deceit, and her last-minute betrayal of her political cause ("Run," she said softly) – raises profound and tantalising questions, to which I suspect there are no answers.
7. Patrick McGrath, Asylum.
Stella Raphael is the wife of Max, a forensic psychiatrist who has taken a job in a high-security mental hospital, where she meets Edward Stark, a talented sculptor who is confined to the hospital for the murder of his wife. Asylum is a gripping study of erotic obsession, and in the making of it, McGrath re-invented the gothic form for contemporary fiction. The story is edgy and relentless. It knocked the breath out of me.
8. Hanif Kureishi, Intimacy.
I remember very clearly the furore this book caused when it was published. How could a slim novella create such a blast? It's an autobiographical story based on Kureishi's affair with the much younger woman for whom he left his partner. I didn't read it when it first came out, because I was sure it would leave a very bad taste in my mouth. Although I finished it a few years ago, I'm still uneasy with the power of a writer to claim an authority on the page and, in so doing, to betray the lives and memories of others. That said, Intimacy also surprised and moved me with its wit, delicacy and complete lack of pretension.
9. Zoe Heller, Notes on a scandal.
"It is mad to describe a middle-aged adulteress as innocent, and yet there is something fundamentally innocent about Sheba. It goes without saying that she is capable of all kinds of sin. But she is not one of life's schemers." Such is history teacher Barbara Covett's appraisal of her new colleague, Sheba Hart. Sheba's husband, Richard, is much older than his wife, and their marriage is becalmed. The blooming youth of her daughter, Polly, makes Sheba more aware of her own physical and sexual decline. Enter Steven Connolly, the underage pupil Sheba will have an affair with. Somehow, quite madly, I missed this novel when it was shortlisted for the 2003 Booker prize. I gulped it down belatedly, in a single, marvellous sitting.
10. William Trevor, A bit on the side.
Once again, the compression of the short story form – its innately fleeting quality – is almost uncannily suited to the subject of affairs, and also to the evocation of their intensity and their often inevitable endings. With Trevor, as with Chekhov, we are in a story populated by ordinary people: he, a married accountant; she, a newly divorced secretary. Yet A bit on the side is a profoundly compassionate story; it examines the hard-edged solitudes of life and it responds with tenderness and a sharp, far-seeing eye.
------
There are almost 200 BTL comments, of which here's a probably unrepresentative sample:
Clarín, La regenta ('The regent's wife').
Kenzaburo Oe, A personal matter.
Han Suyin, A many-splendoured thing.
"D. H. Lawrence was a hateful man - arrogant, petulant and snobbish, and that hatefulness is everywhere in Lady Chatterley's lover. I found Lawrence's attitudes in it repulsive. Can't stand the book - in fact I remember actually chucking at a wall and stamping on it." "And yet Odour of chrysanthemums shows quite the opposite. I genuinely can't see how you could see Lawrence in that light. His characters may be the worst of people but they are not him."
"A classic of German-language literature is Angst ('Fear') by Stefan Zweig, a novella that tells the story of a young woman who breaks off an affair only to find herself being blackmailed because of it. I'm not sure if it stands up there with Madame Bovary (with which it's roughly contemporary), but it's an interesting little read nonetheless." "Zweig was born 25 years after Bovary was published -- afraid he was hardly contemporaneous with Flaubert! Don't mean to be pedantic, I'm sorry, but Flaubert is one of my great loves and I've recently started reading Zweig -- starting with Beware of pity. I'll definitely check out Angst if I can."
"Some of the best and funniest passages in the illicit encounter at the start of Sodom and Gomorrah between Baron de Charlus and Jupien." "Odette and Swann, Albertine and Marcel ..."
Guardian, 2013-09-04.
"The coup de foudre. The brief encounter. The dangerous liaison. Our usual descriptions fascinate briefly, then fizzle out. They don't reveal enough. In fiction, as in life, I'm drawn to questions of who and how we love, the losses we fear, and what we'll risk – absurdly or boldly – to feel alive under the skin.
"For most of us, the thrill of a story about an infidelity is less about sex than it is about intimacy, that magnetic line of connection between two bodies and their secret selves. Intimacy shared with another person is often the first real betrayal to any union, and the first plunge out of one's depth.
"In fiction, characters misjudge the depth of the fall. Others rush headlong into the stuff of life. As they do, they're laid bare – literally (almost certainly) and metaphorically (always). We see what it is to be human: to yearn, to feel joy, to suffer and to see the world transformed."
1. Gustav Flaubert, Madame Bovary.
Who can forget Emma and Léon's furious cab ride through the streets of Rouen, their illicit passion concealed from view? In 1857, following publication, the Second Empire tried Flaubert for offences to morality and religion. He was acquitted, and the novel became an immediate bestseller. From the distance of the 21st century, it is easy to lose sight of just how radical Madame Bovary was when it first appeared, not only in its new "objective" style of prose, but also in its refusal to either romanticise or sermonise. Flaubert confessed to weeping at times as he wrote; he sympathised so much with Emma in her final days that he felt physically ill.
2. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
Anna and Vronsky. The busy train compartment. That first passing glance, as if of recognition … In 1872, Tolstoy saw the wrecked body of a woman who was abandoned by her married lover, a landowner friend of the family. The woman had thrown herself under a train. Was it a tragedy or a grim reinstatement of the natural order of marriage and family? Tolstoy initially planned to tell the story of a woman who "ruined herself" with an extramarital affair, but Anna instead emerged vivid and bright.
3. Anton Chekhov, Lady with lapdog.
Short stories, in their brevity and intensity, are natural vehicles for the study of illicit love and infidelity. In Lady with lapdog, the married cad Gurov spots Anna Sergeyevna, his next victim, while dallying in the seaside resort of Yalta: "A young woman walking along the promenade: she was fair, not very tall …" Anna is half Gurov's age and passionate, but he considers her unremarkable. She departs for home and husband, but Gurov is changed: "He felt profound compassion, he longed to be sincere, tender …" Chekhov was branded the "high priest of unprincipled art" because he refused to pass authorial judgment upon his characters.
4. D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's lover.
Frieda Lawrence reportedly told friends that her husband had been impotent, an apparent symptom of his tuberculosis, since 1926. Frieda, we're told, took lovers. If these turbulent details of the marriage are true, one can imagine the personal sense of loss and grief that fuelled the transformation of that personal tale into the story of Constance Chatterley, whose upper-class landowner husband was paralysed from the waist down during the Great War. Sections of text were omitted on its UK publication by Martin Secker. Only later, in the famous obscenity trial of 1960, would the hoo-ha be hosed down for good – and the jurors were thanked by Penguin Books in the dedication to a new, triumphant edition.
5. Graham Greene, The end of the affair.
Has a prose style ever been so sharp and so nuanced? The complications of a love triangle come into devastating focus in this story of love between the bomb blasts of the second world war: "We paid no attention to the sirens. They didn't matter. We weren't afraid of dying that way." Sarah Miles – modelled loosely upon Greene's lover, Catherine Walston – is the wife of the kindly, but seemingly deadbeat, civil servant Henry Miles. There is much more to Henry than meets the eye, but this is really the story of Sarah's lover. Maurice Bendrix, a middle-aged writer, is our narrator and a man who, years later, after Sarah's death, is haunted by her exasperating and mysterious decision to end their affair.
6. Eileen Chang, Lust, caution.
In Japanese-occupied Shanghai, a beautiful student actress named Jaizai is asked by a student rebel group to take part in a "honey-trap" operation to help arrange the assassination of Yi, a middle-aged collaborator and an official in the puppet government. Firstly she befriends his wife and then stealthily moves into their social circle. In the translation I read, I often found it difficult to get a feeling for the quality of the prose. But this story of infidelity – Yi's calculated passion, Jaizai's deceit, and her last-minute betrayal of her political cause ("Run," she said softly) – raises profound and tantalising questions, to which I suspect there are no answers.
7. Patrick McGrath, Asylum.
Stella Raphael is the wife of Max, a forensic psychiatrist who has taken a job in a high-security mental hospital, where she meets Edward Stark, a talented sculptor who is confined to the hospital for the murder of his wife. Asylum is a gripping study of erotic obsession, and in the making of it, McGrath re-invented the gothic form for contemporary fiction. The story is edgy and relentless. It knocked the breath out of me.
8. Hanif Kureishi, Intimacy.
I remember very clearly the furore this book caused when it was published. How could a slim novella create such a blast? It's an autobiographical story based on Kureishi's affair with the much younger woman for whom he left his partner. I didn't read it when it first came out, because I was sure it would leave a very bad taste in my mouth. Although I finished it a few years ago, I'm still uneasy with the power of a writer to claim an authority on the page and, in so doing, to betray the lives and memories of others. That said, Intimacy also surprised and moved me with its wit, delicacy and complete lack of pretension.
9. Zoe Heller, Notes on a scandal.
"It is mad to describe a middle-aged adulteress as innocent, and yet there is something fundamentally innocent about Sheba. It goes without saying that she is capable of all kinds of sin. But she is not one of life's schemers." Such is history teacher Barbara Covett's appraisal of her new colleague, Sheba Hart. Sheba's husband, Richard, is much older than his wife, and their marriage is becalmed. The blooming youth of her daughter, Polly, makes Sheba more aware of her own physical and sexual decline. Enter Steven Connolly, the underage pupil Sheba will have an affair with. Somehow, quite madly, I missed this novel when it was shortlisted for the 2003 Booker prize. I gulped it down belatedly, in a single, marvellous sitting.
10. William Trevor, A bit on the side.
Once again, the compression of the short story form – its innately fleeting quality – is almost uncannily suited to the subject of affairs, and also to the evocation of their intensity and their often inevitable endings. With Trevor, as with Chekhov, we are in a story populated by ordinary people: he, a married accountant; she, a newly divorced secretary. Yet A bit on the side is a profoundly compassionate story; it examines the hard-edged solitudes of life and it responds with tenderness and a sharp, far-seeing eye.
------
There are almost 200 BTL comments, of which here's a probably unrepresentative sample:
Clarín, La regenta ('The regent's wife').
Kenzaburo Oe, A personal matter.
Han Suyin, A many-splendoured thing.
"D. H. Lawrence was a hateful man - arrogant, petulant and snobbish, and that hatefulness is everywhere in Lady Chatterley's lover. I found Lawrence's attitudes in it repulsive. Can't stand the book - in fact I remember actually chucking at a wall and stamping on it." "And yet Odour of chrysanthemums shows quite the opposite. I genuinely can't see how you could see Lawrence in that light. His characters may be the worst of people but they are not him."
"A classic of German-language literature is Angst ('Fear') by Stefan Zweig, a novella that tells the story of a young woman who breaks off an affair only to find herself being blackmailed because of it. I'm not sure if it stands up there with Madame Bovary (with which it's roughly contemporary), but it's an interesting little read nonetheless." "Zweig was born 25 years after Bovary was published -- afraid he was hardly contemporaneous with Flaubert! Don't mean to be pedantic, I'm sorry, but Flaubert is one of my great loves and I've recently started reading Zweig -- starting with Beware of pity. I'll definitely check out Angst if I can."
"Some of the best and funniest passages in the illicit encounter at the start of Sodom and Gomorrah between Baron de Charlus and Jupien." "Odette and Swann, Albertine and Marcel ..."
21Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Edward Carey's top 10 writer/illustrators.
Guardian, 2013-09-05.
Edward Carey is a playwright, novelist and illustrator. He has worked for the theatre in London, Lithuania and Romania and with a shadow puppet master in Malaysia. He has written two illustrated novels for adults – Observatory mansions and Alva and Irva. He lives in Austin, Texas, where he wrote the Iremonger Trilogy, of which the first, Heap House, has just been published, because he missed feeling cold and gloomy.
"Thackery so wanted to illustrate Dickens's novels that when Dickens turned him down he wrote his own book, Vanity fair, and illustrated it. Treasure Island started off in Robert Louis Stevenson's head with the beautiful map he drew for the island, which is often still published with the book today. Edward Gorey always wrote before he drew, otherwise he feared he'd never be able to finish.
"I have always drawn the characters I write about. For me it's a way of trying to pin them down, of getting to know them. The drawings contradict the writing and vice versa, and it takes me a while to make them agree. For me illustrating is part of the process, I couldn't do one without the other."
1. William Blake, Songs of innocence and experience.
Blake is the patron saint of all writer/illustrators, the supreme madman genius whose art and writing sit together so perfectly, it's hard to imagine one without the other. As a teenager at the Tate I saw Blake's drawing 'The man who built the pyramids' and the tiny painting 'The ghost of a flea', then I read his poem 'London'. I've been an acolyte ever since.
2. Mervyn Peake, The Gormenghast trilogy.
Peake was not allowed to illustrate the first editions of his books (though he was allowed to do the covers, and they're some of the best book covers ever), but he did obsessively draw his characters. The British Library has his manuscripts. They are peppered with astonishing sketches and looking at them you feel you can absolutely see how his extraordinary mind was working. Fortunately we can now buy both writing and drawings together. His picture books are glorious too, Captain Slaughterboard and Letters from a lost uncle>.
3. Tove Jansson, The Moomin books.
Jansson's Moominvalley was originally created as a dreamworld escape from the seond world war. From the obsessive Hemulen to the timid Sniff, from the independent Snifkin to the obstreperous Little My to the great memoirist Moominpappa, these books and comics are brimming with wonderful characters, all indelibly illustrated by Jansson.
4. Alasdair Gray, Lanark and Poor things.
If Gray's books ever appeared without his illustrations it would be a travesty. His solid black lines are like a cry from Glasgow. He has managed to draw Glasgow in his books, and, also, to draw on Glasgow literally in his life. Go and see the renovated church of Òran Mór on Byres Road. He's done his Michelangelo there and it's breathtaking.
5. Bruno Schulz, The complete fictions.
Schulz reinvented his family and small provincial town in his writing and drawings, transforming them into something both mythic and intimate. In his two surviving works his father dies again and again and again, and is transformed from a man into wallpaper, a stuffed condor, a mink coat, a crab. His drawings are equally strange and delicate. In them the father hovers like an old testament prophet. Though his novel The messiah was lost during the second world war and Schulz himself was murdered by Nazis, many of his delicate pencil drawings have survived. Recently there was controversy when his rediscovered murals of fairytales were taken from Ukraine to Israel.
6. Edward Gorey, The Gashlycrumb tinies etc.
From Amy who fell down the stairs to Zillah who drank too much gin, Gorey's small books - filled with unfortunate orphans, epileptic bicycles, remorseful galoshes, headless busts, haunted tea-cosies, unknown vegetables, evil gardens and glorious nosebleeds - conjure up some sort of Edwardian England, where delicious cruelties can happen and bearded gentlemen in fur coats take the motor for a spin down to Mortshire. No one draws hapless innocents quite like Gorey. Think of poor Fanny sucked dry by a leech.
7. Kathleen Hale, The Orlando books.
Hale's books are illustrated with detailed, bizarre, beautiful lithographs. The world of Orlando the marmalade cat, Grace his wife, Mister Catermole and his Magic Cats' Shop (opens at midnight, just for cats), Vulcan the Horse, Mister Curmudgeon, Bill the poodle and Tinkle the kitten (who in one book has a pet worm called Wormintrude) is so wonderfully nutty and inspired. Hale's imagination gets stranger and more extravagant as the books continue and so does her breathtaking artwork. Only a few are still in print. Please, someone, can we have the rest?
8. Maurice Sendak, Where the wild things are.
I remember as a child being very disturbed by the Wild things when I first saw them, but I kept returning. Sendak's refugee relatives were the inspiration behind the book, he said of them, "these people didn't speak English. And they were unkempt. Their teeth were horrifying … And they'd pick you up and hug you and kiss you, 'Oh we could eat you up.' And we know they would eat anything, anything. And so they're the wild things." There's always a sense of danger in his books, and also a sense of the past, of melancholy. His posthumous work My brother's book is a tribute to his brother filled with haunting paintings inspired by William Blake.
9. The tales of Beatrix Potter.
Potter was of course a dazzling illustrator. Her watercolours are extremely pretty but that doesn't mean there's no edge to her: see The tale of Samuel Whiskers, those rats can terrify. Samuel a "dreadful 'normous big rat" and his scrawny wife Anna Maria roll Tom Kitten in pastry and it's marvellously unsettling, as are the dolls who are strange bit parts in a couple of the books, Lucinda and Jane Doll and the lanky policeman, their faces never changing expression. Almost everyone in Potter's books is hungry.
10. Shaun Tan, Tales from outer suburbia.
All Tan's books are masterpieces, in his latest he manages to reinvent suburbia and allow the ordinary to sparkle with magic. In his book there are strange shifting stick figures all about the streets and nobody knows why they're there. There's also a water buffalo living in a vacant lot and Eric the miniature leaf-like exchange student (read Eric's story) and the strange man in the old fashioned diving suit who seems to know things about broken or lost toys. The book is filled with stories (and illustrations) of dull reality made full of wonder.
Guardian, 2013-09-05.
Edward Carey is a playwright, novelist and illustrator. He has worked for the theatre in London, Lithuania and Romania and with a shadow puppet master in Malaysia. He has written two illustrated novels for adults – Observatory mansions and Alva and Irva. He lives in Austin, Texas, where he wrote the Iremonger Trilogy, of which the first, Heap House, has just been published, because he missed feeling cold and gloomy.
"Thackery so wanted to illustrate Dickens's novels that when Dickens turned him down he wrote his own book, Vanity fair, and illustrated it. Treasure Island started off in Robert Louis Stevenson's head with the beautiful map he drew for the island, which is often still published with the book today. Edward Gorey always wrote before he drew, otherwise he feared he'd never be able to finish.
"I have always drawn the characters I write about. For me it's a way of trying to pin them down, of getting to know them. The drawings contradict the writing and vice versa, and it takes me a while to make them agree. For me illustrating is part of the process, I couldn't do one without the other."
1. William Blake, Songs of innocence and experience.
Blake is the patron saint of all writer/illustrators, the supreme madman genius whose art and writing sit together so perfectly, it's hard to imagine one without the other. As a teenager at the Tate I saw Blake's drawing 'The man who built the pyramids' and the tiny painting 'The ghost of a flea', then I read his poem 'London'. I've been an acolyte ever since.
2. Mervyn Peake, The Gormenghast trilogy.
Peake was not allowed to illustrate the first editions of his books (though he was allowed to do the covers, and they're some of the best book covers ever), but he did obsessively draw his characters. The British Library has his manuscripts. They are peppered with astonishing sketches and looking at them you feel you can absolutely see how his extraordinary mind was working. Fortunately we can now buy both writing and drawings together. His picture books are glorious too, Captain Slaughterboard and Letters from a lost uncle>.
3. Tove Jansson, The Moomin books.
Jansson's Moominvalley was originally created as a dreamworld escape from the seond world war. From the obsessive Hemulen to the timid Sniff, from the independent Snifkin to the obstreperous Little My to the great memoirist Moominpappa, these books and comics are brimming with wonderful characters, all indelibly illustrated by Jansson.
4. Alasdair Gray, Lanark and Poor things.
If Gray's books ever appeared without his illustrations it would be a travesty. His solid black lines are like a cry from Glasgow. He has managed to draw Glasgow in his books, and, also, to draw on Glasgow literally in his life. Go and see the renovated church of Òran Mór on Byres Road. He's done his Michelangelo there and it's breathtaking.
5. Bruno Schulz, The complete fictions.
Schulz reinvented his family and small provincial town in his writing and drawings, transforming them into something both mythic and intimate. In his two surviving works his father dies again and again and again, and is transformed from a man into wallpaper, a stuffed condor, a mink coat, a crab. His drawings are equally strange and delicate. In them the father hovers like an old testament prophet. Though his novel The messiah was lost during the second world war and Schulz himself was murdered by Nazis, many of his delicate pencil drawings have survived. Recently there was controversy when his rediscovered murals of fairytales were taken from Ukraine to Israel.
6. Edward Gorey, The Gashlycrumb tinies etc.
From Amy who fell down the stairs to Zillah who drank too much gin, Gorey's small books - filled with unfortunate orphans, epileptic bicycles, remorseful galoshes, headless busts, haunted tea-cosies, unknown vegetables, evil gardens and glorious nosebleeds - conjure up some sort of Edwardian England, where delicious cruelties can happen and bearded gentlemen in fur coats take the motor for a spin down to Mortshire. No one draws hapless innocents quite like Gorey. Think of poor Fanny sucked dry by a leech.
7. Kathleen Hale, The Orlando books.
Hale's books are illustrated with detailed, bizarre, beautiful lithographs. The world of Orlando the marmalade cat, Grace his wife, Mister Catermole and his Magic Cats' Shop (opens at midnight, just for cats), Vulcan the Horse, Mister Curmudgeon, Bill the poodle and Tinkle the kitten (who in one book has a pet worm called Wormintrude) is so wonderfully nutty and inspired. Hale's imagination gets stranger and more extravagant as the books continue and so does her breathtaking artwork. Only a few are still in print. Please, someone, can we have the rest?
8. Maurice Sendak, Where the wild things are.
I remember as a child being very disturbed by the Wild things when I first saw them, but I kept returning. Sendak's refugee relatives were the inspiration behind the book, he said of them, "these people didn't speak English. And they were unkempt. Their teeth were horrifying … And they'd pick you up and hug you and kiss you, 'Oh we could eat you up.' And we know they would eat anything, anything. And so they're the wild things." There's always a sense of danger in his books, and also a sense of the past, of melancholy. His posthumous work My brother's book is a tribute to his brother filled with haunting paintings inspired by William Blake.
9. The tales of Beatrix Potter.
Potter was of course a dazzling illustrator. Her watercolours are extremely pretty but that doesn't mean there's no edge to her: see The tale of Samuel Whiskers, those rats can terrify. Samuel a "dreadful 'normous big rat" and his scrawny wife Anna Maria roll Tom Kitten in pastry and it's marvellously unsettling, as are the dolls who are strange bit parts in a couple of the books, Lucinda and Jane Doll and the lanky policeman, their faces never changing expression. Almost everyone in Potter's books is hungry.
10. Shaun Tan, Tales from outer suburbia.
All Tan's books are masterpieces, in his latest he manages to reinvent suburbia and allow the ordinary to sparkle with magic. In his book there are strange shifting stick figures all about the streets and nobody knows why they're there. There's also a water buffalo living in a vacant lot and Eric the miniature leaf-like exchange student (read Eric's story) and the strange man in the old fashioned diving suit who seems to know things about broken or lost toys. The book is filled with stories (and illustrations) of dull reality made full of wonder.
22Cynfelyn
Tessa Hadley's top 10 short stories.
Guardian, 2013-09-11.
"Reading short stories is a strenuous business, and that's half the joy of them. You can lose yourself in a novel – but because a story is short, you can always feel the end coming, sooner rather than later. This makes for a more self-conscious immersion. The reader is more aware of the edges of the fiction, and of how it's made.
"Writing short stories is deliciously irresponsible – though irresponsible doesn't mean easy. A novel requires intricate engineering; writing a story, you're not distracted by holding the long span of the novel in place, making all its parts work together. A good story concentrates on what's essential, on the white heat at the core of perception. Nadine Gordimer says that short stories should "burn a hole in the page".
"How can I not have included James Joyce's The dead in my list, below, or something else from Dubliners? Well, it was agony, leaving him out. But, unlike all these others, Joyce wasn't a lifelong short-story writer. Dubliners is sublime, but feels like a writer on his way to something else. (It was agony leaving out John Updike too, another of my favourites – his stories are much more satisfying than his novels, I think)."
1. Anton Chekhov, Ward 6.
With Chekhov, the modern short story seems to spring into being fully formed, in all its ambivalence and sophistication. In a country town in Russia, miles from anywhere, a doctor has lost his faith in modern medicine, and progress; the only intelligent person he can find to talk to is a madman confined in the hospital. It makes no difference, the doctor lectures his friend, whether you're inside ward 6 or out of it. He soon learns that he's wrong. It's a savage story, and profoundly moral.
2. D. H. Lawrence, Odour of chrysanthemums.
Lawrence writes about miners and their wives with the same tragic intensity as a great dramatist writing about kings and queens. Elizabeth Bates waits in a Nottinghamshire mining village for her husband to come home. Embittered, thinking how their marriage has failed, she's sure he's out drinking again – but then learns that he's been killed in a mine accident. As Elizabeth prepares her young husband's dead body for burial, Lawrence searches out a new range of expressivity in his language, to do justice to what she comes to feel and understand.
3. Franz Kafka, A report to an academy.
An ape lectures in exquisitely sophisticated sentences to a distinguished audience in Vienna, telling them his tragic history: since he was captured on the Gold Coast, he has been forced to set about learning human culture. Kafka's deadpan fable is as vast and funny and terrifying as Metamorphosis.
4. Katharine Mansfield, At the bay.
Perhaps some of Mansfield's shorter pieces seem fey and mannered now, belonging to their era. But the late, great New Zealand stories, revisiting her childhood, are all fresh air and broad spaces of light. Their incompletions and free associations still feel audacious, like something new.
5. Elizabeth Bowen, The parrot.
Bowen has written stories as dark and deep as anyone – because my list was sounding solemn, I've chosen one by her that's purely funny. An escaped parrot causes mild havoc in suburbia. Each sentence is worth having by itself. "'Was it improper?' asked Eleanor in a low voice, winding wool quickly." Chasing the parrot, Eleanor – an inhibited lady companion – finds herself on a roof with a risqué artist in a dressing-gown.
6. Jorge Luis Borges, The immortal.
A Roman soldier searches for eternal life; we find his story in a manuscript hidden inside an old book. Granted immortality, the soldier learns that it's not worth having. "Everything among the mortals has the value of the irretrievable and the perilous." Wisdom to live by.
7. Eudora Welty, Moon Lake.
The stories in Welty's collection Golden apples make up a portrait of a small town in Mississippi between the wars. In Moon Lake the respectable little girls of Morgana coexist at summer camp with the orphans, who seem to them wilder and more entrancing. Welty's lovely language is involved and oblique, belonging to the high modernism of the southern states in the mid-century.
8. Nadine Gordimer, Country lovers.
This is one of a pair of stories set in apartheid-era South Africa – there's a Town lovers, too, equally fine and terrible. A white farmer's son and one of the black girls from the kraal play together as children; when the time comes to grow up into segregation they can't unlearn the deep affinity they feel for each other. The blunt instruments of an unjust law invade their intimacy and privacy. Gordimer draws on two story traditions at once: an austere political parable is also a fragment of life, rendered with a sensuous and exact realism.
9. John McGahern, Gold watch.
McGahern in his novels and stories revisits the same material over and over – a tyrannical father, and a son who can't please him nor forgive him. The secret of McGahern's style is in his repetitions – of words, things, places. But this is a beautiful love story too. "'Why are we so happy?' I would ask."
10. Alice Munro, Love of a good woman.
Munro has changed our sense of what the short story can do as radically as Chekhov and Mansfield did at the beginning of the 20th century. She uses the form so capaciously – a whole community in 1950s rural Canada is captured in the loose weave of this one – around a woman who believes she's uncovered the secret of a violent death. She makes plans to do the right thing, bring the secret into the light of day. There's never a false or fussy note, as Munro penetrates in words into the hidden roots of how we choose to live, and why we act.
------
Loads and loads of alternative suggestions BTL, including:
"Nice list. Would have given D. H. Lawrence a miss, adding Raymond Carver or Donald Barthelme. But that is just like my opinion, man."
"A report to an academy was good, but if we're going for Kafka, why not In the penal colony? It might be harrowing (in the most concrete sense of the word) but it's superbly worked. I could also add any number of stories from Philip K. Dick, with Second variety being a notable example."
"No Poe?" "She obviously couldn't decide between The tell-tale heart (the most influential horror story ever) and The murders in the Rue Morgue (the most influential detective story ever), and so she threw in the towel and selected some dreary bourgeois dishwater ... There's no Saki either ..."
"Also, where are V. S. Pritchett and, yes, Updike? More recently, I can highly recommend Don Delillo's latest volume of short stories."
"Jorge Luis Borge was a master of the form. J. G. Ballard also made great use of the form, Vermillion sands is an excellent collection of short stories."
"No Roald Dahl?" "Bold shout, that. I think The great switcheroo is superb." "A dip in the pool is my own favourite." "The finger smith ... Parson's pleasure ..."
(There's no Roald Dahl 'The finger smith' on LT; I wonder whether that Guardian reader back in 2013 meant The magic finger).
Guardian, 2013-09-11.
"Reading short stories is a strenuous business, and that's half the joy of them. You can lose yourself in a novel – but because a story is short, you can always feel the end coming, sooner rather than later. This makes for a more self-conscious immersion. The reader is more aware of the edges of the fiction, and of how it's made.
"Writing short stories is deliciously irresponsible – though irresponsible doesn't mean easy. A novel requires intricate engineering; writing a story, you're not distracted by holding the long span of the novel in place, making all its parts work together. A good story concentrates on what's essential, on the white heat at the core of perception. Nadine Gordimer says that short stories should "burn a hole in the page".
"How can I not have included James Joyce's The dead in my list, below, or something else from Dubliners? Well, it was agony, leaving him out. But, unlike all these others, Joyce wasn't a lifelong short-story writer. Dubliners is sublime, but feels like a writer on his way to something else. (It was agony leaving out John Updike too, another of my favourites – his stories are much more satisfying than his novels, I think)."
1. Anton Chekhov, Ward 6.
With Chekhov, the modern short story seems to spring into being fully formed, in all its ambivalence and sophistication. In a country town in Russia, miles from anywhere, a doctor has lost his faith in modern medicine, and progress; the only intelligent person he can find to talk to is a madman confined in the hospital. It makes no difference, the doctor lectures his friend, whether you're inside ward 6 or out of it. He soon learns that he's wrong. It's a savage story, and profoundly moral.
2. D. H. Lawrence, Odour of chrysanthemums.
Lawrence writes about miners and their wives with the same tragic intensity as a great dramatist writing about kings and queens. Elizabeth Bates waits in a Nottinghamshire mining village for her husband to come home. Embittered, thinking how their marriage has failed, she's sure he's out drinking again – but then learns that he's been killed in a mine accident. As Elizabeth prepares her young husband's dead body for burial, Lawrence searches out a new range of expressivity in his language, to do justice to what she comes to feel and understand.
3. Franz Kafka, A report to an academy.
An ape lectures in exquisitely sophisticated sentences to a distinguished audience in Vienna, telling them his tragic history: since he was captured on the Gold Coast, he has been forced to set about learning human culture. Kafka's deadpan fable is as vast and funny and terrifying as Metamorphosis.
4. Katharine Mansfield, At the bay.
Perhaps some of Mansfield's shorter pieces seem fey and mannered now, belonging to their era. But the late, great New Zealand stories, revisiting her childhood, are all fresh air and broad spaces of light. Their incompletions and free associations still feel audacious, like something new.
5. Elizabeth Bowen, The parrot.
Bowen has written stories as dark and deep as anyone – because my list was sounding solemn, I've chosen one by her that's purely funny. An escaped parrot causes mild havoc in suburbia. Each sentence is worth having by itself. "'Was it improper?' asked Eleanor in a low voice, winding wool quickly." Chasing the parrot, Eleanor – an inhibited lady companion – finds herself on a roof with a risqué artist in a dressing-gown.
6. Jorge Luis Borges, The immortal.
A Roman soldier searches for eternal life; we find his story in a manuscript hidden inside an old book. Granted immortality, the soldier learns that it's not worth having. "Everything among the mortals has the value of the irretrievable and the perilous." Wisdom to live by.
7. Eudora Welty, Moon Lake.
The stories in Welty's collection Golden apples make up a portrait of a small town in Mississippi between the wars. In Moon Lake the respectable little girls of Morgana coexist at summer camp with the orphans, who seem to them wilder and more entrancing. Welty's lovely language is involved and oblique, belonging to the high modernism of the southern states in the mid-century.
8. Nadine Gordimer, Country lovers.
This is one of a pair of stories set in apartheid-era South Africa – there's a Town lovers, too, equally fine and terrible. A white farmer's son and one of the black girls from the kraal play together as children; when the time comes to grow up into segregation they can't unlearn the deep affinity they feel for each other. The blunt instruments of an unjust law invade their intimacy and privacy. Gordimer draws on two story traditions at once: an austere political parable is also a fragment of life, rendered with a sensuous and exact realism.
9. John McGahern, Gold watch.
McGahern in his novels and stories revisits the same material over and over – a tyrannical father, and a son who can't please him nor forgive him. The secret of McGahern's style is in his repetitions – of words, things, places. But this is a beautiful love story too. "'Why are we so happy?' I would ask."
10. Alice Munro, Love of a good woman.
Munro has changed our sense of what the short story can do as radically as Chekhov and Mansfield did at the beginning of the 20th century. She uses the form so capaciously – a whole community in 1950s rural Canada is captured in the loose weave of this one – around a woman who believes she's uncovered the secret of a violent death. She makes plans to do the right thing, bring the secret into the light of day. There's never a false or fussy note, as Munro penetrates in words into the hidden roots of how we choose to live, and why we act.
------
Loads and loads of alternative suggestions BTL, including:
"Nice list. Would have given D. H. Lawrence a miss, adding Raymond Carver or Donald Barthelme. But that is just like my opinion, man."
"A report to an academy was good, but if we're going for Kafka, why not In the penal colony? It might be harrowing (in the most concrete sense of the word) but it's superbly worked. I could also add any number of stories from Philip K. Dick, with Second variety being a notable example."
"No Poe?" "She obviously couldn't decide between The tell-tale heart (the most influential horror story ever) and The murders in the Rue Morgue (the most influential detective story ever), and so she threw in the towel and selected some dreary bourgeois dishwater ... There's no Saki either ..."
"Also, where are V. S. Pritchett and, yes, Updike? More recently, I can highly recommend Don Delillo's latest volume of short stories."
"Jorge Luis Borge was a master of the form. J. G. Ballard also made great use of the form, Vermillion sands is an excellent collection of short stories."
"No Roald Dahl?" "Bold shout, that. I think The great switcheroo is superb." "A dip in the pool is my own favourite." "The finger smith ... Parson's pleasure ..."
(There's no Roald Dahl 'The finger smith' on LT; I wonder whether that Guardian reader back in 2013 meant The magic finger).
23Cynfelyn
D. W. Wilson's top 10 absent fathers in literature.
Guardian, 2013-09-18.
"In my first novel, Ballistics, a young man searches for his estranged father at the behest of his dying grandad. Wildfires blaze through the Canadian Rockies, and it is into this furnace that Alan West, the protagonist, must venture. It's a story of families, betrayal and one young man's attempt to right past wrongs.
"I should put my cards on the table: I do not have an absent father. My old man and I get along as well as any dad and son separated by an ocean and the better part of a continent. He's a sergeant in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and he recently showed up for my wedding in full ceremonial garb: red serge, stiff-brimmed stetson, riding boots and spurs, his marksman badge and medals a-jingle on his breast. He cut an impressive figure.
"What follows is my list of 10 admirable absent fathers in fiction. In some cases, the narrators themselves are the absent dads; in others, the narrator is the abandoned child. And on occasion, an absent dad serves as little more than a technicality by which I can draw your attention to a book of great worth."
1. David Adams Richards : Jerry Bines in For those who hunt the wounded down.
Jerry Bines is a recovering/relapsing alcoholic, prone to violence, borderline illiterate, but possessed of a great heart. By the end of this book, we are presented with two very different views of him: first, that he "was trying to save everyone"; second, that he "would use you whenever he could". Whichever you subscribe to, this is a haunting tale. Having been acquitted of murder, Jerry returns to his tiny home town in New Brunswick in a last-ditch and probably futile bid for redemption.
2. Marjorie Celona : Harrison Church in Y.
At the opening of Y, a young mother abandons her daughter on the steps of a YMCA. Shannon's birth-father is an at once lovable and despicable man, whose drug habits lead to Shannon's abandonment and, by extension, her search for the people who abandoned her. Celona is a master sentence-crafter, a lover of detail, rhythm and voice; Y shouldn't be missed.
3. Eden Robinson : Tom Bauer's absent father in 'Contact sports', from Traplines.
He is never mentioned, but the absence of Tom's dad in the novella 'Contact sports' is what enables Jeremy, Tom's dishonourably discharged older cousin, to assume a twisted version of the father-figure role. Tom is more or less a good teenager, into the recreational use of drugs and liquor, a fan of baggy clothes and girls who are out of his reach. Jeremy is something else – sadistic, a man in love with power – and he uses his dubiously acquired money to pay the rent and bills that Tom's mother can't. The catch: Tom must do whatever Jeremy wants, until he deems the debt repaid. And from here, there aren't many places that Tom's life can go but down.
4. Joseph Boyden : Annie and Suzanne Bird's missing father in Through black spruce.
He's rarely mentioned, but his absence provides the space for one of the novel's two narrators, Will Bird, to take up the father-figure slack – though Will himself can't exactly claim a flawless record when it comes to loyalty and family. Set in northern Ontario, this book traces, simultaneously, a young woman's search for her missing sister and an ageing man's multi-generational feud.
5. Lisa Moore : Cal O'Mara in February.
Based around the 1982 sinking of the Ocean Ranger oil rig, February tells the story of Helen O'Mara, who loses her husband, Cal, in the wreckage. This is a tale of suffering and dignity, but also an examination of love in its many, often painful, forms. Cal himself is a paradigm as father and husband, but terrified of water. His death at sea transfers that fear to his eldest son, who makes his living as a safety adviser for the very same rigs.
6. Elizabeth Hay : Eleanor Dew's deceased father in Late nights on air.
Yellowknife, 1975. Against the backdrop of environmental and cultural controversy, this novel follows a cast of northern radio jockeys trying to carve a niche for themselves during the rise of TV. Among the principal characters is Eleanor Dew, a woman whose father died when she was young and who has spent a lifetime in loneliness, too afraid or too unable to find similar comfort in a companion.
7. Guy Vanderhaeghe : Jerry Potts in The last crossing.
More legend than fictional creation, Jerry Potts is a half-Blackfoot, half-Scottish guide for a pair of rich Englishmen, Charles and Addington Gaunt, who traverse the Canadian frontier in search of their missing brother. Potts has a son with a woman from a rival tribe and will risk death to see the boy – even if only at a distance. When he uncovers a dark secret about one of his travelling companions, he deals with it according to an old code.
8. Bill Gaston : Bobby Bonaduce in The good body.
Oh, Bobby Bonaduce. Minor-league hockey player for two decades, and an absent father and husband for just as long. Throughout The good body, Bonaduce struggles with two things: the ruin of his family life, and his multiple sclerosis, which slowly and assuredly robs him of the only thing he counts on – his body.
9. Christian Kiefer, Keith Corcoran in The infinite tides.
A hugely fallible man – borderline OCD, hyper-logical, possibly with traces of autism – Keith Corcoran is an astronaut on the International Space Station whose family life dissolves while he's on board. He returns to gravity and an empty home. This is an elegantly written book that juggles many a grand idea. My favourite: that Keith attaches such importance to mundane objects such as his television and his sofa, while in the backdrop lies the immensity of outer space.
10. Tim Winton : Bob Lang in The turning.
My favourite, from my favourite author. Bob Lang is a cop in a small west-coast Australian town who struggles against a culture of corruption and violence among his colleagues. He takes to the bottle, and then he takes off, leaving his wife and son, Vic, behind. Bob and Vic's story is only one that threads through this richly evocative and heart-wrenching collection of interconnected narratives. "I should have quit but I didn't even have the courage to do that," Bob Lang tells his adult son, years later, when Vic seeks him out. "Cowardice, it's a way of life. It's not natural, you learn it."
------
Half dozen BTL comments and recommendations:
John Irving, The world according to Garp. "Having just read it I'd add TS Garp, whose absence makes his son take an overly protective role towards his own children." "Technical Sergeant Garp was my first choice too."
"God the Father, in the New Testament (*Well, until the Book of Revelation, where he makes an apearance). There's lots of talk about him, but we don't actually see him in the second part of the Bible. Unlike the First Part, where he has a very active part." "Be fair though, he did send down a holy messenger at the beginning ... to impregnate a teenage girl without her knowledge or permission. Good job it's fiction otherwise Operation Yewtree might have to invstigate!" "The chippy step-dad tried his best but in the end the kid fell in with the wrong crowd and came to a bad end ..."
Araminta Hall, Dot. "A recent addition to the absent father min-genre. Very good it is too."
"Surely "Daddy, My Daddy!" in The railway children by E. Nesbitt should at least get an honourable mention? There at beginning and end, but not for the grist of the story."
"In most of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of books fathers are even more notably absent than other grown-ups."
"Isn't it odd how our childhoods are peppered with absent Dads- Quentin Kirrin in the Famous Five, Mr Craven in The secret garden, John Parry in His Dark Materials."
Guardian, 2013-09-18.
"In my first novel, Ballistics, a young man searches for his estranged father at the behest of his dying grandad. Wildfires blaze through the Canadian Rockies, and it is into this furnace that Alan West, the protagonist, must venture. It's a story of families, betrayal and one young man's attempt to right past wrongs.
"I should put my cards on the table: I do not have an absent father. My old man and I get along as well as any dad and son separated by an ocean and the better part of a continent. He's a sergeant in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and he recently showed up for my wedding in full ceremonial garb: red serge, stiff-brimmed stetson, riding boots and spurs, his marksman badge and medals a-jingle on his breast. He cut an impressive figure.
"What follows is my list of 10 admirable absent fathers in fiction. In some cases, the narrators themselves are the absent dads; in others, the narrator is the abandoned child. And on occasion, an absent dad serves as little more than a technicality by which I can draw your attention to a book of great worth."
1. David Adams Richards : Jerry Bines in For those who hunt the wounded down.
Jerry Bines is a recovering/relapsing alcoholic, prone to violence, borderline illiterate, but possessed of a great heart. By the end of this book, we are presented with two very different views of him: first, that he "was trying to save everyone"; second, that he "would use you whenever he could". Whichever you subscribe to, this is a haunting tale. Having been acquitted of murder, Jerry returns to his tiny home town in New Brunswick in a last-ditch and probably futile bid for redemption.
2. Marjorie Celona : Harrison Church in Y.
At the opening of Y, a young mother abandons her daughter on the steps of a YMCA. Shannon's birth-father is an at once lovable and despicable man, whose drug habits lead to Shannon's abandonment and, by extension, her search for the people who abandoned her. Celona is a master sentence-crafter, a lover of detail, rhythm and voice; Y shouldn't be missed.
3. Eden Robinson : Tom Bauer's absent father in 'Contact sports', from Traplines.
He is never mentioned, but the absence of Tom's dad in the novella 'Contact sports' is what enables Jeremy, Tom's dishonourably discharged older cousin, to assume a twisted version of the father-figure role. Tom is more or less a good teenager, into the recreational use of drugs and liquor, a fan of baggy clothes and girls who are out of his reach. Jeremy is something else – sadistic, a man in love with power – and he uses his dubiously acquired money to pay the rent and bills that Tom's mother can't. The catch: Tom must do whatever Jeremy wants, until he deems the debt repaid. And from here, there aren't many places that Tom's life can go but down.
4. Joseph Boyden : Annie and Suzanne Bird's missing father in Through black spruce.
He's rarely mentioned, but his absence provides the space for one of the novel's two narrators, Will Bird, to take up the father-figure slack – though Will himself can't exactly claim a flawless record when it comes to loyalty and family. Set in northern Ontario, this book traces, simultaneously, a young woman's search for her missing sister and an ageing man's multi-generational feud.
5. Lisa Moore : Cal O'Mara in February.
Based around the 1982 sinking of the Ocean Ranger oil rig, February tells the story of Helen O'Mara, who loses her husband, Cal, in the wreckage. This is a tale of suffering and dignity, but also an examination of love in its many, often painful, forms. Cal himself is a paradigm as father and husband, but terrified of water. His death at sea transfers that fear to his eldest son, who makes his living as a safety adviser for the very same rigs.
6. Elizabeth Hay : Eleanor Dew's deceased father in Late nights on air.
Yellowknife, 1975. Against the backdrop of environmental and cultural controversy, this novel follows a cast of northern radio jockeys trying to carve a niche for themselves during the rise of TV. Among the principal characters is Eleanor Dew, a woman whose father died when she was young and who has spent a lifetime in loneliness, too afraid or too unable to find similar comfort in a companion.
7. Guy Vanderhaeghe : Jerry Potts in The last crossing.
More legend than fictional creation, Jerry Potts is a half-Blackfoot, half-Scottish guide for a pair of rich Englishmen, Charles and Addington Gaunt, who traverse the Canadian frontier in search of their missing brother. Potts has a son with a woman from a rival tribe and will risk death to see the boy – even if only at a distance. When he uncovers a dark secret about one of his travelling companions, he deals with it according to an old code.
8. Bill Gaston : Bobby Bonaduce in The good body.
Oh, Bobby Bonaduce. Minor-league hockey player for two decades, and an absent father and husband for just as long. Throughout The good body, Bonaduce struggles with two things: the ruin of his family life, and his multiple sclerosis, which slowly and assuredly robs him of the only thing he counts on – his body.
9. Christian Kiefer, Keith Corcoran in The infinite tides.
A hugely fallible man – borderline OCD, hyper-logical, possibly with traces of autism – Keith Corcoran is an astronaut on the International Space Station whose family life dissolves while he's on board. He returns to gravity and an empty home. This is an elegantly written book that juggles many a grand idea. My favourite: that Keith attaches such importance to mundane objects such as his television and his sofa, while in the backdrop lies the immensity of outer space.
10. Tim Winton : Bob Lang in The turning.
My favourite, from my favourite author. Bob Lang is a cop in a small west-coast Australian town who struggles against a culture of corruption and violence among his colleagues. He takes to the bottle, and then he takes off, leaving his wife and son, Vic, behind. Bob and Vic's story is only one that threads through this richly evocative and heart-wrenching collection of interconnected narratives. "I should have quit but I didn't even have the courage to do that," Bob Lang tells his adult son, years later, when Vic seeks him out. "Cowardice, it's a way of life. It's not natural, you learn it."
------
Half dozen BTL comments and recommendations:
John Irving, The world according to Garp. "Having just read it I'd add TS Garp, whose absence makes his son take an overly protective role towards his own children." "Technical Sergeant Garp was my first choice too."
"God the Father, in the New Testament (*Well, until the Book of Revelation, where he makes an apearance). There's lots of talk about him, but we don't actually see him in the second part of the Bible. Unlike the First Part, where he has a very active part." "Be fair though, he did send down a holy messenger at the beginning ... to impregnate a teenage girl without her knowledge or permission. Good job it's fiction otherwise Operation Yewtree might have to invstigate!" "The chippy step-dad tried his best but in the end the kid fell in with the wrong crowd and came to a bad end ..."
Araminta Hall, Dot. "A recent addition to the absent father min-genre. Very good it is too."
"Surely "Daddy, My Daddy!" in The railway children by E. Nesbitt should at least get an honourable mention? There at beginning and end, but not for the grist of the story."
"In most of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of books fathers are even more notably absent than other grown-ups."
"Isn't it odd how our childhoods are peppered with absent Dads- Quentin Kirrin in the Famous Five, Mr Craven in The secret garden, John Parry in His Dark Materials."
24Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Holly Bourne's top 10 love stories with a twist.
Guardian, 2013-09-19.
Holly's debut YA novel, Soulmates, subverts romantic expectations by asking 'what if finding your soulmate was the worst thing ever?' When she's not writing books, Holly is a journalist for TheSite, an advice website for 16-25 year-olds. She believes clichéd romance stories are giving young people unrealistic expectations about love and relationships. You can follow Holly on Twitter or Facebook.
"What is there left to say about love? As a topic of creative exploration, love is unparalleled in its popularity. The result is a constant bombardment of romantic storytelling, telling us what love should be, perhaps instead of what love actually is. We've read so many stories about doomed lovers, unrequited lovers, forbidden affairs, fairytale endings, love triangles, grand declarations of affection (usually always involving some kind of dramatic weather), heart ache, heart break and kisses on the top of famous city landmarks. What else is there to write about?
"But the best kind of love story is one that - however saturated the genre - brings something new to the table. A love story that rejects the paint-by-numbers tale, culminating in a happily-ever-after. One that challenges our lazy clichéd attitudes towards romance and relationships and what it all means."
1. Lauren Oliver, Delirium.
When you link the word 'love' with 'contagious infection', your first thought is to head to your local STI clinic. But in Lauren Oliver's beautiful dsytopian novel, Love is a contagious disease. A disease called Amor Deliria Nervosa no less, and teens all get an operation on their 18th birthday to cure them of this hideous affliction. Lena is all for getting cured until she makes the mistake of falling deliriously in love just weeks before her own operation. By setting this love story in a world where love is a hideous thing, Oliver makes the reader re-examine why it's such a gorgeous thing, why love is worth fighting for.
2. Louise Rennison, The Georgia Nicolson series.
We're so busy getting all moony over love that we often miss how hilarious it is. And, no, not hilarious in that the dippy-but-pretty protagonist falls over sometimes. In this series, bolshy and bonkers teenager Georgia Nicolson diarises just how ludicrous teen love can be. From accidentally getting her boyfriend's coat button stuck up her nostril when her head is in his lap, to cancelling her dream date because her nipples are sticking out from the cold. This love story is literally laugh out loud funny, just as love should be.
3. Greg Behrendt & Liz Tuccillo, He's just not that into you.
The perfect anecdote to the stale, emotionally-irresponsible myth in love stories that crappy blokes suddenly become lovely when they meet the right girl ... and that right girl could be you. Women are practically force-fed narratives where bad guys become good guys after a book/movie's worth of chasing. In real life, this just translates to hanging round too long for a text from a knobhead. It may be a self-help book, but He's just not that into you is a love story. It's a love story to the reader, saying 'hey girl, you're pretty damn fab, don't put up with this crap'.
4. John Green, The fault in our stars.
This is a tough book to explain to the people living under rocks who have not yet heard of it. "It's about two teenagers who fall in love, but, well, they both have cancer, but it's like the most uplifting book you'll read this year ... no, I'm not joking." Cancer isn't funny – that goes without saying - and the love story between Hazel and Gus should be melancholic and sombre, but the twist is that it isn't. TFIOS is dry and warm and funny and shows you why it's still worth choosing love - despite the pain it will bring in unforgiving circumstances.
5. Laurie Frankel, Goodbye for now.
Oh how we love a good story about people who have lost lovers and can't quite get over it. If it isn't Catherine's ghost catapulting herself around the moors, it's Queen Victoria still laying out clothes for her dead husband each morning. In Goodbye for now, computer-whizz Sam Elling invents a virtual reality programme allowing you to Skype the dead. Just what would Heathcliff have done with that, eh? When tragedy strikes in Sam's own love life, dare he use his own technology? This book examines so much: grief, letting go, and our culture's growing love affair with virtual realities, and ultimately virtual relationships.
6. Francois Lelord, Hector and the secrets of love.
A mad professor is on the loose with the world's most potent love potion and Hector is hired by a pharmaceutical company to track him down. Hector's adventure leads him to explore love's most challenging question - mainly, what is it? Is it hormones and chemistry? Is it a bond made of intimacy and shared experiences? Is it even real? This is a psychology, chemistry and biology lesson all-in-one, set in quirky, snappy chapters which will never let you look at love the same way.
7. Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl.
Being popular at school seems to clash constantly with the path to true love in YA novels. There are more star-crossed lovers separated by social hierarchy than you can shake a Cupid's arrow at. So when Leo first starts falling for the new, individual, and socially-ostracised girl at school in Stargirl, you'll be forgiven for rolling your eyes. However, without giving too much away, Stargirl plays out what is likely to happen rather than what should happen. Is being accepted by your peers more important than your heart when you're at school? Would you really stand up to the jocks for the sake of your weird new girlfriend? Or isn't it more likely that you'd choke and spend your adult years kicking yourself?
8. Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed.
The under-sung, but not ugly sister to Eat Pray Love - not enough people have read this sequel to Elizabeth Gilbert's quest for happiness. Marriage is often seen as the ultimate destination of a love story but to Gilbert, who survived the world's messiest divorce, she's happy to never marry again. American border control has other ideas. They want to deport her boyfriend. Gilbert spends a year travelling around the world, trying to come to terms with the concept of marriage. As she does so, she examines love, commitment and soulmates in her breezy effervescent style that made Eat Pray Love so popular.
9. David Nicholls, One day.
We rarely get to see the mundane in love stories: the bad days at work, the squabbles with family, the boring dinner party conversations about the Iraq War. But love does tend to grow, bit by bit, amongst the tedious backdrop of day-to-day life. In One day we see university friends Emma and Dexter on the same day each year, muddling their way through to loving each other through realistic obstacles. Every part of their romance is believable, from their unlikeable personality traits, bad decisions, to the spot-on dialogue and, not forgetting, that ending that made all the commuters cry on the tube.
10. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre.
You've got to end on a classic, and it doesn't get more classic than Jane Eyre. But, really, Bronte's isn't a typical romance story. A plain protagonist (God forbid), an unlikeable hero, a boring backdrop - and of course the crazy wife larking about in the attic. Jane's character, and the way she behaves throughout her love affair with Mr Rochester was pretty revolutionary for the time it was written. She's determined to be her own person, demanding to stay his employee and governess after their marriage. And she chooses conscience over passion - refusing to be his mistress when Bertha is unearthed. Classic book, not classic behaviour, and you gotta love it for that.
Guardian, 2013-09-19.
Holly's debut YA novel, Soulmates, subverts romantic expectations by asking 'what if finding your soulmate was the worst thing ever?' When she's not writing books, Holly is a journalist for TheSite, an advice website for 16-25 year-olds. She believes clichéd romance stories are giving young people unrealistic expectations about love and relationships. You can follow Holly on Twitter or Facebook.
"What is there left to say about love? As a topic of creative exploration, love is unparalleled in its popularity. The result is a constant bombardment of romantic storytelling, telling us what love should be, perhaps instead of what love actually is. We've read so many stories about doomed lovers, unrequited lovers, forbidden affairs, fairytale endings, love triangles, grand declarations of affection (usually always involving some kind of dramatic weather), heart ache, heart break and kisses on the top of famous city landmarks. What else is there to write about?
"But the best kind of love story is one that - however saturated the genre - brings something new to the table. A love story that rejects the paint-by-numbers tale, culminating in a happily-ever-after. One that challenges our lazy clichéd attitudes towards romance and relationships and what it all means."
1. Lauren Oliver, Delirium.
When you link the word 'love' with 'contagious infection', your first thought is to head to your local STI clinic. But in Lauren Oliver's beautiful dsytopian novel, Love is a contagious disease. A disease called Amor Deliria Nervosa no less, and teens all get an operation on their 18th birthday to cure them of this hideous affliction. Lena is all for getting cured until she makes the mistake of falling deliriously in love just weeks before her own operation. By setting this love story in a world where love is a hideous thing, Oliver makes the reader re-examine why it's such a gorgeous thing, why love is worth fighting for.
2. Louise Rennison, The Georgia Nicolson series.
We're so busy getting all moony over love that we often miss how hilarious it is. And, no, not hilarious in that the dippy-but-pretty protagonist falls over sometimes. In this series, bolshy and bonkers teenager Georgia Nicolson diarises just how ludicrous teen love can be. From accidentally getting her boyfriend's coat button stuck up her nostril when her head is in his lap, to cancelling her dream date because her nipples are sticking out from the cold. This love story is literally laugh out loud funny, just as love should be.
3. Greg Behrendt & Liz Tuccillo, He's just not that into you.
The perfect anecdote to the stale, emotionally-irresponsible myth in love stories that crappy blokes suddenly become lovely when they meet the right girl ... and that right girl could be you. Women are practically force-fed narratives where bad guys become good guys after a book/movie's worth of chasing. In real life, this just translates to hanging round too long for a text from a knobhead. It may be a self-help book, but He's just not that into you is a love story. It's a love story to the reader, saying 'hey girl, you're pretty damn fab, don't put up with this crap'.
4. John Green, The fault in our stars.
This is a tough book to explain to the people living under rocks who have not yet heard of it. "It's about two teenagers who fall in love, but, well, they both have cancer, but it's like the most uplifting book you'll read this year ... no, I'm not joking." Cancer isn't funny – that goes without saying - and the love story between Hazel and Gus should be melancholic and sombre, but the twist is that it isn't. TFIOS is dry and warm and funny and shows you why it's still worth choosing love - despite the pain it will bring in unforgiving circumstances.
5. Laurie Frankel, Goodbye for now.
Oh how we love a good story about people who have lost lovers and can't quite get over it. If it isn't Catherine's ghost catapulting herself around the moors, it's Queen Victoria still laying out clothes for her dead husband each morning. In Goodbye for now, computer-whizz Sam Elling invents a virtual reality programme allowing you to Skype the dead. Just what would Heathcliff have done with that, eh? When tragedy strikes in Sam's own love life, dare he use his own technology? This book examines so much: grief, letting go, and our culture's growing love affair with virtual realities, and ultimately virtual relationships.
6. Francois Lelord, Hector and the secrets of love.
A mad professor is on the loose with the world's most potent love potion and Hector is hired by a pharmaceutical company to track him down. Hector's adventure leads him to explore love's most challenging question - mainly, what is it? Is it hormones and chemistry? Is it a bond made of intimacy and shared experiences? Is it even real? This is a psychology, chemistry and biology lesson all-in-one, set in quirky, snappy chapters which will never let you look at love the same way.
7. Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl.
Being popular at school seems to clash constantly with the path to true love in YA novels. There are more star-crossed lovers separated by social hierarchy than you can shake a Cupid's arrow at. So when Leo first starts falling for the new, individual, and socially-ostracised girl at school in Stargirl, you'll be forgiven for rolling your eyes. However, without giving too much away, Stargirl plays out what is likely to happen rather than what should happen. Is being accepted by your peers more important than your heart when you're at school? Would you really stand up to the jocks for the sake of your weird new girlfriend? Or isn't it more likely that you'd choke and spend your adult years kicking yourself?
8. Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed.
The under-sung, but not ugly sister to Eat Pray Love - not enough people have read this sequel to Elizabeth Gilbert's quest for happiness. Marriage is often seen as the ultimate destination of a love story but to Gilbert, who survived the world's messiest divorce, she's happy to never marry again. American border control has other ideas. They want to deport her boyfriend. Gilbert spends a year travelling around the world, trying to come to terms with the concept of marriage. As she does so, she examines love, commitment and soulmates in her breezy effervescent style that made Eat Pray Love so popular.
9. David Nicholls, One day.
We rarely get to see the mundane in love stories: the bad days at work, the squabbles with family, the boring dinner party conversations about the Iraq War. But love does tend to grow, bit by bit, amongst the tedious backdrop of day-to-day life. In One day we see university friends Emma and Dexter on the same day each year, muddling their way through to loving each other through realistic obstacles. Every part of their romance is believable, from their unlikeable personality traits, bad decisions, to the spot-on dialogue and, not forgetting, that ending that made all the commuters cry on the tube.
10. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre.
You've got to end on a classic, and it doesn't get more classic than Jane Eyre. But, really, Bronte's isn't a typical romance story. A plain protagonist (God forbid), an unlikeable hero, a boring backdrop - and of course the crazy wife larking about in the attic. Jane's character, and the way she behaves throughout her love affair with Mr Rochester was pretty revolutionary for the time it was written. She's determined to be her own person, demanding to stay his employee and governess after their marriage. And she chooses conscience over passion - refusing to be his mistress when Bertha is unearthed. Classic book, not classic behaviour, and you gotta love it for that.
25Cynfelyn
Lisa Appignanesi's top 10 books about Paris.
Guardian, 2013-09-25.
"By an accident of history, I spent part of my early childhood in Paris and French became my first spoken language. Ever since, no matter how often I've returned, once to live opposite Balzac's failed printing works, Paris has been a city of memory and myth for me. Oddly angled sights and childhood smells live side by side with that dream city built up of the words of novelists and poets.
"This is the Paris of crowds and contrasts, of forbidden pleasure and desperation, of glitter and nerves, of urbanity and poverty. It's the very essence of the cosmopolitan: dangerous and desirable. My novel Paris requiem is set in the mystery of its teeming streets as the city moves into the 20th century."
1. Honoré de Balzac, Le Père Goriot.
Along with Lost illusions, this is one of my great favourites in Balzac's many-volumed and populous Human Comedy. Balzac's depiction of Restoration Paris from the vantage point of an aspiring innocent from the provinces shows it to be a ruthlessly inhuman capital of inequality: only vice and manipulative corruption triumph. Seduction, love, talent are all tools for climbing the greasy pole to success, and along with filthy lucre, a means of buying a foothold at the aristocratic summit. Balzac's detail allows us to smell the grimy boarding house, the Maison Vauquer on Rue Neuve-Saint-Geneviève, where his provincial law student, Rastignac, begins his Parisian odyssey. At the end, after old Goriot's funeral, Rastignac stands on the heights of the Père Lachaise Cemetery and launches his challenge to the city: "A nous deux maintenant." ("It's between us two now.")
2. Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal.
Censored in its original 1857 edition for its "insult to public decency" – largely on the grounds of its lesbian poems – Baudelaire's enlarged Flowers of evil of 1861 captures a city thrust into a shuddering modernity by Baron Haussmann's renovations. The poet-flaneur takes us, his hypocrite readers, on a 24-hour tour through the life of the changing streets. He walks, observes, takes in new sensations, mourns fleeting time, bumps into a putrifying cadaver, locks eyes with a desirable woman and loses her again in the crowd. He conjures up the unsung greats, the ragpickers, beggars, whores, gamblers: the workers whom bourgeois order casts aside.
3. Gustave Flaubert, Sentimental education.
Published in 1869, this is the great prose master's ironic tale of city life, to counterpoint with his provincial Madame Bovary, who yearns for the capital. Set around the revolution of 1848, which put an end to Louis Philippe's materialist reign and inadvertently ushered in a new emperor, this is the novel of modern disaffection and anomie. Frederic Moreau, an intellectual manque, floats through life, paralysed by the many choices the city offers and able to decide on none. The city induces shifts in attention, passing sensations. Ultimately both the city and this new god comprised of sex, money and power defeat him.
4. Émile Zola, Nana.
Zola's innocent blonde Venus rises from dire streetwalker's poverty to soar like a mythic amoral angel through the corrupt society of the second empire. Made for love, she enraptures with her performances and proceeds to wreak destruction on the corrupt male hordes who desire her. Zola's descriptions of the Parisian demi-monde, as well as his crowd scenes, are unequalled. Her death coincides with the announcement of the Franco-Prussian war.
5. Henry James, The ambassadors.
I have to confess that the plotline of my Paris requiem was in part inspired by James's wonderful 1903 novel, in which New Englander Lambert Strether goes on a mission to rescue his straight-laced fiance's son from the corruptions (and illicit pleasures) of Paris. James is ever alert to the delights and dangers of the capital and is happy to have Strether seduced and bewildered and emerge all the wiser for the experience.
6. Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu.
Alongside its archeology of the emotions, Proust's great novel gives us a remarkable topography of the city. He was a psychogeographer ahead of time. Young Marcel "wrestles" with his childhood love, Gilberte, in the leafy pastoral of the Champs-Élysées and watches fashionable aristocrats and courtesans, dressed for spectacle and assignation, in the Bois de Boulogne. One of these last is Gilberte's mother, Odette. As a woman of the demi-monde, she used to live in a small house behind the Trocadero to which the dandy Swann drove her in a carriage, where they performed their first "cattleya" – the flower that stands in for their sexual congress. By the end, they've arrived at the aristocratic summit, the Faubourg Saint-Germain. (The "secret" homosexual brothel in which the book's wartime "apocalypse" takes place lies halfway between Proust's childhood home and the Boulevard Haussmann, where he wrote his novel.)
7. Ernest Hemingway, A moveable feast.
Published posthumously in 1963, this splendid memoir of Hemingway's life in Paris during the 20s amid a bohemian circle of writers and artists has hugely contributed to the city's mythic appeal. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Gertrude Stein and many more figure in its star-studded pages, meeting, drinking and talking in the Ritz, in Montparnasse cafes and bars and in any number of apartments, some seedy, some elegant, that then make their way into novels.
8. Simone de Beauvoir, The autobiographies.
I learned a lot of my Paris from De Beauvoir. Her autobiographies, from her Memoirs of a dutiful daughter on, provide a fascinating 20th-century history and cultural geography of the city. Born in the then new area of Montparnasse in 1908, De Beauvoir guides us through the cafes and clubs of her frolics and writing, as well as the hotels where she and Sartre largely lived – many of these no more than a brisk walk away from her birthplace. Her wartime Paris is particularly graphic.
9. Georges Simenon, Maigret.
Any and all of the Maigret novels paint an unrivalled picture of the city and its inhabitants. Simenon and his detective are astute observers of the psychopathology of everyday life and the houses and streets in which it unfurls. From the bonne bourgeoise Madame Maigret in her floral summer dresses – worn to the little restaurant on the Boulevard de Montparnasse, where the couple dine on stewed mutton on the terasse – to the overbred (and murdered) Comte and Comtesse de Saint-Hilaire in the Rue de Varenne, Simenon is unequalled in his understanding of the city.
10. Cynthia Ozick, Foreign bodies.
In this taut and witty homage to Henry James, the great Ozick takes her morally upright teacher, Bea Nightingale, on a journey into the murky depths of 1950s Paris, where wartime refugees jostle with intoxicated American expats, and Jewishness has different meanings according to which side of the Atlantic you're on. This is a virtuouso novel to rival the master's own in its understanding of the textures and shades that make up a (good) life.
------
Half a dozen of the BTL comments and recommenadions:
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer. "A massive omission in this list." "I may have agreed you twenty five years ago ... but come now, who would he replace in that list ? He doesn't re-read all that well ... Paris the city has lasted much better." "Enjoyed the gentle Quiet days in Clichy more, but you're right, not necessarily top flight lit." ...
Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch.
Jean-Paul Sartre, The Road to Freedom Trilogy. "Absolument. The Age of Reason in particular."
George Orwell. "Down and out in London and Paris?"
"So many to choose from here, but Walter Benjamin, I believe, intended the research project on Paris which occupied much of his last decade to have the title, 'Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century' - and it surely deserves a mention here. The arcades, fashion, Haussmann, lore from the different social quarters of the city, the book published ten years ago as The Arcades Project takes you into Paris as it emerges as a great modernist metropolis, but also gives the reader a sense that everything we think of as modern, or even postmodern, or post-postmodern (!) had its trial run 150 years ago. It's a book to dip into and contemplate over a lifetime."
"Great call on The Arcades Project. Paris by Julian Green is also good. An outsider's view ? Paris trance by Geoff Dyer is great. Most of G. Perec." "So true about Perec. Life : a user's manual goes profoundly into the dynamics of a Paris apartment building, both spatially and temporally, and contains wonderful stories to boot." ...
Guardian, 2013-09-25.
"By an accident of history, I spent part of my early childhood in Paris and French became my first spoken language. Ever since, no matter how often I've returned, once to live opposite Balzac's failed printing works, Paris has been a city of memory and myth for me. Oddly angled sights and childhood smells live side by side with that dream city built up of the words of novelists and poets.
"This is the Paris of crowds and contrasts, of forbidden pleasure and desperation, of glitter and nerves, of urbanity and poverty. It's the very essence of the cosmopolitan: dangerous and desirable. My novel Paris requiem is set in the mystery of its teeming streets as the city moves into the 20th century."
1. Honoré de Balzac, Le Père Goriot.
Along with Lost illusions, this is one of my great favourites in Balzac's many-volumed and populous Human Comedy. Balzac's depiction of Restoration Paris from the vantage point of an aspiring innocent from the provinces shows it to be a ruthlessly inhuman capital of inequality: only vice and manipulative corruption triumph. Seduction, love, talent are all tools for climbing the greasy pole to success, and along with filthy lucre, a means of buying a foothold at the aristocratic summit. Balzac's detail allows us to smell the grimy boarding house, the Maison Vauquer on Rue Neuve-Saint-Geneviève, where his provincial law student, Rastignac, begins his Parisian odyssey. At the end, after old Goriot's funeral, Rastignac stands on the heights of the Père Lachaise Cemetery and launches his challenge to the city: "A nous deux maintenant." ("It's between us two now.")
2. Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal.
Censored in its original 1857 edition for its "insult to public decency" – largely on the grounds of its lesbian poems – Baudelaire's enlarged Flowers of evil of 1861 captures a city thrust into a shuddering modernity by Baron Haussmann's renovations. The poet-flaneur takes us, his hypocrite readers, on a 24-hour tour through the life of the changing streets. He walks, observes, takes in new sensations, mourns fleeting time, bumps into a putrifying cadaver, locks eyes with a desirable woman and loses her again in the crowd. He conjures up the unsung greats, the ragpickers, beggars, whores, gamblers: the workers whom bourgeois order casts aside.
3. Gustave Flaubert, Sentimental education.
Published in 1869, this is the great prose master's ironic tale of city life, to counterpoint with his provincial Madame Bovary, who yearns for the capital. Set around the revolution of 1848, which put an end to Louis Philippe's materialist reign and inadvertently ushered in a new emperor, this is the novel of modern disaffection and anomie. Frederic Moreau, an intellectual manque, floats through life, paralysed by the many choices the city offers and able to decide on none. The city induces shifts in attention, passing sensations. Ultimately both the city and this new god comprised of sex, money and power defeat him.
4. Émile Zola, Nana.
Zola's innocent blonde Venus rises from dire streetwalker's poverty to soar like a mythic amoral angel through the corrupt society of the second empire. Made for love, she enraptures with her performances and proceeds to wreak destruction on the corrupt male hordes who desire her. Zola's descriptions of the Parisian demi-monde, as well as his crowd scenes, are unequalled. Her death coincides with the announcement of the Franco-Prussian war.
5. Henry James, The ambassadors.
I have to confess that the plotline of my Paris requiem was in part inspired by James's wonderful 1903 novel, in which New Englander Lambert Strether goes on a mission to rescue his straight-laced fiance's son from the corruptions (and illicit pleasures) of Paris. James is ever alert to the delights and dangers of the capital and is happy to have Strether seduced and bewildered and emerge all the wiser for the experience.
6. Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu.
Alongside its archeology of the emotions, Proust's great novel gives us a remarkable topography of the city. He was a psychogeographer ahead of time. Young Marcel "wrestles" with his childhood love, Gilberte, in the leafy pastoral of the Champs-Élysées and watches fashionable aristocrats and courtesans, dressed for spectacle and assignation, in the Bois de Boulogne. One of these last is Gilberte's mother, Odette. As a woman of the demi-monde, she used to live in a small house behind the Trocadero to which the dandy Swann drove her in a carriage, where they performed their first "cattleya" – the flower that stands in for their sexual congress. By the end, they've arrived at the aristocratic summit, the Faubourg Saint-Germain. (The "secret" homosexual brothel in which the book's wartime "apocalypse" takes place lies halfway between Proust's childhood home and the Boulevard Haussmann, where he wrote his novel.)
7. Ernest Hemingway, A moveable feast.
Published posthumously in 1963, this splendid memoir of Hemingway's life in Paris during the 20s amid a bohemian circle of writers and artists has hugely contributed to the city's mythic appeal. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Gertrude Stein and many more figure in its star-studded pages, meeting, drinking and talking in the Ritz, in Montparnasse cafes and bars and in any number of apartments, some seedy, some elegant, that then make their way into novels.
8. Simone de Beauvoir, The autobiographies.
I learned a lot of my Paris from De Beauvoir. Her autobiographies, from her Memoirs of a dutiful daughter on, provide a fascinating 20th-century history and cultural geography of the city. Born in the then new area of Montparnasse in 1908, De Beauvoir guides us through the cafes and clubs of her frolics and writing, as well as the hotels where she and Sartre largely lived – many of these no more than a brisk walk away from her birthplace. Her wartime Paris is particularly graphic.
9. Georges Simenon, Maigret.
Any and all of the Maigret novels paint an unrivalled picture of the city and its inhabitants. Simenon and his detective are astute observers of the psychopathology of everyday life and the houses and streets in which it unfurls. From the bonne bourgeoise Madame Maigret in her floral summer dresses – worn to the little restaurant on the Boulevard de Montparnasse, where the couple dine on stewed mutton on the terasse – to the overbred (and murdered) Comte and Comtesse de Saint-Hilaire in the Rue de Varenne, Simenon is unequalled in his understanding of the city.
10. Cynthia Ozick, Foreign bodies.
In this taut and witty homage to Henry James, the great Ozick takes her morally upright teacher, Bea Nightingale, on a journey into the murky depths of 1950s Paris, where wartime refugees jostle with intoxicated American expats, and Jewishness has different meanings according to which side of the Atlantic you're on. This is a virtuouso novel to rival the master's own in its understanding of the textures and shades that make up a (good) life.
------
Half a dozen of the BTL comments and recommenadions:
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer. "A massive omission in this list." "I may have agreed you twenty five years ago ... but come now, who would he replace in that list ? He doesn't re-read all that well ... Paris the city has lasted much better." "Enjoyed the gentle Quiet days in Clichy more, but you're right, not necessarily top flight lit." ...
Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch.
Jean-Paul Sartre, The Road to Freedom Trilogy. "Absolument. The Age of Reason in particular."
George Orwell. "Down and out in London and Paris?"
"So many to choose from here, but Walter Benjamin, I believe, intended the research project on Paris which occupied much of his last decade to have the title, 'Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century' - and it surely deserves a mention here. The arcades, fashion, Haussmann, lore from the different social quarters of the city, the book published ten years ago as The Arcades Project takes you into Paris as it emerges as a great modernist metropolis, but also gives the reader a sense that everything we think of as modern, or even postmodern, or post-postmodern (!) had its trial run 150 years ago. It's a book to dip into and contemplate over a lifetime."
"Great call on The Arcades Project. Paris by Julian Green is also good. An outsider's view ? Paris trance by Geoff Dyer is great. Most of G. Perec." "So true about Perec. Life : a user's manual goes profoundly into the dynamics of a Paris apartment building, both spatially and temporally, and contains wonderful stories to boot." ...
26Cynfelyn
Charles Graeber's top 10 true crime books.
Guardian, 2013-10-02.
"The most prolific serial killer in American history refused to speak with anybody. Then he started talking to me. Eight years later, the result is The good nurse, a book which, as a work of non-fiction with murder involved, is shelved in the genre of true crime. Which isn't, strictly speaking, a compliment. You'll find no section in your bookseller for true history, or true memoir or true politics (though perhaps you should). Only crime gets treated like a criminal. It's as if the unethical subject matter has rubbed off on the writer and the writing.
"Some of that reputation is deserved. Many "true crime" offerings are pulpy quickies with a tabloid heart and tabloid brains – human tragedy served as porno McNuggets. (Actually, that description fails. I'd like porno McNuggets, they sound yummy. But these books turn out the opposite – stale and flat as cardboard, and, frankly, "untrue".)
"Happily, hidden among this genre are a heap of fulfilling standouts. The term given to books like these is "literary true crime". It's the triple-modified backhanded compliment and the term still seems a bit overwrought. Try introducing your lover as a "lovely, devout and a reformed prostitute" and you'll understand.
"Whatever the genre title, this section marks the sweetspot of highbrow and low, truth and art, and among the thugs of the genre you'll find master craftspeople holding dirt but wielding the same literary toolkit available to the investigative journalist, the novelist and the poet, creating dirty and deep page-turners with the pacing of a thriller and a setting in the dirtiest of all worlds: the real one. Narrowing them down to a "top 10" is impossible, but here are some of the best."
1. Jon Krakauer, Under the banner of Heaven : a story of violent faith.
Krakauer is a master journalist and a storyteller who is unfettered by and unafraid of the true crime mantle. Here, he transcends the genre with a story of Mormon brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insisted God gave them commands (commandments?) to kill. Krakauer pries open the golden doors to one of the newest and fastest-growing religions to set the stage for the non-fiction drama.
2. Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward, All the president's men.
Is it too much to ask that a book not only provide a riveting read, but also inform a nation, and change the world? Answer: no. This one took down a presidency. The details are fascinating to journalists and normal people alike, the pacing is surprisingly engaging, and the result is a gumshoe news procedural with a rather happy ending, and a true crime book which became true history.
3. Dave Cullen, Columbine.
Like most folk, I thought I knew what happened during the Columbine, Colorado "trenchcoat mafia" school shooting in on 20 April, 1999. Dave Cullen proved me wrong. He spent a decade pulling out fresh sources and details about the lives of teen murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, then artfully pieced them into a ticking narrative which culminates in a moment-by-moment account of the massacre itself. You'll be ducking under your desk as you read.
4. Thomas Thompson, Blood and money.
Noir classics such as The thin man or The Maltese falcon are famous partly for the menagerie of bizarre and desperate characters encountered along the way to solving a crime. Investigative journalist and author Thompson finds the same in real-life Texas, as he digs into the 1969 murder of an oil heiress and Houston socialite. Truth here is far stranger than fiction.
5. Norman Mailer, The executioner's song.
A literary epic about real crime. In terms of scope and ambition and ego, not to mention length, it's hard to top Mailer's doorstopper about the life, crimes and execution of a Utah murderous drifter named Gary Gilmore. But who cares about the dirtbag - the meat of this book comes from Mailer's partnership with a Hollywood player, which gave him access to the meta-story, as agents and middlemen shamelessly jockey to secure rights to Gilmore's story and execution. It's too good, if too long, and hey, it won the Pulitzer.
6. Anne Rule, The stranger beside me : Ted Bundy, the shocking inside story.
Before Rule became one of the best known American true crime writers, she had a day job working side by side at a suicide hotline centre with Ted Bundy – who she knew as a handsome, charismatic friend, and who the world would later know as a brutal serial killer. Unsettling and personal stuff.
7. David Simon, Homicide : a year on the killing streets.
Simon took a hiatus from his job as a Baltimore newspaper reporter to embed with homicide detectives in one of the most dangerous cities in the US, and then a few more to masterfully weave the stories together from all sides – players and the played, cops and baddies and innocents. Aside from providing grist for anyone attempting to understand the hard truths of life in an American warzone, this one of the most readable books here, particularly if you've ever lost a month bingeing on The wire – a series based largely on this book.
8. Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, Helter skelter : the true story of the Manson murders.
You can't deny the all-time bestseller of the genre, or the detail-driven dive into the world of Charles Manson and his addled cult known as "the family", written by a prosecutor of the Tate-LaBianca murders with access to all the grim details, partnered with a solid historical writer in Gentry.
9. Truman Capote, In cold blood.
This classic cannot be denied, even if sullied by recent questions about Capote's liberties with the facts and his poor treatment of his former friend and researcher, Harper Lee. Capote revelled in shattering notions of what a crime book could be, and the first to raise it to the novelistic level. His dissection of a 1959 home invasion and murder in rural Kansas is as much a drill down on disparate lives and family secrets as it is of the brutal crime itself, and his exclusive access to one of the young murderers is both sympathetic and damning.
10. Richard Lloyd Parry, People who eat darkness : the fate of Lucie Blackman.
A recent read, and a favourite. In April of 2000, Lucie Blackman was a blonde 21-year-old from Kent who suddenly disappeared into an unmarked door within the labyrinth of Tokyo's "hostess" bar culture. Parry is an award-winning UK foreign correspondent who spent an obsessed decade down the rabbithole of a curious story which got curiouser with each dirty turn. Take on a few chapters and get drawn into the rabbithole yourself. It won't take you 10 years, I promise.
------
Half a dozen BTL comments and recommendations:
Gordon Burn, Somebody's husband, somebody's son : the story of Peter Sutcliffe and Happy like murderers.
" 'On murder considered as one of the fine arts', three essays by Thomas de Quincey (published together by OUP as On murder), are framed as a fictional satire about a club of "murder aesthetes", but deal primarily with the real-life case of John Williams, responsible in 1811 for the deaths of seven people in the East End of London. Brilliant reading. Eric Ambler and Raymond Chandler also both wrote fine essays on the subject, inspired by de Quincey, which, if I recall correctly, also dealt at least partially with real contemporary cases."
James Ellroy, My dark places.
"Peter Robb's Midnight in Sicily is a brilliant dissection of the Mafia's role in Andreotti's time at the top is a great read that looks at the culture of Italy as well as the intertwining of crime and politics. Chloe Hooper's Tall man is a terrific examination of Australian class and race relations through the lens of the death of an Australian Aboriginal man while in police custody. Last, but not least, Robert Sabbag's Snowblind. Old now but it's a ripper read about an idiot savant whose one major talent is smuggling drugs."
"Somewhat more obscure because for purposes of inclusion in Guardian articles it's from the wrong end of the Americas, but Plata Quemada (translated as "Money to burn") by Ricardo Piglia is an interesting novelisation of a real life 1960s bank heist in Buenos Aires that ended up in an armed siege in a flat in Uruguay with some interesting stuff about the murky world of post-Peron Argentina and the intermixing of criminal gangs, corrupt policemen and armed insurgents."
"I've just bought Methland by Nick Reding (keeping the crystal blue vibe going post Breaking bad) which looks at the fallout from meth rackets which I'm looking forward to."
Guardian, 2013-10-02.
"The most prolific serial killer in American history refused to speak with anybody. Then he started talking to me. Eight years later, the result is The good nurse, a book which, as a work of non-fiction with murder involved, is shelved in the genre of true crime. Which isn't, strictly speaking, a compliment. You'll find no section in your bookseller for true history, or true memoir or true politics (though perhaps you should). Only crime gets treated like a criminal. It's as if the unethical subject matter has rubbed off on the writer and the writing.
"Some of that reputation is deserved. Many "true crime" offerings are pulpy quickies with a tabloid heart and tabloid brains – human tragedy served as porno McNuggets. (Actually, that description fails. I'd like porno McNuggets, they sound yummy. But these books turn out the opposite – stale and flat as cardboard, and, frankly, "untrue".)
"Happily, hidden among this genre are a heap of fulfilling standouts. The term given to books like these is "literary true crime". It's the triple-modified backhanded compliment and the term still seems a bit overwrought. Try introducing your lover as a "lovely, devout and a reformed prostitute" and you'll understand.
"Whatever the genre title, this section marks the sweetspot of highbrow and low, truth and art, and among the thugs of the genre you'll find master craftspeople holding dirt but wielding the same literary toolkit available to the investigative journalist, the novelist and the poet, creating dirty and deep page-turners with the pacing of a thriller and a setting in the dirtiest of all worlds: the real one. Narrowing them down to a "top 10" is impossible, but here are some of the best."
1. Jon Krakauer, Under the banner of Heaven : a story of violent faith.
Krakauer is a master journalist and a storyteller who is unfettered by and unafraid of the true crime mantle. Here, he transcends the genre with a story of Mormon brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insisted God gave them commands (commandments?) to kill. Krakauer pries open the golden doors to one of the newest and fastest-growing religions to set the stage for the non-fiction drama.
2. Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward, All the president's men.
Is it too much to ask that a book not only provide a riveting read, but also inform a nation, and change the world? Answer: no. This one took down a presidency. The details are fascinating to journalists and normal people alike, the pacing is surprisingly engaging, and the result is a gumshoe news procedural with a rather happy ending, and a true crime book which became true history.
3. Dave Cullen, Columbine.
Like most folk, I thought I knew what happened during the Columbine, Colorado "trenchcoat mafia" school shooting in on 20 April, 1999. Dave Cullen proved me wrong. He spent a decade pulling out fresh sources and details about the lives of teen murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, then artfully pieced them into a ticking narrative which culminates in a moment-by-moment account of the massacre itself. You'll be ducking under your desk as you read.
4. Thomas Thompson, Blood and money.
Noir classics such as The thin man or The Maltese falcon are famous partly for the menagerie of bizarre and desperate characters encountered along the way to solving a crime. Investigative journalist and author Thompson finds the same in real-life Texas, as he digs into the 1969 murder of an oil heiress and Houston socialite. Truth here is far stranger than fiction.
5. Norman Mailer, The executioner's song.
A literary epic about real crime. In terms of scope and ambition and ego, not to mention length, it's hard to top Mailer's doorstopper about the life, crimes and execution of a Utah murderous drifter named Gary Gilmore. But who cares about the dirtbag - the meat of this book comes from Mailer's partnership with a Hollywood player, which gave him access to the meta-story, as agents and middlemen shamelessly jockey to secure rights to Gilmore's story and execution. It's too good, if too long, and hey, it won the Pulitzer.
6. Anne Rule, The stranger beside me : Ted Bundy, the shocking inside story.
Before Rule became one of the best known American true crime writers, she had a day job working side by side at a suicide hotline centre with Ted Bundy – who she knew as a handsome, charismatic friend, and who the world would later know as a brutal serial killer. Unsettling and personal stuff.
7. David Simon, Homicide : a year on the killing streets.
Simon took a hiatus from his job as a Baltimore newspaper reporter to embed with homicide detectives in one of the most dangerous cities in the US, and then a few more to masterfully weave the stories together from all sides – players and the played, cops and baddies and innocents. Aside from providing grist for anyone attempting to understand the hard truths of life in an American warzone, this one of the most readable books here, particularly if you've ever lost a month bingeing on The wire – a series based largely on this book.
8. Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, Helter skelter : the true story of the Manson murders.
You can't deny the all-time bestseller of the genre, or the detail-driven dive into the world of Charles Manson and his addled cult known as "the family", written by a prosecutor of the Tate-LaBianca murders with access to all the grim details, partnered with a solid historical writer in Gentry.
9. Truman Capote, In cold blood.
This classic cannot be denied, even if sullied by recent questions about Capote's liberties with the facts and his poor treatment of his former friend and researcher, Harper Lee. Capote revelled in shattering notions of what a crime book could be, and the first to raise it to the novelistic level. His dissection of a 1959 home invasion and murder in rural Kansas is as much a drill down on disparate lives and family secrets as it is of the brutal crime itself, and his exclusive access to one of the young murderers is both sympathetic and damning.
10. Richard Lloyd Parry, People who eat darkness : the fate of Lucie Blackman.
A recent read, and a favourite. In April of 2000, Lucie Blackman was a blonde 21-year-old from Kent who suddenly disappeared into an unmarked door within the labyrinth of Tokyo's "hostess" bar culture. Parry is an award-winning UK foreign correspondent who spent an obsessed decade down the rabbithole of a curious story which got curiouser with each dirty turn. Take on a few chapters and get drawn into the rabbithole yourself. It won't take you 10 years, I promise.
------
Half a dozen BTL comments and recommendations:
Gordon Burn, Somebody's husband, somebody's son : the story of Peter Sutcliffe and Happy like murderers.
" 'On murder considered as one of the fine arts', three essays by Thomas de Quincey (published together by OUP as On murder), are framed as a fictional satire about a club of "murder aesthetes", but deal primarily with the real-life case of John Williams, responsible in 1811 for the deaths of seven people in the East End of London. Brilliant reading. Eric Ambler and Raymond Chandler also both wrote fine essays on the subject, inspired by de Quincey, which, if I recall correctly, also dealt at least partially with real contemporary cases."
James Ellroy, My dark places.
"Peter Robb's Midnight in Sicily is a brilliant dissection of the Mafia's role in Andreotti's time at the top is a great read that looks at the culture of Italy as well as the intertwining of crime and politics. Chloe Hooper's Tall man is a terrific examination of Australian class and race relations through the lens of the death of an Australian Aboriginal man while in police custody. Last, but not least, Robert Sabbag's Snowblind. Old now but it's a ripper read about an idiot savant whose one major talent is smuggling drugs."
"Somewhat more obscure because for purposes of inclusion in Guardian articles it's from the wrong end of the Americas, but Plata Quemada (translated as "Money to burn") by Ricardo Piglia is an interesting novelisation of a real life 1960s bank heist in Buenos Aires that ended up in an armed siege in a flat in Uruguay with some interesting stuff about the murky world of post-Peron Argentina and the intermixing of criminal gangs, corrupt policemen and armed insurgents."
"I've just bought Methland by Nick Reding (keeping the crystal blue vibe going post Breaking bad) which looks at the fallout from meth rackets which I'm looking forward to."
27Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / John Hegley's top 10 children's poetry books.
Guardian, 2013-10-03.
Poet, comic, singer, songwriter and glasses-wearer, John Hegley has captivated and devastated audiences all over the country, in theatres and festivals, and with a great many appearances on radio and television. I am a poetato, his new collection of poems for children, is published by Frances Lincoln Children's Books.
"In the happy hours spent compiling this list, I have re-encountered old friends from my childhood such as Hilaire Belloc's terrific 'Tarantella' and the piece by Dylan Thomas that I only knew as a song. That was one of many discoveries made during my investigations. I didn't know Christina Rossetti at all. I didn't know there were Moomins in verse. I hadn't encountered the cheery ruminations of Ted Hughes upon the cow. I'd like to think that these ten titles would make a good pile to give a youngster. There are few duplications in the compilations; there is cause for wonder, pondering, delight and bemusement and there are some very nice pictures.
"My thanks to the staff at The Poetry Library on the South Bank, London, for their reading recommendations and hunting out from the shelving. All 'top-tenners' can be found in this library for reference and delving, if not for borrowing. It's free and it's easy to join".
1. Carol Ann Duffy, 101 poems for children.
A finely stitched mix of poetries; the right between the eyes sort, the more in-between-the-lines sort. And some sorts in between. I look forward to re-reading the hard ones with apples in, by Yeats and Kavanagh. Emily Gravett's lightness of touch in the drawings contrastingly sits well with the weightier poems. 'I like that stuff' as Adrian Mitchell says. 3 of the 101 are by this man - plus works by Jackie Kay - HOORAY.
2. Michael Rosen, Big book of bad things.
Instructive, inquisitive, mischievous word jiggling, which includes a celebration of the author's Jewish family and the Jewish lingo. And the bagels. Often comical and colourful with good use of the grey tones in the drawings. Sometimes in the poems, 'It's the moment when the cheery stuff stops.'
3. Grace Nichols, Paint me a poem.
As a result of her residency in The Tate, as was, Grace Nichols throws some sharp shapes 'on the dance floor of painting.' There are sculptures too, in excellent reproduction and poems from children who work-shopped with her in the residency. They stand proudly alongside the spare, plain-speaking lines of their leader. Includes excellent workshop exercises.
4. Jacqueline Wilson (chosen by), Green glass beads.
A shrewd assemblage of the Greats, lesser known ones by the Greats and ones by lesser-known Greats (to this reader anyway.) John Agard's 'Spell to Bring a Smile' is a reminder that poetry is a tool for the creation of human well–being. These poems are FINE for boys.
5. Hilaire Belloc, The bad child's book of beasts.
As well as providing the beastly bits, Hilaire gives the bad children a Bellocing. Wry and dry, rather than Hilarious. A little gem.
6. Tove Jansson, The dangerous journey.
Lovely palette and very lively balette of language. Stories for girls and boys and Moomins of all ages.
Bob quite agreed. 'A mightful fress! Hite quorribly foncusing! Whoever's glaying pames with us, they're linning and we're wusing.'
7. Margaret Mahy, illus. Sarah Garland, Dashing dog!
Cheery wash of watercolour and seaside splashing dog tale. A warming walk with the words, 'Three other dogs think that our dog has done wrong to them. Sure that the Frisbee really belongs to them.'
8. The caterpillar.
The caterpillar is a magazine of stories, poems and art for kids. The latest issue has poems, which include a Christina Rosetti riddle and Julie O'Callaghan's mean sardine celebration. Caterpillar reminds me of Ann Thwaite's magazine in book form, from way back ALLSORTS, which I would also recommend.
9. Gerard Benson, illus. Cathy Benson, To catch an elephant.
A most well-made parade of poems with a mixture of moods. I much like the bike one and the meditation upon not being able to 'guess an elephant' from its bones.
10. Judith Nichols (ed.), Earthways, earthwise : poems on conservation.
A thriving diversity of poems concerning nature. Some of them concerned about nature. I have not this volume to hand but there is a stirring quote from a tribal Native American asserting that people belong to the Earth and not the other way wrong.
------
A children's books top ten, so no BTL comments.
Guardian, 2013-10-03.
Poet, comic, singer, songwriter and glasses-wearer, John Hegley has captivated and devastated audiences all over the country, in theatres and festivals, and with a great many appearances on radio and television. I am a poetato, his new collection of poems for children, is published by Frances Lincoln Children's Books.
"In the happy hours spent compiling this list, I have re-encountered old friends from my childhood such as Hilaire Belloc's terrific 'Tarantella' and the piece by Dylan Thomas that I only knew as a song. That was one of many discoveries made during my investigations. I didn't know Christina Rossetti at all. I didn't know there were Moomins in verse. I hadn't encountered the cheery ruminations of Ted Hughes upon the cow. I'd like to think that these ten titles would make a good pile to give a youngster. There are few duplications in the compilations; there is cause for wonder, pondering, delight and bemusement and there are some very nice pictures.
"My thanks to the staff at The Poetry Library on the South Bank, London, for their reading recommendations and hunting out from the shelving. All 'top-tenners' can be found in this library for reference and delving, if not for borrowing. It's free and it's easy to join".
1. Carol Ann Duffy, 101 poems for children.
A finely stitched mix of poetries; the right between the eyes sort, the more in-between-the-lines sort. And some sorts in between. I look forward to re-reading the hard ones with apples in, by Yeats and Kavanagh. Emily Gravett's lightness of touch in the drawings contrastingly sits well with the weightier poems. 'I like that stuff' as Adrian Mitchell says. 3 of the 101 are by this man - plus works by Jackie Kay - HOORAY.
2. Michael Rosen, Big book of bad things.
Instructive, inquisitive, mischievous word jiggling, which includes a celebration of the author's Jewish family and the Jewish lingo. And the bagels. Often comical and colourful with good use of the grey tones in the drawings. Sometimes in the poems, 'It's the moment when the cheery stuff stops.'
3. Grace Nichols, Paint me a poem.
As a result of her residency in The Tate, as was, Grace Nichols throws some sharp shapes 'on the dance floor of painting.' There are sculptures too, in excellent reproduction and poems from children who work-shopped with her in the residency. They stand proudly alongside the spare, plain-speaking lines of their leader. Includes excellent workshop exercises.
4. Jacqueline Wilson (chosen by), Green glass beads.
A shrewd assemblage of the Greats, lesser known ones by the Greats and ones by lesser-known Greats (to this reader anyway.) John Agard's 'Spell to Bring a Smile' is a reminder that poetry is a tool for the creation of human well–being. These poems are FINE for boys.
5. Hilaire Belloc, The bad child's book of beasts.
As well as providing the beastly bits, Hilaire gives the bad children a Bellocing. Wry and dry, rather than Hilarious. A little gem.
6. Tove Jansson, The dangerous journey.
Lovely palette and very lively balette of language. Stories for girls and boys and Moomins of all ages.
Bob quite agreed. 'A mightful fress! Hite quorribly foncusing! Whoever's glaying pames with us, they're linning and we're wusing.'
7. Margaret Mahy, illus. Sarah Garland, Dashing dog!
Cheery wash of watercolour and seaside splashing dog tale. A warming walk with the words, 'Three other dogs think that our dog has done wrong to them. Sure that the Frisbee really belongs to them.'
8. The caterpillar.
The caterpillar is a magazine of stories, poems and art for kids. The latest issue has poems, which include a Christina Rosetti riddle and Julie O'Callaghan's mean sardine celebration. Caterpillar reminds me of Ann Thwaite's magazine in book form, from way back ALLSORTS, which I would also recommend.
9. Gerard Benson, illus. Cathy Benson, To catch an elephant.
A most well-made parade of poems with a mixture of moods. I much like the bike one and the meditation upon not being able to 'guess an elephant' from its bones.
10. Judith Nichols (ed.), Earthways, earthwise : poems on conservation.
A thriving diversity of poems concerning nature. Some of them concerned about nature. I have not this volume to hand but there is a stirring quote from a tribal Native American asserting that people belong to the Earth and not the other way wrong.
------
A children's books top ten, so no BTL comments.
28KeithChaffee
What! No Shel Silverstein!? Maybe he doesn't carry well to the UK?
29Cynfelyn
Mark Forsyth's top 10 lost words.
Guardian, 2013-10-09.
"Everybody has, on occasion, looked up a word in a dictionary and let their eye wander to the next word and thought: 'Really? There's a word for that?', whether it's the little plastic aglets on the end of your shoelaces or the nurdle of toothpaste squeezed onto your toothbrush in the morning. I have simply had that feeling more than most.
"In the end, I collected all the useful but forgotten, and obscure but necessary words I found in dusty, old dictionaries, and arranged them by the hour of the day when they might come in handy for my book about lost words, The horologicon. Here are 10 of my favourites."
1. Wamblecropt.
Wamblecropt means overcome with indigestion. Once upon a time, you might observe that your stomach was wambling a bit. If the wambles got so bad you couldn't move, you were wamblecropt. It's the most beautiful word in the English language to say aloud. Try it.
2. Sprunt.
Sprunt is an old Scots word (from Roxburgh, to be precise) meaning "to chase girls around among the haystacks after dark". I would dearly love to have lived in a time and a place where this was such an everyday activity that they needed a single-syllable word for it. Old dialect words give us a glimpse of lost worlds, and sprunt is my favourite glimpse.
3. Groke.
Another old Scots word, to groke is to gaze at somebody while they're eating in the hope that they'll give you some of their food. The word was originally used to refer to dogs – and any dog owner whose canine friend has salivated beside them while they eat a steak will know why – but it can also be used to describe that colleague who sidles up to you from across the office when you open a box of chocolates.
4. Uhtceare.
Uhtceare is an Old English word that refers to anxiety experienced just before dawn. It describes that moment when you wake up too early and can't get back to sleep, no matter how tired you are, because you're worried about the day to come.
5. Snollygoster.
Snollygoster is a 19th century American word for "a dishonest or corrupt politician". Or, to take an original definition from the editor of a Georgia newspaper: "a snollygoster is a fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force of monumental talknophical assumnacy". The only reason I can imagine such a delicious word would die out is that all politicians are now honest.
6. Ultracrepidarian.
Ultracrepidarianism is when you give your opinion on a topic about which you know nothing. What makes this word so useful is that nobody knows what it means. Tell someone they are ultracrepidarian and they'll probably consider it a compliment.
7. Gongoozle.
I found gongoozle deep in the Oxford English Dictionary while I was researching The horologicon. To gongoozle is to stare idly at a canal or watercourse. At the time, I thought it a weirdly precise and unnecessary word, but since then I've noticed gongoozlers everywhere. Walk along a riverbank or seafront on a sunny afternoon and you'll see lots of people happily gongoozling. I realised that I'd been gongoozling for years; I'd just never known the word.
8. Snudge.
To snudge is to stride around as though you're terribly busy, when in fact you are doing nothing. It's particularly useful for the modern office, especially with the invention of the smartphone. You can snudge around all day without anyone realising you're checking up on the score in the Ashes.
9. Feague.
Feague is a term from around the 18th century that means to put a live eel up a horse's bottom. Apparently, this was a horse dealer's trick to make an old horse seem more lively, which I suppose it would. But it does imply that you should never trust an 18th century horse dealer – especially if you're a horse, or an eel. I hope you find no use for this word. In 2012, a chap who walked into Auckland City Hospital, in New Zealand, could have saved himself a lot of embarrassment if he had simply announced: "I need to be de-feagued".
10. Sir Richard has taken off his considering cap.
Benjamin Franklin, when he wasn't inventing bifocals and supporting the American Revolution, collected slang terms for being drunk. This is my favourite one, especially after a hard day's work. It sums up the feeling of work being over and drinking having begun.
------
This column could be a companion piece to July 2011's "top 10 unwords" (above).
5. Snollygoster. How on earth did this USA word fall into disuse in the first place? And why hasn't it enjoyed a revival in the 21st century?
------
The BTL comments include:
Sprunt. "Sprinting after ... No, probably not."
"The Groke is a scary character in the Moomins. I wonder if her name was Groke in the original Swedish text, or translated as Groke from a Swedish word." "Her original name is Mårran, which bears a similarity to the word for growl - though there may be a Finn-Swedish word that it is actually taken from. I found groke included here to be very revealing about why she was called that in English!"
"For those of you gruntled about these things here's a story of lost positive words from the New Yorker"
"My favorite lost word : leman (meaning my beloved)." "Believe it or not, my mother was still using this word in the 1980s. I thought at first she was saying "lemon" and was investgating my love-life with some mistaken some bit of teen-speak. When she explained its meaning, I assumed it must've been current in the 1940s. Some time later in the English class I found it in some poetry. Likewise "marrow", pronounced "marra" hereabouts (west/central Scotland) for your close friend/confidant or soulmate."
"I thought the best word in the book was "querimonius". Full of lamentation and complaining. A character trait and behaviour pattern that I find has increased so much in the general population that I can't understand why the word has been lost!"
"Hmm. As far as I can see with a basic search on this page, no one has yet mentioned 'Call my bluff'. Frank Muir, Patrick Campbell, Arthur Marshall, Victoria Coren's daddy and many others always made it a hugely enjoyable programme for me." "You beat me to it. Without meaning to, I had the voice of Robert Robinson read those words to me in my head."
Guardian, 2013-10-09.
"Everybody has, on occasion, looked up a word in a dictionary and let their eye wander to the next word and thought: 'Really? There's a word for that?', whether it's the little plastic aglets on the end of your shoelaces or the nurdle of toothpaste squeezed onto your toothbrush in the morning. I have simply had that feeling more than most.
"In the end, I collected all the useful but forgotten, and obscure but necessary words I found in dusty, old dictionaries, and arranged them by the hour of the day when they might come in handy for my book about lost words, The horologicon. Here are 10 of my favourites."
1. Wamblecropt.
Wamblecropt means overcome with indigestion. Once upon a time, you might observe that your stomach was wambling a bit. If the wambles got so bad you couldn't move, you were wamblecropt. It's the most beautiful word in the English language to say aloud. Try it.
2. Sprunt.
Sprunt is an old Scots word (from Roxburgh, to be precise) meaning "to chase girls around among the haystacks after dark". I would dearly love to have lived in a time and a place where this was such an everyday activity that they needed a single-syllable word for it. Old dialect words give us a glimpse of lost worlds, and sprunt is my favourite glimpse.
3. Groke.
Another old Scots word, to groke is to gaze at somebody while they're eating in the hope that they'll give you some of their food. The word was originally used to refer to dogs – and any dog owner whose canine friend has salivated beside them while they eat a steak will know why – but it can also be used to describe that colleague who sidles up to you from across the office when you open a box of chocolates.
4. Uhtceare.
Uhtceare is an Old English word that refers to anxiety experienced just before dawn. It describes that moment when you wake up too early and can't get back to sleep, no matter how tired you are, because you're worried about the day to come.
5. Snollygoster.
Snollygoster is a 19th century American word for "a dishonest or corrupt politician". Or, to take an original definition from the editor of a Georgia newspaper: "a snollygoster is a fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force of monumental talknophical assumnacy". The only reason I can imagine such a delicious word would die out is that all politicians are now honest.
6. Ultracrepidarian.
Ultracrepidarianism is when you give your opinion on a topic about which you know nothing. What makes this word so useful is that nobody knows what it means. Tell someone they are ultracrepidarian and they'll probably consider it a compliment.
7. Gongoozle.
I found gongoozle deep in the Oxford English Dictionary while I was researching The horologicon. To gongoozle is to stare idly at a canal or watercourse. At the time, I thought it a weirdly precise and unnecessary word, but since then I've noticed gongoozlers everywhere. Walk along a riverbank or seafront on a sunny afternoon and you'll see lots of people happily gongoozling. I realised that I'd been gongoozling for years; I'd just never known the word.
8. Snudge.
To snudge is to stride around as though you're terribly busy, when in fact you are doing nothing. It's particularly useful for the modern office, especially with the invention of the smartphone. You can snudge around all day without anyone realising you're checking up on the score in the Ashes.
9. Feague.
Feague is a term from around the 18th century that means to put a live eel up a horse's bottom. Apparently, this was a horse dealer's trick to make an old horse seem more lively, which I suppose it would. But it does imply that you should never trust an 18th century horse dealer – especially if you're a horse, or an eel. I hope you find no use for this word. In 2012, a chap who walked into Auckland City Hospital, in New Zealand, could have saved himself a lot of embarrassment if he had simply announced: "I need to be de-feagued".
10. Sir Richard has taken off his considering cap.
Benjamin Franklin, when he wasn't inventing bifocals and supporting the American Revolution, collected slang terms for being drunk. This is my favourite one, especially after a hard day's work. It sums up the feeling of work being over and drinking having begun.
------
This column could be a companion piece to July 2011's "top 10 unwords" (above).
5. Snollygoster. How on earth did this USA word fall into disuse in the first place? And why hasn't it enjoyed a revival in the 21st century?
------
The BTL comments include:
Sprunt. "Sprinting after ... No, probably not."
"The Groke is a scary character in the Moomins. I wonder if her name was Groke in the original Swedish text, or translated as Groke from a Swedish word." "Her original name is Mårran, which bears a similarity to the word for growl - though there may be a Finn-Swedish word that it is actually taken from. I found groke included here to be very revealing about why she was called that in English!"
"For those of you gruntled about these things here's a story of lost positive words from the New Yorker"
"My favorite lost word : leman (meaning my beloved)." "Believe it or not, my mother was still using this word in the 1980s. I thought at first she was saying "lemon" and was investgating my love-life with some mistaken some bit of teen-speak. When she explained its meaning, I assumed it must've been current in the 1940s. Some time later in the English class I found it in some poetry. Likewise "marrow", pronounced "marra" hereabouts (west/central Scotland) for your close friend/confidant or soulmate."
"I thought the best word in the book was "querimonius". Full of lamentation and complaining. A character trait and behaviour pattern that I find has increased so much in the general population that I can't understand why the word has been lost!"
"Hmm. As far as I can see with a basic search on this page, no one has yet mentioned 'Call my bluff'. Frank Muir, Patrick Campbell, Arthur Marshall, Victoria Coren's daddy and many others always made it a hugely enjoyable programme for me." "You beat me to it. Without meaning to, I had the voice of Robert Robinson read those words to me in my head."
30Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Lucy Christopher's top 10 literary woods.
Guardian, 2013-10-10.
From the hundred-acre wood to the Hunger Games, the author of Stolen separates the wood from the trees and picks her top ten fictional forests.
"My novel, The killing woods, was written as much outdoors as it was indoors. I spent hours and days wandering about the Forest of Dean, as well as various woods in Monmouthshire, South Wales, as I nutted out a complicated plot and various character motivations. Walking in woods helped me to think my way through the confusion of being stuck in a novel. Walking in woods also helped me to think deeply about the process of creativity: how writing is often like being lost in a wood; how sometimes you need to keep pushing through the bracken to find the paths again, how you have to trust that you will. Many authors have used woods within their creative works and for many different purposes. Here are some of my favourite examples of powerful and memorable woods in works of fiction:"
1. Robert Frost, Stopping by woods on a snowy evening.
I learnt this poem for a drama competition when I was ten years old; its words have never left me. Frost writes about a wood that is "lovely, dark and deep": a wood that he stops to look at, and to think about, during a journey he is making on "the darkest evening of the year." This poem could also be about the pull towards wild things, or towards admiring the world's natural beauty, even while there is much on the To Do list and many responsibilities to be filled.
2. Thomas Hardy, The woodlanders.
I think no list about woods in literature would be complete without mentioning Hardy's representation of dark, moody and chilly woods in The woodlanders. In this stunning evocation of early twentieth century life in a secluded community in Dorset, Hardy writes about characters who are intricately connected with woodland, all of who live in or around the woods. The woods seep into every aspect of this story, and Hardy's evocation of them reveals the novel's desperate moods and themes.
3. Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games.
Though the woods don't have an awful lot of page time in this novel they are hugely important for what they represent about the novel's main character, Katniss Everdeen. Katniss is a true woodswoman: it is in the woods, where she is forbidden by her dictatorial, dystopian government to enter, where she finds the food she needs to feed her mother and sister. When she is later within the constructed world of the Hunger Games, it is the woods that again save her: her skills as a sylvanian huntress are what, eventually, enable her to win not only the Game but to defy her government as well. Here, the woods stand for freedom, escape and defiance: they are what make Katniss as kickass as she is.
4. John Marsden, Tomorrow when the war began.
The gully of Hell is not technically woods, rather Australian bush, but it functions as one of the most powerful evocations of natural vegetation in any novel for teenagers. This novel begins with seven teenagers going on a parent-free camping trip into thick bushland; when they return a week later, they find that Australia has been invaded. They return to their bush gully of Hell, using it as a base to launch guerrilla attacks on the enemy. Here nature is a place of refuge: a safe place for these teenagers to discover their friendships and love for one other.
5. Joseph Conrad, Heart of darkness.
The power of the dark, Congolese rainforest in this novel is undeniable. As the protagonist, Marlow, journeys from the Outer Station and up the river to the Inner Station and towards the mad colonialist Kurtz, he encounters scenes of torture and cruelty. He is also flanked on all sides by the thick, dark rainforest. The rainforest contributes to this novel's heavy, stifling atmosphere. One could almost believe it was the pervasive presence of the woods themselves that sent Kurtz mad.
6. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's dream.
The woods themselves in A Midsummer Night's dream are not particularly well defined. It's a play, after all, so we get little in the way of verbal description, and each incarnation of the play will have a somewhat different set design. But what the woods lack in physicality, they more than make up for in content. Within these woods occur scenes of magic and love, betrayal and bravery, changes of heart and changes of species. What takes place under these leafy canopies is a fun, funny, wacky and lyrical story – something you may just as easily find in the woodland area within Glastonbury Festival as the Bard's words.
7. Maurice Sendak, Where the wild things are.
In Sendak's beloved and hugely influential children's book, Max sails away to where the wild things crown him "King of all wild things". The vehicle for how he gets there is a forest growing in his room, eventually taking over the entire page space as well as Max's internal reality. The forest that grows stands for the growth of Max's imagination as much as anything else. This book is a true celebration of the power of a child's mind!
8. C. S. Lewis, The lion, the witch and the wardrobe.
I remember the woods in Narnia incredibly clearly. From the first snow-dipped tendrils of the pine trees as the children walk through the wardrobe, to the sunlit clearing where Aslan is raised from the dead, the woods are a powerful force within this narrative. As a child, I desperately wanted to be in that beautiful clearing to watch Aslan's golden coat shine with life again.
9. Graham Joyce, Some kind of fairy tale.
I read this recently, thinking it might be research for my novel The killing woods. What I discovered was a novel deeply infused with the magic and mystery of the folklore of English woodlands. When Tara disappears from the local bluebell woods, no one expects to hear from her again … until she returns twenty years later, looking exactly as she did the day she left. Did fairies, helped along by the heady scent of the bluebells, bewitch her? Or has she actually gone mad and lost her mind and memories?
10. A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh.
Did anyone's childhood not involve a few trips to the Hundred-Acre Wood with Winnie the Pooh? There was something brilliantly peaceful in those woods: a quality that is perhaps unique on this list. The hundred-acre woods were a place for discovery, not danger. Here, Pooh and Christopher Robin explore and discuss life without fear. Most of all, however, the woods were the space where friendship happened. Perhaps not many of us would be able to say they've been to the real Hundred-Acre wood - Ashdown forest in Sussex - but I think most of us would remember how it feels to be inside its fictional interpretation.
------
A children's books top ten, so no BTL comments. If there were, I'd probably expect to see mention of Hogwart's Forbidden Forest, James Fenimore Cooper's The last of the Mohicans and Rudyard Kipling's The jungle book. Not a children's book, but I seem to remember that the jungle is part of the oppressive-ness and darkness in Joseph Conrad's Heart of darkness.
Guardian, 2013-10-10.
From the hundred-acre wood to the Hunger Games, the author of Stolen separates the wood from the trees and picks her top ten fictional forests.
"My novel, The killing woods, was written as much outdoors as it was indoors. I spent hours and days wandering about the Forest of Dean, as well as various woods in Monmouthshire, South Wales, as I nutted out a complicated plot and various character motivations. Walking in woods helped me to think my way through the confusion of being stuck in a novel. Walking in woods also helped me to think deeply about the process of creativity: how writing is often like being lost in a wood; how sometimes you need to keep pushing through the bracken to find the paths again, how you have to trust that you will. Many authors have used woods within their creative works and for many different purposes. Here are some of my favourite examples of powerful and memorable woods in works of fiction:"
1. Robert Frost, Stopping by woods on a snowy evening.
I learnt this poem for a drama competition when I was ten years old; its words have never left me. Frost writes about a wood that is "lovely, dark and deep": a wood that he stops to look at, and to think about, during a journey he is making on "the darkest evening of the year." This poem could also be about the pull towards wild things, or towards admiring the world's natural beauty, even while there is much on the To Do list and many responsibilities to be filled.
2. Thomas Hardy, The woodlanders.
I think no list about woods in literature would be complete without mentioning Hardy's representation of dark, moody and chilly woods in The woodlanders. In this stunning evocation of early twentieth century life in a secluded community in Dorset, Hardy writes about characters who are intricately connected with woodland, all of who live in or around the woods. The woods seep into every aspect of this story, and Hardy's evocation of them reveals the novel's desperate moods and themes.
3. Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games.
Though the woods don't have an awful lot of page time in this novel they are hugely important for what they represent about the novel's main character, Katniss Everdeen. Katniss is a true woodswoman: it is in the woods, where she is forbidden by her dictatorial, dystopian government to enter, where she finds the food she needs to feed her mother and sister. When she is later within the constructed world of the Hunger Games, it is the woods that again save her: her skills as a sylvanian huntress are what, eventually, enable her to win not only the Game but to defy her government as well. Here, the woods stand for freedom, escape and defiance: they are what make Katniss as kickass as she is.
4. John Marsden, Tomorrow when the war began.
The gully of Hell is not technically woods, rather Australian bush, but it functions as one of the most powerful evocations of natural vegetation in any novel for teenagers. This novel begins with seven teenagers going on a parent-free camping trip into thick bushland; when they return a week later, they find that Australia has been invaded. They return to their bush gully of Hell, using it as a base to launch guerrilla attacks on the enemy. Here nature is a place of refuge: a safe place for these teenagers to discover their friendships and love for one other.
5. Joseph Conrad, Heart of darkness.
The power of the dark, Congolese rainforest in this novel is undeniable. As the protagonist, Marlow, journeys from the Outer Station and up the river to the Inner Station and towards the mad colonialist Kurtz, he encounters scenes of torture and cruelty. He is also flanked on all sides by the thick, dark rainforest. The rainforest contributes to this novel's heavy, stifling atmosphere. One could almost believe it was the pervasive presence of the woods themselves that sent Kurtz mad.
6. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's dream.
The woods themselves in A Midsummer Night's dream are not particularly well defined. It's a play, after all, so we get little in the way of verbal description, and each incarnation of the play will have a somewhat different set design. But what the woods lack in physicality, they more than make up for in content. Within these woods occur scenes of magic and love, betrayal and bravery, changes of heart and changes of species. What takes place under these leafy canopies is a fun, funny, wacky and lyrical story – something you may just as easily find in the woodland area within Glastonbury Festival as the Bard's words.
7. Maurice Sendak, Where the wild things are.
In Sendak's beloved and hugely influential children's book, Max sails away to where the wild things crown him "King of all wild things". The vehicle for how he gets there is a forest growing in his room, eventually taking over the entire page space as well as Max's internal reality. The forest that grows stands for the growth of Max's imagination as much as anything else. This book is a true celebration of the power of a child's mind!
8. C. S. Lewis, The lion, the witch and the wardrobe.
I remember the woods in Narnia incredibly clearly. From the first snow-dipped tendrils of the pine trees as the children walk through the wardrobe, to the sunlit clearing where Aslan is raised from the dead, the woods are a powerful force within this narrative. As a child, I desperately wanted to be in that beautiful clearing to watch Aslan's golden coat shine with life again.
9. Graham Joyce, Some kind of fairy tale.
I read this recently, thinking it might be research for my novel The killing woods. What I discovered was a novel deeply infused with the magic and mystery of the folklore of English woodlands. When Tara disappears from the local bluebell woods, no one expects to hear from her again … until she returns twenty years later, looking exactly as she did the day she left. Did fairies, helped along by the heady scent of the bluebells, bewitch her? Or has she actually gone mad and lost her mind and memories?
10. A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh.
Did anyone's childhood not involve a few trips to the Hundred-Acre Wood with Winnie the Pooh? There was something brilliantly peaceful in those woods: a quality that is perhaps unique on this list. The hundred-acre woods were a place for discovery, not danger. Here, Pooh and Christopher Robin explore and discuss life without fear. Most of all, however, the woods were the space where friendship happened. Perhaps not many of us would be able to say they've been to the real Hundred-Acre wood - Ashdown forest in Sussex - but I think most of us would remember how it feels to be inside its fictional interpretation.
------
A children's books top ten, so no BTL comments. If there were, I'd probably expect to see mention of Hogwart's Forbidden Forest, James Fenimore Cooper's The last of the Mohicans and Rudyard Kipling's The jungle book. Not a children's book, but I seem to remember that the jungle is part of the oppressive-ness and darkness in Joseph Conrad's Heart of darkness.
31Cynfelyn
John A. Kirk's top 10 books for Black History month.
Guardian, 2013-10-16.
John A. Kirk is the author of three books on Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. He is the George W. Donaghey professor of history at the University of Arkansas, at Little Rock.
"The US civil rights movement is a perennially popular topic that has spawned a massive body of literature. What interests me about its history is how it engages with questions of race relations that are at the heart of US history: how a nation that became the world's model for democracy was born in the shadow of slavery; how that issue tore apart the nation in a bloody civil war; and how, despite that war, a new system of racial discrimination based on segregation, disenfranchisement and economic exploitation persisted well into the latter half of the 20th century.
"I'm also interested in how the civil rights and black power movements emerged from grassroots activism, transforming some aspects of racial discrimination but leaving many other elements intact. The issues the civil rights movement raised are still relevant today – and not only in the US."
1. David L. Lewis, King : a critical biography.
Of the many worthy contenders to choose from, I particularly like Lewis's 1970 biography of Martin Luther King, because it was one of the first to take on the task after King's assassination in 1968. While sympathetic to King, the book is not afraid to point to his shortcomings. Revealingly – and perhaps a reflection of King's acceptance into the pantheon of American heroes – subsequent editions have dropped the word "critical" from the title.
2. Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black freedom movement : a radical democratic vision.
For many years, women's roles in the civil rights movement were neglected. Ransby's study charts the remarkable life of activist Ella Baker, who played an influential organising and leadership role over many decades and helped establish the foundations for King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Ransby offers a fascinating portrait of one of the movement's forgotten true heroes.
3. John D'Emilio, Lost prophet : the life and times of Bayard Rustin.
Rustin is another previously overlooked figure. Gay, pacifist, communist and Quaker, Bayard Rustin was largely kept out of view so as not to attract unwelcome publicity. He was pivotal in organising the 1963 March on Washington and he was a close advisor to King on nonviolence. D'Emilio's gender studies perspective broaches the touchy subject of sexuality in civil rights studies.
4. Clayborne Carson, In struggle : SNCC and the Black awakening of the 1960s.
In the 1960s, many organisations contributed to the success of the civil rights movement. Few were as influential as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "snick"). A youth-based movement, SNCC led daring direct action protests such as sit-ins at segregated lunch counters and freedom rides. Carson, a former SNCC member and now the director of the Martin Luther King Jr Papers project, skillfully offers scholarly insight combined with first-hand experience.
5. William H. Chafe, Civilities and civil rights : Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black struggle for freedom.
Chafe's book was one of the first to examine the civil rights movement from a "bottom up" grassroots perspective. He places the protests that launched the 1960 sit-in movement in a much broader context and a longer history of black activism. This was the first book I read as a graduate student, and it provided a model and inspiration for my own PhD thesis, which took the Little Rock school integration crisis of 1957 as its point of departure.
6. Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War civil rights : race and the image of American democracy.
In recent years, historians have begun to examine the civil rights movement within the context of international relations. Dudziak shows that the cold war made the US far more conscious of how it treated people of colour at home as it competed with the Soviet Union to win non-white hearts and minds abroad. Her book charts new territory in exploring international dimensions that shaped the movement – and how the movement shaped international relations.
7. Richard Kluger, Simple justice : the history of Brown v Board of Education and Black America's struggle for equality.
The struggle for desegregation in education preceded and outlasted the civil rights movement's heyday of the 1950s and 1960s. Kluger charts the legal struggle by the NAACP, the US's oldest civil rights organisation, which led to the landmark Brown school desegregation decision in 1954. The history of the Brown decision reminds us that the movement was built on decades of previous black activism. Kluger's talent is to focus on the human story and drama in the midst of describing complex courtroom proceedings.
8. Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet land of liberty : the forgotten struggle for civil rights in the North.
We often think of the civil rights movement as a distinct episode in the history of the US south. More recent studies like Sugrue's have shown that discrimination against African Americans existed nationwide, as did African American struggles to overcome it. His book not only challenges us to reconsider the chronology of the movement beyond the 1950s and 1960s, but also shifts its geographic coordinates to marshal an enormous wealth of research and an impressively diverse range of events.
9. Brian Ward, Just my soul responding : rhythm and blues, Black consciousness and race relations.
The civil rights movement changed US politics and society, but its cultural impact was just as important. Ward's provocative study argues that black music did not just absorb influences but that it profoundly shaped the movement – from the artists and the venues they played, to the music industry and the role of African American-oriented radio. The author's exhaustive research turns up some fascinating episodes that reveal just how profound the movement's impact on popular culture was.
10. Peniel E. Joseph, Waiting 'til the midnight hour : a narrative history of Black power in America.
Was the black power movement part of the civil rights movement, or something separate? Joseph, a leading figure in the new black power studies, makes the case for its singularity in the most comprehensive overview of the topic published to date. Rather than seeing black power as a series of unconnected iconic episodes and images – Black Panthers toting guns, the clenched fist salutes at the 1968 Olympics, Angela Davis's loud and proud Afro – Joseph presents a picture of a coherent movement with its own distinct politics and sensibilities.
------
"... how a nation that became the world's model for democracy was born in the shadow of slavery ..." The columnist is of course talking about the USA. I of course found myself tripping over that assertion and coughing "have you not heard of Athens?"
Also, as a bit of fun, this feels like the first top ten to have 10/10 books with 'title, colon, sub-title' titles.
------
And half a dozen BTL comments and recommendations:
Malcolm X, The autobiography of Malcolm X. "A great book, powerful and brutally honest." (Plus several other strongly worded comments). "Interesting, and strongly felt comments. However, this list is about the civil rights struggle, a movement Malcolm X was expressly opposed to."
"Utter pathetic list. There is no link to Kirk, no idea who wrote this. The main writers were. Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston and Malcolm X. ... Richard Wright's novel Native son was the most brilliant novel of the 20th Century."
George Jackson, Blood in my eye, and Toni Morrison, Beloved. "Blood in my eye is a really interesting read; his letters to Elaine Brown are also very revealing. It's a pity the debate over the Soledad cases aren't more widely discussed - they're a really good précis on the competing factions on the Black Panther Party and its legacy."
Isabel Wilkerson, The warmth of other suns. "Should be on the list - its the story of the Great Migration of black Americans from the South of the country to the North from 1915 to 1970. Incredibly moving."
"I'd add The black Atlantic by Gilroy as a non-fiction choice and Invisible man by Ellison as a fiction choice."
"The list could do with more books with a UK focus. There is a new book called Resisting racism by Kehinde Andrews which is the first comprehensive history of the Black supplementary school movement in the UK which were organised on a volunteer basis by parents, teachers, churches and community groups. Well worth a read." "The Bristol bus boycott, a great example of civil rights activism in Britain that was directly inspired by the US civil rights movement http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23795655"
Guardian, 2013-10-16.
John A. Kirk is the author of three books on Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. He is the George W. Donaghey professor of history at the University of Arkansas, at Little Rock.
"The US civil rights movement is a perennially popular topic that has spawned a massive body of literature. What interests me about its history is how it engages with questions of race relations that are at the heart of US history: how a nation that became the world's model for democracy was born in the shadow of slavery; how that issue tore apart the nation in a bloody civil war; and how, despite that war, a new system of racial discrimination based on segregation, disenfranchisement and economic exploitation persisted well into the latter half of the 20th century.
"I'm also interested in how the civil rights and black power movements emerged from grassroots activism, transforming some aspects of racial discrimination but leaving many other elements intact. The issues the civil rights movement raised are still relevant today – and not only in the US."
1. David L. Lewis, King : a critical biography.
Of the many worthy contenders to choose from, I particularly like Lewis's 1970 biography of Martin Luther King, because it was one of the first to take on the task after King's assassination in 1968. While sympathetic to King, the book is not afraid to point to his shortcomings. Revealingly – and perhaps a reflection of King's acceptance into the pantheon of American heroes – subsequent editions have dropped the word "critical" from the title.
2. Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black freedom movement : a radical democratic vision.
For many years, women's roles in the civil rights movement were neglected. Ransby's study charts the remarkable life of activist Ella Baker, who played an influential organising and leadership role over many decades and helped establish the foundations for King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Ransby offers a fascinating portrait of one of the movement's forgotten true heroes.
3. John D'Emilio, Lost prophet : the life and times of Bayard Rustin.
Rustin is another previously overlooked figure. Gay, pacifist, communist and Quaker, Bayard Rustin was largely kept out of view so as not to attract unwelcome publicity. He was pivotal in organising the 1963 March on Washington and he was a close advisor to King on nonviolence. D'Emilio's gender studies perspective broaches the touchy subject of sexuality in civil rights studies.
4. Clayborne Carson, In struggle : SNCC and the Black awakening of the 1960s.
In the 1960s, many organisations contributed to the success of the civil rights movement. Few were as influential as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "snick"). A youth-based movement, SNCC led daring direct action protests such as sit-ins at segregated lunch counters and freedom rides. Carson, a former SNCC member and now the director of the Martin Luther King Jr Papers project, skillfully offers scholarly insight combined with first-hand experience.
5. William H. Chafe, Civilities and civil rights : Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black struggle for freedom.
Chafe's book was one of the first to examine the civil rights movement from a "bottom up" grassroots perspective. He places the protests that launched the 1960 sit-in movement in a much broader context and a longer history of black activism. This was the first book I read as a graduate student, and it provided a model and inspiration for my own PhD thesis, which took the Little Rock school integration crisis of 1957 as its point of departure.
6. Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War civil rights : race and the image of American democracy.
In recent years, historians have begun to examine the civil rights movement within the context of international relations. Dudziak shows that the cold war made the US far more conscious of how it treated people of colour at home as it competed with the Soviet Union to win non-white hearts and minds abroad. Her book charts new territory in exploring international dimensions that shaped the movement – and how the movement shaped international relations.
7. Richard Kluger, Simple justice : the history of Brown v Board of Education and Black America's struggle for equality.
The struggle for desegregation in education preceded and outlasted the civil rights movement's heyday of the 1950s and 1960s. Kluger charts the legal struggle by the NAACP, the US's oldest civil rights organisation, which led to the landmark Brown school desegregation decision in 1954. The history of the Brown decision reminds us that the movement was built on decades of previous black activism. Kluger's talent is to focus on the human story and drama in the midst of describing complex courtroom proceedings.
8. Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet land of liberty : the forgotten struggle for civil rights in the North.
We often think of the civil rights movement as a distinct episode in the history of the US south. More recent studies like Sugrue's have shown that discrimination against African Americans existed nationwide, as did African American struggles to overcome it. His book not only challenges us to reconsider the chronology of the movement beyond the 1950s and 1960s, but also shifts its geographic coordinates to marshal an enormous wealth of research and an impressively diverse range of events.
9. Brian Ward, Just my soul responding : rhythm and blues, Black consciousness and race relations.
The civil rights movement changed US politics and society, but its cultural impact was just as important. Ward's provocative study argues that black music did not just absorb influences but that it profoundly shaped the movement – from the artists and the venues they played, to the music industry and the role of African American-oriented radio. The author's exhaustive research turns up some fascinating episodes that reveal just how profound the movement's impact on popular culture was.
10. Peniel E. Joseph, Waiting 'til the midnight hour : a narrative history of Black power in America.
Was the black power movement part of the civil rights movement, or something separate? Joseph, a leading figure in the new black power studies, makes the case for its singularity in the most comprehensive overview of the topic published to date. Rather than seeing black power as a series of unconnected iconic episodes and images – Black Panthers toting guns, the clenched fist salutes at the 1968 Olympics, Angela Davis's loud and proud Afro – Joseph presents a picture of a coherent movement with its own distinct politics and sensibilities.
------
"... how a nation that became the world's model for democracy was born in the shadow of slavery ..." The columnist is of course talking about the USA. I of course found myself tripping over that assertion and coughing "have you not heard of Athens?"
Also, as a bit of fun, this feels like the first top ten to have 10/10 books with 'title, colon, sub-title' titles.
------
And half a dozen BTL comments and recommendations:
Malcolm X, The autobiography of Malcolm X. "A great book, powerful and brutally honest." (Plus several other strongly worded comments). "Interesting, and strongly felt comments. However, this list is about the civil rights struggle, a movement Malcolm X was expressly opposed to."
"Utter pathetic list. There is no link to Kirk, no idea who wrote this. The main writers were. Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston and Malcolm X. ... Richard Wright's novel Native son was the most brilliant novel of the 20th Century."
George Jackson, Blood in my eye, and Toni Morrison, Beloved. "Blood in my eye is a really interesting read; his letters to Elaine Brown are also very revealing. It's a pity the debate over the Soledad cases aren't more widely discussed - they're a really good précis on the competing factions on the Black Panther Party and its legacy."
Isabel Wilkerson, The warmth of other suns. "Should be on the list - its the story of the Great Migration of black Americans from the South of the country to the North from 1915 to 1970. Incredibly moving."
"I'd add The black Atlantic by Gilroy as a non-fiction choice and Invisible man by Ellison as a fiction choice."
"The list could do with more books with a UK focus. There is a new book called Resisting racism by Kehinde Andrews which is the first comprehensive history of the Black supplementary school movement in the UK which were organised on a volunteer basis by parents, teachers, churches and community groups. Well worth a read." "The Bristol bus boycott, a great example of civil rights activism in Britain that was directly inspired by the US civil rights movement http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23795655"
32Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Top 10 books you can find in a library.
Guardian, 2013-10-17.
Whether you want books set in far-off cities or a town just like yours, you can find them in your school library. Here's a selection from school librarians of the year Hilary Cantwell and John Iona. Hilary Cantwell is a librarian at St Paul's Community College, Waterford, Ireland; John Iona is librarian at the Oasis Academy in Enfield, Middlesex.
"What makes a teen want to read a book? According to students at St Paul's Community College, Waterford, and the Oasis Academy, Enfield, a good book has the ability to shock, sadden or awaken some sort of emotion. A good book has characters the students can identify with and relate to; characters that remind them of friends or even themselves. A good book takes them to towns just like their own, or to far off cities they hope to someday visit. Based on these answers and what is popular right now, here is a list of the top ten books you can find in a library near you!"
1. Patrick Ness, A monster calls.
This is a powerhouse of a book. It is a story in which, as the reader, you know what the inevitable outcome will be for the main character, but the journey that he goes on is so beautifully unravelled that you cannot help but be moved by it. A novel about pain and loss, acceptance and self-realisation, as well as the act of story-telling itself, this is a beautiful novel in so many ways. This is a novel that is essential reading, and is always top of my list when pupils are asking me for my suggestions of the next book they should read.
2. Derek Landy, Skulduggery Pleasant.
This book follows a girl called Stephanie who meets a stranger called Skulduggery Pleasant at her uncle's funeral, and soon finds herself dragged into an adventure involving trolls, vampires, wizards and a walking, talking skeleton detective. This book, and the rest in the series, have a fantastic cast of characters and are funny, exciting and will keep you coming back for more. This book is an absolute treat, and I cannot resist recommending it to any young people in my school, from year seven and beyond.
3. Benjamin Zephaniah, Refugee boy.
Refugee boy tells the story of Alem, brought to England by his father fleeing the war in Ethiopia. This book convincingly conveys what it must feel like to be a young refugee, alone in a strange country and the struggle Alem must go through to find care and stability in the face of hostility and bureaucracy. This is a novel of both sorrow and joy, and a great book to recommend to young people from year seven and above who want a "real" story to get their teeth into.
4. Meg Rosoff, How I live now.
I read this a few years ago now by listening to the audio book and it is one of those books that lingers in your memory. The story follows a teenage girl from America, visiting her cousins and aunt in the UK when war breaks out, and she and her cousins are left to look after themselves and each other. The story is told in an almost dream-like way while, at the same time, conveying some of the horrors of a war that they neither fathom nor understand. The last scenes of this novel are haunting, and I love to recommend this book to pupils in year nine and above.
5. Margaret Atwood, The handmaid's tale.
This is one of those books that I studied during English Literature A-level and showed me what a serious novel could really do. This is one of my all-time favourite novels, and one of those books that I have read a number of times since studying it, and is better every time. I try to recommend this book to year eleven pupils and above, who have had a taste of dystopian fiction and are ready to make that step towards reading something that will challenge them.
6. Dermot Bolger, New town soul.
New town soul is a supernatural thriller for older readers situated in the real world of the contemporary teenage experience in Ireland. Friendship and love are central to this story. Shane is Joey's new best friend. Joey pines for Geraldine, but his love is unrequited. Geraldine refuses to have anything to do with him while Shane is around. Shane and Geraldine have met before – an event neither of them will ever forget. The tale carefully and cleverly unravels the truth about Shane's history, taking the reader on a compelling, moving and unsettling journey.
7. Katherine Applegate, The one and only Ivan.
The one and only Ivan is a beautifully written tale of how a mighty gorilla wins his freedom, and a deserving winner of the https://www.librarything.com/tag/Newbery%20MedalNewbery Medal 2013. There is just the right amount of humour and pathos. Ivan is an easy-going gorilla who has spent his life performing for the crowds at the Exit 8 shopping mall. He does not miss his life in the jungle. In fact he hardly ever thinks about it at all. Everything changes when a baby elephant called Ruby arrives and Ivan realises he must find a new life for them both.
8. Robert Kirkman, The walking dead.
The walking dead is a believable, realistic and thought provoking zombie story. It consists of a series of graphic novels, made into a popular TV show. Teens watching the show, turn to the books which are as good if not better. The graphic novels are engaging, the artwork is amazing, the characters are well developed, everything gets better and better as the series goes on.
9. Darren Shan, The Zom B Series.
Zom B is the first book in a 12-volume series (titles are being released at a projected rate of four a year until the middle of 2015). The protagonist of this series is a morally questionable kid trying, and usually failing, to move beyond the ingrained racism instilled in him by his father. It is a brave move by Shan to conceive such a bigoted hooligan as the anti hero. B. Smith is bored at school, his home life is miserable. He makes one wrong choice after another, leading up to the moment of truth, when a devastating zombie outbreak turns everyday existence into a life-or-death struggle. It is a page-turner building steadily to the cliff-hanger ending that readers expect from Shan. Fast paced and unpredictable, a good choice for any teen that likes the gore and grizzle of a good horror story.
10. Brian Selznick, The invention of Hugo Cabret.
Hugo is an orphan and a thief, living in the walls of a Paris train station and trying to fix one of the broken machines while avoiding the Station Inspector. He is eventually caught by an old toymaker and his goddaughter, who vow to help him. This touching story sucks you in and has you hooked before the first line! Any fans of the film should track down this book.
Guardian, 2013-10-17.
Whether you want books set in far-off cities or a town just like yours, you can find them in your school library. Here's a selection from school librarians of the year Hilary Cantwell and John Iona. Hilary Cantwell is a librarian at St Paul's Community College, Waterford, Ireland; John Iona is librarian at the Oasis Academy in Enfield, Middlesex.
"What makes a teen want to read a book? According to students at St Paul's Community College, Waterford, and the Oasis Academy, Enfield, a good book has the ability to shock, sadden or awaken some sort of emotion. A good book has characters the students can identify with and relate to; characters that remind them of friends or even themselves. A good book takes them to towns just like their own, or to far off cities they hope to someday visit. Based on these answers and what is popular right now, here is a list of the top ten books you can find in a library near you!"
1. Patrick Ness, A monster calls.
This is a powerhouse of a book. It is a story in which, as the reader, you know what the inevitable outcome will be for the main character, but the journey that he goes on is so beautifully unravelled that you cannot help but be moved by it. A novel about pain and loss, acceptance and self-realisation, as well as the act of story-telling itself, this is a beautiful novel in so many ways. This is a novel that is essential reading, and is always top of my list when pupils are asking me for my suggestions of the next book they should read.
2. Derek Landy, Skulduggery Pleasant.
This book follows a girl called Stephanie who meets a stranger called Skulduggery Pleasant at her uncle's funeral, and soon finds herself dragged into an adventure involving trolls, vampires, wizards and a walking, talking skeleton detective. This book, and the rest in the series, have a fantastic cast of characters and are funny, exciting and will keep you coming back for more. This book is an absolute treat, and I cannot resist recommending it to any young people in my school, from year seven and beyond.
3. Benjamin Zephaniah, Refugee boy.
Refugee boy tells the story of Alem, brought to England by his father fleeing the war in Ethiopia. This book convincingly conveys what it must feel like to be a young refugee, alone in a strange country and the struggle Alem must go through to find care and stability in the face of hostility and bureaucracy. This is a novel of both sorrow and joy, and a great book to recommend to young people from year seven and above who want a "real" story to get their teeth into.
4. Meg Rosoff, How I live now.
I read this a few years ago now by listening to the audio book and it is one of those books that lingers in your memory. The story follows a teenage girl from America, visiting her cousins and aunt in the UK when war breaks out, and she and her cousins are left to look after themselves and each other. The story is told in an almost dream-like way while, at the same time, conveying some of the horrors of a war that they neither fathom nor understand. The last scenes of this novel are haunting, and I love to recommend this book to pupils in year nine and above.
5. Margaret Atwood, The handmaid's tale.
This is one of those books that I studied during English Literature A-level and showed me what a serious novel could really do. This is one of my all-time favourite novels, and one of those books that I have read a number of times since studying it, and is better every time. I try to recommend this book to year eleven pupils and above, who have had a taste of dystopian fiction and are ready to make that step towards reading something that will challenge them.
6. Dermot Bolger, New town soul.
New town soul is a supernatural thriller for older readers situated in the real world of the contemporary teenage experience in Ireland. Friendship and love are central to this story. Shane is Joey's new best friend. Joey pines for Geraldine, but his love is unrequited. Geraldine refuses to have anything to do with him while Shane is around. Shane and Geraldine have met before – an event neither of them will ever forget. The tale carefully and cleverly unravels the truth about Shane's history, taking the reader on a compelling, moving and unsettling journey.
7. Katherine Applegate, The one and only Ivan.
The one and only Ivan is a beautifully written tale of how a mighty gorilla wins his freedom, and a deserving winner of the https://www.librarything.com/tag/Newbery%20MedalNewbery Medal 2013. There is just the right amount of humour and pathos. Ivan is an easy-going gorilla who has spent his life performing for the crowds at the Exit 8 shopping mall. He does not miss his life in the jungle. In fact he hardly ever thinks about it at all. Everything changes when a baby elephant called Ruby arrives and Ivan realises he must find a new life for them both.
8. Robert Kirkman, The walking dead.
The walking dead is a believable, realistic and thought provoking zombie story. It consists of a series of graphic novels, made into a popular TV show. Teens watching the show, turn to the books which are as good if not better. The graphic novels are engaging, the artwork is amazing, the characters are well developed, everything gets better and better as the series goes on.
9. Darren Shan, The Zom B Series.
Zom B is the first book in a 12-volume series (titles are being released at a projected rate of four a year until the middle of 2015). The protagonist of this series is a morally questionable kid trying, and usually failing, to move beyond the ingrained racism instilled in him by his father. It is a brave move by Shan to conceive such a bigoted hooligan as the anti hero. B. Smith is bored at school, his home life is miserable. He makes one wrong choice after another, leading up to the moment of truth, when a devastating zombie outbreak turns everyday existence into a life-or-death struggle. It is a page-turner building steadily to the cliff-hanger ending that readers expect from Shan. Fast paced and unpredictable, a good choice for any teen that likes the gore and grizzle of a good horror story.
10. Brian Selznick, The invention of Hugo Cabret.
Hugo is an orphan and a thief, living in the walls of a Paris train station and trying to fix one of the broken machines while avoiding the Station Inspector. He is eventually caught by an old toymaker and his goddaughter, who vow to help him. This touching story sucks you in and has you hooked before the first line! Any fans of the film should track down this book.
33Cynfelyn
D. J. Taylor's top 10 counter-factual novels.
Guardian, 2013-10-23.
D. J. Taylor's counter-factual novel, The Windsor faction, which examines the "lost reign" of King Edward VIII, is published by Chatto & Windus.
"What if Napoleon had won the Battle of Waterloo, Robert E. Lee triumphed at the Battle of Gettysburg, or James Callaghan managed to hold off Mrs Thatcher's challenge in the General Election of 1979? Writers love these exercises in the historical subjunctive, and the counter-factual novel offers a panorama of alternative worlds in which tiny twitches on the chronological thread find the past rearranging itself into unexpected shapes. As for strict definition, critics usually try to establish clear water between the counter-factual and its distant cousin the dystopia. The latter is usually a future shock scenario in which something has gone horribly wrong, while the former generally resembles a gigantic chessboard in which the removal of a single piece has radically changed the alignment of the other 31.
"There have been counter-factual novels about the Reformation, or the survival of the Stuart dynasty, but the most substantial cluster is set during or after a re-imagined second world war. Novelists as varied in their techniques as Robert Harris, C. J. Sansom, Philip Roth and Len Deighton have produced alternative histories in which the Nazis invade Great Britain or the Americans opt to sit the war out. Hitler has a whole sub-genre to himself, seen wandering around Liverpool in Beryl Bainbridge's Young Adolf (1978) and, as a 92-year-old survivor of the Berlin bunker, at large in South America in George Steiner's The portage to San Cristobal of A.H. (1981). Here are 10 outstanding examples of the counter-factualist at work."
1. Joan Aiken, The wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962).
One of my favourite children's books, set in an alternate early 19th-century England where the Stuarts were never overthrown. A newly-completed Channel Tunnel linking Dover and Calais has allowed hordes of wolves from continental Europe to scamper west and supply a grim backdrop to this eerie tale of scheming governesses, plundered fortunes and captive children.
2. Kingsley Amis, The alteration (1975).
The mid-1970s UK, where King Stephen III has just been succeeded by King William V. It turns out that Martin Luther was persuaded to tone down his views, reached a rapprochement with Rome and became Pope Germanius I. No Reformation, in other words, and a half-millennium of Catholic domination in which democracy, socialism and nationalism never reached the political agenda. Amusingly, three of the functionaries at the Holy Office are named "Foot", "Redgrave" and "Lord Stansgate", in testimony to Amis's dislike of three well-known 1970s lefty ideologues.
(Touchstones: Michael Foot, Vanessa Redgrave, Tony Benn).
3. Robert Harris, Fatherland (1992).
One of the very best of a clutch of novels predicated on the idea that the Nazis won. Harris's alternative history begins in April 1964, shortly before Hitler's 75th birthday, with a Reich detective named Xavier March uncovering the first hints of a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top. My father, who spent the second world war in the RAF, always reckoned that this was the most plausible counter-factual he had ever read.
4. Philip Roth, The plot against America (2004).
The second world war from the other side of the Atlantic, where the aviator Charles Lindbergh rallies the nation's isolationists, defeats Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election and concludes an entente with Hitler (known as "the Iceland Understanding") which allows the US to stand aside from the war. All this naturally has dire consequences for America's Jewish population.
5. Kingsley Amis, '1941/A' (1993).
Amis again. This is strictly speaking a short story (it can be found in the posthumously published Complete stories (2011)) purportedly written by the "Josef Goebbels Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford". Here America is unexpectedly undone by Japanese and German forces on the west and east coasts and the destruction of the Panama Canal, after which Roosevelt signs a peace treaty.
6. Melvyn Bragg, Autumn manoeuvres (1978).
A political "what-if" from the late 1970s. Historians often wonder what might have happened if James Callaghan had decided to call an election in the autumn of 1978, rather than waiting to be swept aside in the tumult of May 1979. Bragg's novel features a moderate Labour MP named Jimmy Johnston, disillusioned by party in-fighting and darkly aware that the manifesto has little relevance to his Cumbrian constituents. History is confounded as both Jims win a small majority.
7. Brian Aldiss, Brothers of the head (1977).
The counter-factual brought into the realm of pop culture, with illustrations by Ian Pollock, in which Tom and Barry Howe, a pair of conjoined twins with a third dormant head, are sprung from their home by entrepreneurs and fashioned into a combo called the Bang Bangs. The post-Beatles pop landscape looks set for a radical re-make, until head number three starts to make its presence felt. See also the quirky 2005 film adaptation by Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe.
8. Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007).
Another version of mid-century American history in which Roosevelt neither loses to Lindbergh nor signs a peace treaty but recommends that a Jewish state should be established not in Israel but Alaska ("Alyeska"). Cue an inspired criminal caper, written in the style of 1940s noir, in which detective Meyer Landsman pursues a murder enquiry back to what looks like a Jewish version of the mafia.
9. Mark Lawson, Idlewild (1995).
More Americana, taking its title from the original name of John F. Kennedy airport, and following two great early 1960s American casualties – JFK and Marilyn Monroe – on through the rest of a tumultuous decade.
10. C. J. Sansom, Dominion (2012).
The latest despatch from a British mainland overrun by Nazi invaders, in a tradition that includes not only Robert Harris but Len Deighton's SS-GB (1978). In Sansom's version the story is wound on to 1952, in a world where Britain sued for peace after Dunkirk, a stooge government along Vichy lines keeps the populace in line and Churchill is busy masterminding a resistance movement.
------
A baker's half dozen comments and recommendations from the 300+ BTL messages:
Philip K. Dick, The man in the high castle.
Michael Moorcock, Chronicles of Oswald Bastable "In which an officer in the Victorian Indian Army is thrown forward to an alternate 1973, which is policed by airships (Dreadnaughts of the Air). After reporting for duty at the first military base he can find, he is escorted back to London by a Leftenant Michael Jagger. Keith Richard was probably a lance corporal in a stockade somewhere."
Bryan Talbot, The adventures of Luther Arkwright. "A good alternative 'multiverse' ... of the highest standard". "I'd forgotten about Luther Arkwright. I'm so sad I still have the comics upstairs somewhere. I remember a heavily pregnant princess Anne featured as a heroic resistance leader against the fascist Commonwealth."
"Does Mr Harrison's Eden trilogy could as an alternate history, or is a world where dinosaurs didn't die out a historical step too far?"
"The wolves of Willoughby Chase ... wow, I have not thought of that book in years; I read it when very young and it was genuinely scary: wolves, scheming governesses, captive children all captured the imagination.
A well written book if memory serves". "I read it as a child too, and loved it. There's a whole series of them, set in that world."
(Series touchstone: Wolves chronicle).
Kim Newman & Eugene Byrne, Back in the USSA. "I was also going to suggest Kim Newman but was unsure it fit into "the historical subjunctive" (not really sure what that means tbh). Anno Dracula and the subsequent novels are great fun. Tim Powers also does nice alternate histories. And James Ellroy provides wonderfully compelling "hidden accounts" of recent American history. Maybe he gets closer to the truth with his fiction than the accepted historical texts."
Stephen Fry, Making history.
Guardian, 2013-10-23.
D. J. Taylor's counter-factual novel, The Windsor faction, which examines the "lost reign" of King Edward VIII, is published by Chatto & Windus.
"What if Napoleon had won the Battle of Waterloo, Robert E. Lee triumphed at the Battle of Gettysburg, or James Callaghan managed to hold off Mrs Thatcher's challenge in the General Election of 1979? Writers love these exercises in the historical subjunctive, and the counter-factual novel offers a panorama of alternative worlds in which tiny twitches on the chronological thread find the past rearranging itself into unexpected shapes. As for strict definition, critics usually try to establish clear water between the counter-factual and its distant cousin the dystopia. The latter is usually a future shock scenario in which something has gone horribly wrong, while the former generally resembles a gigantic chessboard in which the removal of a single piece has radically changed the alignment of the other 31.
"There have been counter-factual novels about the Reformation, or the survival of the Stuart dynasty, but the most substantial cluster is set during or after a re-imagined second world war. Novelists as varied in their techniques as Robert Harris, C. J. Sansom, Philip Roth and Len Deighton have produced alternative histories in which the Nazis invade Great Britain or the Americans opt to sit the war out. Hitler has a whole sub-genre to himself, seen wandering around Liverpool in Beryl Bainbridge's Young Adolf (1978) and, as a 92-year-old survivor of the Berlin bunker, at large in South America in George Steiner's The portage to San Cristobal of A.H. (1981). Here are 10 outstanding examples of the counter-factualist at work."
1. Joan Aiken, The wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962).
One of my favourite children's books, set in an alternate early 19th-century England where the Stuarts were never overthrown. A newly-completed Channel Tunnel linking Dover and Calais has allowed hordes of wolves from continental Europe to scamper west and supply a grim backdrop to this eerie tale of scheming governesses, plundered fortunes and captive children.
2. Kingsley Amis, The alteration (1975).
The mid-1970s UK, where King Stephen III has just been succeeded by King William V. It turns out that Martin Luther was persuaded to tone down his views, reached a rapprochement with Rome and became Pope Germanius I. No Reformation, in other words, and a half-millennium of Catholic domination in which democracy, socialism and nationalism never reached the political agenda. Amusingly, three of the functionaries at the Holy Office are named "Foot", "Redgrave" and "Lord Stansgate", in testimony to Amis's dislike of three well-known 1970s lefty ideologues.
(Touchstones: Michael Foot, Vanessa Redgrave, Tony Benn).
3. Robert Harris, Fatherland (1992).
One of the very best of a clutch of novels predicated on the idea that the Nazis won. Harris's alternative history begins in April 1964, shortly before Hitler's 75th birthday, with a Reich detective named Xavier March uncovering the first hints of a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top. My father, who spent the second world war in the RAF, always reckoned that this was the most plausible counter-factual he had ever read.
4. Philip Roth, The plot against America (2004).
The second world war from the other side of the Atlantic, where the aviator Charles Lindbergh rallies the nation's isolationists, defeats Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election and concludes an entente with Hitler (known as "the Iceland Understanding") which allows the US to stand aside from the war. All this naturally has dire consequences for America's Jewish population.
5. Kingsley Amis, '1941/A' (1993).
Amis again. This is strictly speaking a short story (it can be found in the posthumously published Complete stories (2011)) purportedly written by the "Josef Goebbels Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford". Here America is unexpectedly undone by Japanese and German forces on the west and east coasts and the destruction of the Panama Canal, after which Roosevelt signs a peace treaty.
6. Melvyn Bragg, Autumn manoeuvres (1978).
A political "what-if" from the late 1970s. Historians often wonder what might have happened if James Callaghan had decided to call an election in the autumn of 1978, rather than waiting to be swept aside in the tumult of May 1979. Bragg's novel features a moderate Labour MP named Jimmy Johnston, disillusioned by party in-fighting and darkly aware that the manifesto has little relevance to his Cumbrian constituents. History is confounded as both Jims win a small majority.
7. Brian Aldiss, Brothers of the head (1977).
The counter-factual brought into the realm of pop culture, with illustrations by Ian Pollock, in which Tom and Barry Howe, a pair of conjoined twins with a third dormant head, are sprung from their home by entrepreneurs and fashioned into a combo called the Bang Bangs. The post-Beatles pop landscape looks set for a radical re-make, until head number three starts to make its presence felt. See also the quirky 2005 film adaptation by Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe.
8. Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007).
Another version of mid-century American history in which Roosevelt neither loses to Lindbergh nor signs a peace treaty but recommends that a Jewish state should be established not in Israel but Alaska ("Alyeska"). Cue an inspired criminal caper, written in the style of 1940s noir, in which detective Meyer Landsman pursues a murder enquiry back to what looks like a Jewish version of the mafia.
9. Mark Lawson, Idlewild (1995).
More Americana, taking its title from the original name of John F. Kennedy airport, and following two great early 1960s American casualties – JFK and Marilyn Monroe – on through the rest of a tumultuous decade.
10. C. J. Sansom, Dominion (2012).
The latest despatch from a British mainland overrun by Nazi invaders, in a tradition that includes not only Robert Harris but Len Deighton's SS-GB (1978). In Sansom's version the story is wound on to 1952, in a world where Britain sued for peace after Dunkirk, a stooge government along Vichy lines keeps the populace in line and Churchill is busy masterminding a resistance movement.
------
A baker's half dozen comments and recommendations from the 300+ BTL messages:
Philip K. Dick, The man in the high castle.
Michael Moorcock, Chronicles of Oswald Bastable "In which an officer in the Victorian Indian Army is thrown forward to an alternate 1973, which is policed by airships (Dreadnaughts of the Air). After reporting for duty at the first military base he can find, he is escorted back to London by a Leftenant Michael Jagger. Keith Richard was probably a lance corporal in a stockade somewhere."
Bryan Talbot, The adventures of Luther Arkwright. "A good alternative 'multiverse' ... of the highest standard". "I'd forgotten about Luther Arkwright. I'm so sad I still have the comics upstairs somewhere. I remember a heavily pregnant princess Anne featured as a heroic resistance leader against the fascist Commonwealth."
"Does Mr Harrison's Eden trilogy could as an alternate history, or is a world where dinosaurs didn't die out a historical step too far?"
"The wolves of Willoughby Chase ... wow, I have not thought of that book in years; I read it when very young and it was genuinely scary: wolves, scheming governesses, captive children all captured the imagination.
A well written book if memory serves". "I read it as a child too, and loved it. There's a whole series of them, set in that world."
(Series touchstone: Wolves chronicle).
Kim Newman & Eugene Byrne, Back in the USSA. "I was also going to suggest Kim Newman but was unsure it fit into "the historical subjunctive" (not really sure what that means tbh). Anno Dracula and the subsequent novels are great fun. Tim Powers also does nice alternate histories. And James Ellroy provides wonderfully compelling "hidden accounts" of recent American history. Maybe he gets closer to the truth with his fiction than the accepted historical texts."
Stephen Fry, Making history.
34Cynfelyn
Halloween reading : Joseph D'Lacey's top 10 horror books.
Guardian, 2013-10-30.
"When people discover I write horror, they usually take a nervous step backwards. Maybe they think I'm going to bury a cleaver in their skull. Maybe they think they'll catch Weirdofreakosis. They'll often say something like: 'So, is your head full of sick, horrible ideas all the time?'
"Actually, it's not. I'm calm, I'm happy and I hardly ever have nightmares. All my darkness is on the page – where it belongs. In fact, I'm convinced that people who write and read horror are saner and better-adjusted than those who casually dismiss the genre.
"By engaging with horror, we take a journey into every possible fear. We open the closet door, rip the mask from the psycho's face, embrace ghosts and demons, cast ourselves into the hellish chasm of the imagination. We return, not polluted but cleansed and set free.
"This Halloween, I urge you to peel your fingers from your eyes and face your greatest dread. If you can survive these books, I promise you'll live happily (and sanely) ever after . . ."
1. Mendal Johnson, Let's go play at the Adams'.
In 1974, Stephen King released his smash hit debut Carrie. The same year, Johnson's far more challenging, non-supernatural horror novel was also published. It's an exploration of the behaviour of children left to their own devices and is utterly harrowing. I've known people weep towards the end of the book. King went on to monumental success and fame, but within two years Johnson was dead.
2. Stephen King (as Richard Bachman), The long walk.
King's early works – written under the Bachman pseudonym – are my favourites, and this short novel is a classic of that period. Although not published until 1979, it appears King began it long before Carrie. Whatever the case, I was there with the boys of this dystopian tale for every agonising step of their journey.
3. Cormac McCarthy, The road.
You might want to call this post-apocalyptic fantasy, but The road is stacked with enough bleak terror to sit proudly in the horror section of any bookshop. It's a simple story of a father and son making a perilous journey in the aftermath of a global cataclysm. But it's really about keeping the light of the world aflicker, even in the darkest times. And, whilst it's disturbing as hell, it's also incredibly beautiful.
4. Adam Nevill, The ritual.
Nevill is arguably the best British horror author writing today. The ritual takes us into the wild boreal forests of northern Sweden where four university friends reunite to go hiking. They soon find themselves lost and terrified, stalked by an unknown but malevolent entity. Riveting storytelling that barely lets you catch your breath.
5. Conrad Williams, One.
Published in 2009, this earned Williams a British Fantasy award for best novel. It charts the journey of Richard Jane, who walks from Aberdeen to London searching for his son after a cataclysmic cosmic event. Like Nevill, Williams's command of language and use of imagery lifts this novel into the realms of literary fiction. Another example of the sheer joy of terror.
6. Matt Leyshon, The function room : the kollection.
It may not be that big but there's still a market for short horror fiction. Many of the genre's brightest stars began their writer's journey by submitting tales to the small presses. This debut collection, published by indie magazine Morpheus Tales, showcases a talented newcomer with a firm grasp of all things weird and grim. Accompany Leyshon to Leddenton for a double-handful of the bleakest horrors imaginable. Be warned, though; he might not let you come back.
7. James Herbert, The rats.
I was 10 when I read this; a portal to a new world of shock and gore. I forget how many times I've read it but several of its scenes linger even now, as though they were my own memories. I think it's safe to say that the late James Herbert is responsible for my chosen career. Wherever you are now, Mr H, I salute you.
8. Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis and other stories.
Born in 1883 and largely unpublished in his own lifetime, Kafka became and remains incredibly influential. This collection contains one of the most brutal and disturbing stories I've ever read: 'In the penal colony'. If you haven't read Kafka yet, you're missing an astonishing talent.
9. Michel Faber, Under the skin.
Canongate have a knack for picking unusual but brilliant writing. Marketed without the merest mention of the word horror, this novel packs in one terrifying surprise after another. The wonderful thing is that so many people bought and read this incredibly speculative work, probably thinking it was literary fiction. An engaging but utterly creepy book – now set to be adapted for screen – and another coup for Canongate.
10. Bret Easton Ellis, American psycho.
A meticulous study in sociopathy and a satirical critique of ladder-climbing, materialist culture. It's also cold, grim and nausea-inducing. I read it on a sunny tropical island but never have the grasping fingers of a serial killer felt so close to my throat. A landmark novel encapsulating the madness of late Twentieth Century society.
. . . Having picked this top 10, I realise there isn't a single female author among them. The reason is that I simply haven't read enough dark fiction by women. I'm now on the lookout for hard-hitting full length horror from women for my TBR pile. If you have suggestions, please post them here. I'm starting off with Poppy Z. Brite's Exquisite corpse . . .
------
Extracts from half a dozen threads among the 250-plus comments and recommendations. Plus a couple of threads eventually picking up the baton for female horror writers:
"Hate to be that nitpicker, but despite being a great book, The long walk isn't really horror, it's more Battle Royale-type dystopian fiction. IT is bloody terrifying though." "I couldn't finish It. Traumatisingly scary book for sure!" "Pet sematary. Even King put it in a drawer for years, totally creeped out and horrified. Makes IT look like Alton Towers on a school trip." "(The long walk) makes me think about another dystopian-future Bachmann book - The running man - which I found to be one of King's scariest novels, maybe because it is shockingly plausible." "The running man is fantastically horrifying. Knowing that the countdown will reach zero before his days on the run are now up from an early stage fills every encounter with resonance." ...
"No Ramsey Campbell? Oh dear." "And no Marenghi! Something was pouring from his mouth. He examined his sleeve. Blood? Blood. Crimson, copper-smelling blood. His blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. And bits of sick. Slicer, p. 12."
"Very happy to see Let's go play at the Adams at the very top of this list. It's an incredible read. Respect, writer!"
"The reading group tried this exercise a month ago, but there wasn't much inspiration in terms of suggestions. Most of the really chilling stories I can think of are short stories, by the likes of E. T. A. Hoffmann or obscure French romantics like Gérard de Nerval. One full-length tale I do find fitting for Halloween is Jan Potocki's gruesome and surreal The Saragossa manuscript, an arabian-nights style frame-in-frame story with some quite startling moments of erotic depravation." "Manuscrit found in Saragossa has to be one of the best book ever written. Ever. No wonders Potocki went mad though."
"M. R. James collected ghost stories. Delicious this time of year." "thank you! some of them are so shudder-inducing they can't be re-read. What a master." "Yes! Oh whistle and I'll come to you, my lad has always been a favorite, but lately I find The mezzotint still more horrifying." "My own particular terror is Count Magnus. The way the poor scholar finds himself summoning the Count - and then realizes nothing can save him . . ."
"I wouldn't really classify American psycho as horror, but I guess it's easy to add it to the list isn't it." "Really? Depends on your definition of horror, because some parts of it, specifically the descriptions of the murders and what Bateman does, is absolutely horrific, despite it being a great book, there were moments that turned my stomach." "I might have a 'certain sense of humour' but I always read it as a black comedy. It's just so over the top. First 70 pages are a trudge, but then it kicks off." "I agree, I always saw it as a very black comedy, a parody of the film 'Wall street'?"
"Refreshing to see the writer admit that he just hasn't read any books by female horror authors, and commit to reading any that are suggested - I'd applaud him for that. But it does beg the (familiar) question - are there any good female horror writers ? And if not, why not?" "Susan Hill is the one that immediately springs to mind, but there does seem to be a lack of female horror writers." After which the dam breaks : Shirley Jackson, Mary Shelley, Audrey Niffenegger, Dark matter by Michelle Paver; The little stranger by Sarah Waters was scary/disturbing, and the writing's lovely ... think of Jackson's Haunting of Hill House for similar atmosphere; I've always found Mo Hayder's novels rather horrific; Daphne du Maurier, "The birds, f'rex", Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Michelle Paver (as already mentioned), Kathe Koja, Sarah Langan, Nina Hoffman. Also The bloody chamber by Angela Carter, Chalk by Pat Cadigan, Mayhem by Sarah Pinborough, The path of needles by Alison Littlewood, Twisted fairy tales by Maura McHugh, A nest of nightmares by Lisa Tuttle, Lasher by Anne Rice, The ancient by Muriel Gray, Caitlin Kiernan, Margo Lanagan, The shining girls by Lauren Beukes, Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, and finally, "It's arguably as much SF as horror, but The screwfly solution by Raccoona Sheldon (pen name of Alice Sheldon, best known for writing as James Tiptree, Jr) is pretty horrific."
"But, as for women writing horror, Brite may not be the best choice. She prefers to be he."
Guardian, 2013-10-30.
"When people discover I write horror, they usually take a nervous step backwards. Maybe they think I'm going to bury a cleaver in their skull. Maybe they think they'll catch Weirdofreakosis. They'll often say something like: 'So, is your head full of sick, horrible ideas all the time?'
"Actually, it's not. I'm calm, I'm happy and I hardly ever have nightmares. All my darkness is on the page – where it belongs. In fact, I'm convinced that people who write and read horror are saner and better-adjusted than those who casually dismiss the genre.
"By engaging with horror, we take a journey into every possible fear. We open the closet door, rip the mask from the psycho's face, embrace ghosts and demons, cast ourselves into the hellish chasm of the imagination. We return, not polluted but cleansed and set free.
"This Halloween, I urge you to peel your fingers from your eyes and face your greatest dread. If you can survive these books, I promise you'll live happily (and sanely) ever after . . ."
1. Mendal Johnson, Let's go play at the Adams'.
In 1974, Stephen King released his smash hit debut Carrie. The same year, Johnson's far more challenging, non-supernatural horror novel was also published. It's an exploration of the behaviour of children left to their own devices and is utterly harrowing. I've known people weep towards the end of the book. King went on to monumental success and fame, but within two years Johnson was dead.
2. Stephen King (as Richard Bachman), The long walk.
King's early works – written under the Bachman pseudonym – are my favourites, and this short novel is a classic of that period. Although not published until 1979, it appears King began it long before Carrie. Whatever the case, I was there with the boys of this dystopian tale for every agonising step of their journey.
3. Cormac McCarthy, The road.
You might want to call this post-apocalyptic fantasy, but The road is stacked with enough bleak terror to sit proudly in the horror section of any bookshop. It's a simple story of a father and son making a perilous journey in the aftermath of a global cataclysm. But it's really about keeping the light of the world aflicker, even in the darkest times. And, whilst it's disturbing as hell, it's also incredibly beautiful.
4. Adam Nevill, The ritual.
Nevill is arguably the best British horror author writing today. The ritual takes us into the wild boreal forests of northern Sweden where four university friends reunite to go hiking. They soon find themselves lost and terrified, stalked by an unknown but malevolent entity. Riveting storytelling that barely lets you catch your breath.
5. Conrad Williams, One.
Published in 2009, this earned Williams a British Fantasy award for best novel. It charts the journey of Richard Jane, who walks from Aberdeen to London searching for his son after a cataclysmic cosmic event. Like Nevill, Williams's command of language and use of imagery lifts this novel into the realms of literary fiction. Another example of the sheer joy of terror.
6. Matt Leyshon, The function room : the kollection.
It may not be that big but there's still a market for short horror fiction. Many of the genre's brightest stars began their writer's journey by submitting tales to the small presses. This debut collection, published by indie magazine Morpheus Tales, showcases a talented newcomer with a firm grasp of all things weird and grim. Accompany Leyshon to Leddenton for a double-handful of the bleakest horrors imaginable. Be warned, though; he might not let you come back.
7. James Herbert, The rats.
I was 10 when I read this; a portal to a new world of shock and gore. I forget how many times I've read it but several of its scenes linger even now, as though they were my own memories. I think it's safe to say that the late James Herbert is responsible for my chosen career. Wherever you are now, Mr H, I salute you.
8. Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis and other stories.
Born in 1883 and largely unpublished in his own lifetime, Kafka became and remains incredibly influential. This collection contains one of the most brutal and disturbing stories I've ever read: 'In the penal colony'. If you haven't read Kafka yet, you're missing an astonishing talent.
9. Michel Faber, Under the skin.
Canongate have a knack for picking unusual but brilliant writing. Marketed without the merest mention of the word horror, this novel packs in one terrifying surprise after another. The wonderful thing is that so many people bought and read this incredibly speculative work, probably thinking it was literary fiction. An engaging but utterly creepy book – now set to be adapted for screen – and another coup for Canongate.
10. Bret Easton Ellis, American psycho.
A meticulous study in sociopathy and a satirical critique of ladder-climbing, materialist culture. It's also cold, grim and nausea-inducing. I read it on a sunny tropical island but never have the grasping fingers of a serial killer felt so close to my throat. A landmark novel encapsulating the madness of late Twentieth Century society.
. . . Having picked this top 10, I realise there isn't a single female author among them. The reason is that I simply haven't read enough dark fiction by women. I'm now on the lookout for hard-hitting full length horror from women for my TBR pile. If you have suggestions, please post them here. I'm starting off with Poppy Z. Brite's Exquisite corpse . . .
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Extracts from half a dozen threads among the 250-plus comments and recommendations. Plus a couple of threads eventually picking up the baton for female horror writers:
"Hate to be that nitpicker, but despite being a great book, The long walk isn't really horror, it's more Battle Royale-type dystopian fiction. IT is bloody terrifying though." "I couldn't finish It. Traumatisingly scary book for sure!" "Pet sematary. Even King put it in a drawer for years, totally creeped out and horrified. Makes IT look like Alton Towers on a school trip." "(The long walk) makes me think about another dystopian-future Bachmann book - The running man - which I found to be one of King's scariest novels, maybe because it is shockingly plausible." "The running man is fantastically horrifying. Knowing that the countdown will reach zero before his days on the run are now up from an early stage fills every encounter with resonance." ...
"No Ramsey Campbell? Oh dear." "And no Marenghi! Something was pouring from his mouth. He examined his sleeve. Blood? Blood. Crimson, copper-smelling blood. His blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. And bits of sick. Slicer, p. 12."
"Very happy to see Let's go play at the Adams at the very top of this list. It's an incredible read. Respect, writer!"
"The reading group tried this exercise a month ago, but there wasn't much inspiration in terms of suggestions. Most of the really chilling stories I can think of are short stories, by the likes of E. T. A. Hoffmann or obscure French romantics like Gérard de Nerval. One full-length tale I do find fitting for Halloween is Jan Potocki's gruesome and surreal The Saragossa manuscript, an arabian-nights style frame-in-frame story with some quite startling moments of erotic depravation." "Manuscrit found in Saragossa has to be one of the best book ever written. Ever. No wonders Potocki went mad though."
"M. R. James collected ghost stories. Delicious this time of year." "thank you! some of them are so shudder-inducing they can't be re-read. What a master." "Yes! Oh whistle and I'll come to you, my lad has always been a favorite, but lately I find The mezzotint still more horrifying." "My own particular terror is Count Magnus. The way the poor scholar finds himself summoning the Count - and then realizes nothing can save him . . ."
"I wouldn't really classify American psycho as horror, but I guess it's easy to add it to the list isn't it." "Really? Depends on your definition of horror, because some parts of it, specifically the descriptions of the murders and what Bateman does, is absolutely horrific, despite it being a great book, there were moments that turned my stomach." "I might have a 'certain sense of humour' but I always read it as a black comedy. It's just so over the top. First 70 pages are a trudge, but then it kicks off." "I agree, I always saw it as a very black comedy, a parody of the film 'Wall street'?"
"Refreshing to see the writer admit that he just hasn't read any books by female horror authors, and commit to reading any that are suggested - I'd applaud him for that. But it does beg the (familiar) question - are there any good female horror writers ? And if not, why not?" "Susan Hill is the one that immediately springs to mind, but there does seem to be a lack of female horror writers." After which the dam breaks : Shirley Jackson, Mary Shelley, Audrey Niffenegger, Dark matter by Michelle Paver; The little stranger by Sarah Waters was scary/disturbing, and the writing's lovely ... think of Jackson's Haunting of Hill House for similar atmosphere; I've always found Mo Hayder's novels rather horrific; Daphne du Maurier, "The birds, f'rex", Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Michelle Paver (as already mentioned), Kathe Koja, Sarah Langan, Nina Hoffman. Also The bloody chamber by Angela Carter, Chalk by Pat Cadigan, Mayhem by Sarah Pinborough, The path of needles by Alison Littlewood, Twisted fairy tales by Maura McHugh, A nest of nightmares by Lisa Tuttle, Lasher by Anne Rice, The ancient by Muriel Gray, Caitlin Kiernan, Margo Lanagan, The shining girls by Lauren Beukes, Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, and finally, "It's arguably as much SF as horror, but The screwfly solution by Raccoona Sheldon (pen name of Alice Sheldon, best known for writing as James Tiptree, Jr) is pretty horrific."
"But, as for women writing horror, Brite may not be the best choice. She prefers to be he."
35Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Sandra Greaves's top 10 ghost stories.
Guardian, 2013-10-31.
Sandra Greaves was born in Edinburgh and now lives in Devon, midway between the moor and the sea. She won the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Undiscovered Voices competition in 2012 and her first novel, The skull in the wood, was published this September. It's a contemporary ghost story set on Dartmoor for age 10+ readers.
"The kind of ghost stories I like best are ones where the supernatural creeps into ordinary life in a chilling but entirely convincing way. More often that not, the supernatural force reflects a troubled psyche in the characters being haunted, and that can make for a satisfyingly complex read.
"The supernatural element in my book, The skull in the wood was inspired by Dartmoor – I spent a lot of time tramping across it as I was shaping the book, and occasionally scared myself silly. It's a spooky place – all too easy to get lost in, with treacherous mires and the famous fog that comes down without warning and rearranges the landscape. And there are all sorts of legends and folk tales that get you looking nervously over your shoulder, even before the sun goes down. Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles is ever-present, and behind it, the myth of the phantom hunt - a mad chase through the skies and across the moor, led by the devil himself.
"An atmospheric sense of place is an essential part of all the stories I've chosen, though they range in age from 9-12s to adult books co-opted as cult teenage fiction. There are abandoned houses and ancient burial grounds, of course, but also a dark Welsh valley, an old water mill behind a turnip field, and the frozen landscape of an Arctic winter.
"I've read and re-read ghost stories all summer to put together my list, which means they've had to prove their worth in broad daylight. The ones I've picked are powerful even if you're lying on the beach. But they're at their creepy best when the nights draw in – and especially at Hallowe'en."
1. Michelle Paver, Dark matter.
A perfect ghost story set in the frozen north of Spitsbergen (now Svalbard). Former science student Jack Miller sets out to change his depressing life as a clerk by joining an Arctic expedition to an island where the polar night will last for four months solid. But something is walking in the dark, and as expedition members drop away, Jack is determined to face it – alone. Michelle Paver is the author of the Chronicles of ancient darkness series for children, but Dark matter is one for older YA readers and adults alike. Psychologically complex, and utterly terrifying.
2. Theresa Breslin, Whispers in the graveyard.
This Carnegie medal-winning story by Theresa Breslin has a brilliant narrator in Solomon, who is dyslexic, angry, and struggling to cope with his alcoholic father. Bullied by teachers for his apparent stupidity, Sol has taken to bunking off school and hiding in an old graveyard. Only it's not safe any more. The council has uprooted a rowan tree from a forgotten corner, and now an ancient evil is gathering strength – and Sol is right in its path. A moving and creepy novel.
3. Robert Westall, The scarecrows.
Another Carnegie medal winner, The scarecrows is a gripping portrait of a teenage boy whose dark emotions unleash dark things. A dilapidated water mill lies waiting, and in front of it, three scarecrows locked in a jealous drama of their own. An old tale of a murderous love triangle casts a twisted shadow on the boy's own life – and the scarecrows move ever closer. Absorbing, complex and distinctly scary.
4. Ann Pilling, Black harvest.
This chilling tale by award-winning novelist Ann Pilling forces history into the present in a disturbing way. On holiday in Ireland with their mother, two children, their baby sister and an irritating younger cousin find themselves dogged by stifling heat and the foul stench of decay. This is no ordinary ghost story though. The villain is the Irish potato famine, and its effects are horrifyingly real. First published in 1983 and now a Collins Modern Classic, Black harvest is a clammy, atmospheric read.
5. Alan Garner, The owl service.
A classic tale of the supernatural with a brilliantly light touch, The owl service lingers in the imagination long after you put the book down. Strange rather than downright scary, it's the story of teenagers in a remote valley in Wales who discover a set of plates decorated with owls. The discovery reawakens an ancient Welsh myth that traps them into re-enacting the roles of its three characters. Yes, plates. It's weird – but wonderful.
6. Emily Diamand, Ways to see a ghost.
This YA novel from the award-winning author of Flood child debunks the paranormal industry while telling a rollicking contemporary ghost story. Isis is the daughter of a fake psychic; Gray the son of a UFO-hunter. But Isis really can see ghosts – and when a creature escapes from the furthest reaches of the dark, it's the children, not the adults who have to deal with it. Great on the drippy clairvoyant mother and the alien-obsessed father, and satisfyingly spooky to boot.
7. Antonia Barber, The ghosts.
A gentle classic featuring time-travelling ghosts, this novel was filmed in 1972 as The amazing Mr Blunden. Mrs Allen and her two children are invited to look after an abandoned house by a strange old solicitor, Mr Blunden. There the children meet a brother and sister from a hundred years earlier who were killed in a fire on the estate. With the help of Mr Blunden, the present-day children seek to right the wrong that was done. An absorbing, warm-hearted ghost story that was runner-up for the Carnegie Medal.
8. Jonathan Stroud, The screaming staircase.
The first in a series on the spook-hunting adventures of psychic investigators Lockwood & Co, this is a brilliant fusion of detective novel and ghost story. In a London overtaken by spectres, Lucy Carlyle joins a ghost-destruction agency run by eccentric teenagers where she can exercise her special Talent – hearing the voices of the dead. But it's not just murderous phantoms that the agency has to worry about. And have they packed the right ghost survival kit? Fantastic characters, fast-paced action, and truly alarming in places. Looking forward to the next in the series.
9. Diana Wynne Jones, The time of the ghost.
A fascinating and peculiar YA novel told from the point of view of the ghost herself – one of four teenage sisters living beside a boy's school. Left to their own devices by a schoolmaster father who cares about his male students but despises girls, the sisters develop a twisted ritual that takes on a life of its own. The ghost-sister has seen the consequences and returned from the future to try and stop them. I love the claustrophobic sense of female adolescence in this book. And while the story's occasionally confusing, it hooks you right to the end.
10. Stephen King, Pet sematary.
Only for the strong of stomach, this one – and may well put you off cats for ever. Not aimed at children, but a favourite of older teenagers with a taste for the seriously gruesome. A resting place for beloved pets, an Indian burial ground, and an assortment of creatures that just won't lie down. Nasty. And compelling.
------
A children's top ten list, so no BTL comments. However, this list has a certain overlap with yesterday's comments; some children must have really strong stomachs. And with a female columnist, a good ration of female authors came naturally, compared with yesterday's special pleading.
Guardian, 2013-10-31.
Sandra Greaves was born in Edinburgh and now lives in Devon, midway between the moor and the sea. She won the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Undiscovered Voices competition in 2012 and her first novel, The skull in the wood, was published this September. It's a contemporary ghost story set on Dartmoor for age 10+ readers.
"The kind of ghost stories I like best are ones where the supernatural creeps into ordinary life in a chilling but entirely convincing way. More often that not, the supernatural force reflects a troubled psyche in the characters being haunted, and that can make for a satisfyingly complex read.
"The supernatural element in my book, The skull in the wood was inspired by Dartmoor – I spent a lot of time tramping across it as I was shaping the book, and occasionally scared myself silly. It's a spooky place – all too easy to get lost in, with treacherous mires and the famous fog that comes down without warning and rearranges the landscape. And there are all sorts of legends and folk tales that get you looking nervously over your shoulder, even before the sun goes down. Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles is ever-present, and behind it, the myth of the phantom hunt - a mad chase through the skies and across the moor, led by the devil himself.
"An atmospheric sense of place is an essential part of all the stories I've chosen, though they range in age from 9-12s to adult books co-opted as cult teenage fiction. There are abandoned houses and ancient burial grounds, of course, but also a dark Welsh valley, an old water mill behind a turnip field, and the frozen landscape of an Arctic winter.
"I've read and re-read ghost stories all summer to put together my list, which means they've had to prove their worth in broad daylight. The ones I've picked are powerful even if you're lying on the beach. But they're at their creepy best when the nights draw in – and especially at Hallowe'en."
1. Michelle Paver, Dark matter.
A perfect ghost story set in the frozen north of Spitsbergen (now Svalbard). Former science student Jack Miller sets out to change his depressing life as a clerk by joining an Arctic expedition to an island where the polar night will last for four months solid. But something is walking in the dark, and as expedition members drop away, Jack is determined to face it – alone. Michelle Paver is the author of the Chronicles of ancient darkness series for children, but Dark matter is one for older YA readers and adults alike. Psychologically complex, and utterly terrifying.
2. Theresa Breslin, Whispers in the graveyard.
This Carnegie medal-winning story by Theresa Breslin has a brilliant narrator in Solomon, who is dyslexic, angry, and struggling to cope with his alcoholic father. Bullied by teachers for his apparent stupidity, Sol has taken to bunking off school and hiding in an old graveyard. Only it's not safe any more. The council has uprooted a rowan tree from a forgotten corner, and now an ancient evil is gathering strength – and Sol is right in its path. A moving and creepy novel.
3. Robert Westall, The scarecrows.
Another Carnegie medal winner, The scarecrows is a gripping portrait of a teenage boy whose dark emotions unleash dark things. A dilapidated water mill lies waiting, and in front of it, three scarecrows locked in a jealous drama of their own. An old tale of a murderous love triangle casts a twisted shadow on the boy's own life – and the scarecrows move ever closer. Absorbing, complex and distinctly scary.
4. Ann Pilling, Black harvest.
This chilling tale by award-winning novelist Ann Pilling forces history into the present in a disturbing way. On holiday in Ireland with their mother, two children, their baby sister and an irritating younger cousin find themselves dogged by stifling heat and the foul stench of decay. This is no ordinary ghost story though. The villain is the Irish potato famine, and its effects are horrifyingly real. First published in 1983 and now a Collins Modern Classic, Black harvest is a clammy, atmospheric read.
5. Alan Garner, The owl service.
A classic tale of the supernatural with a brilliantly light touch, The owl service lingers in the imagination long after you put the book down. Strange rather than downright scary, it's the story of teenagers in a remote valley in Wales who discover a set of plates decorated with owls. The discovery reawakens an ancient Welsh myth that traps them into re-enacting the roles of its three characters. Yes, plates. It's weird – but wonderful.
6. Emily Diamand, Ways to see a ghost.
This YA novel from the award-winning author of Flood child debunks the paranormal industry while telling a rollicking contemporary ghost story. Isis is the daughter of a fake psychic; Gray the son of a UFO-hunter. But Isis really can see ghosts – and when a creature escapes from the furthest reaches of the dark, it's the children, not the adults who have to deal with it. Great on the drippy clairvoyant mother and the alien-obsessed father, and satisfyingly spooky to boot.
7. Antonia Barber, The ghosts.
A gentle classic featuring time-travelling ghosts, this novel was filmed in 1972 as The amazing Mr Blunden. Mrs Allen and her two children are invited to look after an abandoned house by a strange old solicitor, Mr Blunden. There the children meet a brother and sister from a hundred years earlier who were killed in a fire on the estate. With the help of Mr Blunden, the present-day children seek to right the wrong that was done. An absorbing, warm-hearted ghost story that was runner-up for the Carnegie Medal.
8. Jonathan Stroud, The screaming staircase.
The first in a series on the spook-hunting adventures of psychic investigators Lockwood & Co, this is a brilliant fusion of detective novel and ghost story. In a London overtaken by spectres, Lucy Carlyle joins a ghost-destruction agency run by eccentric teenagers where she can exercise her special Talent – hearing the voices of the dead. But it's not just murderous phantoms that the agency has to worry about. And have they packed the right ghost survival kit? Fantastic characters, fast-paced action, and truly alarming in places. Looking forward to the next in the series.
9. Diana Wynne Jones, The time of the ghost.
A fascinating and peculiar YA novel told from the point of view of the ghost herself – one of four teenage sisters living beside a boy's school. Left to their own devices by a schoolmaster father who cares about his male students but despises girls, the sisters develop a twisted ritual that takes on a life of its own. The ghost-sister has seen the consequences and returned from the future to try and stop them. I love the claustrophobic sense of female adolescence in this book. And while the story's occasionally confusing, it hooks you right to the end.
10. Stephen King, Pet sematary.
Only for the strong of stomach, this one – and may well put you off cats for ever. Not aimed at children, but a favourite of older teenagers with a taste for the seriously gruesome. A resting place for beloved pets, an Indian burial ground, and an assortment of creatures that just won't lie down. Nasty. And compelling.
------
A children's top ten list, so no BTL comments. However, this list has a certain overlap with yesterday's comments; some children must have really strong stomachs. And with a female columnist, a good ration of female authors came naturally, compared with yesterday's special pleading.
36Cynfelyn
Dangerous Age : Maria McCann's best books on 18th-century London's perils.
Guardian, 2013-11-06.
"Even babies had it hard under the Georges. Before Captain Coram built his Foundling Hospital, unwanted ones were routinely abandoned on dunghills. Once the hospital existed, luckless infants were packed up and 'posted' there by carrier, mostly dying en route. Adults didn't have it much better, staggering under a 'disease burden' of parasites, untreated infections and badly-healed injuries that eventually killed them off. STDs were rife, and since the disappearance of symptoms was taken as proof of cure, the poxed went on poxing others. Surgery was available; anaesthetic wasn't. Sailors could be made drunk and insensible, but not a gentlewoman like Fanny Burney, whose mastectomy was performed while she was fully conscious. Yet Burney was lucky by Georgian standards. The operation was successful, saving her life.
"If you managed to elude the press-gang, the bawds posing as helpful old dears in order to ensnare girls into brothels, the alcoholism, gambling, card sharps, pick-pockets, priggers, highwaymen, bullies and mohocks, you could still fall victim to apparently innocent foodstuffs: sewage-tainted water, bread containing ash and ground bones, milk thickened with minced snails. Overcrowding and an obscenely long working day helped ensure that at some periods deaths outstripped births and only immigration kept London in existence. Dying penniless, you could be buried in the disgusting poors' pit, a mass grave heaped with coffins before being earthed in ― though looking on the bright side, perhaps the putrid stench of the pit would repel the 'resurrectionists' who stole cadavers for dissection. Compared with a cheap and disposable labourer, a fresh corpse was a real prize."
1. Jerry White, London in the 18th century : a great and monstrous thing.
Covering much more than "perils", this has to come first for its scholarly detail and exhaustiveness. White considers the city as it would appear to people in various walks of life, including architects, journalists, prostitutes, reformers and revolutionaries. A must-read for anyone interested in Georgian London.
2. Wendy Moore, Wedlock : how Georgian Britain's worst husband met his match.
Mary Bowes, an ancestress of our present Queen, spent years being tortured by her psychopathic husband. The story isn't entirely London-based but I couldn't resist including this book, revealing as it does how inequality before the law made marriage itself a peril for many women. Mary's story, as dramatic as any novel, inspired Thackeray's Barry Lyndon.
3. Jessica Warner, Craze : gin and debauchery in an age of reason.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the gin crazes and yes, the cover does feature Hogarth's Gin Lane.
4. Fanny Burney, Evelina (1778).
Virtuous, fatherless and naive, Evelina has to learn the pitfalls of society. Though there's never any serious chance of her heroine coming to grief, Burney's novel shows how purgatorial the obligatory social gatherings of the period could be for sensitive souls. Poor Evelina's uncongenial company – predatory, boorish, spiteful or embarrassing – and her idealised love interest anticipate the work of Jane Austen.
5. Hallie Rubenhold, Harris's list of the Covent Garden ladies : sex in Georgian London.
A beautifully-written walk on the wild side, chronicling the careers of three raffish Georgians on the make: pimp Jack Harris, brothel-keeper Charlotte Hayes and poet Sam Derrick, secret publisher of a catalogue of whores known as Harris's List and also – bizarrely enough – Master of Ceremonies at Bath. Derrick's career is just one instance of how closely the Georgian sex trade and respectable society were intertwined.
6. Ruth McClure, Coram's children.
Now getting on a bit (published in 1981) but a moving portrait of a great altruist and his legacy. It's also wonderfully detailed: you can find out what the foundlings had to eat on a Tuesday "in the pork season" in 1747, should you so wish. McClure reveals just how dedicated and canny the governors were, attracting the patronage of Hogarth and Handel, bending over backwards to suit the whims of Parliament and tirelessly adapting to conditions. The hospital's regime was so humane that opponents tellingly complained of foundlings receiving better treatment than "respectable" children.
7. Natasha McEnroe & Robin Simon (ed.), The tyranny of treatment.
A grisly, engrossing collection of essays exploring the medical histories of those in Samuel Johnson's circle, including Boswell's claps, Johnson's scrofula and Fanny Burney's mastectomy. Pass those smelling salts.
8. Nicholas Rogers, The press gang.
Fancy that: impressment didn't end with the Georgian era but remained an option, in theory, right up to the first world war. Not that recruiters had it all their own way – they were so hated that locals sometimes got up a posse, driving them out of town or even murdering them. Rogers explores the social, economic and political background to impressment, bringing home to the reader the horrors of a system that was essential to maintaining Britannia's rule over the waves.
9. James Boswell, The journals.
For Boswell, London's perils revolved principally around drink and sex: he recorded 19 separate "poxes" or "claps" over 30 years, dying at 54 (Samuel Johnson, crippled from infancy but sexually abstemious, made it to 75). Armed with an impressive sense of entitlement, Boswell met everybody who was everybody; his journals read like an 18th-century Who's Who.
10. Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders (1722).
Despite her repentance in old age, the magnificent Moll is nobody's idea of a virtuous heroine as she rattles through her tale of life on the edge. Defoe was a champion of female education; Moll's story illustrates how a woman unable to earn her living must seek male protection, first in marriage, then in prostitution. Finally, when she is too faded to find customers, Moll has no resort but crime. The emphasis on hard cash rather than sexual pleasure makes Moll Flanders possibly the most unerotic novel ever written about a prostitute, but it's engaging for all that. Defoe, himself a tradesman, gives his heroine a distinctive voice – and the shrewdness and energy of the born chancer, an energy that remains with the reader when the book is finished.
------
BTL:
Tobias Smollett, Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickles. "Both contain excellent descriptions of London's vicious underbelly in the eighteenth century." "Smollett's The expedition of Humphry Clinker has a wonderfully scabrous description of Bath."
Henry Fielding, The life and death of Jonathan Wild the Great. "Gives an interesting account of crime and corruption in 18th century London."
"Everyone *must* read The London hanged by Linebaugh. Its an astonishing tale of the underclass, its political power when organised and the suppression of it through hanging and the introduction of the police." "Yes, its an incredible book and very very illuminating on how the poor were treated and feared in the 18th century, much worse than chroniclers of the time depicted. The author, Peter Linebaugh, also collaborated with E. P. Thompson (The making of the English working class) and it showed. There is a Guardian review here."
T. Coraghessen Boyle, Water music. "Very evocative stuff, with a cast of mostly real historical figures."
Emily Cockayne, Hubbub : filth, noise & stench in England. "It's not solely about London but the city features heavily."
Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary and Maria, Emma Donoghue, Slammerkin, Leon Garfield, Smith.
Guardian, 2013-11-06.
"Even babies had it hard under the Georges. Before Captain Coram built his Foundling Hospital, unwanted ones were routinely abandoned on dunghills. Once the hospital existed, luckless infants were packed up and 'posted' there by carrier, mostly dying en route. Adults didn't have it much better, staggering under a 'disease burden' of parasites, untreated infections and badly-healed injuries that eventually killed them off. STDs were rife, and since the disappearance of symptoms was taken as proof of cure, the poxed went on poxing others. Surgery was available; anaesthetic wasn't. Sailors could be made drunk and insensible, but not a gentlewoman like Fanny Burney, whose mastectomy was performed while she was fully conscious. Yet Burney was lucky by Georgian standards. The operation was successful, saving her life.
"If you managed to elude the press-gang, the bawds posing as helpful old dears in order to ensnare girls into brothels, the alcoholism, gambling, card sharps, pick-pockets, priggers, highwaymen, bullies and mohocks, you could still fall victim to apparently innocent foodstuffs: sewage-tainted water, bread containing ash and ground bones, milk thickened with minced snails. Overcrowding and an obscenely long working day helped ensure that at some periods deaths outstripped births and only immigration kept London in existence. Dying penniless, you could be buried in the disgusting poors' pit, a mass grave heaped with coffins before being earthed in ― though looking on the bright side, perhaps the putrid stench of the pit would repel the 'resurrectionists' who stole cadavers for dissection. Compared with a cheap and disposable labourer, a fresh corpse was a real prize."
1. Jerry White, London in the 18th century : a great and monstrous thing.
Covering much more than "perils", this has to come first for its scholarly detail and exhaustiveness. White considers the city as it would appear to people in various walks of life, including architects, journalists, prostitutes, reformers and revolutionaries. A must-read for anyone interested in Georgian London.
2. Wendy Moore, Wedlock : how Georgian Britain's worst husband met his match.
Mary Bowes, an ancestress of our present Queen, spent years being tortured by her psychopathic husband. The story isn't entirely London-based but I couldn't resist including this book, revealing as it does how inequality before the law made marriage itself a peril for many women. Mary's story, as dramatic as any novel, inspired Thackeray's Barry Lyndon.
3. Jessica Warner, Craze : gin and debauchery in an age of reason.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the gin crazes and yes, the cover does feature Hogarth's Gin Lane.
4. Fanny Burney, Evelina (1778).
Virtuous, fatherless and naive, Evelina has to learn the pitfalls of society. Though there's never any serious chance of her heroine coming to grief, Burney's novel shows how purgatorial the obligatory social gatherings of the period could be for sensitive souls. Poor Evelina's uncongenial company – predatory, boorish, spiteful or embarrassing – and her idealised love interest anticipate the work of Jane Austen.
5. Hallie Rubenhold, Harris's list of the Covent Garden ladies : sex in Georgian London.
A beautifully-written walk on the wild side, chronicling the careers of three raffish Georgians on the make: pimp Jack Harris, brothel-keeper Charlotte Hayes and poet Sam Derrick, secret publisher of a catalogue of whores known as Harris's List and also – bizarrely enough – Master of Ceremonies at Bath. Derrick's career is just one instance of how closely the Georgian sex trade and respectable society were intertwined.
6. Ruth McClure, Coram's children.
Now getting on a bit (published in 1981) but a moving portrait of a great altruist and his legacy. It's also wonderfully detailed: you can find out what the foundlings had to eat on a Tuesday "in the pork season" in 1747, should you so wish. McClure reveals just how dedicated and canny the governors were, attracting the patronage of Hogarth and Handel, bending over backwards to suit the whims of Parliament and tirelessly adapting to conditions. The hospital's regime was so humane that opponents tellingly complained of foundlings receiving better treatment than "respectable" children.
7. Natasha McEnroe & Robin Simon (ed.), The tyranny of treatment.
A grisly, engrossing collection of essays exploring the medical histories of those in Samuel Johnson's circle, including Boswell's claps, Johnson's scrofula and Fanny Burney's mastectomy. Pass those smelling salts.
8. Nicholas Rogers, The press gang.
Fancy that: impressment didn't end with the Georgian era but remained an option, in theory, right up to the first world war. Not that recruiters had it all their own way – they were so hated that locals sometimes got up a posse, driving them out of town or even murdering them. Rogers explores the social, economic and political background to impressment, bringing home to the reader the horrors of a system that was essential to maintaining Britannia's rule over the waves.
9. James Boswell, The journals.
For Boswell, London's perils revolved principally around drink and sex: he recorded 19 separate "poxes" or "claps" over 30 years, dying at 54 (Samuel Johnson, crippled from infancy but sexually abstemious, made it to 75). Armed with an impressive sense of entitlement, Boswell met everybody who was everybody; his journals read like an 18th-century Who's Who.
10. Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders (1722).
Despite her repentance in old age, the magnificent Moll is nobody's idea of a virtuous heroine as she rattles through her tale of life on the edge. Defoe was a champion of female education; Moll's story illustrates how a woman unable to earn her living must seek male protection, first in marriage, then in prostitution. Finally, when she is too faded to find customers, Moll has no resort but crime. The emphasis on hard cash rather than sexual pleasure makes Moll Flanders possibly the most unerotic novel ever written about a prostitute, but it's engaging for all that. Defoe, himself a tradesman, gives his heroine a distinctive voice – and the shrewdness and energy of the born chancer, an energy that remains with the reader when the book is finished.
------
BTL:
Tobias Smollett, Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickles. "Both contain excellent descriptions of London's vicious underbelly in the eighteenth century." "Smollett's The expedition of Humphry Clinker has a wonderfully scabrous description of Bath."
Henry Fielding, The life and death of Jonathan Wild the Great. "Gives an interesting account of crime and corruption in 18th century London."
"Everyone *must* read The London hanged by Linebaugh. Its an astonishing tale of the underclass, its political power when organised and the suppression of it through hanging and the introduction of the police." "Yes, its an incredible book and very very illuminating on how the poor were treated and feared in the 18th century, much worse than chroniclers of the time depicted. The author, Peter Linebaugh, also collaborated with E. P. Thompson (The making of the English working class) and it showed. There is a Guardian review here."
T. Coraghessen Boyle, Water music. "Very evocative stuff, with a cast of mostly real historical figures."
Emily Cockayne, Hubbub : filth, noise & stench in England. "It's not solely about London but the city features heavily."
Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary and Maria, Emma Donoghue, Slammerkin, Leon Garfield, Smith.
37Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Sam Angus's top 10 war books.
Guardian, 2013-11-11.
"My books Soldier dog and A horse called Hero are about animals in war and were inspired by true accounts of animal endeavour during the first and second world wars. I am not a historian but I do love researching; the diaries and manuscripts and private letters are for me the things that make the subject come alive. Stories with an element of truth in them are particularly wonderful to write and seem to engage children more than others. The story of Soldier dog, for example, is drawn from the lives of two first world war messenger dogs.
"Here are some of my favourite war-time stories:"
1. Ian Seraillier, The silver sword.
This book has never gone out of print and was certainly one of the most memorable reading experiences of my childhood. Ian Serailier depicts the delinquency of war frankly and openly in this story of a family torn apart, of children fending for themselves amidst the desolate rubble of a bombed out Warsaw, of how they care for one another and together discover the clue that will lead to them finding their parents.
2. Jill Paton Walsh, The dolphin crossing.
One of my favourite books ever, Jjll Paton Walsh depicts life at home during the Second World War and the events of Dunkirk. Two boys learn that the British Army is stranded on the beach at Dunkirk and set out in a little boat and with which they valiantly ferry men from the beach to the big naval vessels as German machine guns strafe their brow. Great adventure, Concise and tough, this is a book that is as enjoyable for adults as it is for children.
3. John Boyne, The boy in the striped pyjamas.
A terrific story from the other side, about the son of an Auschwitz prison commandant. Vivid, shocking and disturbing, this powerful, unsettling book is a sparse and elegant fable written from the point of view of the nine year old Bruno. Isolated and bored in his new home, he is told by his father that the people he can see on the other side of a wire fence are not really people. Through Bruno's eyes we come to understand both man's capacity for inhumanity and for friendship.
4. Anne Holm, I am David.
Short, intense, poetic and heart-stirring, the story is told as simply as a fable. It is an atmospheric, thought-provoking read, which has a strong impact on everyone who reads it.
5. Michael Morpugo, The Mozart question.
Part metaphor, part memoir, this is a novella with a lot of depth to it that works as well for adult readers as it does for children. It has illustrations, yet has the feel of an adult book, opening as it does with a journalist interviewing a violinist, but turning then to the boyhood of the violinist and the terrible things he has endured. This is a quiet, focused and beautiful story of secrets, music and hope, of the next generation's struggle to discover and understand what happened in the past. It has a wonderful, upbeat ending. I have enjoyed this more almost than any other Morpugo book.
6. Nina Bawden, Carrie's war.
Superb account of an evacuee child during the second world war. Nina Bawden's best-known book is a great read, and a modern classic, a compelling coming of age adventure that is both literary and historical. A book to return to again and again.
7. Katherine Roberts, I am the great horse.
An honest and unsparing account of the battles of Alexander the Great. You cannot help but love this book – which is narrated through the eyes of Alexander's horse, Bucephalus. Stunning, well-researched and moving.
8. Anne Frank, The diary of a young girl.
A remarkable book and a moving testament to the strength of the human spirit. Anne's innocence, honesty and courage are luminous and heart-breaking. This book is an example to every child, everywhere, of the power of simple, honest writing.
9. W. E. Johns, Biggles learns to fly.
W. E. Johns is clear that war is a dreadful business in this pacy adventure story of the courage and camaraderie of fighter pilots in the first world war.
10. Robert Westall, The machine gunners.
Another book set on the home front and one that I remember vividly from childhood. Full of wonderful characterisation and fine storytelling, this was Westall's first published book and it won him the Carnegie medal. With no thought of publication, he wrote in exercise books, long hand, for his son Christopher, who was then 12, and read it aloud to him, to show him how things had been for himself when he was 12, in the second world war.
------
For whatever reason, despite this being a Children's Books Top Ten, the BTL comments were turned on long enough for ten comments to be posted, which handily boil down to half a dozen threads:
Novels : Derek Robinson, A good clean fight, "my favourite"; the Sword of Honour trilogy "but if it has to be one, Unconditional surrender". Memoirs : William Wharton, Shrapnel, "an extraordinary work, unique"; William Manchester, Goodbye darkness "all you need on the Pacific war and much more besides (his account of marine officer training - he remained a sergeant - is chilling). For older children all those I think though."
David Forrest, The last blue sea. "I read this as a teenager expecting to be called-up for Vietnam.
Simply the very best book fact or fiction on jungle warfare. The best recommend I can give for it is, every time I loan a copy to a Vet, he take it home to his wife and it doesn't come back. Not for children but anything by John Masters rates highly. I couldn't finish any of his books until I was in my thirties. An author who never lost a touch of rawness. Bhowani Junction might be the best novel about a returned soldier (Victoria Duck) finding her home and family I've read."
Sven Hassell, Bloody road to death. "Best of the war pulps and a series that i devoured through my early teens. Yes its larger than life and implausible, but the chapter of the exhausted artillery Lieutenant, setting off a barrage too late and the subsequent description from the troops point of view has yet to be bettered." "Wheels of terror, Strafe Battalion 999, SS General - any are quite good."
(My brother also devoured these in his early teens in the early 1970s. Personally I thought they looked unhealthy. Cynfelyn).
"I wouldn't put The boy in the striped pyjamas in a top ten list of anything, except perhaps 'the ten most astoundingly overrated books of the last ten years'."
"I loved The machine gunners too. It was a favourite when I was at school in the 70s. It had swearing and fighting and war, and they really did have a machine gun and really did get to shoot it at people. It didn't cop out in any respect, a great book for boys."
Joseph Heller, Catch-22, Norman Mailer, The naked and the dead, Ernest Hemingway, A farewell to arms, Jean-Paul Sartre, Roads to freedom trilogy, and Melvyn Bragg, The soldier's return quartet.
Guardian, 2013-11-11.
"My books Soldier dog and A horse called Hero are about animals in war and were inspired by true accounts of animal endeavour during the first and second world wars. I am not a historian but I do love researching; the diaries and manuscripts and private letters are for me the things that make the subject come alive. Stories with an element of truth in them are particularly wonderful to write and seem to engage children more than others. The story of Soldier dog, for example, is drawn from the lives of two first world war messenger dogs.
"Here are some of my favourite war-time stories:"
1. Ian Seraillier, The silver sword.
This book has never gone out of print and was certainly one of the most memorable reading experiences of my childhood. Ian Serailier depicts the delinquency of war frankly and openly in this story of a family torn apart, of children fending for themselves amidst the desolate rubble of a bombed out Warsaw, of how they care for one another and together discover the clue that will lead to them finding their parents.
2. Jill Paton Walsh, The dolphin crossing.
One of my favourite books ever, Jjll Paton Walsh depicts life at home during the Second World War and the events of Dunkirk. Two boys learn that the British Army is stranded on the beach at Dunkirk and set out in a little boat and with which they valiantly ferry men from the beach to the big naval vessels as German machine guns strafe their brow. Great adventure, Concise and tough, this is a book that is as enjoyable for adults as it is for children.
3. John Boyne, The boy in the striped pyjamas.
A terrific story from the other side, about the son of an Auschwitz prison commandant. Vivid, shocking and disturbing, this powerful, unsettling book is a sparse and elegant fable written from the point of view of the nine year old Bruno. Isolated and bored in his new home, he is told by his father that the people he can see on the other side of a wire fence are not really people. Through Bruno's eyes we come to understand both man's capacity for inhumanity and for friendship.
4. Anne Holm, I am David.
Short, intense, poetic and heart-stirring, the story is told as simply as a fable. It is an atmospheric, thought-provoking read, which has a strong impact on everyone who reads it.
5. Michael Morpugo, The Mozart question.
Part metaphor, part memoir, this is a novella with a lot of depth to it that works as well for adult readers as it does for children. It has illustrations, yet has the feel of an adult book, opening as it does with a journalist interviewing a violinist, but turning then to the boyhood of the violinist and the terrible things he has endured. This is a quiet, focused and beautiful story of secrets, music and hope, of the next generation's struggle to discover and understand what happened in the past. It has a wonderful, upbeat ending. I have enjoyed this more almost than any other Morpugo book.
6. Nina Bawden, Carrie's war.
Superb account of an evacuee child during the second world war. Nina Bawden's best-known book is a great read, and a modern classic, a compelling coming of age adventure that is both literary and historical. A book to return to again and again.
7. Katherine Roberts, I am the great horse.
An honest and unsparing account of the battles of Alexander the Great. You cannot help but love this book – which is narrated through the eyes of Alexander's horse, Bucephalus. Stunning, well-researched and moving.
8. Anne Frank, The diary of a young girl.
A remarkable book and a moving testament to the strength of the human spirit. Anne's innocence, honesty and courage are luminous and heart-breaking. This book is an example to every child, everywhere, of the power of simple, honest writing.
9. W. E. Johns, Biggles learns to fly.
W. E. Johns is clear that war is a dreadful business in this pacy adventure story of the courage and camaraderie of fighter pilots in the first world war.
10. Robert Westall, The machine gunners.
Another book set on the home front and one that I remember vividly from childhood. Full of wonderful characterisation and fine storytelling, this was Westall's first published book and it won him the Carnegie medal. With no thought of publication, he wrote in exercise books, long hand, for his son Christopher, who was then 12, and read it aloud to him, to show him how things had been for himself when he was 12, in the second world war.
------
For whatever reason, despite this being a Children's Books Top Ten, the BTL comments were turned on long enough for ten comments to be posted, which handily boil down to half a dozen threads:
Novels : Derek Robinson, A good clean fight, "my favourite"; the Sword of Honour trilogy "but if it has to be one, Unconditional surrender". Memoirs : William Wharton, Shrapnel, "an extraordinary work, unique"; William Manchester, Goodbye darkness "all you need on the Pacific war and much more besides (his account of marine officer training - he remained a sergeant - is chilling). For older children all those I think though."
David Forrest, The last blue sea. "I read this as a teenager expecting to be called-up for Vietnam.
Simply the very best book fact or fiction on jungle warfare. The best recommend I can give for it is, every time I loan a copy to a Vet, he take it home to his wife and it doesn't come back. Not for children but anything by John Masters rates highly. I couldn't finish any of his books until I was in my thirties. An author who never lost a touch of rawness. Bhowani Junction might be the best novel about a returned soldier (Victoria Duck) finding her home and family I've read."
Sven Hassell, Bloody road to death. "Best of the war pulps and a series that i devoured through my early teens. Yes its larger than life and implausible, but the chapter of the exhausted artillery Lieutenant, setting off a barrage too late and the subsequent description from the troops point of view has yet to be bettered." "Wheels of terror, Strafe Battalion 999, SS General - any are quite good."
(My brother also devoured these in his early teens in the early 1970s. Personally I thought they looked unhealthy. Cynfelyn).
"I wouldn't put The boy in the striped pyjamas in a top ten list of anything, except perhaps 'the ten most astoundingly overrated books of the last ten years'."
"I loved The machine gunners too. It was a favourite when I was at school in the 70s. It had swearing and fighting and war, and they really did have a machine gun and really did get to shoot it at people. It didn't cop out in any respect, a great book for boys."
Joseph Heller, Catch-22, Norman Mailer, The naked and the dead, Ernest Hemingway, A farewell to arms, Jean-Paul Sartre, Roads to freedom trilogy, and Melvyn Bragg, The soldier's return quartet.
38Cynfelyn
Lucy Lethbridge's top 10 books about servants
Guardian, 2013-11-13.
"Domestic service is most often used as the mood music of historical depiction; maids and footmen deftly slipping in and out of the background in scenes in which other people have the starring roles. Dive into the archives and scour the libraries, as I did when researching my book Servants : a downstairs history of Britain, and there is a surprisingly rich clamour of voices from the other side of the baize door. Sometimes funny, quite often angry, occasionally nostalgic, they are the voices of an age.
"Picking 10 favourites was very difficult – and I've included a few (fictional and factual) that are not autobiographical but enter the subject of our domestic history at another angle."
1. Margaret Powell, Below stairs.
This was among the inspirations for Upstairs, Downstairs. Published in 1968, the high summer of the country house seemed already very far away. Powell became in old age a celebrity authority on life below stairs – although she had railed furiously against it in her years as a kitchen maid and cook. With her radical politics, her tart conversation and her size nine feet she must have been a formidable figure in the servants' hall. Her voice is intelligent, witty, observant, waspish and wise, and her memoir is a gripping portrait of the inter-war world of the upper-middle classes.
2. Frederick Gorst, Of carriages and kings.
A very different book, this autobiography, is in its way no less evocative than Margaret Powell's. Gorst went into service in his early teens, rising to become a first footman. His working life at the turn of the century was spent at the frillier end of the business, working in some of the grandest establishments in the country. Gorst loves the decadent pantomime of it all: the sumptuous livery, the calf pads that make a manservant's legs appear shapelier, the camaraderie of the servants' hall (he is less keen on the messy job of applying hair powder). The interest of his book lies chiefly in his portrait of Edwardian aristocrats whose idleness had left them devoid of any practical skills whatsoever. Gorst details their helpless, mad whimsicality with kindly, even superior, benevolence.
3. William Plomer & Anthony Butts, Curious relations : the private lives of a fabulous family of English eccentrics.
By the mid-20th century, the vast households of the Edwardian rich were exhausted, but their pomp and absurdity continued to inspire novelists. My favourite is this satirical comedy, where the extravagant eccentricity of the d'Arfey and Mountfaucon families is splendidly matched by the gothic excesses of their servants.
4. Adrian Forty, Objects of desire : design and society since 1750.
Throughout the 20th century, the "servant problem" has run, often uneasily, alongside the development of labour-saving technologies. Adrian Forty shows brilliantly how such innovations often adapt themselves to old traditions – the tradition of domestic service proving particularly resistant to change. The earliest portable vacuum cleaners, for example, were given comforting maid-like names such as "the Mary Anne". This book is full of startling insights - and some excellent pictures. You'll never look at your home and its contents in quite the same way again.
5. Violet Firth, The psychology of the servant problem.
This was the first and only time Firth wrote under her own name. She was better known in the 1920s by her pseudonym Dion Fortune – psychologist, theosophist, occultist, psychic, founder of the esoteric society "The Fraternity of the Inner Light" and author of now long-forgotten works such as The goat foot god and The cosmic doctrine. But in her first book, she turned to her own experience working as a gardener during the first world war and wrote a polemic that would be radical in any age – she calls not only for a complete re-examination of the relationship of employers and their servants but of the nature of domestic work itself. And the way that mere habits can come to masquerade as unbreachable social certainties.
6. Faizur Rasul, Bengal to Birmingham.
A ship's stowaway in the 1920s, Rasul became first a servant to the imam of Britain's first mosque – in Woking - then worked in several households, imbibing along the way a passion for left-wing politics and the English classics. The huge pleasure of this book is its unerring and always generous eye on the English themselves – treating us as anthropological specimens of a culture of arcane rituals. This book was published in 1967 and I wish I knew what had happened to Rasul – perhaps there's a reader out there who knows.
7. Kazuo Ishiguro, The remains of the day (1987).
For modern readers, Ishiguro's butler narrator Stevens has become the embodiment of the old-fashioned career manservant: loyal, deferential, unquestioning, his own emotional and imaginative spirit cauterised by his dogged determination to be the perfect servant. The poignancy of Stevens is terrible and Ishiguro captures brilliantly the lugubrious "butlerese" that marks the voice of the butler – and that air of melancholy pedantry which butlers themselves (if their written memoirs are anything to go by) learned to affect for the purposes of conveying the correct image.
8. C. V. Butler, Domestic service : an enquiry by the Women's Industrial Council (1916).
It's hardly the most tempting of titles but this is buzzing with a voice that rarely gets heard in the history of domestic service: the single maid in the middle-income household. Butler, a social worker in Oxford, sent out thousands of questionnaires to servants and employers and the result is a vivid picture of an unbridgeable divide which separated two worlds. Few documents bring to life with such stinging accuracy the isolation of girls despised not only by their employers but by their own class: "Once a servant you are treated as belonging to quite an inferior race to all other workers".
9. Randal Phillips, The servantless house (1923).
I had always vaguely disliked the dull black of the knocker on my Victorian front door but in this book, I discovered that it had been "japanned" – a process of blacking shiny brass so that it didn't need polishing. Written at a time when the middle-classes were preparing themselves for a time when they would no longer have staff, Phillips's book is full of practical tips for reducing dust (minimalism, basically) and hiding dirt by rag-rolling the walls - a fad that has come and gone a few times since.
10. Celia Fremlin, Seven chars of Chelsea.
Ripe for a reprint, Fremlin's account of domestic service grew out of her research for Mass Observation just before the second world war. She took various jobs as a housemaid and later a charwoman and left memorable (and very funny) descriptions of both the elaborate eight-servant performance that was required to produce a single cup of Horlicks in Chelsea ("like a crane to pick up a gobstopper") and the impenetrable and Pinteresque conversations of the charwomen.
------
Not an area I've thought about before. The only title that comes to mind is J. M. Barrie's The admirable Crighton, which I've not read, just a vague memory of the 1957 film starring Kenneth More and Sally Ann Howes (Truly Scrumptious!!!).
None of the BTL commentators seem to know what happened to Faizur Rasul (no. 6 above).
"Yep . . . my immediate first was Margaret Powell. She was fabulous value on TV too . . . that laugh! I'd have added Monica Dickens, One pair of hands. She wasn't your usual run of servant but her employers didn't know that. Fascinating insight into pre-WWII society."
"I am kind of surprised that there is no mention of Robin Maugham's short novel The servant. Later it was made into a film classic directed by Joseph Losey."
"I liked Memoirs of a gnostic dwarf. Peppe is chamberlain to Pope Leo X, and had to vet the catamites the Pope was in need of."
"You have forgotten the very best!! Robert Walser's Jakob Von Gunten. Also made into a great film by the Brothers Quay, Institute Benjamenta." "That is maybe the 2nd very best, the 1st being Henry Green's Loving."
Machiavelli', The prince. "The ultimate gentleman's guide by the ultimate gentleman's gentleman."
Other honourable mensches (mostly menshes, as it were): P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick papers, "Animal Farm, Dracula, Frankenstein, Robinson Crusoe, Schindler's list"; "What about Francoise in Proust? Loyal, cunning, fearsome, contradictory and cruel - she tortures a scullery maid by forcing her to daily peel the asparagus to which the poor thing is allergic"; D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's lover, Pierre de Beaumarchais, The barber of Seville/Marriage of Figaro, and finally, "Two Dons: Giovanni and Quixote", Flay and Swelter, Sam Gamgee.
Guardian, 2013-11-13.
"Domestic service is most often used as the mood music of historical depiction; maids and footmen deftly slipping in and out of the background in scenes in which other people have the starring roles. Dive into the archives and scour the libraries, as I did when researching my book Servants : a downstairs history of Britain, and there is a surprisingly rich clamour of voices from the other side of the baize door. Sometimes funny, quite often angry, occasionally nostalgic, they are the voices of an age.
"Picking 10 favourites was very difficult – and I've included a few (fictional and factual) that are not autobiographical but enter the subject of our domestic history at another angle."
1. Margaret Powell, Below stairs.
This was among the inspirations for Upstairs, Downstairs. Published in 1968, the high summer of the country house seemed already very far away. Powell became in old age a celebrity authority on life below stairs – although she had railed furiously against it in her years as a kitchen maid and cook. With her radical politics, her tart conversation and her size nine feet she must have been a formidable figure in the servants' hall. Her voice is intelligent, witty, observant, waspish and wise, and her memoir is a gripping portrait of the inter-war world of the upper-middle classes.
2. Frederick Gorst, Of carriages and kings.
A very different book, this autobiography, is in its way no less evocative than Margaret Powell's. Gorst went into service in his early teens, rising to become a first footman. His working life at the turn of the century was spent at the frillier end of the business, working in some of the grandest establishments in the country. Gorst loves the decadent pantomime of it all: the sumptuous livery, the calf pads that make a manservant's legs appear shapelier, the camaraderie of the servants' hall (he is less keen on the messy job of applying hair powder). The interest of his book lies chiefly in his portrait of Edwardian aristocrats whose idleness had left them devoid of any practical skills whatsoever. Gorst details their helpless, mad whimsicality with kindly, even superior, benevolence.
3. William Plomer & Anthony Butts, Curious relations : the private lives of a fabulous family of English eccentrics.
By the mid-20th century, the vast households of the Edwardian rich were exhausted, but their pomp and absurdity continued to inspire novelists. My favourite is this satirical comedy, where the extravagant eccentricity of the d'Arfey and Mountfaucon families is splendidly matched by the gothic excesses of their servants.
4. Adrian Forty, Objects of desire : design and society since 1750.
Throughout the 20th century, the "servant problem" has run, often uneasily, alongside the development of labour-saving technologies. Adrian Forty shows brilliantly how such innovations often adapt themselves to old traditions – the tradition of domestic service proving particularly resistant to change. The earliest portable vacuum cleaners, for example, were given comforting maid-like names such as "the Mary Anne". This book is full of startling insights - and some excellent pictures. You'll never look at your home and its contents in quite the same way again.
5. Violet Firth, The psychology of the servant problem.
This was the first and only time Firth wrote under her own name. She was better known in the 1920s by her pseudonym Dion Fortune – psychologist, theosophist, occultist, psychic, founder of the esoteric society "The Fraternity of the Inner Light" and author of now long-forgotten works such as The goat foot god and The cosmic doctrine. But in her first book, she turned to her own experience working as a gardener during the first world war and wrote a polemic that would be radical in any age – she calls not only for a complete re-examination of the relationship of employers and their servants but of the nature of domestic work itself. And the way that mere habits can come to masquerade as unbreachable social certainties.
6. Faizur Rasul, Bengal to Birmingham.
A ship's stowaway in the 1920s, Rasul became first a servant to the imam of Britain's first mosque – in Woking - then worked in several households, imbibing along the way a passion for left-wing politics and the English classics. The huge pleasure of this book is its unerring and always generous eye on the English themselves – treating us as anthropological specimens of a culture of arcane rituals. This book was published in 1967 and I wish I knew what had happened to Rasul – perhaps there's a reader out there who knows.
7. Kazuo Ishiguro, The remains of the day (1987).
For modern readers, Ishiguro's butler narrator Stevens has become the embodiment of the old-fashioned career manservant: loyal, deferential, unquestioning, his own emotional and imaginative spirit cauterised by his dogged determination to be the perfect servant. The poignancy of Stevens is terrible and Ishiguro captures brilliantly the lugubrious "butlerese" that marks the voice of the butler – and that air of melancholy pedantry which butlers themselves (if their written memoirs are anything to go by) learned to affect for the purposes of conveying the correct image.
8. C. V. Butler, Domestic service : an enquiry by the Women's Industrial Council (1916).
It's hardly the most tempting of titles but this is buzzing with a voice that rarely gets heard in the history of domestic service: the single maid in the middle-income household. Butler, a social worker in Oxford, sent out thousands of questionnaires to servants and employers and the result is a vivid picture of an unbridgeable divide which separated two worlds. Few documents bring to life with such stinging accuracy the isolation of girls despised not only by their employers but by their own class: "Once a servant you are treated as belonging to quite an inferior race to all other workers".
9. Randal Phillips, The servantless house (1923).
I had always vaguely disliked the dull black of the knocker on my Victorian front door but in this book, I discovered that it had been "japanned" – a process of blacking shiny brass so that it didn't need polishing. Written at a time when the middle-classes were preparing themselves for a time when they would no longer have staff, Phillips's book is full of practical tips for reducing dust (minimalism, basically) and hiding dirt by rag-rolling the walls - a fad that has come and gone a few times since.
10. Celia Fremlin, Seven chars of Chelsea.
Ripe for a reprint, Fremlin's account of domestic service grew out of her research for Mass Observation just before the second world war. She took various jobs as a housemaid and later a charwoman and left memorable (and very funny) descriptions of both the elaborate eight-servant performance that was required to produce a single cup of Horlicks in Chelsea ("like a crane to pick up a gobstopper") and the impenetrable and Pinteresque conversations of the charwomen.
------
Not an area I've thought about before. The only title that comes to mind is J. M. Barrie's The admirable Crighton, which I've not read, just a vague memory of the 1957 film starring Kenneth More and Sally Ann Howes (Truly Scrumptious!!!).
None of the BTL commentators seem to know what happened to Faizur Rasul (no. 6 above).
"Yep . . . my immediate first was Margaret Powell. She was fabulous value on TV too . . . that laugh! I'd have added Monica Dickens, One pair of hands. She wasn't your usual run of servant but her employers didn't know that. Fascinating insight into pre-WWII society."
"I am kind of surprised that there is no mention of Robin Maugham's short novel The servant. Later it was made into a film classic directed by Joseph Losey."
"I liked Memoirs of a gnostic dwarf. Peppe is chamberlain to Pope Leo X, and had to vet the catamites the Pope was in need of."
"You have forgotten the very best!! Robert Walser's Jakob Von Gunten. Also made into a great film by the Brothers Quay, Institute Benjamenta." "That is maybe the 2nd very best, the 1st being Henry Green's Loving."
Machiavelli', The prince. "The ultimate gentleman's guide by the ultimate gentleman's gentleman."
Other honourable mensches (mostly menshes, as it were): P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick papers, "Animal Farm, Dracula, Frankenstein, Robinson Crusoe, Schindler's list"; "What about Francoise in Proust? Loyal, cunning, fearsome, contradictory and cruel - she tortures a scullery maid by forcing her to daily peel the asparagus to which the poor thing is allergic"; D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's lover, Pierre de Beaumarchais, The barber of Seville/Marriage of Figaro, and finally, "Two Dons: Giovanni and Quixote", Flay and Swelter, Sam Gamgee.
39Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Sally Gardner's top 10 fairy tales.
Guardian, 2013-11-14.
Sally Gardner won the Carnegie medal and the Costa children's books award with her novel for teens, Maggot moon. Her latest book, Tinder, inspired by a classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale features a young soldier, a captive princess, witches, wolves and Death.
"I have been long been fascinated by the history and psychology of fairy tales. When I suggested to my publisher that I write a story based on one, I had a wealth of material to choose from …"
1. Beauty and the Beast.
This is a favourite fairy tale of mine. The classic text, which was first published in London in 1756, comes from Madame Leprince de Beaumount. It is a story that has fired the imagination of many writers including Angela Carter, who wrote Mr and Mrs Beast, and it inspired Jean Cocteau's film La Belle et la Bete. Perhaps it is the most intellectually satisfying of all the stories because it's to do with love in its truest form, about seeing through perceived ugliness to the goodness of the heart underneath. The heroine has to change in order to discover that love isn't all about superficial looks.
2. The tinderbox.
One of the first fairy tales Hans Christian Andersen wrote, it was published in Copenhagen on 8 May 1835 when Andersen was 29. Of all his stories, it was this one that obsessed me as a child because of the dogs. The idea of any hound being large enough to have eyes the size of plates, or cartwheels or millstones I found more truly terrifying than any dragon.
In this profound story a witch is standing by the side of the road near an oak tree when she sees a soldier. She asks him what he has to show for all his years fighting. The soldier replies that he has nothing. Yet even when the witch has given him the means to make himself rich beyond his wildest dreams in return for bringing her the tinderbox, he is incapable of showing gratitude. Instead he chops her head off before setting out to find a town where he might spend his money. In many tellings of this story the soldier's deeds have been sanitised to make them more acceptable to a younger audience.
When I started to write Tinder I felt that The tinderbox had all the ingredients I needed to question the nature of war today and the damage done to so many young men. For my research I was privileged to be able to talk to officers who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq and their accounts, combined with those of child soldiers, made me realise that this story had a lot to say to today's readers.
3. Bluebeard.
The mental image of a blue beard mesmerised me when I was small. I wondered what colour blue this man's beard could possibly be. If it was bright blue why didn't his prospective fathers-in-law dissuade their daughters from marrying him?
Bluebeard is seductive not because of his blue beard but because of his immense fortune. Each bride he takes is left alone with the keys to his castle shortly after their marriage. She is permitted to look in every room she fancies apart from one.
On one level it is a story about curiosity and seemingly has very little magic in it except for one supernatural key that bleeds the moment the forbidden door is opened. No amount of washing will wipe the blood away.
The original Bluebeard is thought to be based on Gilles de Rais (1404 -1440). He was extraordinarily rich and fought alongside Joan of Arc at Orleans. His lifestyle was ruinously extravagant and finally he resorted to black magic in the hope of restoring his fortune. In 1440 he was accused of heresy, and 140 murders. Whether Bluebeard was Gilles de Rais or another Breton, Comorre the Cursed, matters little. They sparked a story that goes to the heart of us.
4. The valiant tailor.
One of Grimm's lesser-known tales about a jolly little tailor who buys some jam to spread on his bread. He leaves the bread and jam on the windowsill while he finishes making a belt. Several flies settle on the bread and jam and he kills seven of them with one blow. He's so chuffed that he stitches the words Seven in One Blow onto the belt. What he leaves out is the word "flies". He sets out on a journey which leads him to conquer giants and get rid of other beasties until finally he wins the hand of the king's daughter. But the king's daughter isn't happy to marry a simple tailor. She plots to kill him but ultimately fails.
What I found wonderful about this tale, and still do, is that the tailor starts out having achieved a ridiculously small feat and ends up a hero. There is something incredibly human about the tailor - he's an everyman, not a prince.
5. Cinderella.
The story of Cinderella is about a thousand years old and originated in China. It was at first an orally told story and its many incarnations took years to reach the shores of England. The shoe and the size of the shoe are to do with the binding of Chinese women's feet and it was a story never intended for girls younger than twelve. In one of its many versions Cinderella's mother, the Queen, tells the King on her deathbed that he may marry again if he can find a woman as beautiful as she, and as long her finger fits her ring. The King searches his land and finding no one of that description except his daughter, decides to marry her. Cinderella runs away to the house of the merchant where begins the story as we know it today. The story has great elasticity and has been used and will be used again and again. Perhaps one of its greatest retellings is Jane Austen's Pride and prejudice.
6. Sleeping Beauty.
Many fairy tales were meant to be told to young girls after they'd had their first period. In the original telling of sleeping beauty the poor princess pricked her finger and fell asleep. After one hundred years it was up to the prince to wake her but his kisses do nothing to rouse her. He falls in love with her body and, being less than courteous, rapes her. It is only at the birth of her twins when one of the babies suckles at her breast that she wakes up. The Prince then tells her what has happened. As if all this wasn't bad enough it turns out that the Prince's mother is an ogress who is longing to eat her grandchildren. The version that was written down by Perrault in 1697 first appeared in England in 1729 in Stories or fairy tales from past times. It has a long history as a pantomime and was first produced at Covent Garden in 1840. The producers wisely decided that Sleeping Beauty would be woken with a polite kiss.
7. Rumpelstiltskin.
I was not able to read or write until I was 14 and for many years the word itself looked to me like a jumble sale of letters. I always thought that if the heroine had to spell Rumpelstiltskin, not just say his name, then his spell would never have been broken. It is a story that is pertinent to human nature in that it hinges on a boast. A miller brags to the king that his daughter can spin gold from straw. The daughter gains the supernatural help of a dwarf to make the boast come true but in return she makes a terrible deal with the dwarf: she will give him her first-born child. The spell can only be broken if she can find out his name. He is heard singing,
Little does my lady dream
Rumpelstilskin is my name.
and the child is saved.
It is a tale that can be found throughout Europe. In Suffolk the dwarf's song went like this:
Nimmy nimmy not
My name's tom tit tot.
8. Puss in Boots.
Perrault's Le Chat Botte was published in 1697 and was to be found in Italy around the same time. It is about a miller's son who is left a cat in his father's will. The miller's son is not too delighted with his inheritance until the cat assures him that he can make the young man's fortune. All the cat needs is a pair of boots. It is a story of a con man in the disguise of a cat doing the seemingly impossible for a master who does little to deserve such help. The cat makes him richer than he could possibly have imagined and he marries the most beautiful princess. Angela Carter's retelling is a favourite of mine. It is told from the point of view of the cat who is incredibly sexy and uses all his charms to win the hearts of everyone he meets.
9. Snow White.
In 1938, at the age of 14, my mother became obsessed with the Walt Disney film 'Snow White and the seven dwarfs'. It was the first full-length cartoon Walt Disney Studios produced. Walt stayed close to the Grimms' version and the film held nearly everyone who saw it under its spell. In A book of princesses, which I wrote in 1997, I asked myself a series of questions relating to each of the fairy tales I wanted to retell. In Snow White I considered how the step-mother, the evil queen, found her way to the dwarfs' cottage not once but three times. I would have thought once into the woods would have been more than enough.
It is a story about jealousy. Jealousy of youth, beauty and a pure soul. Like Sleeping Beauty, Snow White is thought dead and lies in a glass casket, though every year she grows more beautiful until at seventeen she is woken by her prince. The step-mother is long dead.
10. Hansel and Gretel.
Hansel and Gretel plays to our worst fears: being abandoned by those that should love and care for us most. It has dark and light at its heart. Two children are taken into the woods by their parents and left there to be slaughtered by wild animals. They leave a trail and find their way home only to be returned once more to the forest. As a child I found it one of the most worrying of all the fairy stories. One day I came home from school and found the front door open. My brother and I had seemingly been left all alone. Certain that no one was coming to look after us, I stood on a chair and, like Gretel, brought down all the jam from the cupboard and made us jam sandwiches. We ate them, then we ate all the cherries in a bowl. By the time someone arrived we had the most appalling tummy aches. For a long time I never wanted to hear the story again.
Guardian, 2013-11-14.
Sally Gardner won the Carnegie medal and the Costa children's books award with her novel for teens, Maggot moon. Her latest book, Tinder, inspired by a classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale features a young soldier, a captive princess, witches, wolves and Death.
"I have been long been fascinated by the history and psychology of fairy tales. When I suggested to my publisher that I write a story based on one, I had a wealth of material to choose from …"
1. Beauty and the Beast.
This is a favourite fairy tale of mine. The classic text, which was first published in London in 1756, comes from Madame Leprince de Beaumount. It is a story that has fired the imagination of many writers including Angela Carter, who wrote Mr and Mrs Beast, and it inspired Jean Cocteau's film La Belle et la Bete. Perhaps it is the most intellectually satisfying of all the stories because it's to do with love in its truest form, about seeing through perceived ugliness to the goodness of the heart underneath. The heroine has to change in order to discover that love isn't all about superficial looks.
2. The tinderbox.
One of the first fairy tales Hans Christian Andersen wrote, it was published in Copenhagen on 8 May 1835 when Andersen was 29. Of all his stories, it was this one that obsessed me as a child because of the dogs. The idea of any hound being large enough to have eyes the size of plates, or cartwheels or millstones I found more truly terrifying than any dragon.
In this profound story a witch is standing by the side of the road near an oak tree when she sees a soldier. She asks him what he has to show for all his years fighting. The soldier replies that he has nothing. Yet even when the witch has given him the means to make himself rich beyond his wildest dreams in return for bringing her the tinderbox, he is incapable of showing gratitude. Instead he chops her head off before setting out to find a town where he might spend his money. In many tellings of this story the soldier's deeds have been sanitised to make them more acceptable to a younger audience.
When I started to write Tinder I felt that The tinderbox had all the ingredients I needed to question the nature of war today and the damage done to so many young men. For my research I was privileged to be able to talk to officers who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq and their accounts, combined with those of child soldiers, made me realise that this story had a lot to say to today's readers.
3. Bluebeard.
The mental image of a blue beard mesmerised me when I was small. I wondered what colour blue this man's beard could possibly be. If it was bright blue why didn't his prospective fathers-in-law dissuade their daughters from marrying him?
Bluebeard is seductive not because of his blue beard but because of his immense fortune. Each bride he takes is left alone with the keys to his castle shortly after their marriage. She is permitted to look in every room she fancies apart from one.
On one level it is a story about curiosity and seemingly has very little magic in it except for one supernatural key that bleeds the moment the forbidden door is opened. No amount of washing will wipe the blood away.
The original Bluebeard is thought to be based on Gilles de Rais (1404 -1440). He was extraordinarily rich and fought alongside Joan of Arc at Orleans. His lifestyle was ruinously extravagant and finally he resorted to black magic in the hope of restoring his fortune. In 1440 he was accused of heresy, and 140 murders. Whether Bluebeard was Gilles de Rais or another Breton, Comorre the Cursed, matters little. They sparked a story that goes to the heart of us.
4. The valiant tailor.
One of Grimm's lesser-known tales about a jolly little tailor who buys some jam to spread on his bread. He leaves the bread and jam on the windowsill while he finishes making a belt. Several flies settle on the bread and jam and he kills seven of them with one blow. He's so chuffed that he stitches the words Seven in One Blow onto the belt. What he leaves out is the word "flies". He sets out on a journey which leads him to conquer giants and get rid of other beasties until finally he wins the hand of the king's daughter. But the king's daughter isn't happy to marry a simple tailor. She plots to kill him but ultimately fails.
What I found wonderful about this tale, and still do, is that the tailor starts out having achieved a ridiculously small feat and ends up a hero. There is something incredibly human about the tailor - he's an everyman, not a prince.
5. Cinderella.
The story of Cinderella is about a thousand years old and originated in China. It was at first an orally told story and its many incarnations took years to reach the shores of England. The shoe and the size of the shoe are to do with the binding of Chinese women's feet and it was a story never intended for girls younger than twelve. In one of its many versions Cinderella's mother, the Queen, tells the King on her deathbed that he may marry again if he can find a woman as beautiful as she, and as long her finger fits her ring. The King searches his land and finding no one of that description except his daughter, decides to marry her. Cinderella runs away to the house of the merchant where begins the story as we know it today. The story has great elasticity and has been used and will be used again and again. Perhaps one of its greatest retellings is Jane Austen's Pride and prejudice.
6. Sleeping Beauty.
Many fairy tales were meant to be told to young girls after they'd had their first period. In the original telling of sleeping beauty the poor princess pricked her finger and fell asleep. After one hundred years it was up to the prince to wake her but his kisses do nothing to rouse her. He falls in love with her body and, being less than courteous, rapes her. It is only at the birth of her twins when one of the babies suckles at her breast that she wakes up. The Prince then tells her what has happened. As if all this wasn't bad enough it turns out that the Prince's mother is an ogress who is longing to eat her grandchildren. The version that was written down by Perrault in 1697 first appeared in England in 1729 in Stories or fairy tales from past times. It has a long history as a pantomime and was first produced at Covent Garden in 1840. The producers wisely decided that Sleeping Beauty would be woken with a polite kiss.
7. Rumpelstiltskin.
I was not able to read or write until I was 14 and for many years the word itself looked to me like a jumble sale of letters. I always thought that if the heroine had to spell Rumpelstiltskin, not just say his name, then his spell would never have been broken. It is a story that is pertinent to human nature in that it hinges on a boast. A miller brags to the king that his daughter can spin gold from straw. The daughter gains the supernatural help of a dwarf to make the boast come true but in return she makes a terrible deal with the dwarf: she will give him her first-born child. The spell can only be broken if she can find out his name. He is heard singing,
Little does my lady dream
Rumpelstilskin is my name.
and the child is saved.
It is a tale that can be found throughout Europe. In Suffolk the dwarf's song went like this:
Nimmy nimmy not
My name's tom tit tot.
8. Puss in Boots.
Perrault's Le Chat Botte was published in 1697 and was to be found in Italy around the same time. It is about a miller's son who is left a cat in his father's will. The miller's son is not too delighted with his inheritance until the cat assures him that he can make the young man's fortune. All the cat needs is a pair of boots. It is a story of a con man in the disguise of a cat doing the seemingly impossible for a master who does little to deserve such help. The cat makes him richer than he could possibly have imagined and he marries the most beautiful princess. Angela Carter's retelling is a favourite of mine. It is told from the point of view of the cat who is incredibly sexy and uses all his charms to win the hearts of everyone he meets.
9. Snow White.
In 1938, at the age of 14, my mother became obsessed with the Walt Disney film 'Snow White and the seven dwarfs'. It was the first full-length cartoon Walt Disney Studios produced. Walt stayed close to the Grimms' version and the film held nearly everyone who saw it under its spell. In A book of princesses, which I wrote in 1997, I asked myself a series of questions relating to each of the fairy tales I wanted to retell. In Snow White I considered how the step-mother, the evil queen, found her way to the dwarfs' cottage not once but three times. I would have thought once into the woods would have been more than enough.
It is a story about jealousy. Jealousy of youth, beauty and a pure soul. Like Sleeping Beauty, Snow White is thought dead and lies in a glass casket, though every year she grows more beautiful until at seventeen she is woken by her prince. The step-mother is long dead.
10. Hansel and Gretel.
Hansel and Gretel plays to our worst fears: being abandoned by those that should love and care for us most. It has dark and light at its heart. Two children are taken into the woods by their parents and left there to be slaughtered by wild animals. They leave a trail and find their way home only to be returned once more to the forest. As a child I found it one of the most worrying of all the fairy stories. One day I came home from school and found the front door open. My brother and I had seemingly been left all alone. Certain that no one was coming to look after us, I stood on a chair and, like Gretel, brought down all the jam from the cupboard and made us jam sandwiches. We ate them, then we ate all the cherries in a bowl. By the time someone arrived we had the most appalling tummy aches. For a long time I never wanted to hear the story again.
40Cynfelyn
Anakana Schofield's top 10 unsinkable characters in literature.
, Guardian, 2013-11-20.
"When I wrote my novel Malarky I was determined to create a portrait of a woman who wouldn't be sunk by what life served her and would interrogate it instead. Our woman carries on amid a dignified despair. Since it took me 10-12 years in total to write the book, there was a great deal of feeling sunk as its author, probably as much as there was rainfall. Here are some of the many works that kept this non-swimmer buoyed."
1. Tim Parks, Teach us to sit still.
There are many prostates but only one with a memoir (I think). In Teach us to sit still you'll be hopping leg to leg in sympathy for Tim Parks, who records his tricky prostate trouble, which ultimately repairs itself by sitting still rather than unnecessary surgery. It turns out there was nowt wrong with his prostate to begin with. Parks's tenacity is impressive as is his inquiry and documentation of a not-so-oft rendered problematic body part.
2. Helen Potrebenko, Taxi!
Shannon, a working-class, feminist cab driver navigates the city of Vancouver in 1975, where she is subjected to chronic heckling, on-street violence, puking passengers and a slurry of drunks. In between she holds forth admirably as she burns the broccoli and most importantly admires the baby upstairs.
3. Annabel Lyon, The sweet girl.
If Aristotle is your dad, as is the case of Pythias in The sweet girl, he's not an easy fella to say no to. Pythias however, proves uncrushable and will not be denied answers, nor will she hide in her father's shadow. She has questions and she is going to have them answered. When Aristotle dies suddenly, she must decide whether to live the ancient life of sex and veils and magic, or to step forward as history's first modern woman.
4. Tamara Faith Berger, Maidenhead.
Myra is an unsinkable teenager. A great deal has been made of the porn content in Berger's literary work, but less has been noted of the way her young protagonist navigates the dangerous place she wants to occupy, choosing submission as the means to experience it. Myra manages to remain afloat because she has the propensity of youth: the perfect combination of insecurity with bravado.
5. Gerry Gilbert, Moby Jane.
From Vancouver, Gilbert was known as the bicycle poet. He wrote and published prodigious amounts of poetry at his kitchen table and with small Canadian publishers.
Every time I see (and usually purchase) one of his numerous collections, I have the sense in my hands that here is the very essence of not being sunk. The gesture of doing your life's work for the sake of creating that body of work rather than status or market forces. Moby Jane contains 10 years' worth of his poetry.
6. Thalia Field, Bird lovers, backyard.
A narrative where there's nothing but a collection of resolutely unsinkable characters. A forensic examination of the role of narrative, of form, how narrative forms or might be reformed through a long line of unsinkables. It commences with a group of pigeons who will not be sunk, (and let's face it pigeons face heavy opposition), the narrative is full of animals who won't let humans sink them; sink them in stories about their behaviour, sink them in idiot science, or sink them in idiot philosophy and self-justification. Even the nun and the homeless in Bird lovers, backyard won't be sunk because there's always some screaming new thing to take care of, and sinking, finally, no matter how attractive, isn't really an option. Want to see Bikini Atoll sunk? Good luck with that: it's radioactive and there are refugees waiting to return to it.
Field's work is the ultimate brain buoyancy aid. Very few books do this. Usually it requires drugs.
7. Anne Truitt, Turn : the journal of an artist.
In Truitt's memoir, we are given her recordings on aging and its implications for her visual art practice. She documents in lucid and honest prose the changes in her work, including the need to accept what she cannot achieve – out of which she ultimately "found in limitation a new freedom".
When Truitt legally challenges the gender inequity in her salary as a professor at the University of Maryland she claims to be neither a reformer nor a revolutionary. Truitt is a quiet soldier, sorting her headspace out on the page. Her book is a testament to how recording the process infers the arrival.
8. Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Mother America.
In one of the stories in this collection, "Letters", a woman terrified of frogs has to deal with a big fat one in her potato pit and her soft-headed son's attempt, with a sugar bag and spoon, to get rid of it. In much the same fashion, her son later dumps her in New York where she takes great glee in putting her legs up and firing his letters over her shoulder, out the window. She may be stuck but she certainly isn't sunk.
Ní Chonchúir's people power along, rattling their psychological cans around them.
9. John McGahern, Memoir.
McGahern's father was a cruel man. When his mother died, the young McGahern was not allowed to attend her funeral and followed it on the arms of a clock he held in his hand. His memoir documents how, rather than bail out of his homeland, he decided to return and psychologically break into County Leitrim. I found that gesture remarkable and thanks to it, we have his life's work on our bookshelves. This is a compelling account of how to respond to ridiculous things with an air of dignity about you.
10. Samuel Beckett, Worstward ho.
Virtually an instruction manual for carrying on despite everything. It opens with the narrator telling us: "On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Til nohow on. Said nohow on." Later the narrator exhales: "No choice but stand. Somehow up and stand. Somehow Stand. That or groan. The groan so long on its way. No. No groan. Simply pain. Simply up."
All young folk should be encouraged to learn Worstward ho by heart, the way we were once encouraged to be fluent in holy texts. Boil the kettle, read and repeat as opposed to bang head repeatedly off the wall.
------
The few BLT comments are only good for two recommendations:
Captain Grimes in Evelyn Waugh, Decline and fall: "Grimes, Paul at last realized, was of the immortals. He was a life force. Sentenced to death in Flanders, he popped up in Wales; drowned in Wales, he emerged in South America; engulfed in the dark mystery of Egdon Mire, he would rise again somewhere at some time, shaking from his limbs the musty integuments of the tomb. ..."
"What, no mention of Dirk Gently? Tsk, tsk."
, Guardian, 2013-11-20.
"When I wrote my novel Malarky I was determined to create a portrait of a woman who wouldn't be sunk by what life served her and would interrogate it instead. Our woman carries on amid a dignified despair. Since it took me 10-12 years in total to write the book, there was a great deal of feeling sunk as its author, probably as much as there was rainfall. Here are some of the many works that kept this non-swimmer buoyed."
1. Tim Parks, Teach us to sit still.
There are many prostates but only one with a memoir (I think). In Teach us to sit still you'll be hopping leg to leg in sympathy for Tim Parks, who records his tricky prostate trouble, which ultimately repairs itself by sitting still rather than unnecessary surgery. It turns out there was nowt wrong with his prostate to begin with. Parks's tenacity is impressive as is his inquiry and documentation of a not-so-oft rendered problematic body part.
2. Helen Potrebenko, Taxi!
Shannon, a working-class, feminist cab driver navigates the city of Vancouver in 1975, where she is subjected to chronic heckling, on-street violence, puking passengers and a slurry of drunks. In between she holds forth admirably as she burns the broccoli and most importantly admires the baby upstairs.
3. Annabel Lyon, The sweet girl.
If Aristotle is your dad, as is the case of Pythias in The sweet girl, he's not an easy fella to say no to. Pythias however, proves uncrushable and will not be denied answers, nor will she hide in her father's shadow. She has questions and she is going to have them answered. When Aristotle dies suddenly, she must decide whether to live the ancient life of sex and veils and magic, or to step forward as history's first modern woman.
4. Tamara Faith Berger, Maidenhead.
Myra is an unsinkable teenager. A great deal has been made of the porn content in Berger's literary work, but less has been noted of the way her young protagonist navigates the dangerous place she wants to occupy, choosing submission as the means to experience it. Myra manages to remain afloat because she has the propensity of youth: the perfect combination of insecurity with bravado.
5. Gerry Gilbert, Moby Jane.
From Vancouver, Gilbert was known as the bicycle poet. He wrote and published prodigious amounts of poetry at his kitchen table and with small Canadian publishers.
Every time I see (and usually purchase) one of his numerous collections, I have the sense in my hands that here is the very essence of not being sunk. The gesture of doing your life's work for the sake of creating that body of work rather than status or market forces. Moby Jane contains 10 years' worth of his poetry.
6. Thalia Field, Bird lovers, backyard.
A narrative where there's nothing but a collection of resolutely unsinkable characters. A forensic examination of the role of narrative, of form, how narrative forms or might be reformed through a long line of unsinkables. It commences with a group of pigeons who will not be sunk, (and let's face it pigeons face heavy opposition), the narrative is full of animals who won't let humans sink them; sink them in stories about their behaviour, sink them in idiot science, or sink them in idiot philosophy and self-justification. Even the nun and the homeless in Bird lovers, backyard won't be sunk because there's always some screaming new thing to take care of, and sinking, finally, no matter how attractive, isn't really an option. Want to see Bikini Atoll sunk? Good luck with that: it's radioactive and there are refugees waiting to return to it.
Field's work is the ultimate brain buoyancy aid. Very few books do this. Usually it requires drugs.
7. Anne Truitt, Turn : the journal of an artist.
In Truitt's memoir, we are given her recordings on aging and its implications for her visual art practice. She documents in lucid and honest prose the changes in her work, including the need to accept what she cannot achieve – out of which she ultimately "found in limitation a new freedom".
When Truitt legally challenges the gender inequity in her salary as a professor at the University of Maryland she claims to be neither a reformer nor a revolutionary. Truitt is a quiet soldier, sorting her headspace out on the page. Her book is a testament to how recording the process infers the arrival.
8. Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Mother America.
In one of the stories in this collection, "Letters", a woman terrified of frogs has to deal with a big fat one in her potato pit and her soft-headed son's attempt, with a sugar bag and spoon, to get rid of it. In much the same fashion, her son later dumps her in New York where she takes great glee in putting her legs up and firing his letters over her shoulder, out the window. She may be stuck but she certainly isn't sunk.
Ní Chonchúir's people power along, rattling their psychological cans around them.
9. John McGahern, Memoir.
McGahern's father was a cruel man. When his mother died, the young McGahern was not allowed to attend her funeral and followed it on the arms of a clock he held in his hand. His memoir documents how, rather than bail out of his homeland, he decided to return and psychologically break into County Leitrim. I found that gesture remarkable and thanks to it, we have his life's work on our bookshelves. This is a compelling account of how to respond to ridiculous things with an air of dignity about you.
10. Samuel Beckett, Worstward ho.
Virtually an instruction manual for carrying on despite everything. It opens with the narrator telling us: "On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Til nohow on. Said nohow on." Later the narrator exhales: "No choice but stand. Somehow up and stand. Somehow Stand. That or groan. The groan so long on its way. No. No groan. Simply pain. Simply up."
All young folk should be encouraged to learn Worstward ho by heart, the way we were once encouraged to be fluent in holy texts. Boil the kettle, read and repeat as opposed to bang head repeatedly off the wall.
------
The few BLT comments are only good for two recommendations:
Captain Grimes in Evelyn Waugh, Decline and fall: "Grimes, Paul at last realized, was of the immortals. He was a life force. Sentenced to death in Flanders, he popped up in Wales; drowned in Wales, he emerged in South America; engulfed in the dark mystery of Egdon Mire, he would rise again somewhere at some time, shaking from his limbs the musty integuments of the tomb. ..."
"What, no mention of Dirk Gently? Tsk, tsk."
41Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Jessica Ahlberg's top 10 family-themed picture books.
Guardian, 2013-11-21.
Jessica Ahlberg, daughter of the acclaimed author/illustrator team, Janet and Allan Ahlberg, studied fine art at Winchester College and has gone on to illustrate several books for children, including Goldilocks and Half a pig. She likes, among other things, writing letters, looking at maps, reading books, doing DIY and making cakes. Her latest book is A great and complicated adventure, written by Toon Tellegen and illustrated by Jessica Ahlberg (Boxer Books). She picks her favourite picture books about families in all shapes, sizes and guises.
"I have chosen 10 books that I loved when I was a child, and love still. Most of them are funny, some are thoughtful or sad and some are scary. These are qualities that I really enjoy in children's books. Also, these books have some great, wonderful and amazing pictures. I highly recommend them all."
1. Maurice Sendak, Where the wild things are.
A wild book. Max is mean to his dog and his mother and is sent to bed without anything to eat. He escapes from home and family to the wild things, but after his adventure he thinks of home, his mother and his supper. When he returns, he finds his mother was thinking of him too, as she has left him some supper. The words are wonderful and the pictures incredible.
2. Shirley Hughes, Dogger.
Dogger is a story about Dave's lost toy - a heart-wrenching idea if you love your toy as much as I loved my teddy and Dave loves Dogger. But it's not just about the lost toy - it's also about Dave's brilliant big sister Bella, and the wonderful thing she does for Dave. Bella is my hero.
3. Gabrielle Vincent, Ernest and Celestine
Ernest and Celestine is touching and beautiful. Celestine loses her favourite toy too, a bird in a bonnet named Simeon, and her guardian, Ernest, doesn't know how to make her feel better. Simeon is an unusual toy, and none of the toys in the toyshop can replace him. Ernest tries desperately to find the right thing to do and when he thinks of how to help Celestine the ending is very satisfying.
4. Beatrix Potter, The tale of Peter Rabbit.
A very good story with a very naughty hero. Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail are good bunnies who do as their mother asks, pick blackberries and look after their nice clothes. Peter, on the other hand, can't resist the free food available in Mr McGregor's garden. The pictures are perfect.
5. Mary Rayner, Mr and Mrs Pig's evening out.
A funny and scary tale. Mr and Mrs Pig's 10 piglets play together and bath together before getting into their bunk beds. Then their babysitter - a Mrs Wolf - arrives. Garth Pig ends up in a pickle but his loving sisters and brothers don't let him down. Like Bella in Dogger, they come to the rescue.
6. Tove Jansson, The Moomin books.
Moominvalley is a strange place, but Moomintroll's family, Moominmamma, Moominpappa, and their friends, are loving and constant. (Although Moominpappa has his moments of being very weird - see Moominpappa at sea.) These stories are full of strangeness, perplexing characters, sad moments and dark corners. They are very funny too, and beautiful.
7. Rosemary Wells, Morris's disappearing bag.
A funny story about the youngest child (or rabbit). Morris's sisters and brothers get interesting Christmas presents - a hockey outfit, a beauty kit, and a chemistry set. They share with each other - "Victor made himself beautiful, and Betty played goalie, and Rose invented a new gas" - but Morris is too little, and no one wants to play with his new bear. Then he finds another present - something even more interesting - under the Christmas tree ...
8. Kathleen Hale, Orlando the marmalade cat books.
Orlando is an orange cat who does interesting things - visits the circus, sells his inventions in Mr Cattermole's shop (a secret night-time shop only for cats) - but he loves his life at home, at his master's house, with his wife and kittens. Incredibly beautiful pictures of Orlando and his family go with these stories. The books are rather hard to find but worth it.
9. Arnold Lobel, Mouse tales.
"Papa, we are all in bed now," said the mouse boys. "Please tell us a tale." And he does - seven tales, all about mice. One mouse wears out his feet and needs new ones, one mouse baths and baths until he floods the town, one mouse walks around in his underpants after his trousers fall down. They are funny and silly stories that please the little mouse boys and anyone. (Ok, I'm cheating a bit with this one - only the beginning and the end are really about family, but it's such a good book!)
10. Janet & Allan Ahlberg, Peepo.
When I was very small, I didn't realise that some of the books on my shelf had been written and drawn by my parents. I didn't think about what jobs my mum and dad did. One of their books I could even recite off by heart, not knowing that I lived with the author and illustrator. Peepo is based on my dad's childhood, and includes a portrait (by my mum) of our family, with me as a baby. The family-est book of all for me.
Guardian, 2013-11-21.
Jessica Ahlberg, daughter of the acclaimed author/illustrator team, Janet and Allan Ahlberg, studied fine art at Winchester College and has gone on to illustrate several books for children, including Goldilocks and Half a pig. She likes, among other things, writing letters, looking at maps, reading books, doing DIY and making cakes. Her latest book is A great and complicated adventure, written by Toon Tellegen and illustrated by Jessica Ahlberg (Boxer Books). She picks her favourite picture books about families in all shapes, sizes and guises.
"I have chosen 10 books that I loved when I was a child, and love still. Most of them are funny, some are thoughtful or sad and some are scary. These are qualities that I really enjoy in children's books. Also, these books have some great, wonderful and amazing pictures. I highly recommend them all."
1. Maurice Sendak, Where the wild things are.
A wild book. Max is mean to his dog and his mother and is sent to bed without anything to eat. He escapes from home and family to the wild things, but after his adventure he thinks of home, his mother and his supper. When he returns, he finds his mother was thinking of him too, as she has left him some supper. The words are wonderful and the pictures incredible.
2. Shirley Hughes, Dogger.
Dogger is a story about Dave's lost toy - a heart-wrenching idea if you love your toy as much as I loved my teddy and Dave loves Dogger. But it's not just about the lost toy - it's also about Dave's brilliant big sister Bella, and the wonderful thing she does for Dave. Bella is my hero.
3. Gabrielle Vincent, Ernest and Celestine
Ernest and Celestine is touching and beautiful. Celestine loses her favourite toy too, a bird in a bonnet named Simeon, and her guardian, Ernest, doesn't know how to make her feel better. Simeon is an unusual toy, and none of the toys in the toyshop can replace him. Ernest tries desperately to find the right thing to do and when he thinks of how to help Celestine the ending is very satisfying.
4. Beatrix Potter, The tale of Peter Rabbit.
A very good story with a very naughty hero. Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail are good bunnies who do as their mother asks, pick blackberries and look after their nice clothes. Peter, on the other hand, can't resist the free food available in Mr McGregor's garden. The pictures are perfect.
5. Mary Rayner, Mr and Mrs Pig's evening out.
A funny and scary tale. Mr and Mrs Pig's 10 piglets play together and bath together before getting into their bunk beds. Then their babysitter - a Mrs Wolf - arrives. Garth Pig ends up in a pickle but his loving sisters and brothers don't let him down. Like Bella in Dogger, they come to the rescue.
6. Tove Jansson, The Moomin books.
Moominvalley is a strange place, but Moomintroll's family, Moominmamma, Moominpappa, and their friends, are loving and constant. (Although Moominpappa has his moments of being very weird - see Moominpappa at sea.) These stories are full of strangeness, perplexing characters, sad moments and dark corners. They are very funny too, and beautiful.
7. Rosemary Wells, Morris's disappearing bag.
A funny story about the youngest child (or rabbit). Morris's sisters and brothers get interesting Christmas presents - a hockey outfit, a beauty kit, and a chemistry set. They share with each other - "Victor made himself beautiful, and Betty played goalie, and Rose invented a new gas" - but Morris is too little, and no one wants to play with his new bear. Then he finds another present - something even more interesting - under the Christmas tree ...
8. Kathleen Hale, Orlando the marmalade cat books.
Orlando is an orange cat who does interesting things - visits the circus, sells his inventions in Mr Cattermole's shop (a secret night-time shop only for cats) - but he loves his life at home, at his master's house, with his wife and kittens. Incredibly beautiful pictures of Orlando and his family go with these stories. The books are rather hard to find but worth it.
9. Arnold Lobel, Mouse tales.
"Papa, we are all in bed now," said the mouse boys. "Please tell us a tale." And he does - seven tales, all about mice. One mouse wears out his feet and needs new ones, one mouse baths and baths until he floods the town, one mouse walks around in his underpants after his trousers fall down. They are funny and silly stories that please the little mouse boys and anyone. (Ok, I'm cheating a bit with this one - only the beginning and the end are really about family, but it's such a good book!)
10. Janet & Allan Ahlberg, Peepo.
When I was very small, I didn't realise that some of the books on my shelf had been written and drawn by my parents. I didn't think about what jobs my mum and dad did. One of their books I could even recite off by heart, not knowing that I lived with the author and illustrator. Peepo is based on my dad's childhood, and includes a portrait (by my mum) of our family, with me as a baby. The family-est book of all for me.
42Cynfelyn
John Gaustad's top 10 sports books.
Guardian, 2013-1127.
On the day the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award is announced, its co-founder chooses his all-time favourites.
"Sometimes it seems that I have measured out my life in sports books. Since I set up Sportspages, the UK's first bookshop devoted solely to sports books, in 1985, and dreamt up the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award with Graham Sharpe in 1989 – we're celebrating the 25th award this year – I guess I've been more immersed in reading and thinking about sports writing than most. I've probably read more than 50 sports books every year for the last 30 years; and I'm comforted by just how much better sports books have become since we set up the award. There's no doubt that publishers have become much more adventurous and imaginative, and the general quality has improved dramatically.
"Unsurprisingly, most of my choices have been previous winners of the William Hill award."
1. Nick Hornby, Fever pitch : a fan's life.
A blindingly obvious choice perhaps, but it was a hugely significant, ground-breaking book, and it's also sublimely written, telling more about what sport means to fans than almost any other. We now see it as an established classic, but at the time it was a brave piece of publishing. I remember the publishers consulting me about it – they were not at all convinced there was really a market for an "intelligent" football book. I assured them there was, and once I'd read the manuscript, and been utterly bowled over, urged them to get it out as soon as they could.
2. Paul Kimmage, A rough ride : an insight into pro cycling.
This was a revelation. For the first time a young ex-cyclist spilt the beans about what went on behind the scenes in the world of professional cycling, detailing the dilemma he faced – to dope or not to dope. There have of course been many books since about performance-enhancing drug use in cycling, but this one still stands out for its urgency and raw honesty.
3. Don McRae, Dark trade : lost in boxing.
For five years McRae lost himself in the bleak and shadowy world of boxing, spending time with a host of fighters, trainers and managers. His book is a vivid and illuminating account of this personal journey, ultimately a quest to understand why men might choose this brutal path. What I most admired about it was not only his steadfast determination to get to the bottom of it, and record what he discovered, but also the qualities he himself brought to the task: his wit, compassion, lucidity and eloquence.
4. Michael Lewis, Moneyball : the art of winning an unfair game.
I couldn't convince my colleagues on the panel of the merits of this one. "It's about baseball!" they exclaimed. Indeed it is, and you do need to know the game pretty well to really appreciate it. But I do know (and love) baseball, and I found it absolutely fascinating. It tells the story of how the Oakland Athletics, the paupers of the major leagues, adopted a new strategy on player recruitment based on a new way of analysing baseball statistics, which led them to pick up players none of the other franchises, using traditional evaluation methods, rated or wanted. The glory is that it worked; the Oakland As became a powerhouse, at least until all the other teams began to copy what they'd done. I loved the audacity of it all, and the wonderful intricacy of this account of it.
5. Duncan Hamilton, Provided you don't kiss me : 20 years with Brian Clough.
This is not just a strikingly intimate and vivid portrait of an unforgettable character but also, between the lines, the story of a young man learning to be a sports journalist. From his first day on the job as a green 16-year-old, politely declining Clough's offer of a morning whisky, Hamilton recounts their interplay with vigour and panache. I simply loved it.
6. Stephen Jones, Endless winter : the inside story of the rugby revolution.
Since I'm a New Zealander, rugby has always had a special place in my heart. In the early 90s, rugby was changing, rapidly and dramatically. In the course of reporting what happened in international rugby between August 1992 and July 1993, Jones offered a wise and perceptive analysis of the hows and the whys, a clear-eyed and sure-footed appraisal of what the rush towards professionalism might mean for the game. While he didn't hide his anxieties about what might be lost, it was clear his love of rugby wouldn't waver. It's rare indeed to find a rugby book written with such crisp intelligence and such a delicate touch.
7. H. G. Bissinger, Friday night lights : a town, a team, and a dream.
They do love their football in Texas; this offers an engrossing portrait of high school football in smalltown west Texas. The hard-luck town of Odessa follows its Permian High School Panthers with a passionate and single-minded devotion; Bissinger's chronicle of their 1988 season reveals how the enormous emotional investment in the team shapes the community and inspires, or shatters, the teenagers who play for them. It's a sensitive account, both frank and compassionate, yet the picture it paints is ultimately almost horrifying; one of fandom gone wrong.
8. Thomas Hauser, Muhammad Ali : his life and times.
How do you write a biography of the most recognised man on the planet? Hauser's answer was to weave together the testimonies of the more than 200 people he'd interviewed in depth, whose lives had been touched by Ali and who knew him best – family, associates, opponents, friends, enemies, and others, plus of course Ali himself. The result retains all their individual voices, and offers a vivid and authentic picture of Ali's life and significance, in a way that is at once comprehensive and magisterial.
9. Gary Imlach, My father and other working-class football heroes.
Fathers, sons and football – it's been done before, but rarely as well as this. After his father died, Imlach realised to his dismay that while he'd seen the mementos – the shirts, medals, programmes, photos – he'd never talked to his father about his memories, about what it was like to play in the days of the maximum wage. His book is a record of his quest to find out, retracing the steps his father had taken, and offers a thoughtful and heartfelt blend of the personal and the historical. I found it captivating.
10. Steve Rushin, Road swing.
I finish with a very personal choice, included because I like the author so much. Steve had written a wonderful piece in Sports Illustrated about my bookshop, Sportspages, and after that we all got to know him. Whenever he was in London we'd all go out for a few beers and lots of talk, and I was always charmed by his acerbic wit and penetrating verbal thrusts. His book is very much him – a quirky, very wry account of his journey, as a fan, in search of the soul, the essence, of sport; what could be better than that?
------
Half a dozen or so BTL comments and recommendations:
"I have no interest in sport, but I absolutely loved Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand. One of my favourite books." "Couldn't agree more. Have given this to so many people and even bought the illustrated hardback which was definitely worth it. Another one for non-sporty people is A voyage for madmen about the nine megalomaniacs who set out in the first solo round the world yacht race. I would also suggest Friday night lights for race, class and gender in the American south."
Joe McGinnis, The miracle of Castel Di Sangro, John Feinstein, A good walk spoiled : days and nights on the PGA tour, Pete Davies, All played out : the full story of Italia '90. "Another vote for Miracle of Castel Di Sangro. Some of it reads like fiction it's so implausible. A season with Verona good also."
"Cross out the overrated Moneyball and replace with Jim Bouton's Ball Four, which - along with Jim Brosnan's Long season - set the template for every non-terrible player diary."
Tony Cascarino, Full time : the secret life of Tony Cascarino. "Lest we forget Tony Cascarino's excellent account of his career."
"Enjoyed Dark trade a lot but it might be a little dated for casual boxing fans (I seem to think it ends around the time Lennox Lewis was making his pro debut). That said, his interviews with James Toney are timeless. Another good boxing book is This Bloody Mary is the last thing I own by Jonathan Rendall (whose Twelve grand is also a fine critique on the sports gambling industry)."
"An aside: Great pic: Cloughie and Forest at Wembley for the League Cup Final. I'm in that crowd somewhere. Magical manager, so much personality."
Guardian, 2013-1127.
On the day the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award is announced, its co-founder chooses his all-time favourites.
"Sometimes it seems that I have measured out my life in sports books. Since I set up Sportspages, the UK's first bookshop devoted solely to sports books, in 1985, and dreamt up the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award with Graham Sharpe in 1989 – we're celebrating the 25th award this year – I guess I've been more immersed in reading and thinking about sports writing than most. I've probably read more than 50 sports books every year for the last 30 years; and I'm comforted by just how much better sports books have become since we set up the award. There's no doubt that publishers have become much more adventurous and imaginative, and the general quality has improved dramatically.
"Unsurprisingly, most of my choices have been previous winners of the William Hill award."
1. Nick Hornby, Fever pitch : a fan's life.
A blindingly obvious choice perhaps, but it was a hugely significant, ground-breaking book, and it's also sublimely written, telling more about what sport means to fans than almost any other. We now see it as an established classic, but at the time it was a brave piece of publishing. I remember the publishers consulting me about it – they were not at all convinced there was really a market for an "intelligent" football book. I assured them there was, and once I'd read the manuscript, and been utterly bowled over, urged them to get it out as soon as they could.
2. Paul Kimmage, A rough ride : an insight into pro cycling.
This was a revelation. For the first time a young ex-cyclist spilt the beans about what went on behind the scenes in the world of professional cycling, detailing the dilemma he faced – to dope or not to dope. There have of course been many books since about performance-enhancing drug use in cycling, but this one still stands out for its urgency and raw honesty.
3. Don McRae, Dark trade : lost in boxing.
For five years McRae lost himself in the bleak and shadowy world of boxing, spending time with a host of fighters, trainers and managers. His book is a vivid and illuminating account of this personal journey, ultimately a quest to understand why men might choose this brutal path. What I most admired about it was not only his steadfast determination to get to the bottom of it, and record what he discovered, but also the qualities he himself brought to the task: his wit, compassion, lucidity and eloquence.
4. Michael Lewis, Moneyball : the art of winning an unfair game.
I couldn't convince my colleagues on the panel of the merits of this one. "It's about baseball!" they exclaimed. Indeed it is, and you do need to know the game pretty well to really appreciate it. But I do know (and love) baseball, and I found it absolutely fascinating. It tells the story of how the Oakland Athletics, the paupers of the major leagues, adopted a new strategy on player recruitment based on a new way of analysing baseball statistics, which led them to pick up players none of the other franchises, using traditional evaluation methods, rated or wanted. The glory is that it worked; the Oakland As became a powerhouse, at least until all the other teams began to copy what they'd done. I loved the audacity of it all, and the wonderful intricacy of this account of it.
5. Duncan Hamilton, Provided you don't kiss me : 20 years with Brian Clough.
This is not just a strikingly intimate and vivid portrait of an unforgettable character but also, between the lines, the story of a young man learning to be a sports journalist. From his first day on the job as a green 16-year-old, politely declining Clough's offer of a morning whisky, Hamilton recounts their interplay with vigour and panache. I simply loved it.
6. Stephen Jones, Endless winter : the inside story of the rugby revolution.
Since I'm a New Zealander, rugby has always had a special place in my heart. In the early 90s, rugby was changing, rapidly and dramatically. In the course of reporting what happened in international rugby between August 1992 and July 1993, Jones offered a wise and perceptive analysis of the hows and the whys, a clear-eyed and sure-footed appraisal of what the rush towards professionalism might mean for the game. While he didn't hide his anxieties about what might be lost, it was clear his love of rugby wouldn't waver. It's rare indeed to find a rugby book written with such crisp intelligence and such a delicate touch.
7. H. G. Bissinger, Friday night lights : a town, a team, and a dream.
They do love their football in Texas; this offers an engrossing portrait of high school football in smalltown west Texas. The hard-luck town of Odessa follows its Permian High School Panthers with a passionate and single-minded devotion; Bissinger's chronicle of their 1988 season reveals how the enormous emotional investment in the team shapes the community and inspires, or shatters, the teenagers who play for them. It's a sensitive account, both frank and compassionate, yet the picture it paints is ultimately almost horrifying; one of fandom gone wrong.
8. Thomas Hauser, Muhammad Ali : his life and times.
How do you write a biography of the most recognised man on the planet? Hauser's answer was to weave together the testimonies of the more than 200 people he'd interviewed in depth, whose lives had been touched by Ali and who knew him best – family, associates, opponents, friends, enemies, and others, plus of course Ali himself. The result retains all their individual voices, and offers a vivid and authentic picture of Ali's life and significance, in a way that is at once comprehensive and magisterial.
9. Gary Imlach, My father and other working-class football heroes.
Fathers, sons and football – it's been done before, but rarely as well as this. After his father died, Imlach realised to his dismay that while he'd seen the mementos – the shirts, medals, programmes, photos – he'd never talked to his father about his memories, about what it was like to play in the days of the maximum wage. His book is a record of his quest to find out, retracing the steps his father had taken, and offers a thoughtful and heartfelt blend of the personal and the historical. I found it captivating.
10. Steve Rushin, Road swing.
I finish with a very personal choice, included because I like the author so much. Steve had written a wonderful piece in Sports Illustrated about my bookshop, Sportspages, and after that we all got to know him. Whenever he was in London we'd all go out for a few beers and lots of talk, and I was always charmed by his acerbic wit and penetrating verbal thrusts. His book is very much him – a quirky, very wry account of his journey, as a fan, in search of the soul, the essence, of sport; what could be better than that?
------
Half a dozen or so BTL comments and recommendations:
"I have no interest in sport, but I absolutely loved Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand. One of my favourite books." "Couldn't agree more. Have given this to so many people and even bought the illustrated hardback which was definitely worth it. Another one for non-sporty people is A voyage for madmen about the nine megalomaniacs who set out in the first solo round the world yacht race. I would also suggest Friday night lights for race, class and gender in the American south."
Joe McGinnis, The miracle of Castel Di Sangro, John Feinstein, A good walk spoiled : days and nights on the PGA tour, Pete Davies, All played out : the full story of Italia '90. "Another vote for Miracle of Castel Di Sangro. Some of it reads like fiction it's so implausible. A season with Verona good also."
"Cross out the overrated Moneyball and replace with Jim Bouton's Ball Four, which - along with Jim Brosnan's Long season - set the template for every non-terrible player diary."
Tony Cascarino, Full time : the secret life of Tony Cascarino. "Lest we forget Tony Cascarino's excellent account of his career."
"Enjoyed Dark trade a lot but it might be a little dated for casual boxing fans (I seem to think it ends around the time Lennox Lewis was making his pro debut). That said, his interviews with James Toney are timeless. Another good boxing book is This Bloody Mary is the last thing I own by Jonathan Rendall (whose Twelve grand is also a fine critique on the sports gambling industry)."
"An aside: Great pic: Cloughie and Forest at Wembley for the League Cup Final. I'm in that crowd somewhere. Magical manager, so much personality."
43Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Robin Etherington's top 10 comic books.
Guardian, 2013-11-28.
Robin Etherington is one half of the Etherington Brothers, creators of Monkey nuts and contributors to Star Wars, Transformers, the Dandy and Wallace and Gromit. They also contribute to the Phoenix comic, 32-pages of reading fun by some of the best writers and artists from the UK and around the world, for children age 6-12 years.
"I've always liked making top ten lists. During my time here on planet earth I've happily categorised my favourite books, films, games, sports, foodstuffs, road kill, enemies, colours, credit cards, teeth and spam email, to name but a few. And to be honest they were all pretty easy (all except for movies, which I had to break into innumerable sub-divisions, from Thrillers Featuring Log Cabins to Comedies Featuring an Amusingly Small Dog).
"But then we reach comics; my achilles heel. Where does one start? To pick just 10 titles from the oodles of awesomeness that fill the shelves of book stores and comic shops the world over, well, it seems a shame.
"As it happens there are 10 that, for me, stand just a little taller than the rest of the pack. Each is a work of genius that I recommend you consume (when you reach the right age) as soon as humanly possible."
1. Calvin and Hobbes (7+).
One of the greatest friendships ever depicted on the page. A boy and his imaginary/real tiger, more adventures than you can shake a stick at, gags piled on gags and big ideas perfectly captured in the simplest form. This is a comic that you will love forever. The complete collection in paperback contains every strip every created, which should keep even the most avid reader busy!
2. Asterix the legionary (7+).
My favourite comic series of all time. Although there are many brilliant examples of the genius of those indomitable Gauls and their ongoing battles with the Roman Empire, the 10th volume stands apart. Albert Uderzo's art had reached its zenith and Rene Goscinny's writing is near unbeatable. The comedy, pacing, action, characters, setup and payoff are perfect.
3. Bone (9+).
Ten years ago, this comic book fuelled the fire of creativity beneath my feet. Bone is a great big roaring tale of action, love, loss, laughs and stunning art. One big story that rolls through 1300 pages of epic excellence, this is the ultimate independent comic success story. Jeff Smith brings to life a cast of wonderful characters that live on long after their story is told.
4. Usagi Yojimbo (10+).
Stan Sakai has been writing and drawing the tales of his masterless rabbit samurai for almost thirty years, and they just get better and better. With clean black and white artwork Stan brings talking animals, genuine pathos, sublime humour and cartoon violence to the world of feudal Japan. Do not be fooled by his cute style, this is a story of depth and heart and consequence, where traditional Japanese myths and legends rear off the page in one magical scene after another.
5. Dungeon (16+).
Despite our close proximity to mainland Europe, there is a wealth of fantastic material that never gets translated. Thankfully the back catalogue of comics' luminary Lewis Trondheim has been substantially tapped and with Dungeon – his sword and sorcery comedy series (co-created with Joann Sfar) – you can see why. Blissfully funny characters stroll through a surreal fantasy landscape trying to get out of work, avoid the tax man and generally disobey conventions, while at the same time delivering a huge slice of satisfying action. For older readers.
6. Sam and Max surfin' the highway (12+).
Funny, funny, funny! There's nothing else to say. Steve Purcell makes great computer games but his oddball opus is the comic adventure of a rabbit and a dog and a lot of jokes.
7. Akira (16+).
At 3000 pages and six giant volumes, Akira is the longest and greatest cyberpunk epic of all time and a game-changing manga. The action is brutal and relentless, each character is stretched to the very limits of survival, Neo Tokyo is reduced to rubble in the most spectacular fashion, and somehow genuine hope survives. An ode to misunderstood youth and telekinesis (what a combo!) this is a fantastic book for older readers. There's simply nothing else like it.
8. Fungus the bogeyman (7+).
One of the first comic books I can remember reading, Fungus is probably Raymond Briggs's second most memorable creation (after the Snowman). Hundreds of gross visual treats await the reader as we join Fungus on a typical day in his life as a human-scaring bogeyman. The language is rich and colourful, and there is enough snot, slime and generally horrible things to entertain even the most unlikely reader.
9. Lucky Luke (7+).
When Rene Goscinny wasn't thinking up adventures for Asterix he was busy collaborating with Belgian cartoonist Morris (on books 9-31), breathing golden life into an already fabulous cowboy series. Lucky Luke is the fastest gun in the west, a wanderer, a hero, a legend and a fantastic comic creation. Together with his horse, Jolly Jumper, Luke saves the day, time and again. And we all get to go along for the ride.
10. Tintin and the Black Island (7+).
Long before Spielberg was approached by the creator's family to bring the world's most iconic comic character to life, Hergé conjured up the Black Island, one of his most action-packed adventures. The Scottish scenery is beautifully rendered, the villains are as crooked as their crimes and the story grips you to the very end. If you only read one Tintin volume in your life, this volume is a must.
Guardian, 2013-11-28.
Robin Etherington is one half of the Etherington Brothers, creators of Monkey nuts and contributors to Star Wars, Transformers, the Dandy and Wallace and Gromit. They also contribute to the Phoenix comic, 32-pages of reading fun by some of the best writers and artists from the UK and around the world, for children age 6-12 years.
"I've always liked making top ten lists. During my time here on planet earth I've happily categorised my favourite books, films, games, sports, foodstuffs, road kill, enemies, colours, credit cards, teeth and spam email, to name but a few. And to be honest they were all pretty easy (all except for movies, which I had to break into innumerable sub-divisions, from Thrillers Featuring Log Cabins to Comedies Featuring an Amusingly Small Dog).
"But then we reach comics; my achilles heel. Where does one start? To pick just 10 titles from the oodles of awesomeness that fill the shelves of book stores and comic shops the world over, well, it seems a shame.
"As it happens there are 10 that, for me, stand just a little taller than the rest of the pack. Each is a work of genius that I recommend you consume (when you reach the right age) as soon as humanly possible."
1. Calvin and Hobbes (7+).
One of the greatest friendships ever depicted on the page. A boy and his imaginary/real tiger, more adventures than you can shake a stick at, gags piled on gags and big ideas perfectly captured in the simplest form. This is a comic that you will love forever. The complete collection in paperback contains every strip every created, which should keep even the most avid reader busy!
2. Asterix the legionary (7+).
My favourite comic series of all time. Although there are many brilliant examples of the genius of those indomitable Gauls and their ongoing battles with the Roman Empire, the 10th volume stands apart. Albert Uderzo's art had reached its zenith and Rene Goscinny's writing is near unbeatable. The comedy, pacing, action, characters, setup and payoff are perfect.
3. Bone (9+).
Ten years ago, this comic book fuelled the fire of creativity beneath my feet. Bone is a great big roaring tale of action, love, loss, laughs and stunning art. One big story that rolls through 1300 pages of epic excellence, this is the ultimate independent comic success story. Jeff Smith brings to life a cast of wonderful characters that live on long after their story is told.
4. Usagi Yojimbo (10+).
Stan Sakai has been writing and drawing the tales of his masterless rabbit samurai for almost thirty years, and they just get better and better. With clean black and white artwork Stan brings talking animals, genuine pathos, sublime humour and cartoon violence to the world of feudal Japan. Do not be fooled by his cute style, this is a story of depth and heart and consequence, where traditional Japanese myths and legends rear off the page in one magical scene after another.
5. Dungeon (16+).
Despite our close proximity to mainland Europe, there is a wealth of fantastic material that never gets translated. Thankfully the back catalogue of comics' luminary Lewis Trondheim has been substantially tapped and with Dungeon – his sword and sorcery comedy series (co-created with Joann Sfar) – you can see why. Blissfully funny characters stroll through a surreal fantasy landscape trying to get out of work, avoid the tax man and generally disobey conventions, while at the same time delivering a huge slice of satisfying action. For older readers.
6. Sam and Max surfin' the highway (12+).
Funny, funny, funny! There's nothing else to say. Steve Purcell makes great computer games but his oddball opus is the comic adventure of a rabbit and a dog and a lot of jokes.
7. Akira (16+).
At 3000 pages and six giant volumes, Akira is the longest and greatest cyberpunk epic of all time and a game-changing manga. The action is brutal and relentless, each character is stretched to the very limits of survival, Neo Tokyo is reduced to rubble in the most spectacular fashion, and somehow genuine hope survives. An ode to misunderstood youth and telekinesis (what a combo!) this is a fantastic book for older readers. There's simply nothing else like it.
8. Fungus the bogeyman (7+).
One of the first comic books I can remember reading, Fungus is probably Raymond Briggs's second most memorable creation (after the Snowman). Hundreds of gross visual treats await the reader as we join Fungus on a typical day in his life as a human-scaring bogeyman. The language is rich and colourful, and there is enough snot, slime and generally horrible things to entertain even the most unlikely reader.
9. Lucky Luke (7+).
When Rene Goscinny wasn't thinking up adventures for Asterix he was busy collaborating with Belgian cartoonist Morris (on books 9-31), breathing golden life into an already fabulous cowboy series. Lucky Luke is the fastest gun in the west, a wanderer, a hero, a legend and a fantastic comic creation. Together with his horse, Jolly Jumper, Luke saves the day, time and again. And we all get to go along for the ride.
10. Tintin and the Black Island (7+).
Long before Spielberg was approached by the creator's family to bring the world's most iconic comic character to life, Hergé conjured up the Black Island, one of his most action-packed adventures. The Scottish scenery is beautifully rendered, the villains are as crooked as their crimes and the story grips you to the very end. If you only read one Tintin volume in your life, this volume is a must.
44Cynfelyn
W. B. Gooderham's top 10 books given in books.
Guardian, 2013-12-04.
"Giving books as presents is a tricky business. Give the right person the right book at the right time and minor miracles can occur – horizons broadened, home truths revealed, the very landscape of an individual's mind changed for ever. But influence works both ways. Give the wrong person the wrong book at the wrong time and the effects can be disastrous. One may inspire a life of debauchery, install a sense of Gothic paranoia, or – perhaps worst of all –prompt nothing but a resentful boredom.
"As a collector of the inscriptions in second-hand books celebrated in my book of 'the forgotten friendships, hidden stories and lost loves' that they suggest, I often wonder about their previous owners, and how and why the book came to be abandoned.
"I can only hope that their secret histories are as interesting as my favourite examples of book-giving in fiction. My top 10 contains a mixture of real and fictional books – but, annoyingly, I was unable to find an example of Lovecraft's infamous Necronomicon ever being treated as a gift in his fiction. Anyone?"
1. Emmanuel Goldstein (purportedly by), The theory and practice of oligarchical collectivism, from George Orwell, Nineteen eighty-four.
Having declared himself an enemy of Big Brother, Winston Smith is surreptitiously supplied with a copy of the book: the absolutely forbidden anti-Party tract detailing the philosophy behind the totalitarian state. "The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction … The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already."
2. George Orwell, Nineteen eighty-four, from Martin Amis, Money.
John Self senses that his life of sex and drugs and booze is not all it's cracked up to be. He longs to "burst out of the world of money and into … the world of fascination. How do I get there? Tell me, please. I'll never make it by myself." By reading books, seems to be the answer suggested by his friend, Martina Twain, who buys John 1984. Noticing parallels in Nineteen eighty-four to his own life, John concedes that "Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read a bit more and thought less about money."
3. The treatise on the Steppenwolf, from Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf : Not For Everyone!
Misanthropic divided-self-about-town Harry Haller is handed a small book by a stranger in the street. Rather surprisingly (or perhaps not, for this poetic novel) the book presents Harry with a portrait of himself: "a clever study by an unknown hand (giving) the unvarnished truth about my shiftless existence … (showing) clearly how unbearable and untenable my situation was. Death was decreed for this Steppenwolf."
4. Jack London, The son of the wolf, from Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin.
Poor Pnin. His life bumps gently along from one small failure to the next. Even the simple act of buying a Jack London novel for his ex-wife's visiting son, Victor, becomes yet another lesson in compromise and disappointment. Wanting a copy of Martin Eden, he is only able to find an old edition of London's lesser work The son of the wolf. "'I think I'm going to like this,' said polite Victor."
5. Author(s) unspecified, 'Poetry collection', from Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca.
The second Mrs de Winter, already driven to distraction by an unknowable husband and by her unmentionable predecessor, Rebecca, finds a book of poems dedicated to "Max – from Rebecca". An innocuous enough dedication, you might think, but one that does little for her peace of mind: "Max. She called him Max. It was familiar, gay, and easy on the tongue … Max was her choice, the word was her possession; she had written it with so great a confidence on the fly-leaf of that book. That bold, slanting hand, stabbing the white paper, the symbol of herself, so certain, so assured … And I had to call him Maxim."
6. Author unknown, The art of seduction, as featured in Thomas Mann, The magic mountain.
Introduced into the feverish atmosphere of the Sanatorium Berghof by tubercular rake Herr Albin, this "badly printed booklet" causes a minor sensation and quickly becomes the must-read book amongst the bedridden romantics. While the men tut disapprovingly, the women squabble in excitement and actually come to blows over who's "next in line" for the scandalous text.
7. Ross O'Flaherty, Hollywood elegies, featured in Angela Carter, Wise children.
The books given to Dora Chance by her old flame, alcoholic writer Ross 'Irish' O'Flaherty, are intended for self-improvement. (Daisy Miller, Mansfield Park, Schopenhauer.) But it is "his poisoned gift, the page proofs of Hollywood elegies, inscribed to his 'gilded fly' and signed with his full name, thank God" which proves the most practical. "I sold it at Sotheby's last winter when we were a touch pressed as to how to pay the electricity bill."
8. Huysmans, Against nature aka 'The yellow book', from Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray.
Not content with stoking Dorian Gray's vanity to such an extent that Dorian makes a Faustian pact to remain forever young, Lord Henry compounds his folly by sending Dorian a yellow book in which "things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made real to him". Thus begins Dorian's decent into amoral debauchery. Later, Dorian berates Lord Henry for ever introducing him to the book: "You poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to anyone. It does harm."
9. 'A variety of Gothic fiction', as featured in Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey.
Already reading Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, Catherine Morland's passion for Gothic fiction is encouraged by her new friend, Isabella, who compiles a list of titles for the pair to read together: "Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid mysteries." With such a reading list, it is no wonder that Catherine nearly scuppers her blossoming romance with the innocent Tilney by imagining that his equally innocent family harbour all kinds of hidden horrors behind closed doors.
10. William Goldenstein III, Crash!, as featured in Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾.
The books exchanged in Adrian Mole make for a catalogue of thwarted good intentions. When his girlfriend, Pandora, goes on holiday, Adrian buys her Crash! "by a bloke called William Goldenstein, III. It is very good on what to do if the worst happens … Pandora read (it) in the coach on the way to the airport. When her flight was called she had slight hysterics and her father had to carry her up the steps."
------
BTL:
"Mystified by the omission of the gift from Reginald Jeeves via Bertie Wooster to Bingo Little of Rosie M. Banks's All for love - followed in quick succession by A red, red summer rose, Madcap Myrtle and Only a factory girl." "... or Types of ethical theory foisted on Bertie by Florence Craye."
"Tom Riddle's diary in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. (loses all remaining street cred)."
(Au contraire. Tom Riddle's diary goes on quite a journey in the book, several of the changes of possession arguably being gifts: Lucius Malfoy slipped it into Ginny Weasley's bag in the bookshop in Diagonal Alley. She threw it away in one of the girls' toilets at Hogwarts, through Moaning Myrtle sitting in the U-bend, allowing Harry Potter to retrieve it, before Ginny stole it back again, before Harry "killed" it, before it landing on Dumbledore's desk (headmaster's privilege, don'cha know). He then gives it to Harry, who gives it to Lucius Malfoy, who inattentively gives it - and more importantly one of Harry's socks slipped in as a bookmark - to Dobby, for whom the sock is more important than the diary. Keep your street cred. - Cynfelyn).
"No fictional character gives better books as gifts than Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor. Off the top of my head he has given Daniel Woodrell, George Pelecanos, Robert Tressell, and a half dozen Irish writers and poets. You could build a fine library from his recommendations."
"Although Huysmans' book suffered the infamy of being mentioned during Oscar Wilde's trials, it was actually Walter Pater's Studies in the history of the Renaissance, which Wilde referred to personally as his "golden book", that provided the inspiration for the book that corrupted Dorian Gray. See 'Which poisonous yellow book?'"
(The original 'From book to book' blog has been deleted. See the copy on Archive.org here - Cynfelyn).
"The March sisters getting their copies of Pilgrim's progress in Little women surely ought to feature."
"Let us not forget Nathan Zuckerman's Carnovsky, from the novels of Phillip Roth, and my personal favourite, The higher common sense by the Abbe Fausse Maigre, Flora Poste's handbook for life from Cold Comfort Farm."
Guardian, 2013-12-04.
"Giving books as presents is a tricky business. Give the right person the right book at the right time and minor miracles can occur – horizons broadened, home truths revealed, the very landscape of an individual's mind changed for ever. But influence works both ways. Give the wrong person the wrong book at the wrong time and the effects can be disastrous. One may inspire a life of debauchery, install a sense of Gothic paranoia, or – perhaps worst of all –prompt nothing but a resentful boredom.
"As a collector of the inscriptions in second-hand books celebrated in my book of 'the forgotten friendships, hidden stories and lost loves' that they suggest, I often wonder about their previous owners, and how and why the book came to be abandoned.
"I can only hope that their secret histories are as interesting as my favourite examples of book-giving in fiction. My top 10 contains a mixture of real and fictional books – but, annoyingly, I was unable to find an example of Lovecraft's infamous Necronomicon ever being treated as a gift in his fiction. Anyone?"
1. Emmanuel Goldstein (purportedly by), The theory and practice of oligarchical collectivism, from George Orwell, Nineteen eighty-four.
Having declared himself an enemy of Big Brother, Winston Smith is surreptitiously supplied with a copy of the book: the absolutely forbidden anti-Party tract detailing the philosophy behind the totalitarian state. "The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction … The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already."
2. George Orwell, Nineteen eighty-four, from Martin Amis, Money.
John Self senses that his life of sex and drugs and booze is not all it's cracked up to be. He longs to "burst out of the world of money and into … the world of fascination. How do I get there? Tell me, please. I'll never make it by myself." By reading books, seems to be the answer suggested by his friend, Martina Twain, who buys John 1984. Noticing parallels in Nineteen eighty-four to his own life, John concedes that "Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read a bit more and thought less about money."
3. The treatise on the Steppenwolf, from Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf : Not For Everyone!
Misanthropic divided-self-about-town Harry Haller is handed a small book by a stranger in the street. Rather surprisingly (or perhaps not, for this poetic novel) the book presents Harry with a portrait of himself: "a clever study by an unknown hand (giving) the unvarnished truth about my shiftless existence … (showing) clearly how unbearable and untenable my situation was. Death was decreed for this Steppenwolf."
4. Jack London, The son of the wolf, from Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin.
Poor Pnin. His life bumps gently along from one small failure to the next. Even the simple act of buying a Jack London novel for his ex-wife's visiting son, Victor, becomes yet another lesson in compromise and disappointment. Wanting a copy of Martin Eden, he is only able to find an old edition of London's lesser work The son of the wolf. "'I think I'm going to like this,' said polite Victor."
5. Author(s) unspecified, 'Poetry collection', from Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca.
The second Mrs de Winter, already driven to distraction by an unknowable husband and by her unmentionable predecessor, Rebecca, finds a book of poems dedicated to "Max – from Rebecca". An innocuous enough dedication, you might think, but one that does little for her peace of mind: "Max. She called him Max. It was familiar, gay, and easy on the tongue … Max was her choice, the word was her possession; she had written it with so great a confidence on the fly-leaf of that book. That bold, slanting hand, stabbing the white paper, the symbol of herself, so certain, so assured … And I had to call him Maxim."
6. Author unknown, The art of seduction, as featured in Thomas Mann, The magic mountain.
Introduced into the feverish atmosphere of the Sanatorium Berghof by tubercular rake Herr Albin, this "badly printed booklet" causes a minor sensation and quickly becomes the must-read book amongst the bedridden romantics. While the men tut disapprovingly, the women squabble in excitement and actually come to blows over who's "next in line" for the scandalous text.
7. Ross O'Flaherty, Hollywood elegies, featured in Angela Carter, Wise children.
The books given to Dora Chance by her old flame, alcoholic writer Ross 'Irish' O'Flaherty, are intended for self-improvement. (Daisy Miller, Mansfield Park, Schopenhauer.) But it is "his poisoned gift, the page proofs of Hollywood elegies, inscribed to his 'gilded fly' and signed with his full name, thank God" which proves the most practical. "I sold it at Sotheby's last winter when we were a touch pressed as to how to pay the electricity bill."
8. Huysmans, Against nature aka 'The yellow book', from Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray.
Not content with stoking Dorian Gray's vanity to such an extent that Dorian makes a Faustian pact to remain forever young, Lord Henry compounds his folly by sending Dorian a yellow book in which "things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made real to him". Thus begins Dorian's decent into amoral debauchery. Later, Dorian berates Lord Henry for ever introducing him to the book: "You poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to anyone. It does harm."
9. 'A variety of Gothic fiction', as featured in Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey.
Already reading Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, Catherine Morland's passion for Gothic fiction is encouraged by her new friend, Isabella, who compiles a list of titles for the pair to read together: "Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid mysteries." With such a reading list, it is no wonder that Catherine nearly scuppers her blossoming romance with the innocent Tilney by imagining that his equally innocent family harbour all kinds of hidden horrors behind closed doors.
10. William Goldenstein III, Crash!, as featured in Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾.
The books exchanged in Adrian Mole make for a catalogue of thwarted good intentions. When his girlfriend, Pandora, goes on holiday, Adrian buys her Crash! "by a bloke called William Goldenstein, III. It is very good on what to do if the worst happens … Pandora read (it) in the coach on the way to the airport. When her flight was called she had slight hysterics and her father had to carry her up the steps."
------
BTL:
"Mystified by the omission of the gift from Reginald Jeeves via Bertie Wooster to Bingo Little of Rosie M. Banks's All for love - followed in quick succession by A red, red summer rose, Madcap Myrtle and Only a factory girl." "... or Types of ethical theory foisted on Bertie by Florence Craye."
"Tom Riddle's diary in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. (loses all remaining street cred)."
(Au contraire. Tom Riddle's diary goes on quite a journey in the book, several of the changes of possession arguably being gifts: Lucius Malfoy slipped it into Ginny Weasley's bag in the bookshop in Diagonal Alley. She threw it away in one of the girls' toilets at Hogwarts, through Moaning Myrtle sitting in the U-bend, allowing Harry Potter to retrieve it, before Ginny stole it back again, before Harry "killed" it, before it landing on Dumbledore's desk (headmaster's privilege, don'cha know). He then gives it to Harry, who gives it to Lucius Malfoy, who inattentively gives it - and more importantly one of Harry's socks slipped in as a bookmark - to Dobby, for whom the sock is more important than the diary. Keep your street cred. - Cynfelyn).
"No fictional character gives better books as gifts than Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor. Off the top of my head he has given Daniel Woodrell, George Pelecanos, Robert Tressell, and a half dozen Irish writers and poets. You could build a fine library from his recommendations."
"Although Huysmans' book suffered the infamy of being mentioned during Oscar Wilde's trials, it was actually Walter Pater's Studies in the history of the Renaissance, which Wilde referred to personally as his "golden book", that provided the inspiration for the book that corrupted Dorian Gray. See 'Which poisonous yellow book?'"
(The original 'From book to book' blog has been deleted. See the copy on Archive.org here - Cynfelyn).
"The March sisters getting their copies of Pilgrim's progress in Little women surely ought to feature."
"Let us not forget Nathan Zuckerman's Carnovsky, from the novels of Phillip Roth, and my personal favourite, The higher common sense by the Abbe Fausse Maigre, Flora Poste's handbook for life from Cold Comfort Farm."
45Cynfelyn
Children's Books Top Tens / Bear Grylls's top 10 adventure stories.
Guardian, 2013-12-06.
"Bear Grylls is one of the world's most well-known adventurers. He has climbed Mount Everest, crossed the Arctic in a small boat and explored deserts, jungles and swamps worldwide. In 2009, Bear became chief scout to the Scouting Association. His latest book, Strike of the shark, is the sixth in his Mission survival series and takes Beck Granger into the Caribbean where he is shipwrecked in the open seas. In order to stay alive, he'll have to work out who wants him dead, and why. That is, if the sharks don't get him first ..."
1. Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719).
The original survival hero! After being shipwrecked on an island, Crusoe shows real grit as he works out how to build a shelter, hunt for food and even grow crops and raise goats. He manages to live for many years on the island and, most importantly, he never gives up hope. Most of the books on this list owe a debt to this thrilling tale.
2. R. M. Ballantyne, The coral island (1858).
One of the first novels written for children that also features children as the heroes, this classic follows three teenage boys who are shipwrecked on an uninhabited Polynesian island. It's a brilliant blend of survival and adventure, featuring cannibals, pirates and even surfing, and it inspired both Treasure island and Lord of the flies.
3. R. L. Stevenson, Treasure island (1883).
This was definitely my favourite book as a kid – such an exciting adventure of life on the high seas! Jim shows incredible resourcefulness as he deals with treacherous pirates, hidden treasure and the villainous Long John Silver. Sadly, I've never managed to find any buried treasure on any of my expeditions!
4. Johann David Wyss, Swiss family Robinson (1812).
The Swiss family Robinson always impressed me – the way they worked together as a family to survive being stranded on an island in the East Indies. Family is really important to me, and my kids are becoming very skilled at survival life, so I like to think we'd work together as well in a similar situation – although let's hope it never comes to that!
5. Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1901).
This story a young British orphan who learns how to survive on the streets of India is a thrilling adventure in its own right, but it's also noteworthy for inventing Kim's Game: a game of memory and observation that is a great tool for developing the senses you need to live in the wild.
6. A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh (1926).
OK, so not maybe this isn't as much of a thrilling tale of survival-against-the-odds as some of the others on this list, but it's still a brilliant book for getting kids excited about the outdoor life. It always made me want to explore the Hundred Acre Wood with Christopher Robin – perhaps stopping for a game of Pooh sticks on the way!
7. Enid Blyton, The sea of adventure (1948).
Enid Blyton wrote so many books, but her tales of the wild adventures of Jack, Philip, Dinah and Lucy-Ann all feature an element of survival and the outdoor life. This was always my favourite with its exciting mix of camping and exploring in a remote Scottish island, and a thrilling mission to outwit a gang of gun-smugglers.
8. Willard Price, Volcano adventure (1956).
Willard Price wrote many exciting adventure books, and this is one of the best. Hal and Roger Hunt have a fantastic never-say-die attitude, and show great problem-solving skills as they save the lives of people from deadly volcanic disasters. It's very well researched too, and most of the events are based upon real-life volcanic disasters.
9. Thor Heyerdahl, Kon-Tiki : across the Pacific in a raft (1948).
Thor Heyerdahl's story has always been an inspiration to me: not only for the physically gruelling feat of traversing the Pacific Ocean on a raft of balsa logs but for his determination to prove wrong the naysayers who said it could never be done. Required reading for all those serious about survival life.
10. Hergé, Tintin in Tibet (1960).
Surely every young adventurer read Tintin growing up? This has always been my favourite of the Tintin books. Our hero heads off into the Himalayas in search of his young friend Chang, who is missing and assumed killed in a plane crash. The determination and belief Tintin shows in his friend's ability to survive against all odds really impressed me – and the quest is made even more interesting by the haunting presence of the Abominable Snowman!
And two bonus choices!
Richard Adams, Watership Down (1972).
Who would have thought a story about rabbits would be so thrilling, so full of nail-biting adventures? This classic really stands the test of time – and is packed with brave heroic characters. For me, the most compelling character is Blackavar, a battle-hardened and defiant revolutionary rabbit, who fights for Fiver and Bigwig, determined to save their burrow from the evil General Woundwort.
Michael Morpurgo, Kensuke's kingdom (1999).
A modern desert island story that has a lot in common with Robinson Crusoe. Young Michael is shipwrecked on island in the pacific with no food or water and almost gives up entirely. But then he meets a mysterious old man who gives him the strength to learn how to survive in this strange new environment.
Guardian, 2013-12-06.
"Bear Grylls is one of the world's most well-known adventurers. He has climbed Mount Everest, crossed the Arctic in a small boat and explored deserts, jungles and swamps worldwide. In 2009, Bear became chief scout to the Scouting Association. His latest book, Strike of the shark, is the sixth in his Mission survival series and takes Beck Granger into the Caribbean where he is shipwrecked in the open seas. In order to stay alive, he'll have to work out who wants him dead, and why. That is, if the sharks don't get him first ..."
1. Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719).
The original survival hero! After being shipwrecked on an island, Crusoe shows real grit as he works out how to build a shelter, hunt for food and even grow crops and raise goats. He manages to live for many years on the island and, most importantly, he never gives up hope. Most of the books on this list owe a debt to this thrilling tale.
2. R. M. Ballantyne, The coral island (1858).
One of the first novels written for children that also features children as the heroes, this classic follows three teenage boys who are shipwrecked on an uninhabited Polynesian island. It's a brilliant blend of survival and adventure, featuring cannibals, pirates and even surfing, and it inspired both Treasure island and Lord of the flies.
3. R. L. Stevenson, Treasure island (1883).
This was definitely my favourite book as a kid – such an exciting adventure of life on the high seas! Jim shows incredible resourcefulness as he deals with treacherous pirates, hidden treasure and the villainous Long John Silver. Sadly, I've never managed to find any buried treasure on any of my expeditions!
4. Johann David Wyss, Swiss family Robinson (1812).
The Swiss family Robinson always impressed me – the way they worked together as a family to survive being stranded on an island in the East Indies. Family is really important to me, and my kids are becoming very skilled at survival life, so I like to think we'd work together as well in a similar situation – although let's hope it never comes to that!
5. Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1901).
This story a young British orphan who learns how to survive on the streets of India is a thrilling adventure in its own right, but it's also noteworthy for inventing Kim's Game: a game of memory and observation that is a great tool for developing the senses you need to live in the wild.
6. A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh (1926).
OK, so not maybe this isn't as much of a thrilling tale of survival-against-the-odds as some of the others on this list, but it's still a brilliant book for getting kids excited about the outdoor life. It always made me want to explore the Hundred Acre Wood with Christopher Robin – perhaps stopping for a game of Pooh sticks on the way!
7. Enid Blyton, The sea of adventure (1948).
Enid Blyton wrote so many books, but her tales of the wild adventures of Jack, Philip, Dinah and Lucy-Ann all feature an element of survival and the outdoor life. This was always my favourite with its exciting mix of camping and exploring in a remote Scottish island, and a thrilling mission to outwit a gang of gun-smugglers.
8. Willard Price, Volcano adventure (1956).
Willard Price wrote many exciting adventure books, and this is one of the best. Hal and Roger Hunt have a fantastic never-say-die attitude, and show great problem-solving skills as they save the lives of people from deadly volcanic disasters. It's very well researched too, and most of the events are based upon real-life volcanic disasters.
9. Thor Heyerdahl, Kon-Tiki : across the Pacific in a raft (1948).
Thor Heyerdahl's story has always been an inspiration to me: not only for the physically gruelling feat of traversing the Pacific Ocean on a raft of balsa logs but for his determination to prove wrong the naysayers who said it could never be done. Required reading for all those serious about survival life.
10. Hergé, Tintin in Tibet (1960).
Surely every young adventurer read Tintin growing up? This has always been my favourite of the Tintin books. Our hero heads off into the Himalayas in search of his young friend Chang, who is missing and assumed killed in a plane crash. The determination and belief Tintin shows in his friend's ability to survive against all odds really impressed me – and the quest is made even more interesting by the haunting presence of the Abominable Snowman!
And two bonus choices!
Richard Adams, Watership Down (1972).
Who would have thought a story about rabbits would be so thrilling, so full of nail-biting adventures? This classic really stands the test of time – and is packed with brave heroic characters. For me, the most compelling character is Blackavar, a battle-hardened and defiant revolutionary rabbit, who fights for Fiver and Bigwig, determined to save their burrow from the evil General Woundwort.
Michael Morpurgo, Kensuke's kingdom (1999).
A modern desert island story that has a lot in common with Robinson Crusoe. Young Michael is shipwrecked on island in the pacific with no food or water and almost gives up entirely. But then he meets a mysterious old man who gives him the strength to learn how to survive in this strange new environment.
46Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / The Sedgwick brothers' top 10 facts about William Blake.
Guardian, 2013-12-10.
(LT touchstones: Marcus Sedgwick, Julian Sedgwick).
"Our latest teen book club read, graphic novel Dark satanic mills, was inspired by poet, painter and engraver William Blake.
"Never heard of William Blake? Heard of him and wondered what all the fuss is about? After all, why should we take notice of this obscure and long dead English poet, painter and engraver, who was at best ignored, and at worst derided in his own lifetime? Here are a few reasons why Blake has been an inspiration for many other artists, writers and composers, from Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Benjamin Britten, from Bob Dylan to Aldous Huxley, from Jim Morrison to David Almond ...
"Throughout his life, Blake championed the imagination, and its power. Though he was frequently dismissed as mad, he remained determined that the ability to think for yourself was what made you free. He lived in world very much like ours; a society that saw itself as modern, freeing itself of old superstitions, but one that was also a time of political unrest, revolution and war.
"Blake's views were frequently unorthodox, running against popular opinion, something that got him in trouble once or twice. Perhaps now, even more than in Blake's time, we could do with some free-thinking dissenters. People who speak out. No one now thinks twice about how it is that women have the right to vote; but it was thanks to the suffragettes who were also dismissed as mad in their time. We rightly see slavery as terrible monster of the past, but it was down to the actions of a few forward-thinking people that began to change people's minds. And this is Blake's ultimate message: 'I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's ...' Rather than sleep-walking our way towards meek acceptance of the things that are wrong with the world, Blake calls out from the grave to urge us to question and think for ourselves."
1. The tyger.
Mention William Blake, and 'The tyger' is probably what most people think of first. 'Tyger! Tyger! burning bright, In the forests of the night ...' So begins this short but deceptively simple poem that has a variety of interpretations. Much of what makes Blake great can be found here: his concept of 'contraries', his championing of the creative force of the imagination, his powerful vocabulary, and fearsome biblical imagery.
2. Songs of innocence and songs of experience.
Having read 'The tyger', venture a little further in the pair of small books from where his most famous poem comes. One again showing Blake's fascination with opposites, The Songs are Blake's most accessible works, many of them famous in their own right, such as 'The sick rose', and 'The lamb'. It's good that these are easier poems to read, because things are going to get a whole lot weirder before we're done.
3. 'Jerusalem'.
Blake's other most famous lines are the poem now known as 'Jerusalem', made famous since it was set to music as a hymn by Hubert Parry almost a hundred years after Blake's death. You've heard it sung before rugby matches, or at the Last Night of the Proms, and many other places. In fact, these words of Blake's were first found in the introduction to his epic work inspired by the earlier English poet John Milton. This is Blake at his very best: 'nor shall my sword in sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land'. And speaking of Blake's greatest works, this is where it gets tough ...
(Not apparently printed separately / catalogued on LT, so no touchsone. However it is one of many of Blake's poems to have its own Wikipedia article - Cynfelyn).
4. The epic poems.
Some of Blake is easy to read, much of it is not. During his life he composed a series of epic books, the longest and greatest of which is Jerusalem ; an emanation of the giant Albion. Not to be confused with the short poem above, this work is vast in scale and at first sight, impenetrable. To understand Blake's work, you need to know something about the man behind the poetry. He created a vast mythology, mixing Biblical elements with prophetic figures of his own, and stirred in experiences from his own life too. The result is often hard to interpret; in his lifetime he wrote more words than either Geoffrey Chaucer or his hero John Milton; and yet for most people this vast body of writing has gone undiscovered. Which is a shame because ...
5. Revolutionary printing techniques.
Blake could be called the first graphic novelist – he married pictures and words together in a single process on one printing plate, developing new techniques to do so. He taught himself to write backwards, so he could work straight onto the copper plate. And, to open up the very strangest side of Blake, he claimed that one of his revolutionary techniques was dictated to him by his dead brother in a vision.
6. Blake and his brother.
Blake was devoted to his younger brother, Robert. He taught him to draw and the brothers shared the same interests. When Robert became fatally ill, aged only 19, Blake tended to him around the clock. At the last moment, Blake reported that he saw Robert's departing spirit 'ascend heavenward through the matter-of-fact ceiling, clapping its hands for joy'. William never forgot his brother and said he 'beheld him in visions' - including the one in which Robert explained the new method of engraving. But visions of his brother weren't the only ones to come knocking at Blake's door - or window …
7. Blake and his visions.
Blake saw things that only he could see, but whose reality he took for granted. As a child of four, he claimed to have seen God staring in through the upstairs window of the family house. Wandering in the open countryside of Peckham Rye a few years later, he had one of his most famous visions: a 'tree full of angels, with bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars'. Other moments were scarier: once he described the visitation of a huge, ghostly flea with a green and gold head - and drew it 'from life'. Maybe it was this visionary and prophetic side of his character that gave him the insight and courage to march out of step with his times …
8. Radical Blake.
William often worried that his radical views would lead to trouble. He was against Britain's foreign wars of the time, highly critical of conventional religion and anti-monarchy. In 1803 he had a row with a soldier who had 'trespassed' in his garden - and frog-marched him forcefully back to the local pub. The soldier pressed charges and Blake was put on trial for sedition for having supposedly muttered 'damn the King'. Though eventually cleared, it was a rude reminder to him of the dangers he ran in speaking his mind.
9. Radical Blake ii.
But even domestically he was a radical, with unorthodox views on marriage, sex and love. He criticised enforced marriage and chastity, and defended the rights of women to self-fulfillment. Blake took this respect for women onto the street, once furiously attacking a man who was assaulting his wife in public. He was a loyal husband to Catherine, his wife of 45 years. Together they would sunbathe nude in their garden in Lambeth - recreating the story of Adam and Eve, to the great surprise of visitors.
10. His last day.
Utterly devoted to Catherine, the prospect of parting at death must have been terrible. And yet Blake's visionary belief in the afterlife was so strong that he faced his last day without fear. The last shilling he spent was on a pencil so that he could keep drawing. As his strength failed, he then turned to his wife and said: 'Stay Kate! I will draw your portrait, as you have ever been an angel to me'. He then started to sing hymns, and died not long after. Catherine continued to sell his prints and to converse with him daily. On the day of her own death, it is reported she was cheerful, and called out to Blake 'as if he were in the next room' that she was coming to join him.
Guardian, 2013-12-10.
(LT touchstones: Marcus Sedgwick, Julian Sedgwick).
"Our latest teen book club read, graphic novel Dark satanic mills, was inspired by poet, painter and engraver William Blake.
"Never heard of William Blake? Heard of him and wondered what all the fuss is about? After all, why should we take notice of this obscure and long dead English poet, painter and engraver, who was at best ignored, and at worst derided in his own lifetime? Here are a few reasons why Blake has been an inspiration for many other artists, writers and composers, from Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Benjamin Britten, from Bob Dylan to Aldous Huxley, from Jim Morrison to David Almond ...
"Throughout his life, Blake championed the imagination, and its power. Though he was frequently dismissed as mad, he remained determined that the ability to think for yourself was what made you free. He lived in world very much like ours; a society that saw itself as modern, freeing itself of old superstitions, but one that was also a time of political unrest, revolution and war.
"Blake's views were frequently unorthodox, running against popular opinion, something that got him in trouble once or twice. Perhaps now, even more than in Blake's time, we could do with some free-thinking dissenters. People who speak out. No one now thinks twice about how it is that women have the right to vote; but it was thanks to the suffragettes who were also dismissed as mad in their time. We rightly see slavery as terrible monster of the past, but it was down to the actions of a few forward-thinking people that began to change people's minds. And this is Blake's ultimate message: 'I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's ...' Rather than sleep-walking our way towards meek acceptance of the things that are wrong with the world, Blake calls out from the grave to urge us to question and think for ourselves."
1. The tyger.
Mention William Blake, and 'The tyger' is probably what most people think of first. 'Tyger! Tyger! burning bright, In the forests of the night ...' So begins this short but deceptively simple poem that has a variety of interpretations. Much of what makes Blake great can be found here: his concept of 'contraries', his championing of the creative force of the imagination, his powerful vocabulary, and fearsome biblical imagery.
2. Songs of innocence and songs of experience.
Having read 'The tyger', venture a little further in the pair of small books from where his most famous poem comes. One again showing Blake's fascination with opposites, The Songs are Blake's most accessible works, many of them famous in their own right, such as 'The sick rose', and 'The lamb'. It's good that these are easier poems to read, because things are going to get a whole lot weirder before we're done.
3. 'Jerusalem'.
Blake's other most famous lines are the poem now known as 'Jerusalem', made famous since it was set to music as a hymn by Hubert Parry almost a hundred years after Blake's death. You've heard it sung before rugby matches, or at the Last Night of the Proms, and many other places. In fact, these words of Blake's were first found in the introduction to his epic work inspired by the earlier English poet John Milton. This is Blake at his very best: 'nor shall my sword in sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land'. And speaking of Blake's greatest works, this is where it gets tough ...
(Not apparently printed separately / catalogued on LT, so no touchsone. However it is one of many of Blake's poems to have its own Wikipedia article - Cynfelyn).
4. The epic poems.
Some of Blake is easy to read, much of it is not. During his life he composed a series of epic books, the longest and greatest of which is Jerusalem ; an emanation of the giant Albion. Not to be confused with the short poem above, this work is vast in scale and at first sight, impenetrable. To understand Blake's work, you need to know something about the man behind the poetry. He created a vast mythology, mixing Biblical elements with prophetic figures of his own, and stirred in experiences from his own life too. The result is often hard to interpret; in his lifetime he wrote more words than either Geoffrey Chaucer or his hero John Milton; and yet for most people this vast body of writing has gone undiscovered. Which is a shame because ...
5. Revolutionary printing techniques.
Blake could be called the first graphic novelist – he married pictures and words together in a single process on one printing plate, developing new techniques to do so. He taught himself to write backwards, so he could work straight onto the copper plate. And, to open up the very strangest side of Blake, he claimed that one of his revolutionary techniques was dictated to him by his dead brother in a vision.
6. Blake and his brother.
Blake was devoted to his younger brother, Robert. He taught him to draw and the brothers shared the same interests. When Robert became fatally ill, aged only 19, Blake tended to him around the clock. At the last moment, Blake reported that he saw Robert's departing spirit 'ascend heavenward through the matter-of-fact ceiling, clapping its hands for joy'. William never forgot his brother and said he 'beheld him in visions' - including the one in which Robert explained the new method of engraving. But visions of his brother weren't the only ones to come knocking at Blake's door - or window …
7. Blake and his visions.
Blake saw things that only he could see, but whose reality he took for granted. As a child of four, he claimed to have seen God staring in through the upstairs window of the family house. Wandering in the open countryside of Peckham Rye a few years later, he had one of his most famous visions: a 'tree full of angels, with bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars'. Other moments were scarier: once he described the visitation of a huge, ghostly flea with a green and gold head - and drew it 'from life'. Maybe it was this visionary and prophetic side of his character that gave him the insight and courage to march out of step with his times …
8. Radical Blake.
William often worried that his radical views would lead to trouble. He was against Britain's foreign wars of the time, highly critical of conventional religion and anti-monarchy. In 1803 he had a row with a soldier who had 'trespassed' in his garden - and frog-marched him forcefully back to the local pub. The soldier pressed charges and Blake was put on trial for sedition for having supposedly muttered 'damn the King'. Though eventually cleared, it was a rude reminder to him of the dangers he ran in speaking his mind.
9. Radical Blake ii.
But even domestically he was a radical, with unorthodox views on marriage, sex and love. He criticised enforced marriage and chastity, and defended the rights of women to self-fulfillment. Blake took this respect for women onto the street, once furiously attacking a man who was assaulting his wife in public. He was a loyal husband to Catherine, his wife of 45 years. Together they would sunbathe nude in their garden in Lambeth - recreating the story of Adam and Eve, to the great surprise of visitors.
10. His last day.
Utterly devoted to Catherine, the prospect of parting at death must have been terrible. And yet Blake's visionary belief in the afterlife was so strong that he faced his last day without fear. The last shilling he spent was on a pencil so that he could keep drawing. As his strength failed, he then turned to his wife and said: 'Stay Kate! I will draw your portrait, as you have ever been an angel to me'. He then started to sing hymns, and died not long after. Catherine continued to sell his prints and to converse with him daily. On the day of her own death, it is reported she was cheerful, and called out to Blake 'as if he were in the next room' that she was coming to join him.
47Cynfelyn
Ewan Morrison's top 10 books about communes.
Guardian, 2013-12-11.
"Communal living: Plato recommended it, 19th-century religious separatists tried it, anarchists and hippies spectacularly failed at it. Attempting to live with no private property and all goods in common (which may even include sexual partners) has been a recurring utopian experiment.
"It's supposed to erase greed and create equality. You'd think that this important subject would have created a vast body of literature, but you'd be wrong. Novels about communes are very rare and this might be because the ideal of "the communal" is at loggerheads with the bias towards "the individual" in the novel. But there are some gems, which are important documents of a noble, failed, social experiment."
1. T. C. Boyle, Drop City.
It's the late 60s in California and a loose group of refuseniks, draft dodgers, musicians and pot smokers escape from the scene in Haight Ashbury to find true freedom on virgin soil in the wilds of Alaska. What they find instead are wild animals that eat their goats, an epidemic of genital lice, a phenomenon know as winter and rather hostile neighbours who have guns. T. C. Boyle's epic of culture clash presents us with one of the problems inherent in novels about communes – there are so many characters that we need an index and they have names like "Pan" and "Star". Who is the protagonist? No one, the commune is against protagonists!
2. B. F. Skinner, Walden Two.
Walden Two is a dangerous book: it inspires people to try to change their lives and their minds. Skinner was a leading behavioural psychologist who believed human behaviour could be altered just like Pavlov's dogs. Characters come to the fictional utopia to find out how it works and become converted to the new behavioural systems that artificially construct equality: a utopia with a despotic leader. It seems to appeal to some people – there is actually a commune in rural Virginia called Twin Oaks which describes itself as "A Walden Two experiment".
3. Marina Lewycka, Various pets dead and alive.
Doro is an ex-commune-dwelling ex-hippie now in her 50s, who buys frilly bras in M&S and wanders aimlessly through life. She has a brother who is too ashamed to admit that he has become a capitalist and is making millions in the City; her adopted daughter Oolie has Down's syndrome and keeps Doro in a constant state of domesticity and regression. This is a touching book about the failure of idealistic people and the fallout they cause in other peoples lives.
4. John Updike, S: a novel.
Through letters and tapes, Updike tells the story of Massachusetts housewife, Sarah P. Worth who has run away from her husband and decadent modern lifestyle to join the Arizonan ashram of guru Shri Arhat Mindadali. Daily routines of back breaking-labour and spiritual purification are documented in sniggering detail, and much fun is had at the expense of midwestern middle classes, eastern mystical cults.
5. Lauren Groff, Arcadia.
This story centres around a young boy, Bit, and his confused relationship with the largely naked polygamous, vegan older people who won't quite admit to being his parents. There are sensuous depictions of daily processes, making soy cheese and cake and even a birth which Bit assists in. Arcadia is an example of how you can make a compelling story out of the daily mess of commune living by making something go horribly wrong. Thankfully for novelists (and maybe regretfully for the world) communes usually collapse dramatically.
6. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale romance.
Brook Farm (1840s) was one of the most ambitious early attempts at founding an "intentional community" in the US. Located on farmland just outside of Boston, the aim was to create a model for living that would produce "industry without drudgery, and true equality without its vulgarity". All were paid equal wages, no matter what job. It would be a "morning star", that would show the world how to live. However, conflict soon arose between the transcendentalists and the socialists. After much arguing over money and meat, an outbreak of smallpox and a fire that destroyed the main building, the commune collapsed in massive debt. Thankfully author Nathaniel Hawthorne had been a founding member and recorded these characters in what was a memoir thinly veiled, for legal reasons, as a novel.
7. Many authors, 'The land'.
'The land' is possibly the largest wiki-file archive of the lives and stories of the hundreds of "alternative" people who experimented with communal living around the San Andreas fault above Palo Alto, California in the early 1970s as well as Struggle Mountain and surrounding communities (Black Mountain, Rancho Diablo, Pacific High School, Stallings). "It is intended to be a piece of the rebirth of that community as a virtual gathering on the Web." The website contains poetry, short stories, biographies, sci-fi, anecdotes, photos, drawings and recipes all dating from the 70s and is an incredible and touching document of the baby-boomer generations dreams of self-transcendence and social change.
(Wikispaces, the original web-provider, went to the wall in 2018, so here is the last 2017 copy saved by Internet Archive - Cynfelyn).
8. Joe Dunthorne, Wild abandon.
Don and Freya have raised their kids with barnyard chores and media studies – with a towel placed over the TV during commercial breaks. The kids are the cause of the coming collapse, as Kate rebels against her rebel hippie parents and plans to live with her boyfriend in suburbia. Then there's Marina with her fear that the world is going to collapse into an upper galactic blackhole, as predicted by the Mayans. Truth to the life of many communes there are a lot of characters here and not much in the way of plot, but that allows us to focus on the characters and to feel sorry for all of them, after we've stopped laughing.
9. Martha Nelson, Black chokeberry.
This is the tale of Ellen, Ruby and Frances, three women in their retirement years who, after bereavement and loss, have decided to leave the world behind and live together. This is not a political commune and not a ménage à trois either but an intentional community bound together by compassion and care. A gentle story of old women coping with the years in which everyone has abandoned them and finding the kind of true freedom that the hippies were aiming for.
10. Tim Parks, The server.
Beth is a crazy, bad girl, who likes fags, booze, rock'n'roll and bonking dangerous blokes. After an incident, she has taken refuge in a Buddhist retreat to try to purge herself of her old ways. She has become a "server", under a vow of silence, a kind of new-age housemaid for the spiritual leaders at the reatreat. In this rich first-person monologue, Beth does daily battle with the desire for chaos and ego. The silence makes her want to scream, the vow of no touching makes her want to screw. She wants to have her story back again, no matter how broken and crazy it is.
------
By complete coincidence, the Guardian has today published an edited extract from Susanna Crossman, Home is where we start, headlined "I was raised in a utopian commune where children ran wild. Only years later did I realise how much danger came with that freedom", to be published by Penguin on 15 August.
And a few BTL comments and recommendations:
Iain Banks, Whit. "Has to be up there, surely. 'A little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing. Innocent in the ways of the world, an ingenue when it comes to pop and fashion, the Elect of God of a small but committed Stirlingshire religious cult: Isis Whit is no ordinary teenager.'"
Alex Garland, The beach. "Should be on here. I love Drop City which made the list, and it's way better."
"I'd recommend Tim Guest's memoirs of growing up in the communes of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in the 70s and 80s: My life in orange : growing up with the guru. The follies of adults desparate to believe in something and how they are manipulated by charasmatic individuals as viewed through the eyes of a child. Left a mark on me."
Peter Carey, Bliss. "I personally think it is his best book (and that he has written some very fine books)."
Doris Lessing, The good terrorist. "Absolutely the best. I think this is an incredibly powerful book, and terrifying."
"I think the tension between the impulse of the individual and the needs of the commune are what give the best of the novels their tension. This particualrly the case in The Blithedale romance, a book I would highly recommend. It stayed in my mind long after I read it. A very unsettling read and in my opinion the best of Hawthorne's novels. As a 19th century puritan he understood you cannot go back to the garden after Adam took the bite of the apple!"
(At a complete tangent, that hadn't occurred to me before. Was Adam taking a bite of the apple what sealed the deal; Eve taking a bite was just a misdemeanor, what can you expect? - Cynfelyn).
Guardian, 2013-12-11.
"Communal living: Plato recommended it, 19th-century religious separatists tried it, anarchists and hippies spectacularly failed at it. Attempting to live with no private property and all goods in common (which may even include sexual partners) has been a recurring utopian experiment.
"It's supposed to erase greed and create equality. You'd think that this important subject would have created a vast body of literature, but you'd be wrong. Novels about communes are very rare and this might be because the ideal of "the communal" is at loggerheads with the bias towards "the individual" in the novel. But there are some gems, which are important documents of a noble, failed, social experiment."
1. T. C. Boyle, Drop City.
It's the late 60s in California and a loose group of refuseniks, draft dodgers, musicians and pot smokers escape from the scene in Haight Ashbury to find true freedom on virgin soil in the wilds of Alaska. What they find instead are wild animals that eat their goats, an epidemic of genital lice, a phenomenon know as winter and rather hostile neighbours who have guns. T. C. Boyle's epic of culture clash presents us with one of the problems inherent in novels about communes – there are so many characters that we need an index and they have names like "Pan" and "Star". Who is the protagonist? No one, the commune is against protagonists!
2. B. F. Skinner, Walden Two.
Walden Two is a dangerous book: it inspires people to try to change their lives and their minds. Skinner was a leading behavioural psychologist who believed human behaviour could be altered just like Pavlov's dogs. Characters come to the fictional utopia to find out how it works and become converted to the new behavioural systems that artificially construct equality: a utopia with a despotic leader. It seems to appeal to some people – there is actually a commune in rural Virginia called Twin Oaks which describes itself as "A Walden Two experiment".
3. Marina Lewycka, Various pets dead and alive.
Doro is an ex-commune-dwelling ex-hippie now in her 50s, who buys frilly bras in M&S and wanders aimlessly through life. She has a brother who is too ashamed to admit that he has become a capitalist and is making millions in the City; her adopted daughter Oolie has Down's syndrome and keeps Doro in a constant state of domesticity and regression. This is a touching book about the failure of idealistic people and the fallout they cause in other peoples lives.
4. John Updike, S: a novel.
Through letters and tapes, Updike tells the story of Massachusetts housewife, Sarah P. Worth who has run away from her husband and decadent modern lifestyle to join the Arizonan ashram of guru Shri Arhat Mindadali. Daily routines of back breaking-labour and spiritual purification are documented in sniggering detail, and much fun is had at the expense of midwestern middle classes, eastern mystical cults.
5. Lauren Groff, Arcadia.
This story centres around a young boy, Bit, and his confused relationship with the largely naked polygamous, vegan older people who won't quite admit to being his parents. There are sensuous depictions of daily processes, making soy cheese and cake and even a birth which Bit assists in. Arcadia is an example of how you can make a compelling story out of the daily mess of commune living by making something go horribly wrong. Thankfully for novelists (and maybe regretfully for the world) communes usually collapse dramatically.
6. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale romance.
Brook Farm (1840s) was one of the most ambitious early attempts at founding an "intentional community" in the US. Located on farmland just outside of Boston, the aim was to create a model for living that would produce "industry without drudgery, and true equality without its vulgarity". All were paid equal wages, no matter what job. It would be a "morning star", that would show the world how to live. However, conflict soon arose between the transcendentalists and the socialists. After much arguing over money and meat, an outbreak of smallpox and a fire that destroyed the main building, the commune collapsed in massive debt. Thankfully author Nathaniel Hawthorne had been a founding member and recorded these characters in what was a memoir thinly veiled, for legal reasons, as a novel.
7. Many authors, 'The land'.
'The land' is possibly the largest wiki-file archive of the lives and stories of the hundreds of "alternative" people who experimented with communal living around the San Andreas fault above Palo Alto, California in the early 1970s as well as Struggle Mountain and surrounding communities (Black Mountain, Rancho Diablo, Pacific High School, Stallings). "It is intended to be a piece of the rebirth of that community as a virtual gathering on the Web." The website contains poetry, short stories, biographies, sci-fi, anecdotes, photos, drawings and recipes all dating from the 70s and is an incredible and touching document of the baby-boomer generations dreams of self-transcendence and social change.
(Wikispaces, the original web-provider, went to the wall in 2018, so here is the last 2017 copy saved by Internet Archive - Cynfelyn).
8. Joe Dunthorne, Wild abandon.
Don and Freya have raised their kids with barnyard chores and media studies – with a towel placed over the TV during commercial breaks. The kids are the cause of the coming collapse, as Kate rebels against her rebel hippie parents and plans to live with her boyfriend in suburbia. Then there's Marina with her fear that the world is going to collapse into an upper galactic blackhole, as predicted by the Mayans. Truth to the life of many communes there are a lot of characters here and not much in the way of plot, but that allows us to focus on the characters and to feel sorry for all of them, after we've stopped laughing.
9. Martha Nelson, Black chokeberry.
This is the tale of Ellen, Ruby and Frances, three women in their retirement years who, after bereavement and loss, have decided to leave the world behind and live together. This is not a political commune and not a ménage à trois either but an intentional community bound together by compassion and care. A gentle story of old women coping with the years in which everyone has abandoned them and finding the kind of true freedom that the hippies were aiming for.
10. Tim Parks, The server.
Beth is a crazy, bad girl, who likes fags, booze, rock'n'roll and bonking dangerous blokes. After an incident, she has taken refuge in a Buddhist retreat to try to purge herself of her old ways. She has become a "server", under a vow of silence, a kind of new-age housemaid for the spiritual leaders at the reatreat. In this rich first-person monologue, Beth does daily battle with the desire for chaos and ego. The silence makes her want to scream, the vow of no touching makes her want to screw. She wants to have her story back again, no matter how broken and crazy it is.
------
By complete coincidence, the Guardian has today published an edited extract from Susanna Crossman, Home is where we start, headlined "I was raised in a utopian commune where children ran wild. Only years later did I realise how much danger came with that freedom", to be published by Penguin on 15 August.
And a few BTL comments and recommendations:
Iain Banks, Whit. "Has to be up there, surely. 'A little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing. Innocent in the ways of the world, an ingenue when it comes to pop and fashion, the Elect of God of a small but committed Stirlingshire religious cult: Isis Whit is no ordinary teenager.'"
Alex Garland, The beach. "Should be on here. I love Drop City which made the list, and it's way better."
"I'd recommend Tim Guest's memoirs of growing up in the communes of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in the 70s and 80s: My life in orange : growing up with the guru. The follies of adults desparate to believe in something and how they are manipulated by charasmatic individuals as viewed through the eyes of a child. Left a mark on me."
Peter Carey, Bliss. "I personally think it is his best book (and that he has written some very fine books)."
Doris Lessing, The good terrorist. "Absolutely the best. I think this is an incredibly powerful book, and terrifying."
"I think the tension between the impulse of the individual and the needs of the commune are what give the best of the novels their tension. This particualrly the case in The Blithedale romance, a book I would highly recommend. It stayed in my mind long after I read it. A very unsettling read and in my opinion the best of Hawthorne's novels. As a 19th century puritan he understood you cannot go back to the garden after Adam took the bite of the apple!"
(At a complete tangent, that hadn't occurred to me before. Was Adam taking a bite of the apple what sealed the deal; Eve taking a bite was just a misdemeanor, what can you expect? - Cynfelyn).
48Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Jim Smith's top 10 funny books for kids.
Guardian, 2013-12-12.
Jim Smith won this year's Roald Dahl funny prize for I am still not a loser, the second book in his Barry Loser series, featuring the trials and tribulations of a big-nosed schoolboy and his best friend Bunky.
"We're having our first child next year, so until then I can only go on what I read when I was young. I always liked pictures just as much as words, so most of the below are a mix of the two. They aren't in any order, and some of them are more smile-funny than laugh-out-loud, but sometimes that's the more satisfying of the two."
1. René Goscinny & Jean-Jacques Sempé, Little Nicolas.
My flatmate, who inspired Barry Loser's best friend Bunky in my books, bought me an English translation when they came out a few years ago. I'd always loved Sempe's illustrations - he's a master at portraying an expression with just a few lines. But the voice of Nicolas is lovely too - really energetic.
2. Jerry Seinfeld, Halloween.
This is one of Jerry Seinfeld's standup routines turned into a kids' book. It really gets the feeling of excitement when you're a kid and is full of his brilliant observations.
3. Allan & Janet Ahlberg, Mrs Wobble the waitress.
I had the whole Happy Families collection when I was a kid, but this is the one I remember best. Janet Ahlberg's drawings are crammed with details but the books also have a lot of white space, which I love.
4. William Steig, Shrek.
This is the original picture book that inspired the films. Steig was a New Yorker cartoonist whose style started out very traditional and ended up really loose and modern. Shrek's prickly pear nose is an early precursor to Barry Loser's enormous shnozzle.
5. Judy Blume, Are you there God? It's me, Margaret.
I used to steal my older sister's Just seventeen magazines, just to read the problem pages. It was the same with this book - a funny way to find more out about girls.
6. Bernard Stone & Ralph Steadman, Inspector Mouse.
I'm not even sure if this book had a particularly funny story. It was the illustrations by my childhood hero Ralph Steadman that did it for me. Low-life gangster rats skulking around in sleazy bars - there was something really adult and sophisticated about them but goofy and stupid at the same time.
7. Geoffrey Willans & Ronald Searle, Molesworth.
I've never been that bothered about the actual words in Molesworth books either, but Ronald Searle's amazing pen and ink drawings are incredible. How could a kid not love them?
8. Raymond Briggs, Father Christmas.
I love Raymond Briggs's grumpy Father Christmas - he's based on Briggs's own father, who was a milkman. I think this was the real Father Christmas for me when I was a kid. The one where he goes on holiday and eats snails then gets sick is hilarious.
9. Roald Dahl & Quentin Blake, George's marvellous medicine.
I still have my childhood copy of this - red cover with Quentin Blake's illustration sitting in a big black-outlined box in the middle. I remember using a whole bottle of my mum's Oil of Ulay (Olay) making my own concoction.
10. Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾.
Still one of the funniest books I've ever read. The cover on my copy was the original coloured pencil illustration of the Noddy toothbrush in a glass next to a shaving brush and razor. I have lots of visual memories from it - his red socks and Noddy wallpaper, painted over with black.
Guardian, 2013-12-12.
Jim Smith won this year's Roald Dahl funny prize for I am still not a loser, the second book in his Barry Loser series, featuring the trials and tribulations of a big-nosed schoolboy and his best friend Bunky.
"We're having our first child next year, so until then I can only go on what I read when I was young. I always liked pictures just as much as words, so most of the below are a mix of the two. They aren't in any order, and some of them are more smile-funny than laugh-out-loud, but sometimes that's the more satisfying of the two."
1. René Goscinny & Jean-Jacques Sempé, Little Nicolas.
My flatmate, who inspired Barry Loser's best friend Bunky in my books, bought me an English translation when they came out a few years ago. I'd always loved Sempe's illustrations - he's a master at portraying an expression with just a few lines. But the voice of Nicolas is lovely too - really energetic.
2. Jerry Seinfeld, Halloween.
This is one of Jerry Seinfeld's standup routines turned into a kids' book. It really gets the feeling of excitement when you're a kid and is full of his brilliant observations.
3. Allan & Janet Ahlberg, Mrs Wobble the waitress.
I had the whole Happy Families collection when I was a kid, but this is the one I remember best. Janet Ahlberg's drawings are crammed with details but the books also have a lot of white space, which I love.
4. William Steig, Shrek.
This is the original picture book that inspired the films. Steig was a New Yorker cartoonist whose style started out very traditional and ended up really loose and modern. Shrek's prickly pear nose is an early precursor to Barry Loser's enormous shnozzle.
5. Judy Blume, Are you there God? It's me, Margaret.
I used to steal my older sister's Just seventeen magazines, just to read the problem pages. It was the same with this book - a funny way to find more out about girls.
6. Bernard Stone & Ralph Steadman, Inspector Mouse.
I'm not even sure if this book had a particularly funny story. It was the illustrations by my childhood hero Ralph Steadman that did it for me. Low-life gangster rats skulking around in sleazy bars - there was something really adult and sophisticated about them but goofy and stupid at the same time.
7. Geoffrey Willans & Ronald Searle, Molesworth.
I've never been that bothered about the actual words in Molesworth books either, but Ronald Searle's amazing pen and ink drawings are incredible. How could a kid not love them?
8. Raymond Briggs, Father Christmas.
I love Raymond Briggs's grumpy Father Christmas - he's based on Briggs's own father, who was a milkman. I think this was the real Father Christmas for me when I was a kid. The one where he goes on holiday and eats snails then gets sick is hilarious.
9. Roald Dahl & Quentin Blake, George's marvellous medicine.
I still have my childhood copy of this - red cover with Quentin Blake's illustration sitting in a big black-outlined box in the middle. I remember using a whole bottle of my mum's Oil of Ulay (Olay) making my own concoction.
10. Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾.
Still one of the funniest books I've ever read. The cover on my copy was the original coloured pencil illustration of the Noddy toothbrush in a glass next to a shaving brush and razor. I have lots of visual memories from it - his red socks and Noddy wallpaper, painted over with black.
49Cynfelyn
Bob Stanley's 10 best music histories.
Guardian, 2013-12-18.
"One of the reasons I wanted to write Yeah Yeah Yeah is because it didn't already exist. There wasn't a book that followed pop music's development from the start of the 1950s, when the introduction of vinyl records, the "hit parade", the weekly music press and the Dansette – the first portable musical hardware – created the modern pop era.
"There were plenty of books out there on genres, micro-genres, even specific songs, and some of these are among my favourite books. Without the 10 I've listed here, all big inspirations, Yeah Yeah Yeah would have been much harder and much less fun to pull together."
John Aizlewood, Love Is the drug.
Aizlewood edited this book about fan worship, written by fans who mostly ended up as DJs (Steve Lamacq) or journalists (Sheryl Garratt) or both (Danny Kelly). Each writer describes their first pop love, which can either be forbiddingly cool (Kelly grew up in Dalston, split equally in the 60s between Irish and Jamaican communities, and so came to love reggae at an early age) or quite the opposite (Garratt's essay on Rollermania). Best of the lot is Mick Houghton's piece about falling in and out of love with Billy Fury, betraying him for the Beatles in 1963, and still feeling a sense of shame 30 years later.
Elijah Wald, How the Beatles destroyed rock'n'roll.
This covers the pre-rock era, and the rise of American popular music through parlour songs, spirituals and ragtime. Wald has more time for musicians and ordinary listeners than swing buffs and revisionists. Best of all, he takes on the conventional history of jazz (he has a rare respect for the white "king of jazz" Paul Whiteman, largely ignored by modern critics) as well as rock, which we don't reach until the book is more than halfway through.
George Melly, Revolt into style.
The first book specifically about British pop culture, published in 1970, is a fabulous period piece. Melly was on the outside, as a jazzman, but observed the rise of modern pop with interest; his is a pretty unique perspective. He describes the "castrating process" of Tommy Steele's career move from rock'n'roller to all-round entertainer, and Swinging London as "of use only to the lazy and least talented". He's no snob, though: "There's nothing wrong with camp if it doesn't put on airs."
Richard Osborne, Vinyl : a history of the analogue record.
In theory, Vinyl is an academic book, but I found it a very easy read – there was plenty to discover. Osborne talks about how 78s were made from the secretions of beetles found on the Malay peninsula and in French Indochina, how record labels were first created (yes, the paper labels themselves), and the reasons why Johnny Marr might regard 7-inch singles as "mystical objects" while a Pink Floyd fan urged NME readers in 1974 to lobby their MPs so "seven inch records must be made illegal". Anyone who has an obsession with records as physical artefacts will love this.
Nik Cohn, Pop from the beginning.
Written in three weeks flat at the start of 1969, this was a chronological dash through pop's first 15 years, from Bill Haley to Crosby Stills and Nash (who Cohn thought were weedy and unlistenable). He is never scared to have an opinion that goes against the grain and even if I don't agree with him most of the time (P. J. Proby gets a whole chapter!), the pulp thriller style gets the excitement of the period and the pace of change across with a huge amount of panache.
Dave Marsh, The heart of rock and soul.
Marsh celebrates the 7-inch single, listing what he considers to be the 1,001 greatest 45s in order (I won't spoil it by telling you what's number one). I love the intriguing, unlikely connections he makes to show how the story of pop can be seen as a whole: Nolan Chance's eerie doo-wop hit 'The wind' is described as "a prophecy of Michael Jackson 20 years before he came along … if it had arrived in a meteorite shower it couldn't have been any spookier". The only thing wrong with the book is its clunky title, but then it was written in the mid-80s when pop was a dirty word.
Greg Milner, Perfecting sound forever.
The story of recorded music, and how we've listened to it since the days of Edison. It turns into something of a polemic once it reaches the digital era, but you can understand Milner's frown. The romance of radio waves, magnetic recording tape and gramophones is strong, and the digital age seems rather puny and unexciting when set alongside these progressive, physical, scientific advances.
Jon Savage, England's dreaming.
Though there are other good books on punk – John Robb's oral history for one – this is definitive. Which is most impressive when you consider that no two people have ever agreed on exactly what "punk" is. Savage looks at it as much from a sociological perspective as a musical one. He reanimates the Sex Pistols' huge social impact in 1977, set against the "pathetic scrap of bunting" of the Queen's silver jubilee, using quotes from John le Carré, Guy Debord and his own teenage diaries.
Hugh Barker & Yuval Taylor, Faking it.
I like Girls Aloud as much as I like Nick Drake – authenticity is a bugbear of mine. The notion that you have to be a tortured genius to make great music seems hideously outdated, yet certain types of music are still treated as more important and more serious than ones that tend to sell in quantity. Faking it has all the ammo you need to shoot down Mercury music prize advocates. It reveals how the supposed realness of the blues was basically a white enthusiasts' construct, and explains why Nirvana felt the need to apologise for being popular.
Ian MacDonald, Revolution in the head.
I've avoided straight biographies on this list, but the Beatles' story is the perfect pop story, and – by going through every Beatles song chronologically – no one tells it better than Ian MacDonald. It's wildly unpredictable. MacDonald has a problem with George Harrison's general moodiness, and describes 'Helter skelter' as a "drunken mess", but you don't have to agree with him. His writing is so good that, against all odds, it'll make you listen to the most overplayed songs in history all over again.
------
And from the surprisingly thin offering of BTL comments and recommendations:
"I'd also add Please kill me by Legs McNeil to Robb's oral history of punk and the brilliant England's dreaming as the definitive and most fun book on the subject. Covering the music scence - predominantly NYC, but sometimes further afield - in the 70's, its looks at the parallel journey to '77 in the USA from the mouths of the main protaganists. A really enjoyable read and essential counterpoint to the Robb/Savage books mentioned in the article."
"Even if you don't much admire the Beatles, or think that an exhaustive song-by-song dissection of each is a bit anorak, give Revolution in the head a whirl - if only for the brilliant, lengthy, introduction. I'm a bit changeable on the Beatles, but about this book I'm unequivocally a huge fan."
"I'd have included Simon Reynolds' brilliant Rip it up and start again : postpunk 1978-1984. It may be an obvious thing to say from a 50yr old, to whom it all occurred, but reading it when it came out brought back to me the furious pace of development, and the extraordinary range of musics flying about in that period. All of which makes one groan at the glacial pace of real change over the last couple of decades ..." // "That was my first thought although I've more dipped in and out than read cover to cover. Post punk has to be the most brilliant and creative period of all but being 28, I'm jealous and bitter about being brought into the world at the wrong time." // "Dead on. Anything by Simon Reynolds. Rip it up's magnificent, but so are Totally wired and Retromania. I even enjoyed Energy flash - and I don't even like rave/electronica/dance music. Great writer. Bob's book YYY is tremendous too, by the way."
"I have to say: Yeah Yeah Yeah is a fucking cracking read." // "I agree, vastly enjoyable .."
"The Guardian's very own Caroline Sullivan's Bye Bye Baby is THE book that captures what it was really like to be a Bay City Rollers fan, devoted even as their popularity fades, it tells you what happens after pop stardom ends. It's a frank, funny, and moving read, Sullivan and the hardcore fans often far more likable than the band themselves."
"Lester Bangs didn't live long enough to write a single history of rock and roll, but my god, honorary mention should be given here to Psychotic reactions and carburetor dung. The piece on the Clash alone should get him listed here."
Guardian, 2013-12-18.
"One of the reasons I wanted to write Yeah Yeah Yeah is because it didn't already exist. There wasn't a book that followed pop music's development from the start of the 1950s, when the introduction of vinyl records, the "hit parade", the weekly music press and the Dansette – the first portable musical hardware – created the modern pop era.
"There were plenty of books out there on genres, micro-genres, even specific songs, and some of these are among my favourite books. Without the 10 I've listed here, all big inspirations, Yeah Yeah Yeah would have been much harder and much less fun to pull together."
John Aizlewood, Love Is the drug.
Aizlewood edited this book about fan worship, written by fans who mostly ended up as DJs (Steve Lamacq) or journalists (Sheryl Garratt) or both (Danny Kelly). Each writer describes their first pop love, which can either be forbiddingly cool (Kelly grew up in Dalston, split equally in the 60s between Irish and Jamaican communities, and so came to love reggae at an early age) or quite the opposite (Garratt's essay on Rollermania). Best of the lot is Mick Houghton's piece about falling in and out of love with Billy Fury, betraying him for the Beatles in 1963, and still feeling a sense of shame 30 years later.
Elijah Wald, How the Beatles destroyed rock'n'roll.
This covers the pre-rock era, and the rise of American popular music through parlour songs, spirituals and ragtime. Wald has more time for musicians and ordinary listeners than swing buffs and revisionists. Best of all, he takes on the conventional history of jazz (he has a rare respect for the white "king of jazz" Paul Whiteman, largely ignored by modern critics) as well as rock, which we don't reach until the book is more than halfway through.
George Melly, Revolt into style.
The first book specifically about British pop culture, published in 1970, is a fabulous period piece. Melly was on the outside, as a jazzman, but observed the rise of modern pop with interest; his is a pretty unique perspective. He describes the "castrating process" of Tommy Steele's career move from rock'n'roller to all-round entertainer, and Swinging London as "of use only to the lazy and least talented". He's no snob, though: "There's nothing wrong with camp if it doesn't put on airs."
Richard Osborne, Vinyl : a history of the analogue record.
In theory, Vinyl is an academic book, but I found it a very easy read – there was plenty to discover. Osborne talks about how 78s were made from the secretions of beetles found on the Malay peninsula and in French Indochina, how record labels were first created (yes, the paper labels themselves), and the reasons why Johnny Marr might regard 7-inch singles as "mystical objects" while a Pink Floyd fan urged NME readers in 1974 to lobby their MPs so "seven inch records must be made illegal". Anyone who has an obsession with records as physical artefacts will love this.
Nik Cohn, Pop from the beginning.
Written in three weeks flat at the start of 1969, this was a chronological dash through pop's first 15 years, from Bill Haley to Crosby Stills and Nash (who Cohn thought were weedy and unlistenable). He is never scared to have an opinion that goes against the grain and even if I don't agree with him most of the time (P. J. Proby gets a whole chapter!), the pulp thriller style gets the excitement of the period and the pace of change across with a huge amount of panache.
Dave Marsh, The heart of rock and soul.
Marsh celebrates the 7-inch single, listing what he considers to be the 1,001 greatest 45s in order (I won't spoil it by telling you what's number one). I love the intriguing, unlikely connections he makes to show how the story of pop can be seen as a whole: Nolan Chance's eerie doo-wop hit 'The wind' is described as "a prophecy of Michael Jackson 20 years before he came along … if it had arrived in a meteorite shower it couldn't have been any spookier". The only thing wrong with the book is its clunky title, but then it was written in the mid-80s when pop was a dirty word.
Greg Milner, Perfecting sound forever.
The story of recorded music, and how we've listened to it since the days of Edison. It turns into something of a polemic once it reaches the digital era, but you can understand Milner's frown. The romance of radio waves, magnetic recording tape and gramophones is strong, and the digital age seems rather puny and unexciting when set alongside these progressive, physical, scientific advances.
Jon Savage, England's dreaming.
Though there are other good books on punk – John Robb's oral history for one – this is definitive. Which is most impressive when you consider that no two people have ever agreed on exactly what "punk" is. Savage looks at it as much from a sociological perspective as a musical one. He reanimates the Sex Pistols' huge social impact in 1977, set against the "pathetic scrap of bunting" of the Queen's silver jubilee, using quotes from John le Carré, Guy Debord and his own teenage diaries.
Hugh Barker & Yuval Taylor, Faking it.
I like Girls Aloud as much as I like Nick Drake – authenticity is a bugbear of mine. The notion that you have to be a tortured genius to make great music seems hideously outdated, yet certain types of music are still treated as more important and more serious than ones that tend to sell in quantity. Faking it has all the ammo you need to shoot down Mercury music prize advocates. It reveals how the supposed realness of the blues was basically a white enthusiasts' construct, and explains why Nirvana felt the need to apologise for being popular.
Ian MacDonald, Revolution in the head.
I've avoided straight biographies on this list, but the Beatles' story is the perfect pop story, and – by going through every Beatles song chronologically – no one tells it better than Ian MacDonald. It's wildly unpredictable. MacDonald has a problem with George Harrison's general moodiness, and describes 'Helter skelter' as a "drunken mess", but you don't have to agree with him. His writing is so good that, against all odds, it'll make you listen to the most overplayed songs in history all over again.
------
And from the surprisingly thin offering of BTL comments and recommendations:
"I'd also add Please kill me by Legs McNeil to Robb's oral history of punk and the brilliant England's dreaming as the definitive and most fun book on the subject. Covering the music scence - predominantly NYC, but sometimes further afield - in the 70's, its looks at the parallel journey to '77 in the USA from the mouths of the main protaganists. A really enjoyable read and essential counterpoint to the Robb/Savage books mentioned in the article."
"Even if you don't much admire the Beatles, or think that an exhaustive song-by-song dissection of each is a bit anorak, give Revolution in the head a whirl - if only for the brilliant, lengthy, introduction. I'm a bit changeable on the Beatles, but about this book I'm unequivocally a huge fan."
"I'd have included Simon Reynolds' brilliant Rip it up and start again : postpunk 1978-1984. It may be an obvious thing to say from a 50yr old, to whom it all occurred, but reading it when it came out brought back to me the furious pace of development, and the extraordinary range of musics flying about in that period. All of which makes one groan at the glacial pace of real change over the last couple of decades ..." // "That was my first thought although I've more dipped in and out than read cover to cover. Post punk has to be the most brilliant and creative period of all but being 28, I'm jealous and bitter about being brought into the world at the wrong time." // "Dead on. Anything by Simon Reynolds. Rip it up's magnificent, but so are Totally wired and Retromania. I even enjoyed Energy flash - and I don't even like rave/electronica/dance music. Great writer. Bob's book YYY is tremendous too, by the way."
"I have to say: Yeah Yeah Yeah is a fucking cracking read." // "I agree, vastly enjoyable .."
"The Guardian's very own Caroline Sullivan's Bye Bye Baby is THE book that captures what it was really like to be a Bay City Rollers fan, devoted even as their popularity fades, it tells you what happens after pop stardom ends. It's a frank, funny, and moving read, Sullivan and the hardcore fans often far more likable than the band themselves."
"Lester Bangs didn't live long enough to write a single history of rock and roll, but my god, honorary mention should be given here to Psychotic reactions and carburetor dung. The piece on the Clash alone should get him listed here."
50Cynfelyn
Sophie Hannah's top 10 pageturners.
Guardian, 2013-12-24.
"Last night I finished reading the excellent One, two, buckle my shoe by Agatha Christie. I now have to make a tough decision: which book to read next?
"The notion of choosing is problematic, however. I don't want to read the books I have chosen to read: I want to read the books that have allowed me no say in the matter – seized me from the first page and released me only after the last full stop. Reading is the only area of my life in which I prefer to be non-autonomous. Ruth Rendell, one of my crime fiction heroes, once said that a novel should grip from the first line, and when I write my psychological thrillers this is exactly what I aim for.
"Over the years, I have been lucky enough to discover many books that have gripped me into total submission. Here, in equal first place, are 10 of them:"
Joy Fielding, See Jane run.
A flawless psychological thriller, and the book that made me fall in love with psychological crime fiction. A woman finds herself in a shop wearing nothing but a coat, the pockets of which are stuffed full of money. She has lost her memory and has no idea who she is, so when a man comes forward claiming to be her husband, and armed with plenty of proof, she has no choice but to let him take her home … This is the archetypal Everywoman-plunged-into-a-nightmare novel. The clues are expertly planted, and the revelation at the end brings on a perfect rush of: "Oh, I so should have worked it out – but I didn't."
Rachel Sontag, House rules (published in the UK as Daddy's rules).
This is a riveting memoir about a psychologically abusive childhood and a girl who saved her own life with very little help from anybody. It should not be dismissed as a misery memoir – it's beautifully written, truly chilling, maddening and uplifting. Sontag was an ordinary teenager who heroically mustered all her power and strength to escape from the clutches of her insane narcissist father and narcissist-enabler mother.
Sophie Kinsella, I've got your number.
Kinsella is a spectacularly good writer, and this is probably my favourite of her books (though The undomestic goddess is also a contender). This novel is totally irresistible: tightly and boldly plotted, hilarious, romantic, witty and clever. It is so well-written that you fall in love with the hero as if he were a real person, and root for the heroine as if she were your dearest friend. I love the way Kinsella's heroines get carried away with enthusiasm and make disastrously stupid decisions, then recognise their silliness when it's too late. I've got your number is about a woman who finds a stranger's phone in a bin, and uses it as the perfect excuse to interfere in the poor chap's personal and professional life.
Tana French, Broken harbour.
The most gripping crime novel I have read for a long time. So richly imagined, so intriguing – I was bereft when I finished it and realised I would have to wait a year for the next Tana French book. A family is found dead in a house on a ghost estate in Ireland, and there are strange holes in the walls and ceilings of their house, and cameras set up as if to film the holes. What can possibly be going on? I was so desperate to learn the answer that I was glued to this novel from start to finish. French is an addictive storyteller and creates a vividly complete fictional universe that lives on in your mind long after you've finished reading. All four of her novels are brilliant, but this one is the best.
Liane Moriarty, The husband's secret.
A woman finds an envelope addressed to her by her husband. On it he has written "Only open this if I am dead." She asks him about it and he rather shiftily says: "Oh, er, it's nothing – don't open it." That is the initial hook, and it's a powerful one. What's great about this novel is that it makes you care absolutely equally about the plot and the characters. It's a moving story about relationships, redemption, guilt, love and just about every other important thing. At the same time, it's a perfectly paced mystery with a beautiful solution and a breathtakingly twisty final chapter.
Diane Setterfield, The thirteenth tale.
This should not be missed by any lover of fiction. It's a strangely old-fashioned story about a biographer who is working on the life story of a famous writer, and … anything else I say about it will not do it justice, because it cannot be summarised, and is so much more than the sum of its parts. It's an amazing mystery without being a crime novel, and is in every way an incredible book.
Douglas Kennedy, Five days.
The reason this novel made the list is because of one particular incident in it. Even better, the incident is a non-incident; Kennedy manages to make gasp-inducing drama out of something that doesn't even happen. It is one of the best plot moments in contemporary fiction, I think. The novel tells of a woman who is unhappily married and falls in love with a man who isn't her husband, but it is so unusual and felt so much truer than other books I have read on the same subject. I still gasp and tut and shake my head when I think about this particular plot point.
John Curran, Agatha Christie's secret notebooks.
Could there be a more inviting book title? This book is exactly what it sounds like: a guided tour of the Queen of Crime's journals and jottings, by her cleverest and most loyal fan, John Curran. It is fascinating to read about where the ideas for her novels came from, and to get a behind-the-scenes look at her working methods.
Edna St Vincent Millay, Collected sonnets.
I discovered Millay's Sonnets in the library of the University of Manchester when I was an undergraduate there. I was supposed to be looking for T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and I found Millay by accident and fell in love with her witty, sharp, romantic verse. Instead of writing about whatever Eliot and Pound wrote about (and can I come back to you later about what exactly that was?), Millay wrote about sexy ex-boyfriends, and annoying current boyfriends, and how she refused to be virtuous and respectable. I renewed that library book regularly for the whole three years that I was at university, and then finally bought my own copy.
John Franklin Bardin, The deadly percheron.
A very weird noir-ish American crime novel that starts with a man visiting his psychiatrist and claiming that various dwarves of his acquaintance are paying him to wear flowers in his hair. The shrink assumes he's insane, until his new patient takes him to a bar and introduces him to one of these dwarves, who says: "Oh, yes, it's quite true." Things get even stranger after that, and the novel keeps showing the reader that what is assumed to be impossible has in fact happened. It is a compulsive, atmospheric, imagination-challenging book and totally unique.
------
There's only two and a half dozen BTL comments, of which:
"I'd add many of Patricia Highsmith's suspense novels, including Deep water, This sweet sickness, Edith's diary and The cry of the owl. Generally I don't read many 'pageturners', if by that we mean a book where (as Hannah says of Tana French above) you're 'desperate to learn the answer.' That may be because when I do read books where that's the main driver, I often end them feeling a bit dissatisfied: still hungry rather than well fed."
"Sarah Waters's Affinity for me. Also, any of Arnaldur Indridason's Reykjavik mysteries."
"For me (not for everyone, apparently, because they leave some readers cold) there's nothing quite like a good Patrick O'Brian. I read the whole Aubrey-Maturin series (21 novels) in the space of a year, and I know several friends who got similarly addicted." // "I enjoy the Aubrey-Maturin books, but I wouldn't call them page turners. More like a leisurely meal to be savoured over time. C. S. Forrester's Hornblower books, however, practically glue themselves to my hands until they're finished, especially A ship of the line with it's almost apocalyptic climax."
"I discovered Richard Austin Freeman's Dr Thorndyke novels earlier this year and found them completely unputdownable. I devoured all the ones I could get my hands on pretty much in one gulp. They are fiercely intelligent, like the hero, and tend to have a great sense of place, particularly when that place is London. I tend to sum them up, when I'm trying to persuade other people to give them a go, as Edwardian CSI and I can't recommend them highly enough." // "Thorndyke stories are really enjoyable - my own favourites are Mr Pottermack's oversight and Mr Polton explains - so well written and great stories."
"I'm very glad The thirteenth tale was included - I really loved it and agree that it has an old fashioned quality that makes it seem rather "otherwordly". It's a wonderful Christmas read. I hope that the TV version does it some justice." // "Vanessa Redgrave and Olivia Colman - stands a chance ..." // "Oh, I didn't realise it was going to be on TV! I loved this book!"
Anna Funder, All that I am. "Probably two sittings rather than one ... when everything starts to unravel, I couldn't put it down until I'd finished it. Absolutely brilliant."
Guardian, 2013-12-24.
"Last night I finished reading the excellent One, two, buckle my shoe by Agatha Christie. I now have to make a tough decision: which book to read next?
"The notion of choosing is problematic, however. I don't want to read the books I have chosen to read: I want to read the books that have allowed me no say in the matter – seized me from the first page and released me only after the last full stop. Reading is the only area of my life in which I prefer to be non-autonomous. Ruth Rendell, one of my crime fiction heroes, once said that a novel should grip from the first line, and when I write my psychological thrillers this is exactly what I aim for.
"Over the years, I have been lucky enough to discover many books that have gripped me into total submission. Here, in equal first place, are 10 of them:"
Joy Fielding, See Jane run.
A flawless psychological thriller, and the book that made me fall in love with psychological crime fiction. A woman finds herself in a shop wearing nothing but a coat, the pockets of which are stuffed full of money. She has lost her memory and has no idea who she is, so when a man comes forward claiming to be her husband, and armed with plenty of proof, she has no choice but to let him take her home … This is the archetypal Everywoman-plunged-into-a-nightmare novel. The clues are expertly planted, and the revelation at the end brings on a perfect rush of: "Oh, I so should have worked it out – but I didn't."
Rachel Sontag, House rules (published in the UK as Daddy's rules).
This is a riveting memoir about a psychologically abusive childhood and a girl who saved her own life with very little help from anybody. It should not be dismissed as a misery memoir – it's beautifully written, truly chilling, maddening and uplifting. Sontag was an ordinary teenager who heroically mustered all her power and strength to escape from the clutches of her insane narcissist father and narcissist-enabler mother.
Sophie Kinsella, I've got your number.
Kinsella is a spectacularly good writer, and this is probably my favourite of her books (though The undomestic goddess is also a contender). This novel is totally irresistible: tightly and boldly plotted, hilarious, romantic, witty and clever. It is so well-written that you fall in love with the hero as if he were a real person, and root for the heroine as if she were your dearest friend. I love the way Kinsella's heroines get carried away with enthusiasm and make disastrously stupid decisions, then recognise their silliness when it's too late. I've got your number is about a woman who finds a stranger's phone in a bin, and uses it as the perfect excuse to interfere in the poor chap's personal and professional life.
Tana French, Broken harbour.
The most gripping crime novel I have read for a long time. So richly imagined, so intriguing – I was bereft when I finished it and realised I would have to wait a year for the next Tana French book. A family is found dead in a house on a ghost estate in Ireland, and there are strange holes in the walls and ceilings of their house, and cameras set up as if to film the holes. What can possibly be going on? I was so desperate to learn the answer that I was glued to this novel from start to finish. French is an addictive storyteller and creates a vividly complete fictional universe that lives on in your mind long after you've finished reading. All four of her novels are brilliant, but this one is the best.
Liane Moriarty, The husband's secret.
A woman finds an envelope addressed to her by her husband. On it he has written "Only open this if I am dead." She asks him about it and he rather shiftily says: "Oh, er, it's nothing – don't open it." That is the initial hook, and it's a powerful one. What's great about this novel is that it makes you care absolutely equally about the plot and the characters. It's a moving story about relationships, redemption, guilt, love and just about every other important thing. At the same time, it's a perfectly paced mystery with a beautiful solution and a breathtakingly twisty final chapter.
Diane Setterfield, The thirteenth tale.
This should not be missed by any lover of fiction. It's a strangely old-fashioned story about a biographer who is working on the life story of a famous writer, and … anything else I say about it will not do it justice, because it cannot be summarised, and is so much more than the sum of its parts. It's an amazing mystery without being a crime novel, and is in every way an incredible book.
Douglas Kennedy, Five days.
The reason this novel made the list is because of one particular incident in it. Even better, the incident is a non-incident; Kennedy manages to make gasp-inducing drama out of something that doesn't even happen. It is one of the best plot moments in contemporary fiction, I think. The novel tells of a woman who is unhappily married and falls in love with a man who isn't her husband, but it is so unusual and felt so much truer than other books I have read on the same subject. I still gasp and tut and shake my head when I think about this particular plot point.
John Curran, Agatha Christie's secret notebooks.
Could there be a more inviting book title? This book is exactly what it sounds like: a guided tour of the Queen of Crime's journals and jottings, by her cleverest and most loyal fan, John Curran. It is fascinating to read about where the ideas for her novels came from, and to get a behind-the-scenes look at her working methods.
Edna St Vincent Millay, Collected sonnets.
I discovered Millay's Sonnets in the library of the University of Manchester when I was an undergraduate there. I was supposed to be looking for T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and I found Millay by accident and fell in love with her witty, sharp, romantic verse. Instead of writing about whatever Eliot and Pound wrote about (and can I come back to you later about what exactly that was?), Millay wrote about sexy ex-boyfriends, and annoying current boyfriends, and how she refused to be virtuous and respectable. I renewed that library book regularly for the whole three years that I was at university, and then finally bought my own copy.
John Franklin Bardin, The deadly percheron.
A very weird noir-ish American crime novel that starts with a man visiting his psychiatrist and claiming that various dwarves of his acquaintance are paying him to wear flowers in his hair. The shrink assumes he's insane, until his new patient takes him to a bar and introduces him to one of these dwarves, who says: "Oh, yes, it's quite true." Things get even stranger after that, and the novel keeps showing the reader that what is assumed to be impossible has in fact happened. It is a compulsive, atmospheric, imagination-challenging book and totally unique.
------
There's only two and a half dozen BTL comments, of which:
"I'd add many of Patricia Highsmith's suspense novels, including Deep water, This sweet sickness, Edith's diary and The cry of the owl. Generally I don't read many 'pageturners', if by that we mean a book where (as Hannah says of Tana French above) you're 'desperate to learn the answer.' That may be because when I do read books where that's the main driver, I often end them feeling a bit dissatisfied: still hungry rather than well fed."
"Sarah Waters's Affinity for me. Also, any of Arnaldur Indridason's Reykjavik mysteries."
"For me (not for everyone, apparently, because they leave some readers cold) there's nothing quite like a good Patrick O'Brian. I read the whole Aubrey-Maturin series (21 novels) in the space of a year, and I know several friends who got similarly addicted." // "I enjoy the Aubrey-Maturin books, but I wouldn't call them page turners. More like a leisurely meal to be savoured over time. C. S. Forrester's Hornblower books, however, practically glue themselves to my hands until they're finished, especially A ship of the line with it's almost apocalyptic climax."
"I discovered Richard Austin Freeman's Dr Thorndyke novels earlier this year and found them completely unputdownable. I devoured all the ones I could get my hands on pretty much in one gulp. They are fiercely intelligent, like the hero, and tend to have a great sense of place, particularly when that place is London. I tend to sum them up, when I'm trying to persuade other people to give them a go, as Edwardian CSI and I can't recommend them highly enough." // "Thorndyke stories are really enjoyable - my own favourites are Mr Pottermack's oversight and Mr Polton explains - so well written and great stories."
"I'm very glad The thirteenth tale was included - I really loved it and agree that it has an old fashioned quality that makes it seem rather "otherwordly". It's a wonderful Christmas read. I hope that the TV version does it some justice." // "Vanessa Redgrave and Olivia Colman - stands a chance ..." // "Oh, I didn't realise it was going to be on TV! I loved this book!"
Anna Funder, All that I am. "Probably two sittings rather than one ... when everything starts to unravel, I couldn't put it down until I'd finished it. Absolutely brilliant."
51Cynfelyn
Travis Elborough's top 10 literary diarists.
Guardian, 2014-01-01.
"I have spent much of the last couple of years leafing through various volumes of diaries as the co-compiler, with the writer Nick Rennison, of A London year, a day-by-day anthology of journals, diaries and letters covering 600 years of life in capital. But it was not until the opening decades of the 19th century that the stationer John Letts first began selling a yearly almanac from his shop at the Royal Exchange, then home to numerous booksellers and coffee houses and an area previously haunted by Samuel Pepys. The Letts diary was an immediate success, attracting such devoted users as William Makepeace Thackeray – who favoured the "three shillings cloth boards" No 12 model – and continues to be published in a multitude of formats to this day. As another year begins and many of us resolve to keep a diary, here is my list of top 10 literary diarists. Some are more familiar than others, and some of the most famous are probably noticeably absent, but all writers' volumes exemplify the best of the form."
Samuel Pepys (1633-1703).
The most famous of all English diarists, Samuel Pepys, began his diary in 1660, just before he secured a position as clerk of the acts to the navy board, and brought it to an end nine years later because he believed (mistakenly) that his eyesight was deteriorating so badly that he risked blindness. His contemporary, John Evelyn, occasionally has the edge on the big historical events – Evelyn's account of the the Great Fire of London, for example, is more descriptive – but Pepys feels a truer creature of the restoration era, relishing the capital's bawdy taverns, coffee houses and reopened playhouses.
W. N. P. Barbellion (1889-1919).
One of the most compelling diarists of the 20th century, Bruce Frederick Cummings took the elaborate nom de plume of Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion when he published The journal of a disappointed man just six months before his early death at 30 from multiple sclerosis in 1919. He worked at the Natural History Museum until the progress of his illness made it impossible. The Journal moves, entertainingly, and increasingly movingly, from his early enthusiasm for science and the anxieties he feels as a provincial-born innocent in London through to his unhappy love affairs and his grim decline into ill health and the approach of death. Long out of print, The journal of a disappointed man has recently been reissued in a smart new edition by Little Toller Books.
Fred Bason (1908-73).
Fred Bason was born in Walworth and became a dealer in secondhand books when he was still in his teens. Through bookselling – and as something of a celeb hound – he came to know authors such as Arnold Bennett, Somerset Maugham and James Agate, and he ran a bookshop in Camberwell throughout the 1930s. His own writings included hundreds of articles for the press, BBC talks, books on theatregoing and collecting cigarette cards. Four volumes of diaries, including one volume edited by Noel Coward, were published in the 1950s. They play heavily on his salt-of-the-earth persona, but they are packed with fascinating period detail. One especially memorable entry finds the diarist attending a screening of Al Jolson's 'The jazz singer' – the world's first talking picture. Bason is unimpressed with this new cinematic innovation, and merely grumbles about the noise before recording that Jolson "sings awful".
Joan Wyndham (1921–2007).
A member of the bohemian world of wartime Fitzrovia when she was a young woman, Joan Wyndham's two volumes of diaries, Love lessons and Love is blue, were not published until the 1980s. Memorably described in one newspaper as "a latter-day Pepys in camiknickers", Wyndham writes with wit, candour and exuberance of her love affairs, London during the Blitz and her encounters with the likes of Dylan Thomas and Julian Maclaren-Ross.
Alan Bennett (born 1934).
Alan Bennett, who first came to prominence with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller in their satirical revue Beyond the Fringe in 1960, has been publishing extracts from his diaries in the London Review of Books since the 1980s. Like his public persona and much-loved and keenly observed dramas, Bennett's diaries are frequently much more political and delightfully waspish than is generally assumed.
Dickon Edwards (born 1971).
In his own words, Dickon Edwards is a "writer, dysfunctional dandy, flâneur, lyricist, DJ, dilettante, boulevardier, valetudinarian, imbiber". Founding member of the "new romo" band Orlando and indie outfit Fosca, the ever-resplendently suited and bedsit-dwelling Edwards is perhaps the closest thing to a Quentin Crisp of the internet era. He has kept a continuous online diary since 1997.
James Boswell (1740-95).
Biographer of Dr Johnson, James Boswell's own diaries didn't come to light until the 1920s, and his London journal was first published in 1950. Covering the years 1762-3, just before and after his original meeting with Johnson, we meet Boswell as a boozing, womanising young man about town.
Hallie Eustace Miles (c.1870–c.1940).
The daughter of the rector of St Clement Danes, Hallie Killick married the sportsman and writer Eustace Hamilton Miles in 1906. Together with her husband, she ran a vegetarian restaurant and pioneering health food centre, and counted A. C. Benson, among other literary luminaries, as customers and friends. As the centenary of the first world war approaches, her diary of their life during the first Blitz, originally published in 1930, is definitely worth seeking out.
Elizabeth Smart (1913-86).
A Canadian poet and novelist, Elizabeth Smart is best known for her work of prose poetry entitled By Grand Central Station I sat down and wept, first published in 1945. The book, once described by Angela Carter as "like Madame Bovary blasted by lightning", was inspired by her long, tormented love affair with the English poet George Barker. Her equally impressive journals were published in two volumes in 1987 and 1997.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941).
The leading figure in the Bloomsbury movement, Virginia Woolf kept diaries for much of her life. A multi-volume selection, beginning in 1915 and ending with her suicide by drowning in 1941, was edited by her nephew, Quentin Bell, and his wife, and published in the 1970s and 1980s. The diaries provide a window on life among the literary elite in the interwar years.
------
BTL includes:
"I'd want to add Lady Florentia Sale to the list. Her record of the First Anglo-Afghan war is illuminating. How little things change."
"Boswell's London journal is a delicious riot of a book. After reading it I felt cheated that I had not been born in the 18th century!"
"I'd recommend Kilvert, Edmund Wilson & John Cheever's journals. If political diaries were included, Crossman."
"I would pull Alan Bennett out quickly and put Virginia Woolf in, double quick."
"Considering the death of Peter O'Toole the other week I'm surprised that you have omitted Jeffrey Bernard."
"Dickon Edwards is a contemporary Quentin Crisp? Really? Just read few entries and it was dull, something of which Mr Crisp could never be accused. And where's Kenneth Williams's diaries?" // "You're entitled to an opinion of course, but Dickon Edwards really is rather wonderful."
Guardian, 2014-01-01.
"I have spent much of the last couple of years leafing through various volumes of diaries as the co-compiler, with the writer Nick Rennison, of A London year, a day-by-day anthology of journals, diaries and letters covering 600 years of life in capital. But it was not until the opening decades of the 19th century that the stationer John Letts first began selling a yearly almanac from his shop at the Royal Exchange, then home to numerous booksellers and coffee houses and an area previously haunted by Samuel Pepys. The Letts diary was an immediate success, attracting such devoted users as William Makepeace Thackeray – who favoured the "three shillings cloth boards" No 12 model – and continues to be published in a multitude of formats to this day. As another year begins and many of us resolve to keep a diary, here is my list of top 10 literary diarists. Some are more familiar than others, and some of the most famous are probably noticeably absent, but all writers' volumes exemplify the best of the form."
Samuel Pepys (1633-1703).
The most famous of all English diarists, Samuel Pepys, began his diary in 1660, just before he secured a position as clerk of the acts to the navy board, and brought it to an end nine years later because he believed (mistakenly) that his eyesight was deteriorating so badly that he risked blindness. His contemporary, John Evelyn, occasionally has the edge on the big historical events – Evelyn's account of the the Great Fire of London, for example, is more descriptive – but Pepys feels a truer creature of the restoration era, relishing the capital's bawdy taverns, coffee houses and reopened playhouses.
W. N. P. Barbellion (1889-1919).
One of the most compelling diarists of the 20th century, Bruce Frederick Cummings took the elaborate nom de plume of Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion when he published The journal of a disappointed man just six months before his early death at 30 from multiple sclerosis in 1919. He worked at the Natural History Museum until the progress of his illness made it impossible. The Journal moves, entertainingly, and increasingly movingly, from his early enthusiasm for science and the anxieties he feels as a provincial-born innocent in London through to his unhappy love affairs and his grim decline into ill health and the approach of death. Long out of print, The journal of a disappointed man has recently been reissued in a smart new edition by Little Toller Books.
Fred Bason (1908-73).
Fred Bason was born in Walworth and became a dealer in secondhand books when he was still in his teens. Through bookselling – and as something of a celeb hound – he came to know authors such as Arnold Bennett, Somerset Maugham and James Agate, and he ran a bookshop in Camberwell throughout the 1930s. His own writings included hundreds of articles for the press, BBC talks, books on theatregoing and collecting cigarette cards. Four volumes of diaries, including one volume edited by Noel Coward, were published in the 1950s. They play heavily on his salt-of-the-earth persona, but they are packed with fascinating period detail. One especially memorable entry finds the diarist attending a screening of Al Jolson's 'The jazz singer' – the world's first talking picture. Bason is unimpressed with this new cinematic innovation, and merely grumbles about the noise before recording that Jolson "sings awful".
Joan Wyndham (1921–2007).
A member of the bohemian world of wartime Fitzrovia when she was a young woman, Joan Wyndham's two volumes of diaries, Love lessons and Love is blue, were not published until the 1980s. Memorably described in one newspaper as "a latter-day Pepys in camiknickers", Wyndham writes with wit, candour and exuberance of her love affairs, London during the Blitz and her encounters with the likes of Dylan Thomas and Julian Maclaren-Ross.
Alan Bennett (born 1934).
Alan Bennett, who first came to prominence with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller in their satirical revue Beyond the Fringe in 1960, has been publishing extracts from his diaries in the London Review of Books since the 1980s. Like his public persona and much-loved and keenly observed dramas, Bennett's diaries are frequently much more political and delightfully waspish than is generally assumed.
Dickon Edwards (born 1971).
In his own words, Dickon Edwards is a "writer, dysfunctional dandy, flâneur, lyricist, DJ, dilettante, boulevardier, valetudinarian, imbiber". Founding member of the "new romo" band Orlando and indie outfit Fosca, the ever-resplendently suited and bedsit-dwelling Edwards is perhaps the closest thing to a Quentin Crisp of the internet era. He has kept a continuous online diary since 1997.
James Boswell (1740-95).
Biographer of Dr Johnson, James Boswell's own diaries didn't come to light until the 1920s, and his London journal was first published in 1950. Covering the years 1762-3, just before and after his original meeting with Johnson, we meet Boswell as a boozing, womanising young man about town.
Hallie Eustace Miles (c.1870–c.1940).
The daughter of the rector of St Clement Danes, Hallie Killick married the sportsman and writer Eustace Hamilton Miles in 1906. Together with her husband, she ran a vegetarian restaurant and pioneering health food centre, and counted A. C. Benson, among other literary luminaries, as customers and friends. As the centenary of the first world war approaches, her diary of their life during the first Blitz, originally published in 1930, is definitely worth seeking out.
Elizabeth Smart (1913-86).
A Canadian poet and novelist, Elizabeth Smart is best known for her work of prose poetry entitled By Grand Central Station I sat down and wept, first published in 1945. The book, once described by Angela Carter as "like Madame Bovary blasted by lightning", was inspired by her long, tormented love affair with the English poet George Barker. Her equally impressive journals were published in two volumes in 1987 and 1997.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941).
The leading figure in the Bloomsbury movement, Virginia Woolf kept diaries for much of her life. A multi-volume selection, beginning in 1915 and ending with her suicide by drowning in 1941, was edited by her nephew, Quentin Bell, and his wife, and published in the 1970s and 1980s. The diaries provide a window on life among the literary elite in the interwar years.
------
BTL includes:
"I'd want to add Lady Florentia Sale to the list. Her record of the First Anglo-Afghan war is illuminating. How little things change."
"Boswell's London journal is a delicious riot of a book. After reading it I felt cheated that I had not been born in the 18th century!"
"I'd recommend Kilvert, Edmund Wilson & John Cheever's journals. If political diaries were included, Crossman."
"I would pull Alan Bennett out quickly and put Virginia Woolf in, double quick."
"Considering the death of Peter O'Toole the other week I'm surprised that you have omitted Jeffrey Bernard."
"Dickon Edwards is a contemporary Quentin Crisp? Really? Just read few entries and it was dull, something of which Mr Crisp could never be accused. And where's Kenneth Williams's diaries?" // "You're entitled to an opinion of course, but Dickon Edwards really is rather wonderful."
52Cynfelyn
Rosa Rankin-Gee's top 10 novellas about love.
Guardian, 2014-01-08.
"Novellas are wonderful things. Slender, pocket-able, and, at their best, just as powerful as their bigger, bulkier brothers. For reader and writer alike, they pose less risk. A reader can try out a new author without surrendering to a tome, and writers, equally, can use novellas as testing grounds. They're quicker to write, quicker to read … though actual length is a much-debated factor. For this piece, I draw the line at 55,000 words, though I admit it took a little too long to count. Perhaps thickness – thinness – in your hand is the main thing.
"Once considered an outmoded form, the novella has recently found strong champions. The TLS described Peirene Press's contemporary European novellas as "literary cinema … two-hour books to be devoured in a single sitting"; Stateside, Melville House has its Art of the Novella series, and over in Paris, the much-loved Shakespeare & Company bookshop runs its international Paris literary prize for an unpublished novella.
"A prize which, two summers ago, I won. My story was set on Sark: a careless, street-lamp-less Channel Island with a tip-to-toe length of three miles, and I'd chosen a novella because I wanted the form to be similar in size. (This is why, when I later turned the piece into a novel, I left the first half as it was, and added a part two.)
"A open-themed top 10 novellas list is obliged to include Animal Farm and The old man and the sea, so I've added a qualifier. The novellas that follow are about love. But complicated love: ill-fated, unrequited, even illegal. (Coincidentally, half are set in France. Another personal obsession rearing its head.)"
1. James Baldwin, Giovanni's room.
Baldwin's second book follows a young American man who falls into a relationship with an Italian barman called Giovanni. Set in Paris, against a backdrop of disturbing internalised homophobia and the imminent arrival of the narrator's fiancée, it ends with heartbreak, surrender to societal pressures and multiple deaths. And yet it is one of the most beautiful books ever written. Baldwin's fragmented, dancing sentences, and his ability to conjure – "I see him now …" – are unrivalled.
2. Françoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse.
Shamefully, I owned the Penguin mug of this book before I'd ever read it, but when I did, I was at work and cried at my desk as I finished it. It's hard to tell exactly what makes it so affecting: the hazy, hyper-real summer sequences, the sharp heaviness of melancholy, the nose-stinging shock of the ending. It is staggering that Sagan wrote it when she was 18.
3. Marcel Proust, Swann in love.
Not usually first to be fêted for brevity, Proust places Swann in love as a self-contained novella at the centre of Swann's way to enclose a back story for the eponymous character. It's full of extraordinary writing about pathological jealousy and loving the illusion of a person rather than the reality. The social satire is blazing, and it offers a good narrative-led cheat-sheet for the rest of Proust.
4. Vladimir Nabokov, The enchanter.
Another interesting use of the form (although that is by no means its only merit), Nabokov uses The enchanter as a one-autumn experiment: a prototype for Lolita. Its accumulative metaphors and surreal crescendos are dizzying and dazzling, but it's altogether a more brutal work. An enlightening, if deeply unsettling, read for lovers of his later text.
5. Ali Smith, Girl meets boy.
A reimagining of the myth of Iphis from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Girl meets boy is written in Smith's characteristic figure-skating, twisting, turning, stream-of-consciousness style. The voices of the narrating sisters Andrea and Imogen (as well as Andrea's lover Robin with her "swagger of a girl" and blush of a boy) are precise, funny, lyrical, natural. An example of complicated love in the happiest sense.
6. Ivan Turgenev, First love.
Ivan Turgenev's 1860 novella draws from his own autobiography to tell the tale of 16-year-old Vladimir Petrovich, infatuated with his beautiful and capricious new neighbour. An archetypal story of unrequited love, enjoyable for its Russian flourishes – out-of-luck princesses and strings of suitors – and its capturing of a first crush: "I almost leapt from my chair in ecstasy, but in fact I only swung my legs a little, like a child enjoying a sweet." The youthful fantasy is deftly obliterated in the last two chapters.
7. André Gide, The immoralist.
André Gide wrote shorter "récits" to build up to his one major novel. This one tells the story of an academic Parisian, Michel, who, after a bout of tuberculosis, seeks "authenticity" through hedonism. Exactly what he discovers is for the reader to judge, but his journey takes him from Tunis to Normandy, into the arms of young boys, and, in a typical Gidean manoeuvre, kills off his wife.
8. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The little prince.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's semi-modern fable is famously loved by children and adults alike. It's the adults, though, who are getting the tattoos. The little prince and his rose are commonly found intertwined in ink, embedded on a sleeve or thigh, alongside the lines "Because she is my rose" or "There is a flower, I think that she has tamed me". A cross-species love story for the whole family.
9. Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Re-reading this, I was struck by the dialogue: it crosshatches and mis-matches in the most wonderful way. Capote's novella, tracing the trials of Holiday Golightly with her perennial Christmas tree and unnamed cat, is bleaker and more tobacco-stained than the shiny film version, but all the more touching for it: "Suddenly, watching the tangled colours of Holly's hair flash in the red-yellow leaf light, I loved her enough to forget myself …"
10. Jeffrey Eugenides, The virgin suicides.
Someone borrowed my copy of The virgin suicides and hasn't given it back. When I find them, I will kill them, for this is as close to a perfect book as I've ever read. The story of five sisters who commit suicide over the course of one year in 1970s Michigan is narrated in haunting first-person plural by the neighbourhood boys who came to love them. OK, so the New York Times says it's "almost novella-length" but it must be mentioned. It is extraordinary, given its modest word count, how full and devastating a world is created.
------
And from BTL:
"No Aspects of love? (the David Garnett novella on which the musical was based)" // "Yes, forget the musical, Garnett was a very good writer."
"The awakening by Kate Chopin for me."
"Oops, don't think I'll be getting much done anytime soon: you've totally sold these to me (and for a couple of them, I'd been put off by the films). Thanks. The outsider (Camus) is good too!"
"Samuel Beckett's First love (from his early Joycean period), absolutely amazing. It's VERY short, probably more short story than novella, but as it was published in a volume called Four novellas, it still counts, imho!"
"I'd include The actual by Saul Bellow - Harry Trellman and Amy."
Alexandre Dumas, The lady of the camellias. "Not sure if it's a novel, though it's not long. Great story."
Guardian, 2014-01-08.
"Novellas are wonderful things. Slender, pocket-able, and, at their best, just as powerful as their bigger, bulkier brothers. For reader and writer alike, they pose less risk. A reader can try out a new author without surrendering to a tome, and writers, equally, can use novellas as testing grounds. They're quicker to write, quicker to read … though actual length is a much-debated factor. For this piece, I draw the line at 55,000 words, though I admit it took a little too long to count. Perhaps thickness – thinness – in your hand is the main thing.
"Once considered an outmoded form, the novella has recently found strong champions. The TLS described Peirene Press's contemporary European novellas as "literary cinema … two-hour books to be devoured in a single sitting"; Stateside, Melville House has its Art of the Novella series, and over in Paris, the much-loved Shakespeare & Company bookshop runs its international Paris literary prize for an unpublished novella.
"A prize which, two summers ago, I won. My story was set on Sark: a careless, street-lamp-less Channel Island with a tip-to-toe length of three miles, and I'd chosen a novella because I wanted the form to be similar in size. (This is why, when I later turned the piece into a novel, I left the first half as it was, and added a part two.)
"A open-themed top 10 novellas list is obliged to include Animal Farm and The old man and the sea, so I've added a qualifier. The novellas that follow are about love. But complicated love: ill-fated, unrequited, even illegal. (Coincidentally, half are set in France. Another personal obsession rearing its head.)"
1. James Baldwin, Giovanni's room.
Baldwin's second book follows a young American man who falls into a relationship with an Italian barman called Giovanni. Set in Paris, against a backdrop of disturbing internalised homophobia and the imminent arrival of the narrator's fiancée, it ends with heartbreak, surrender to societal pressures and multiple deaths. And yet it is one of the most beautiful books ever written. Baldwin's fragmented, dancing sentences, and his ability to conjure – "I see him now …" – are unrivalled.
2. Françoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse.
Shamefully, I owned the Penguin mug of this book before I'd ever read it, but when I did, I was at work and cried at my desk as I finished it. It's hard to tell exactly what makes it so affecting: the hazy, hyper-real summer sequences, the sharp heaviness of melancholy, the nose-stinging shock of the ending. It is staggering that Sagan wrote it when she was 18.
3. Marcel Proust, Swann in love.
Not usually first to be fêted for brevity, Proust places Swann in love as a self-contained novella at the centre of Swann's way to enclose a back story for the eponymous character. It's full of extraordinary writing about pathological jealousy and loving the illusion of a person rather than the reality. The social satire is blazing, and it offers a good narrative-led cheat-sheet for the rest of Proust.
4. Vladimir Nabokov, The enchanter.
Another interesting use of the form (although that is by no means its only merit), Nabokov uses The enchanter as a one-autumn experiment: a prototype for Lolita. Its accumulative metaphors and surreal crescendos are dizzying and dazzling, but it's altogether a more brutal work. An enlightening, if deeply unsettling, read for lovers of his later text.
5. Ali Smith, Girl meets boy.
A reimagining of the myth of Iphis from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Girl meets boy is written in Smith's characteristic figure-skating, twisting, turning, stream-of-consciousness style. The voices of the narrating sisters Andrea and Imogen (as well as Andrea's lover Robin with her "swagger of a girl" and blush of a boy) are precise, funny, lyrical, natural. An example of complicated love in the happiest sense.
6. Ivan Turgenev, First love.
Ivan Turgenev's 1860 novella draws from his own autobiography to tell the tale of 16-year-old Vladimir Petrovich, infatuated with his beautiful and capricious new neighbour. An archetypal story of unrequited love, enjoyable for its Russian flourishes – out-of-luck princesses and strings of suitors – and its capturing of a first crush: "I almost leapt from my chair in ecstasy, but in fact I only swung my legs a little, like a child enjoying a sweet." The youthful fantasy is deftly obliterated in the last two chapters.
7. André Gide, The immoralist.
André Gide wrote shorter "récits" to build up to his one major novel. This one tells the story of an academic Parisian, Michel, who, after a bout of tuberculosis, seeks "authenticity" through hedonism. Exactly what he discovers is for the reader to judge, but his journey takes him from Tunis to Normandy, into the arms of young boys, and, in a typical Gidean manoeuvre, kills off his wife.
8. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The little prince.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's semi-modern fable is famously loved by children and adults alike. It's the adults, though, who are getting the tattoos. The little prince and his rose are commonly found intertwined in ink, embedded on a sleeve or thigh, alongside the lines "Because she is my rose" or "There is a flower, I think that she has tamed me". A cross-species love story for the whole family.
9. Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Re-reading this, I was struck by the dialogue: it crosshatches and mis-matches in the most wonderful way. Capote's novella, tracing the trials of Holiday Golightly with her perennial Christmas tree and unnamed cat, is bleaker and more tobacco-stained than the shiny film version, but all the more touching for it: "Suddenly, watching the tangled colours of Holly's hair flash in the red-yellow leaf light, I loved her enough to forget myself …"
10. Jeffrey Eugenides, The virgin suicides.
Someone borrowed my copy of The virgin suicides and hasn't given it back. When I find them, I will kill them, for this is as close to a perfect book as I've ever read. The story of five sisters who commit suicide over the course of one year in 1970s Michigan is narrated in haunting first-person plural by the neighbourhood boys who came to love them. OK, so the New York Times says it's "almost novella-length" but it must be mentioned. It is extraordinary, given its modest word count, how full and devastating a world is created.
------
And from BTL:
"No Aspects of love? (the David Garnett novella on which the musical was based)" // "Yes, forget the musical, Garnett was a very good writer."
"The awakening by Kate Chopin for me."
"Oops, don't think I'll be getting much done anytime soon: you've totally sold these to me (and for a couple of them, I'd been put off by the films). Thanks. The outsider (Camus) is good too!"
"Samuel Beckett's First love (from his early Joycean period), absolutely amazing. It's VERY short, probably more short story than novella, but as it was published in a volume called Four novellas, it still counts, imho!"
"I'd include The actual by Saul Bellow - Harry Trellman and Amy."
Alexandre Dumas, The lady of the camellias. "Not sure if it's a novel, though it's not long. Great story."
53Cynfelyn
Ben Highmore's top 10 books about houses.
Guardian, 2014-01-15.
"The great indoors explores changes in domestic life over the last hundred years or so, and it does so room by room (starting in the hallway and ending in the attic). I was interested in how these "living" rooms have been used, what they have been filled with and what they felt like across the 20th century and into the 21st.
"My concern was with the house as it was imagined by advertisers and designers as well as the house as it has actually been lived, and this took me to a variety of archives: the V&A archives in the fantastic Blythe House, the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, and that treasure trove of the ordinary the Mass-Observation archive at the University of Sussex.
"I was also interested in how home interiors have been the stage for domestic dramas, and for this I looked at novels and films, and especially, sitcoms. Along the way I developed a fondness for these fellow travellers in scrutinising the domestic scene:"
1. George Orwell, The road to Wigan Pier.
Today this is often dismissed as part of a 1930s social tourism performed by posh Oxbridge types who wrote for a left-leaning London audience about the horrors to be found "Up North". Actually the book is both a fastidious examination of how humiliation is given material form by impoverished housing and how class might be less a form of consciousness and more a deeply ingrained and embodied set of habits.
2. W. J. Turner, Exmoor village.
This book came out in 1947 as part of the work of Mass-Observation. It is an audit of one rural village at the end of the war, accompanied by some tremendous photographs by John Hinde. The village was not supplied by mains gas or electricity, and everybody washed in the scullery sink. Turner's book tells you what was on the bookshelves of the villagers and what furniture they had.
3. Barbara Vine, The house of stairs.
Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine is brilliant at capturing the uncanniness of some houses. Freud wrote a famous essay on the uncanny and reminded us that the German word for the uncanny is literally translated as un-homely. For him what is unnerving about the uncanny is that this is strangeness found in familiar places. If you want a sense of that experience then read The house of stairs.
4. Judy Attfield, Wild things : the material culture of everyday life.
Attfield was a design historian who followed ordinary domestic objects into the home. She was less concerned with what designers intended when they produced chairs or rugs than how people used their objects and what these objects meant to them. She was particularly interested in how we get attached to the material world around us, and in one memorable passage she writes about her recently deceased dad's jumper, and how it was the touch and the smell of it that held the trace of him.
5. Brian Dillon, In the dark room.
I read a number of autobiographies when I was researching The great indoors, nearly all of them had incredibly affecting descriptions of the author's childhood home (but sparse description of other homes that the authors must have lived in). Brian Dillon's book is a distillation of this aspect of autobiography, and a wonderful reflection on the power of childhood domestic space to shape and evoke memories.
6. Christina Hardyment, From mangle to microwave : the mechanization of household work.
Hardyment has published a small raft of books about the history of domestic life. She mines archives to show us what we used to eat, how we use to raise babies and small children and how we have conducted the management of the household. This book is full of great turns of phrase like "gimcrack gadgetry", but the real story is how 19th and 20th century "labour-saving" came with a whole host of added expectations that fulfilled Betty Friedan's reworked Parkinson's Law: "Housewifery expands to fill the time available".
7. Michael McMillan, The front room : migrant aesthetics in the home.
A sumptuous array of domestic photographs and oral history telling how Caribbean migrants fashioned their houses in a cold and often unwelcoming Britain in the postwar years. It is interesting to see that in many ways these families were even more traditionally British than their white contemporaries, and while most white families had given up the "kept for best" parlour by the 1960s many Caribbean families maintained these more traditional domestic practices.
8. John Braine, Life at the top.
The 1957 novel Room at the top gave Braine a massive success. This is the sequel and his ambitious protagonist Joe Lampton is living in middle-class suburbia. It is great on the way that success is sometimes measured in the material accoutrements of domestic life (TV, expensive sofas, and drinks cabinet). In Life at the top it seems that these furnishings offer no comfort for his emotional restlessness.
9. Deborah Sugg Ryan, The ideal home through the twentieth century.
The Ideal Home Exhibition has been since 1908 (with a few gaps) a perennial showcase of all that is new in home furnishings and domestic culture. It has been an important agent for popularising new fads, such as DIY. There is something magical about the show – the streets of fake-real houses in the main hall – and something banal about the relentless commercialism of it. This magnificently illustrated volume is a rip-roaring tour of both sides.
10. Penny Sparke, As long as it's pink : the sexual politics of taste.
It is no wonder that most of the best writers about the house are women – the house has always been the stage for performing our expectations and perceptions about gender – and for this the stakes have been higher for women than for men. After second-wave feminism said the personal is political then the logical object to look was the home. Penny Sparke shows how the world of interior design and household advice is peppered with gendered assumptions, and how "taste" was used to reinforce gendered differences.
------
And BTL:
"Mmmm ... I miss Bachelard's Poetics of the space and, maybe, Danielewski's House of leaves ..." // "Was just about to mention House of leaves but you beat me to it! Brilliant, sinister book." // "Indeed - one of the greatest horror novels of all time, if not the greatest." // "Alongside Bachelard, I'd suggest In praise of shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki, who writes about lacquerware under candlelight and the nuances of space in buildings. Really beautiful book."
"Witold Rybczynski, Home : a short history of an idea, and Katarina Bonnevier, Behind straight curtains."
V. S. Naipaul, A house for Mr Biswas. "A magnificent novel that explores a man's lifelong struggle to own a house. Very telling of the author's situation in the boarder context of what the word 'home' means."
Emma Donoghue, Room.
"House of earth by Woody Guthrie was over-hyped and so I bought it last year. I was so disappointed."
"Obviously, any factual list has to have How buildings learn by Stewart Brand, just as any fictional list must have space for Little, big by John Crowley."
Guardian, 2014-01-15.
"The great indoors explores changes in domestic life over the last hundred years or so, and it does so room by room (starting in the hallway and ending in the attic). I was interested in how these "living" rooms have been used, what they have been filled with and what they felt like across the 20th century and into the 21st.
"My concern was with the house as it was imagined by advertisers and designers as well as the house as it has actually been lived, and this took me to a variety of archives: the V&A archives in the fantastic Blythe House, the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, and that treasure trove of the ordinary the Mass-Observation archive at the University of Sussex.
"I was also interested in how home interiors have been the stage for domestic dramas, and for this I looked at novels and films, and especially, sitcoms. Along the way I developed a fondness for these fellow travellers in scrutinising the domestic scene:"
1. George Orwell, The road to Wigan Pier.
Today this is often dismissed as part of a 1930s social tourism performed by posh Oxbridge types who wrote for a left-leaning London audience about the horrors to be found "Up North". Actually the book is both a fastidious examination of how humiliation is given material form by impoverished housing and how class might be less a form of consciousness and more a deeply ingrained and embodied set of habits.
2. W. J. Turner, Exmoor village.
This book came out in 1947 as part of the work of Mass-Observation. It is an audit of one rural village at the end of the war, accompanied by some tremendous photographs by John Hinde. The village was not supplied by mains gas or electricity, and everybody washed in the scullery sink. Turner's book tells you what was on the bookshelves of the villagers and what furniture they had.
3. Barbara Vine, The house of stairs.
Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine is brilliant at capturing the uncanniness of some houses. Freud wrote a famous essay on the uncanny and reminded us that the German word for the uncanny is literally translated as un-homely. For him what is unnerving about the uncanny is that this is strangeness found in familiar places. If you want a sense of that experience then read The house of stairs.
4. Judy Attfield, Wild things : the material culture of everyday life.
Attfield was a design historian who followed ordinary domestic objects into the home. She was less concerned with what designers intended when they produced chairs or rugs than how people used their objects and what these objects meant to them. She was particularly interested in how we get attached to the material world around us, and in one memorable passage she writes about her recently deceased dad's jumper, and how it was the touch and the smell of it that held the trace of him.
5. Brian Dillon, In the dark room.
I read a number of autobiographies when I was researching The great indoors, nearly all of them had incredibly affecting descriptions of the author's childhood home (but sparse description of other homes that the authors must have lived in). Brian Dillon's book is a distillation of this aspect of autobiography, and a wonderful reflection on the power of childhood domestic space to shape and evoke memories.
6. Christina Hardyment, From mangle to microwave : the mechanization of household work.
Hardyment has published a small raft of books about the history of domestic life. She mines archives to show us what we used to eat, how we use to raise babies and small children and how we have conducted the management of the household. This book is full of great turns of phrase like "gimcrack gadgetry", but the real story is how 19th and 20th century "labour-saving" came with a whole host of added expectations that fulfilled Betty Friedan's reworked Parkinson's Law: "Housewifery expands to fill the time available".
7. Michael McMillan, The front room : migrant aesthetics in the home.
A sumptuous array of domestic photographs and oral history telling how Caribbean migrants fashioned their houses in a cold and often unwelcoming Britain in the postwar years. It is interesting to see that in many ways these families were even more traditionally British than their white contemporaries, and while most white families had given up the "kept for best" parlour by the 1960s many Caribbean families maintained these more traditional domestic practices.
8. John Braine, Life at the top.
The 1957 novel Room at the top gave Braine a massive success. This is the sequel and his ambitious protagonist Joe Lampton is living in middle-class suburbia. It is great on the way that success is sometimes measured in the material accoutrements of domestic life (TV, expensive sofas, and drinks cabinet). In Life at the top it seems that these furnishings offer no comfort for his emotional restlessness.
9. Deborah Sugg Ryan, The ideal home through the twentieth century.
The Ideal Home Exhibition has been since 1908 (with a few gaps) a perennial showcase of all that is new in home furnishings and domestic culture. It has been an important agent for popularising new fads, such as DIY. There is something magical about the show – the streets of fake-real houses in the main hall – and something banal about the relentless commercialism of it. This magnificently illustrated volume is a rip-roaring tour of both sides.
10. Penny Sparke, As long as it's pink : the sexual politics of taste.
It is no wonder that most of the best writers about the house are women – the house has always been the stage for performing our expectations and perceptions about gender – and for this the stakes have been higher for women than for men. After second-wave feminism said the personal is political then the logical object to look was the home. Penny Sparke shows how the world of interior design and household advice is peppered with gendered assumptions, and how "taste" was used to reinforce gendered differences.
------
And BTL:
"Mmmm ... I miss Bachelard's Poetics of the space and, maybe, Danielewski's House of leaves ..." // "Was just about to mention House of leaves but you beat me to it! Brilliant, sinister book." // "Indeed - one of the greatest horror novels of all time, if not the greatest." // "Alongside Bachelard, I'd suggest In praise of shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki, who writes about lacquerware under candlelight and the nuances of space in buildings. Really beautiful book."
"Witold Rybczynski, Home : a short history of an idea, and Katarina Bonnevier, Behind straight curtains."
V. S. Naipaul, A house for Mr Biswas. "A magnificent novel that explores a man's lifelong struggle to own a house. Very telling of the author's situation in the boarder context of what the word 'home' means."
Emma Donoghue, Room.
"House of earth by Woody Guthrie was over-hyped and so I bought it last year. I was so disappointed."
"Obviously, any factual list has to have How buildings learn by Stewart Brand, just as any fictional list must have space for Little, big by John Crowley."
54Cynfelyn
Ann Cleeves's top 10 crime novels in translation.
Guardian, 2014-01-22.
"I love translated crime fiction. It gives me the buzz of a good story but a delicious voyeurism too: the same sensation as when I'm walking down a street at dusk and people have forgotten to close their curtains. Snapshots of different domestic lives, the food they eat, the pictures on the walls, the way they bring up their children. We can learn about a country's preoccupations by reading its popular fiction. Scandinavian crime has become so successful that books from other territories can be overlooked. Here are some examples to show that it's worth making wider reading investigations."
1. Saint-Pholien Georges Simenon, The hanged man (translated by Linda Coverdales).
The French cop Maigret is the father of contemporary European detective fiction, and he was made hugely popular by the 1960s TV series. A green Penguin book was my introduction to translated crime. I loved the exotic setting of Parisian bars and run-down hotels, the economic storytelling, Maigret's understanding of the frailty of men and women whatever their social status. I could have chosen any of the novels, but this one illustrates the detective's compassion for the desperate and downtrodden and has just been re-issued.
2. Fred Vargas, Have mercy on us all (translated by Siân Reynolds).
We stay in Paris for the first of Vargas's novels to be published in the UK. A modern-day town crier shouts messages from his district's tradespeople and residents. The messages become more menacing, and symbols once used to ward off the plague are found sprayed on doors of local businesses. The book introduces us to the engaging Commissaire Adamsberg, one of my favourite fictional detectives. Vargas is a wonderful writer, quirky, endearing and always surprising.
3. Pierre Lemaitre, Alex (translated by Frank Wynne).
Alex was a sensation last year and joint winner of the CWA International Dagger. Again set mostly in Paris, the book challenges expectations about aggression, gender and the conventions of crime fiction itself. It features Commandant Verhoeven, short, stubborn, and set to become a hero as popular as Adamsberg. This is a book for people who are looking for pace, and aren't upset by graphic violence. The early scenes are gruelling and seem predictable thriller fare until the story twists so dramatically that it leaves the reader breathless.
4. Deon Mayer, Thirteen hours (translated by K. L. Seegers).
This is another thriller, set on the other side of the world and translated from Afrikaans. With a background in the new South Africa, the novel is fast and full of suspense. Detective Benny Griessel is too stubborn and awkward for promotion and mentors a team as diverse as his country. An American backpacker disappears in Cape Town. Her best friend has already been killed so politicians are under pressure, and Griessel has just 13 hours to save the girl.
5. Eugenio Fuentes, The depths of the forest (translated by Paul Antil).
This book, set in a nature reserve in rural Spain, seemed to pass most people by when it was first published, though when I discussed it with reading groups at Harrogate's crime-writing festival it was chosen as their favourite translated novel. It's brilliant on place, an unsentimental depiction of natural history, but also of the people who are connected to a wilderness, and whose relationship to it can be troubled and disturbing.
6. Andrea Camilleri, The treasure hunt (translated by Stephen Sartarelli).
I loved Camilleri long before the fine TV adaptations appeared. In the dark days of winter it's a treat to read about the sunshine, food and wine of Chief Inspector Montalbano's native Sicily. Camilleri has developed a great supporting cast in the accident-prone Catarella and Montalbano's argumentative girlfriend Livia. Here, the detective is led on a strange treasure hunt involving an inflatable doll and rhyming clues until the story reaches its surprisingly bleak conclusion.
7. Valerio Varesi, River of shadows (translated by Joseph Farrell).
This book has a brilliant start. The description of the rain-soaked Po valley and of local people sitting in a bar watching the water rise pulls the reader in to the narrative immediately. A barge appears on the swollen river and follows an erratic course until it's grounded. Varesi explores the influence of Italy's fascist history on the present both in this book and in its equally atmospheric sequel. His hero, Commissario Soneri, has grown out of an Italian landscape that will be unfamiliar to tourists, but which seems entirely authentic.
8. Arnaldur Indridason, Voices (translated by Bernard Scudder).
It isn't cheating to include Indridason in this list because while Iceland is Nordic, it isn't Scandinavian. A winner of the CWA Gold Dagger, Indridason writes crime novels that are as chilling as the landscape where they're set. Voices takes place just before Christmas. A porter and occasional Santa Claus has been stabbed in the hotel where he works and lives. Detective Erlendur is called to investigate. The contrast between the life of the staff and the Christmas parties that are taking place in the main body of the hotel is a reflection of the social differences in the society at large.
9. Domingo Villar, Death on a Galician shore (translated by Domingo Villar).
This is a quiet and compelling story, set on the fringes of Europe. A drowned man has been washed up in the harbour of a quiet fishing village in northwest Spain. At first the case is dismissed as suicide, but the man's hands have been tied and Detective Leo Caldas and his team are called to investigate. Villar is great on family, what it is to be an outsider and how the past can haunt us.
10. Tonino Benacqista, Badfellas (translated by Emily Read).
From the quiet and domestic to the suburban gone crazy. A family of mafia informers from New Jersey is given a new life in small-town France. They try to fit in: Fred decides to become a writer, his wife takes up charity work and the kids do what they can to survive in their new schools, but they're never quite part of the respectable community. Add to the mix FBI officers watching over them, former mafia associates desperate for revenge and you have a rollicking black comedy.
Guardian, 2014-01-22.
"I love translated crime fiction. It gives me the buzz of a good story but a delicious voyeurism too: the same sensation as when I'm walking down a street at dusk and people have forgotten to close their curtains. Snapshots of different domestic lives, the food they eat, the pictures on the walls, the way they bring up their children. We can learn about a country's preoccupations by reading its popular fiction. Scandinavian crime has become so successful that books from other territories can be overlooked. Here are some examples to show that it's worth making wider reading investigations."
1. Saint-Pholien Georges Simenon, The hanged man (translated by Linda Coverdales).
The French cop Maigret is the father of contemporary European detective fiction, and he was made hugely popular by the 1960s TV series. A green Penguin book was my introduction to translated crime. I loved the exotic setting of Parisian bars and run-down hotels, the economic storytelling, Maigret's understanding of the frailty of men and women whatever their social status. I could have chosen any of the novels, but this one illustrates the detective's compassion for the desperate and downtrodden and has just been re-issued.
2. Fred Vargas, Have mercy on us all (translated by Siân Reynolds).
We stay in Paris for the first of Vargas's novels to be published in the UK. A modern-day town crier shouts messages from his district's tradespeople and residents. The messages become more menacing, and symbols once used to ward off the plague are found sprayed on doors of local businesses. The book introduces us to the engaging Commissaire Adamsberg, one of my favourite fictional detectives. Vargas is a wonderful writer, quirky, endearing and always surprising.
3. Pierre Lemaitre, Alex (translated by Frank Wynne).
Alex was a sensation last year and joint winner of the CWA International Dagger. Again set mostly in Paris, the book challenges expectations about aggression, gender and the conventions of crime fiction itself. It features Commandant Verhoeven, short, stubborn, and set to become a hero as popular as Adamsberg. This is a book for people who are looking for pace, and aren't upset by graphic violence. The early scenes are gruelling and seem predictable thriller fare until the story twists so dramatically that it leaves the reader breathless.
4. Deon Mayer, Thirteen hours (translated by K. L. Seegers).
This is another thriller, set on the other side of the world and translated from Afrikaans. With a background in the new South Africa, the novel is fast and full of suspense. Detective Benny Griessel is too stubborn and awkward for promotion and mentors a team as diverse as his country. An American backpacker disappears in Cape Town. Her best friend has already been killed so politicians are under pressure, and Griessel has just 13 hours to save the girl.
5. Eugenio Fuentes, The depths of the forest (translated by Paul Antil).
This book, set in a nature reserve in rural Spain, seemed to pass most people by when it was first published, though when I discussed it with reading groups at Harrogate's crime-writing festival it was chosen as their favourite translated novel. It's brilliant on place, an unsentimental depiction of natural history, but also of the people who are connected to a wilderness, and whose relationship to it can be troubled and disturbing.
6. Andrea Camilleri, The treasure hunt (translated by Stephen Sartarelli).
I loved Camilleri long before the fine TV adaptations appeared. In the dark days of winter it's a treat to read about the sunshine, food and wine of Chief Inspector Montalbano's native Sicily. Camilleri has developed a great supporting cast in the accident-prone Catarella and Montalbano's argumentative girlfriend Livia. Here, the detective is led on a strange treasure hunt involving an inflatable doll and rhyming clues until the story reaches its surprisingly bleak conclusion.
7. Valerio Varesi, River of shadows (translated by Joseph Farrell).
This book has a brilliant start. The description of the rain-soaked Po valley and of local people sitting in a bar watching the water rise pulls the reader in to the narrative immediately. A barge appears on the swollen river and follows an erratic course until it's grounded. Varesi explores the influence of Italy's fascist history on the present both in this book and in its equally atmospheric sequel. His hero, Commissario Soneri, has grown out of an Italian landscape that will be unfamiliar to tourists, but which seems entirely authentic.
8. Arnaldur Indridason, Voices (translated by Bernard Scudder).
It isn't cheating to include Indridason in this list because while Iceland is Nordic, it isn't Scandinavian. A winner of the CWA Gold Dagger, Indridason writes crime novels that are as chilling as the landscape where they're set. Voices takes place just before Christmas. A porter and occasional Santa Claus has been stabbed in the hotel where he works and lives. Detective Erlendur is called to investigate. The contrast between the life of the staff and the Christmas parties that are taking place in the main body of the hotel is a reflection of the social differences in the society at large.
9. Domingo Villar, Death on a Galician shore (translated by Domingo Villar).
This is a quiet and compelling story, set on the fringes of Europe. A drowned man has been washed up in the harbour of a quiet fishing village in northwest Spain. At first the case is dismissed as suicide, but the man's hands have been tied and Detective Leo Caldas and his team are called to investigate. Villar is great on family, what it is to be an outsider and how the past can haunt us.
10. Tonino Benacqista, Badfellas (translated by Emily Read).
From the quiet and domestic to the suburban gone crazy. A family of mafia informers from New Jersey is given a new life in small-town France. They try to fit in: Fred decides to become a writer, his wife takes up charity work and the kids do what they can to survive in their new schools, but they're never quite part of the respectable community. Add to the mix FBI officers watching over them, former mafia associates desperate for revenge and you have a rollicking black comedy.
55Cynfelyn
No. 54's BTLs:
"Favourite recent discoveries are Leonardo Padura's Cuban novels (featuring a policeman who has grown up under 'Stalinism with palm trees'). Both very funny and rather sad too, yet optimistic. (Fantastic descriptions of thrifty food!). I rather like Gianrico Carofiglio (Italy - has a character who likes nothing more than to sit down with a glass of wine and a copy of Gerald Durrell's My family and other animals - what's not to like?). Love Teresa Solana's quirky and satirical Catalan novels too."
Leonardo Padura, the Havana Quartet. "Magnificent. Bitter Lemon Press do us a great service."
"Only a couple have been translated, but Jean-Patrick Manchette's brief, nasty forays into French noir are outstanding. Not strictly crime, but Sciascia's paranoid procedurals capture the essence of corruption and compromise at the heart of 20th century Sicilian life. And though they're not novels, I can't recommend Ferdinand Von Schirach's collections (Crime and Guilt) highly enough - again, not strictly crime, but cold and fascinating examinations of how we try to deal with the terrible things people do to each other."
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, the Pepe Carvalho series. "I love the Montalban novels - Pepe Carvalho, cynical Catalan gourmand."
Nele Neuhaus, Snow White must die. "It was a touch trashy, but I really enjoyed (this) last year - it was nice to see a new translated author selling well too!"
Arturo Perez-Reverte."(Does he) count as a crime novelist? Excellent stories anyway."
"Favourite recent discoveries are Leonardo Padura's Cuban novels (featuring a policeman who has grown up under 'Stalinism with palm trees'). Both very funny and rather sad too, yet optimistic. (Fantastic descriptions of thrifty food!). I rather like Gianrico Carofiglio (Italy - has a character who likes nothing more than to sit down with a glass of wine and a copy of Gerald Durrell's My family and other animals - what's not to like?). Love Teresa Solana's quirky and satirical Catalan novels too."
Leonardo Padura, the Havana Quartet. "Magnificent. Bitter Lemon Press do us a great service."
"Only a couple have been translated, but Jean-Patrick Manchette's brief, nasty forays into French noir are outstanding. Not strictly crime, but Sciascia's paranoid procedurals capture the essence of corruption and compromise at the heart of 20th century Sicilian life. And though they're not novels, I can't recommend Ferdinand Von Schirach's collections (Crime and Guilt) highly enough - again, not strictly crime, but cold and fascinating examinations of how we try to deal with the terrible things people do to each other."
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, the Pepe Carvalho series. "I love the Montalban novels - Pepe Carvalho, cynical Catalan gourmand."
Nele Neuhaus, Snow White must die. "It was a touch trashy, but I really enjoyed (this) last year - it was nice to see a new translated author selling well too!"
Arturo Perez-Reverte."(Does he) count as a crime novelist? Excellent stories anyway."
56Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Pamela Butchart's top 10 stinky characters.
Guardian, 2014-01-23.
Pamela Butchart is the author of Yikes, Stinkysaurus, illustrated by Sam Lloyd. Stinkysaurus is the smelliest dinosaur in the whole wide world, and don't the other dinosaurs know it!
"Lots of us enjoy reading a good stinky book. And by 'stinky book' I do not mean a book that we've found in a bin, or dropped down the loo, or wrestled from the clutches of a shabby aunt with hygiene issues. Of course, I mean a book with stinky characters and stinky characters are great fun to read about since they're usually also naughty, rebellious and outrageously funny.
"I think another reason we're so drawn to stinky characters is because we've all been a little bit stinky at one point … haven't we?? My Mum loves to remind me about how she was once forced to supervise me brushing my teeth after she discovered I'd only been pretending to do so for over a week (I refuse to disclose how old I was at the time, but in my defence, the first year of teacher training is VERY demanding).
"So, here are some of my favorite books with stinky characters. I hope you enjoy!"
1. David Walliams, Mr Stink.
"Mr Stink stank. He also stunk. And if it was correct English to say he stinked, then he stinked as well. He was the stinkiest stinky stinker who ever lived."
This is the story of a lonely little girl called Chloe who befriends Mr Stink, the local tramp, and tries to hide him in her shed. But as it turns out, Chloe isn't the only one who has a secret, there's more to Mr Stink than his stinky stench!
2. Roald Dahl, The Twits.
"How often do all these hairy-faced men wash their faces? Is it only once a week, like us, on Sunday nights?"
The Twits have to be the ugliest, meanest, most stinky characters ever! I used to read this book over and over as a child; it was definitely one of my favourites. In fact, I think I'll read it again today.
3. Andy Stanton, You're a bad man, Mr Gum!
"Mr Gum's was an absolute lazer who couldn't be bothered with niceness and tidying and brushing his teeth, or anyone else's teeth for that matter."
Mr Gum is completely grimsters. Even the pages of the book have big, dirty splodges on them! Mr Gum never makes his bed, or cleans the toilet and his house smells of old milk and unhappiness.
4. Nicholas Allan, Father Christmas comes up trumps!
"Oh no! Those sprouts! I can feel them start. My tummy feels funny – I'm going to f…!"
In this rip-roaring follow-up to Father Christmas needs a wee! Santa almost ruins Christmas by waking up all the sleeping children with his noisy botty! I particularly love the illustrations in this book – the poor reindeer look hilarious!
5. Sue Hendra & Liz Pichon, Dave.
"Dave shook. The ground shook. Something very big was about to happen…"
This rather fantastic chubby ginger cat gets himself stuck in the cat flap and can't get out! So his friends feed him baked beans until he does a giant parp which sends him bursting out of the cat flap and flying across town. Hilarious!
6. Wolf Holzwarth & Wolf Erlbruch, The story of the little mole who knew it was none of his business.
"It looked like a sausage, and the worst thing was that it landed right on his head."
I was given the hilarious "plop-up" edition of this book by my best friend, Nola, a few years ago for Christmas. The cover had me completely fooled into believing it was going to be lovely little story about a mole with an unusual hat (I hadn't I had NO IDEA that his hat was actually, um, well, someone's "business!") Brilliant book!
7. Sam Lloyd, Farty Fred.
"It was no good, Fred couldn't stop, otherwise he knew he'd pop! And to his absolute dismay, he blew those judges clean away!"
Farty Fred is performing perfectly for the judges at the big dog show until he needs to trump! Not only does this book have a hilarious parping pooch … it comes with a Whoopee Cushion! A complete farting-fiasco. Fantastic!
8. Steve Smallman and Joelle Dreidemy, Smelly Peter : the great pea eater.
"Peter Pod was a little bit odd; he ate nothing but peas, fresh or tinned. For breakfast and brunch, for dinner and lunch, though he always had terrible wind!"
This is a funny, rhyming tale about a little boy who eats nothing but peas. This causes Peter to trump nonstop, and eventually turn completely green! Unsurprisingly, Smelly Peter becomes quite unpopular due to his stinky botty. That is until he's spotted by parp-loving aliens who take Peter back to their alien planet and crown him king.
9. David Roberts, Pooh! Is that you, Bertie?
"Gran's always letting rip. She just blames the cat."
Bertie embarrasses his entire family with his constant toots, poots and boffs. But Bertie's convinced that he can't be the ONLY one in his family who toots and poots! A hilarious story about secret parping.
10. Jo Nesbo, Dr Proctor's fart powder
"Oh, no," Lisa said, dismayed. "Not the fartonaut powder …"
Dr Proctor makes a super-strength fart powder that is so powerful it can propel people into outer space. Even though Dr Proctor's plan is to make an odourless fart powder, he's still a stinky character in my opinion (he MUST be, he's obsessed with parping!) A fun, fart-filled adventure!
------
As per usual with children's top ten book lists, there are no BTL comments.
I read Roald Dahl, The Twits, to my kiddywinks back in the days of bedtime stories, and I'm pretty sure they read David Walliams, Mr Stink, for themselves. The rest of the books on this list are new to me.
At the end of Judith Kerr's Mog the forgetful cat, Mog is rewarded with a boiled egg for breakfast every morning for having captured the burglar. That must make for a stinky cat.
Guardian, 2014-01-23.
Pamela Butchart is the author of Yikes, Stinkysaurus, illustrated by Sam Lloyd. Stinkysaurus is the smelliest dinosaur in the whole wide world, and don't the other dinosaurs know it!
"Lots of us enjoy reading a good stinky book. And by 'stinky book' I do not mean a book that we've found in a bin, or dropped down the loo, or wrestled from the clutches of a shabby aunt with hygiene issues. Of course, I mean a book with stinky characters and stinky characters are great fun to read about since they're usually also naughty, rebellious and outrageously funny.
"I think another reason we're so drawn to stinky characters is because we've all been a little bit stinky at one point … haven't we?? My Mum loves to remind me about how she was once forced to supervise me brushing my teeth after she discovered I'd only been pretending to do so for over a week (I refuse to disclose how old I was at the time, but in my defence, the first year of teacher training is VERY demanding).
"So, here are some of my favorite books with stinky characters. I hope you enjoy!"
1. David Walliams, Mr Stink.
"Mr Stink stank. He also stunk. And if it was correct English to say he stinked, then he stinked as well. He was the stinkiest stinky stinker who ever lived."
This is the story of a lonely little girl called Chloe who befriends Mr Stink, the local tramp, and tries to hide him in her shed. But as it turns out, Chloe isn't the only one who has a secret, there's more to Mr Stink than his stinky stench!
2. Roald Dahl, The Twits.
"How often do all these hairy-faced men wash their faces? Is it only once a week, like us, on Sunday nights?"
The Twits have to be the ugliest, meanest, most stinky characters ever! I used to read this book over and over as a child; it was definitely one of my favourites. In fact, I think I'll read it again today.
3. Andy Stanton, You're a bad man, Mr Gum!
"Mr Gum's was an absolute lazer who couldn't be bothered with niceness and tidying and brushing his teeth, or anyone else's teeth for that matter."
Mr Gum is completely grimsters. Even the pages of the book have big, dirty splodges on them! Mr Gum never makes his bed, or cleans the toilet and his house smells of old milk and unhappiness.
4. Nicholas Allan, Father Christmas comes up trumps!
"Oh no! Those sprouts! I can feel them start. My tummy feels funny – I'm going to f…!"
In this rip-roaring follow-up to Father Christmas needs a wee! Santa almost ruins Christmas by waking up all the sleeping children with his noisy botty! I particularly love the illustrations in this book – the poor reindeer look hilarious!
5. Sue Hendra & Liz Pichon, Dave.
"Dave shook. The ground shook. Something very big was about to happen…"
This rather fantastic chubby ginger cat gets himself stuck in the cat flap and can't get out! So his friends feed him baked beans until he does a giant parp which sends him bursting out of the cat flap and flying across town. Hilarious!
6. Wolf Holzwarth & Wolf Erlbruch, The story of the little mole who knew it was none of his business.
"It looked like a sausage, and the worst thing was that it landed right on his head."
I was given the hilarious "plop-up" edition of this book by my best friend, Nola, a few years ago for Christmas. The cover had me completely fooled into believing it was going to be lovely little story about a mole with an unusual hat (I hadn't I had NO IDEA that his hat was actually, um, well, someone's "business!") Brilliant book!
7. Sam Lloyd, Farty Fred.
"It was no good, Fred couldn't stop, otherwise he knew he'd pop! And to his absolute dismay, he blew those judges clean away!"
Farty Fred is performing perfectly for the judges at the big dog show until he needs to trump! Not only does this book have a hilarious parping pooch … it comes with a Whoopee Cushion! A complete farting-fiasco. Fantastic!
8. Steve Smallman and Joelle Dreidemy, Smelly Peter : the great pea eater.
"Peter Pod was a little bit odd; he ate nothing but peas, fresh or tinned. For breakfast and brunch, for dinner and lunch, though he always had terrible wind!"
This is a funny, rhyming tale about a little boy who eats nothing but peas. This causes Peter to trump nonstop, and eventually turn completely green! Unsurprisingly, Smelly Peter becomes quite unpopular due to his stinky botty. That is until he's spotted by parp-loving aliens who take Peter back to their alien planet and crown him king.
9. David Roberts, Pooh! Is that you, Bertie?
"Gran's always letting rip. She just blames the cat."
Bertie embarrasses his entire family with his constant toots, poots and boffs. But Bertie's convinced that he can't be the ONLY one in his family who toots and poots! A hilarious story about secret parping.
10. Jo Nesbo, Dr Proctor's fart powder
"Oh, no," Lisa said, dismayed. "Not the fartonaut powder …"
Dr Proctor makes a super-strength fart powder that is so powerful it can propel people into outer space. Even though Dr Proctor's plan is to make an odourless fart powder, he's still a stinky character in my opinion (he MUST be, he's obsessed with parping!) A fun, fart-filled adventure!
------
As per usual with children's top ten book lists, there are no BTL comments.
I read Roald Dahl, The Twits, to my kiddywinks back in the days of bedtime stories, and I'm pretty sure they read David Walliams, Mr Stink, for themselves. The rest of the books on this list are new to me.
At the end of Judith Kerr's Mog the forgetful cat, Mog is rewarded with a boiled egg for breakfast every morning for having captured the burglar. That must make for a stinky cat.
57Cynfelyn
Adrian McKinty's top 10 locked-room mysteries.
Guardian, 2014-01-29.
"The first proper mystery novel that I read was Murder on the Orient Express with a gaunt David Niven and a cherubic Peter Ustinov on the cover. Orient Express, you'll recall, is the one where everyone did it, which delighted me no end and I was immediately hooked. I began to work my way through the other Agatha Christies at Belfast Central library and it was probably the sympathetic librarian there who put into my hands The murders in the Rue Morgue, the first real locked-room mystery that I came across.
"Since then I've read dozens of locked-roomers (or "impossible murders") and I have developed firm opinions about the genre. I have no truck whatsoever with the ones that have a supernatural solution or where the author doesn't give you enough information to solve the case for yourself.
"A locked-room problem lies at the heart of my new novel, In the morning I'll be gone, in which an RUC detective has to find out whether a publican's daughter who fell off a table in a bar that was locked from the inside was in fact murdered. Firstly I had to assure the reader I was not cheating about the facts: the pub was indeed locked and bolted from the inside, there were no secret passages and certainly no supernatural element. Then, of course, I had to give the reader all the necessary information so that they could solve the case at the same time or before the detective. When it works you should be able to read a locked-room mystery twice, the second time spotting the clues and seeing how the whole thing fits together.
"When a locked-room mystery doesn't work the solution makes you groan and the book gets hurled across the room. In the murders in the Rue Morgue an elderly Frenchwoman is killed in a locked room on the fourth floor. The solution – spoiler alert – is that the murder was done by a tame orang-utan who climbed in through the open window with a straight razor. Do that sort of thing nowadays and your book would rightly get chucked, probably back at your own head during a signing.
"The golden age of the locked-room mystery in Anglo-American detective fiction has largely passed, but in France Paul Halter has been churning out original impossible murder novels since the mid-1980s and in Japan the great Soji Shimada virtually invented the "logic problem" sub-genre which is still extremely popular. Mixing classic and contemporary with no supernatural activity allowed, these are my 10 favourite locked-room/impossible murder novels:"
10. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868).
Rachel Verinder's cursed Indian diamond the Moonstone disappears from her room after her birthday party. This is only a rudimentary locked-roomer, but as the first and still one of the best detective novels it had to be on my list.
9. John Dickson Carr, The case of the constant suicides (1941).
Dr Gideon Fell investigates an alarming number of "suicides" at a remote Scottish castle. The deaths have taken place in completely inaccessible rooms. Dickson Carr was rightly known as the "master of the locked-room mystery" and this entire list could, with some justification, have been made solely from JDC books.
8. Agatha Christie, And then there were none (1939).
Eight people with guilty secrets are invited to an isolated island off the coast of Devon where they begin to be murdered one by one. When there are only two of them left the fun really begins. Previously published under two equally unfortunate titles.
7. Christianna Brand, Suddenly at his residence (1946).
In another part of Devon Sir Richard March has been found poisoned in his lodge. A sand covered pathway leading to the lodge is rolled daily by the gardener. Only one set of footprints is found leading to the lodge and they belong to Claire, who discovered the body. A witty and engaging mystery from a writer who was another locked-room specialist.
6. Israel Zangwill, The big bow mystery (1892).
Mrs Drabdump's lodger is discovered with his throat cut, no trace of a murder weapon and no way a murderer could have got in or out. Arguably the first proper locked-roomer and still a classic.
5. Gaston Leroux, The mystery of the yellow room (1908).
Miss Stangerson is found severely injured, attacked in a locked room at the Chateau du Glandier. Leroux provides maps and floor plans showing that an assailant could not possibly have entered or escaped.
4. Ellery Queen, The king is dead (1951).
King Bendigo, a wealthy munitions magnate, has been threatened by his brother Judah, who announces that he will shoot King at midnight at his private island residence. King locks himself in a hermetically sealed office accompanied only by his wife, Karla. Judah is under Ellery Queen's constant observation. At midnight, Judah lifts an empty gun and pulls the trigger and at the same moment, in the sealed room, King falls back, wounded with a bullet. No gun is found anywhere in the sealed room and the bullet that wounds King came from Judah's gun – which didn't actually fire. Good, huh?
3. Paul Halter, La Septième hypothèse (1991).
Two men toss a coin and whoever loses has to commit a murder and try to pin the blame on the other. There are only two possible suspects to the subsequent crime and both have ironclad alibis. Seven solutions present themselves to the detectives in this ultra-twisty novel.
2. Soji Shimada, The Tokyo zodiac murders (1981).
A snowy evening in the Shōwa period of pre-war Japan. A wealthy artist, Heikichi Umezawa, is finishing up his great cycle of paintings on Zodiacal subjects when his head is smashed in with a blunt object. The studio is locked from the inside and the suspects have alibis. Over the next four decades many of Umezawa's family members are also gruesomely killed, most in "impossible" ways. In a series of postmodern asides Soji Shimada repeatedly taunts the reader explaining that all the clues are there for an astute observer.
1. John Dickson Carr, The hollow man (1935).
Someone breaks into Professor Grimaud's study, kills him and leaves, with the only door to the room locked from the inside, and with people present in the hall outside the room. The ground below the window is covered with unbroken snow. All the elements are balanced just right in this, the best of Dickson Carr's many locked-room problems.
------
BTL:
"Just about every book written by John Dickson Carr (and under his 'other' name, Carter Dickson) are wonderful locked room mysteries, and all of them play fair (thus driving the reader nuts). As a fan of this genre, I thank you for reminding me."
"I would add a personal favourite The locked room (the clue is in the title) by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, a contribution to the excellent social-commentary style of thriller/police procedural that these peerless early shapers of Scaninavian noir in many ways originated." // "I was going to psot the same title. A great series that could almost be read as a single novel."
"Another great locked-room Agatha Christie is Hercule Poirot's Christmas, where, as in The hollow man, people who are outside the door hear the murder as it happens. The solution is a little far-fetched, but then aren't all these locked-room mysteries pushing it a bit? That Tokyo Zodiac murders sounds great though, will have to give it a go." // "Never heard of the Tokyo murders before, but I agree - it does sound great." // "My favourite Agatha Christie is The murder of Roger Ackroyd. A very clever bit of writing and, well, not really a locked but close enough."
Adam Roberts, Jack Glass. "You beat me to it! Jack Glass is an amazing book. Sadly, it will be overlooked by many because it's in the science fiction/fantasy section of the bookstore."
" 'Murder On the Orient Express with a gaunt David Niven and a cherubic Peter Ustinov on the cover'. I doubt it. Ustinov and Niven were in 'Death on the Nile'. 'Murder on the Orient Express' featured an all-star cast with Albert Finney in the role of Poirot. You're welcome."
"A great modern locked room mystery is Running blind (also known as The visitor) by Lee Child; all of the Jack Reacher novels are excellent mysteries/thrillers but this one is a classic locked room whodunit."
Guardian, 2014-01-29.
"The first proper mystery novel that I read was Murder on the Orient Express with a gaunt David Niven and a cherubic Peter Ustinov on the cover. Orient Express, you'll recall, is the one where everyone did it, which delighted me no end and I was immediately hooked. I began to work my way through the other Agatha Christies at Belfast Central library and it was probably the sympathetic librarian there who put into my hands The murders in the Rue Morgue, the first real locked-room mystery that I came across.
"Since then I've read dozens of locked-roomers (or "impossible murders") and I have developed firm opinions about the genre. I have no truck whatsoever with the ones that have a supernatural solution or where the author doesn't give you enough information to solve the case for yourself.
"A locked-room problem lies at the heart of my new novel, In the morning I'll be gone, in which an RUC detective has to find out whether a publican's daughter who fell off a table in a bar that was locked from the inside was in fact murdered. Firstly I had to assure the reader I was not cheating about the facts: the pub was indeed locked and bolted from the inside, there were no secret passages and certainly no supernatural element. Then, of course, I had to give the reader all the necessary information so that they could solve the case at the same time or before the detective. When it works you should be able to read a locked-room mystery twice, the second time spotting the clues and seeing how the whole thing fits together.
"When a locked-room mystery doesn't work the solution makes you groan and the book gets hurled across the room. In the murders in the Rue Morgue an elderly Frenchwoman is killed in a locked room on the fourth floor. The solution – spoiler alert – is that the murder was done by a tame orang-utan who climbed in through the open window with a straight razor. Do that sort of thing nowadays and your book would rightly get chucked, probably back at your own head during a signing.
"The golden age of the locked-room mystery in Anglo-American detective fiction has largely passed, but in France Paul Halter has been churning out original impossible murder novels since the mid-1980s and in Japan the great Soji Shimada virtually invented the "logic problem" sub-genre which is still extremely popular. Mixing classic and contemporary with no supernatural activity allowed, these are my 10 favourite locked-room/impossible murder novels:"
10. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868).
Rachel Verinder's cursed Indian diamond the Moonstone disappears from her room after her birthday party. This is only a rudimentary locked-roomer, but as the first and still one of the best detective novels it had to be on my list.
9. John Dickson Carr, The case of the constant suicides (1941).
Dr Gideon Fell investigates an alarming number of "suicides" at a remote Scottish castle. The deaths have taken place in completely inaccessible rooms. Dickson Carr was rightly known as the "master of the locked-room mystery" and this entire list could, with some justification, have been made solely from JDC books.
8. Agatha Christie, And then there were none (1939).
Eight people with guilty secrets are invited to an isolated island off the coast of Devon where they begin to be murdered one by one. When there are only two of them left the fun really begins. Previously published under two equally unfortunate titles.
7. Christianna Brand, Suddenly at his residence (1946).
In another part of Devon Sir Richard March has been found poisoned in his lodge. A sand covered pathway leading to the lodge is rolled daily by the gardener. Only one set of footprints is found leading to the lodge and they belong to Claire, who discovered the body. A witty and engaging mystery from a writer who was another locked-room specialist.
6. Israel Zangwill, The big bow mystery (1892).
Mrs Drabdump's lodger is discovered with his throat cut, no trace of a murder weapon and no way a murderer could have got in or out. Arguably the first proper locked-roomer and still a classic.
5. Gaston Leroux, The mystery of the yellow room (1908).
Miss Stangerson is found severely injured, attacked in a locked room at the Chateau du Glandier. Leroux provides maps and floor plans showing that an assailant could not possibly have entered or escaped.
4. Ellery Queen, The king is dead (1951).
King Bendigo, a wealthy munitions magnate, has been threatened by his brother Judah, who announces that he will shoot King at midnight at his private island residence. King locks himself in a hermetically sealed office accompanied only by his wife, Karla. Judah is under Ellery Queen's constant observation. At midnight, Judah lifts an empty gun and pulls the trigger and at the same moment, in the sealed room, King falls back, wounded with a bullet. No gun is found anywhere in the sealed room and the bullet that wounds King came from Judah's gun – which didn't actually fire. Good, huh?
3. Paul Halter, La Septième hypothèse (1991).
Two men toss a coin and whoever loses has to commit a murder and try to pin the blame on the other. There are only two possible suspects to the subsequent crime and both have ironclad alibis. Seven solutions present themselves to the detectives in this ultra-twisty novel.
2. Soji Shimada, The Tokyo zodiac murders (1981).
A snowy evening in the Shōwa period of pre-war Japan. A wealthy artist, Heikichi Umezawa, is finishing up his great cycle of paintings on Zodiacal subjects when his head is smashed in with a blunt object. The studio is locked from the inside and the suspects have alibis. Over the next four decades many of Umezawa's family members are also gruesomely killed, most in "impossible" ways. In a series of postmodern asides Soji Shimada repeatedly taunts the reader explaining that all the clues are there for an astute observer.
1. John Dickson Carr, The hollow man (1935).
Someone breaks into Professor Grimaud's study, kills him and leaves, with the only door to the room locked from the inside, and with people present in the hall outside the room. The ground below the window is covered with unbroken snow. All the elements are balanced just right in this, the best of Dickson Carr's many locked-room problems.
------
BTL:
"Just about every book written by John Dickson Carr (and under his 'other' name, Carter Dickson) are wonderful locked room mysteries, and all of them play fair (thus driving the reader nuts). As a fan of this genre, I thank you for reminding me."
"I would add a personal favourite The locked room (the clue is in the title) by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, a contribution to the excellent social-commentary style of thriller/police procedural that these peerless early shapers of Scaninavian noir in many ways originated." // "I was going to psot the same title. A great series that could almost be read as a single novel."
"Another great locked-room Agatha Christie is Hercule Poirot's Christmas, where, as in The hollow man, people who are outside the door hear the murder as it happens. The solution is a little far-fetched, but then aren't all these locked-room mysteries pushing it a bit? That Tokyo Zodiac murders sounds great though, will have to give it a go." // "Never heard of the Tokyo murders before, but I agree - it does sound great." // "My favourite Agatha Christie is The murder of Roger Ackroyd. A very clever bit of writing and, well, not really a locked but close enough."
Adam Roberts, Jack Glass. "You beat me to it! Jack Glass is an amazing book. Sadly, it will be overlooked by many because it's in the science fiction/fantasy section of the bookstore."
" 'Murder On the Orient Express with a gaunt David Niven and a cherubic Peter Ustinov on the cover'. I doubt it. Ustinov and Niven were in 'Death on the Nile'. 'Murder on the Orient Express' featured an all-star cast with Albert Finney in the role of Poirot. You're welcome."
"A great modern locked room mystery is Running blind (also known as The visitor) by Lee Child; all of the Jack Reacher novels are excellent mysteries/thrillers but this one is a classic locked room whodunit."
58Cynfelyn
Pip Jones's top 10 cats in children's books.
Guardian, 2014-01-30.
Pip Jones is the author of Squishy McFluff : the invisible cat! When Ava discovers an imaginary cat in the cabbage patch, she knows she's found a new best friend. Together, Ava and Squishy McFluff get up to all kinds of mischief.
"Felines are just so beguiling aren't they? Most cat owners would probably admit their pet is a walking paradox. Affectionate one minute, aloof the next. Stealthy and secretive, yet mischievous and playful. They're certainly fickle: when I was growing up, two of our cats just sauntered off down the road to live with someone else. Rude.
"Perhaps what makes cats so fascinating is their obvious belief that they're just better than we are. Ah, we might call them our pets, but they're beholden to no-one. A recent Japanese study proved it. The research confirmed that cats absolutely can differentiate between their owner's voice and a stranger's – but they'll still only come when called by their owner if they darn well feel like it. Bothered? Meh.
"As a species, the domestic cat provides endless material for writers – they're wonderful creatures to anthropomorphise – and, as such, children's literature is awash with feline villains, heroes and dappy, comical figures. Here are my 10 favourites."
1. Ursula Moray Williams, Gobbolino the witch's cat.
This book is a true classic, which will entrance young children now as much as it did back in the 1940s when it was first published. Gobbolino is born different. He's not black all over, as a witch's cat should be. One white paw and the tabby sheen to his fur are indicative of his desire to be a cosy kitchen cat, loved by humans. But the kitten has to endure a long and winding journey on the way to finding his destiny.
2. Jennifer Gray, Atticus Claw.
To name him in full, the crazily charismatic Atticus Grammaticus Cattypuss Claw begins his adventures as the world's greatest cat burglar, a thief who can't resist a challenge (or the potential rewards). Yet, through the series, Atticus's life will take a different steer and children aged 7+ will lap up his transformation from a thief to the world's greatest police cat.
3. Julia Donaldson, Tabby McTat.
Tabby McTat is a busker's cat – or at least he was, until he got separated from his owner. Fans of the wonderful Julia Donaldson will love the rhyme (as perfect and punchy as it ever is) and the tale of a streetwise tabby who accidentally discovers the finer things in life, but just can't stop thinking about his long lost friend.
4. Judith Kerr, Mog.
The Mog books have been enjoyed by countless children since the 1970s but, just over a decade ago, Judith Kerr did something rather brave with her adored feline – she sent Mog to heaven. Mog helps a new kitten settle in to the family home before ascending completely, and it's hard to imagine anyone else tackling the sensitive subject of loss quite so straightforwardly and yet quite so gently.
5. Dr Seuss, The cat in the hat.
Theodor Seuss Geisel's zany creation was intended as more than just a mischievous odd-ball who would rock up and wreck the house of Sally and her unnamed brother (much to the disgruntlement of a very sensible goldfish). The cat in the hat was specifically designed to spark the imaginations of early readers, who appeared to be finding the traditional 1950s Dick and Jane books as dull as dishwater. That Dr Seuss succeeded is inarguable. His crazy cat will most likely be in print forever.
6. Lewis Caroll, The Cheshire cat.
I still always feel a bit spooked when I think of Caroll's otherworldly Cheshire Cat, who flits between offering Alice largely sensible advice, and then just amusing himself by deliberately irritating her. And as for disappearing to leave only his distinctive grin behind, well, talk about playing with your mind. He's insanely brilliant.
7. J. K. Rowling, Mrs Norris.
That it was the "dearest ambition of many to give Mrs Norris a good kick" perfectly surmises why she makes such a superb character in the Harry Potter books. The feline sidekick of Argus Filch is a highly intelligent, particularly nasty snitch, who stalks Hogwarts' grounds and reports back any evidence of students misbehaving. Wonderful.
8. Inga Moore, Six Dinner Sid.
When cats go out, their owners like to imagine them off having adventures, skulking around, climbing trees, being wild and all that. But it's probably more likely they're next to someone else's fire three doors up, having finished their third (why hunt?) meal of the day. Six Dinner Sid is one such character. It's a sweet story of a cat who really thinks he's got it sussed, with all six owners believing Sid belongs to them … until they all find out. Busted!
9. Lynley Dodd, Slinky Malinki.
"Slinky Malinki was blacker than black, a stalking and lurking adventurous cat." Lynley Dodd's imaginative rhyme is utterly addictive and Slinky Malinki himself is the embodiment of feline mischievousness. By day, he's cheeky and friendly but, when night falls, the rapscallion cat can't help but prowl the neighbourhood, thieving whatever takes his fancy.
10. T. S. Eliot, Macavity.
While many villainous cats prowl the bookshelves, I think T. S. Eliot's Macavity takes top prize. Why? Because he'll never be turned, and he'll never be caught! Soon to be re-released in picture book form, a whole new generation will be wowed by the illusive Macavity (said to be Eliot's feline version of Sherlock Holmes's nemesis Moriarty) and enjoy the spinetingling rhyme: "He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair, For when they reach the scene of crime – Macavity's not there!"
Guardian, 2014-01-30.
Pip Jones is the author of Squishy McFluff : the invisible cat! When Ava discovers an imaginary cat in the cabbage patch, she knows she's found a new best friend. Together, Ava and Squishy McFluff get up to all kinds of mischief.
"Felines are just so beguiling aren't they? Most cat owners would probably admit their pet is a walking paradox. Affectionate one minute, aloof the next. Stealthy and secretive, yet mischievous and playful. They're certainly fickle: when I was growing up, two of our cats just sauntered off down the road to live with someone else. Rude.
"Perhaps what makes cats so fascinating is their obvious belief that they're just better than we are. Ah, we might call them our pets, but they're beholden to no-one. A recent Japanese study proved it. The research confirmed that cats absolutely can differentiate between their owner's voice and a stranger's – but they'll still only come when called by their owner if they darn well feel like it. Bothered? Meh.
"As a species, the domestic cat provides endless material for writers – they're wonderful creatures to anthropomorphise – and, as such, children's literature is awash with feline villains, heroes and dappy, comical figures. Here are my 10 favourites."
1. Ursula Moray Williams, Gobbolino the witch's cat.
This book is a true classic, which will entrance young children now as much as it did back in the 1940s when it was first published. Gobbolino is born different. He's not black all over, as a witch's cat should be. One white paw and the tabby sheen to his fur are indicative of his desire to be a cosy kitchen cat, loved by humans. But the kitten has to endure a long and winding journey on the way to finding his destiny.
2. Jennifer Gray, Atticus Claw.
To name him in full, the crazily charismatic Atticus Grammaticus Cattypuss Claw begins his adventures as the world's greatest cat burglar, a thief who can't resist a challenge (or the potential rewards). Yet, through the series, Atticus's life will take a different steer and children aged 7+ will lap up his transformation from a thief to the world's greatest police cat.
3. Julia Donaldson, Tabby McTat.
Tabby McTat is a busker's cat – or at least he was, until he got separated from his owner. Fans of the wonderful Julia Donaldson will love the rhyme (as perfect and punchy as it ever is) and the tale of a streetwise tabby who accidentally discovers the finer things in life, but just can't stop thinking about his long lost friend.
4. Judith Kerr, Mog.
The Mog books have been enjoyed by countless children since the 1970s but, just over a decade ago, Judith Kerr did something rather brave with her adored feline – she sent Mog to heaven. Mog helps a new kitten settle in to the family home before ascending completely, and it's hard to imagine anyone else tackling the sensitive subject of loss quite so straightforwardly and yet quite so gently.
5. Dr Seuss, The cat in the hat.
Theodor Seuss Geisel's zany creation was intended as more than just a mischievous odd-ball who would rock up and wreck the house of Sally and her unnamed brother (much to the disgruntlement of a very sensible goldfish). The cat in the hat was specifically designed to spark the imaginations of early readers, who appeared to be finding the traditional 1950s Dick and Jane books as dull as dishwater. That Dr Seuss succeeded is inarguable. His crazy cat will most likely be in print forever.
6. Lewis Caroll, The Cheshire cat.
I still always feel a bit spooked when I think of Caroll's otherworldly Cheshire Cat, who flits between offering Alice largely sensible advice, and then just amusing himself by deliberately irritating her. And as for disappearing to leave only his distinctive grin behind, well, talk about playing with your mind. He's insanely brilliant.
7. J. K. Rowling, Mrs Norris.
That it was the "dearest ambition of many to give Mrs Norris a good kick" perfectly surmises why she makes such a superb character in the Harry Potter books. The feline sidekick of Argus Filch is a highly intelligent, particularly nasty snitch, who stalks Hogwarts' grounds and reports back any evidence of students misbehaving. Wonderful.
8. Inga Moore, Six Dinner Sid.
When cats go out, their owners like to imagine them off having adventures, skulking around, climbing trees, being wild and all that. But it's probably more likely they're next to someone else's fire three doors up, having finished their third (why hunt?) meal of the day. Six Dinner Sid is one such character. It's a sweet story of a cat who really thinks he's got it sussed, with all six owners believing Sid belongs to them … until they all find out. Busted!
9. Lynley Dodd, Slinky Malinki.
"Slinky Malinki was blacker than black, a stalking and lurking adventurous cat." Lynley Dodd's imaginative rhyme is utterly addictive and Slinky Malinki himself is the embodiment of feline mischievousness. By day, he's cheeky and friendly but, when night falls, the rapscallion cat can't help but prowl the neighbourhood, thieving whatever takes his fancy.
10. T. S. Eliot, Macavity.
While many villainous cats prowl the bookshelves, I think T. S. Eliot's Macavity takes top prize. Why? Because he'll never be turned, and he'll never be caught! Soon to be re-released in picture book form, a whole new generation will be wowed by the illusive Macavity (said to be Eliot's feline version of Sherlock Holmes's nemesis Moriarty) and enjoy the spinetingling rhyme: "He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair, For when they reach the scene of crime – Macavity's not there!"
59Cynfelyn
Rachel Cantor's best fiction featuring real writers.
Guardian, 2014-02-05.
"A highly unlikely scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza employee's guide to saving the world is about real people. Historical figures who, with varying degrees of befuddlement, arrive in a world in which Pythagoreans, Whigs, and Dadaists seek converts through evangelical fast-food chains; armed followers of scientist and theologian Roger Bacon battle with powerful Cathars for rights to the untranslatable Voynich manuscript; and everyone is under threat from renegade 'book groups' that hope to radicalise the middle classes.
"What hubris to insert real people into works of fiction, what folly! An author can only fail: devotees despise the result, on principle; others dismiss the work, believing it relies too much on the words, and personalities, of greater minds.
"Still, this is not the first time I've engaged in such folly, and it won't be the last. I gain comfort from other authors, some of them favorite authors, who share my writerly fascination with 'real people' (real writers, to be specific). I offer, then, 10 writings – novels, mostly – featuring writers from history."
1. Siegfried Sassoon in Pat Barker, Regeneration.
Pat Barker's justly celebrated Regeneration concerns W. H. R. Rivers, the innovative psychiatrist who found new ways to treat first world war officers suffering shell shock, among them the poet Siegfried Sassoon. In fact, Sassoon has been declared mentally unsound because, although a decorated officer, he has publicly declared that he is 'finished' with the war, unable to continue supporting its aims. Playing a supporting role: the poet Wilfred Owen, with whom Sassoon exchanges poems. "'Owen, for God's sake, this is War Office propaganda.' 'No, it's not.' 'Read that line.' Owen read. 'Well, it certainly isn't meant to be.'"
2. John Clare in Adam Foulds, The quickening maze.
John Clare actually is mentally ill. At the age of 44 he is admitted to a private asylum on the edge of Epping Forest. There he suffers delusions but still writes poetry and is allowed to wander the grounds more or less freely. Staying at the asylum for a few weeks with his brother is Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who mourns the death of a close friend. Both are consumed by loss; they do not meet. While Clare visits with gypsies, Tennyson takes long walks and is convinced to invest (disastrously) in an automated wood-carving device.
3. Novalis in Penelope Fitzgerald, The blue flower.
Another Romantic poet. Novalis is Friedrich von Hardenberg (or 'Fritz'), a brilliant student of history and philosophy. He is 22 in 1794 when he falls in love with 12-year-old Sophie. His brother is blunt: he calls Sophie 'empty-headed' and wonders that already she has a double chin. Too young to attend public balls, Sophie is 'afraid' of marriage, but nonetheless becomes engaged to Fritz two days before her 13th birthday, only to {spoiler alert} die at the age of barely 15.
4. Heinrich von Kleist in Christa Wolf, No place on Earth.
What is it about the Romantics? Here it's an 1804 meeting between Kleist and the now-forgotten poet Karoline von Günderrode. "Happiness," thinks Kleist, "is the place where I am not"; she feels "no urge to do anything which maintains the world," its demands and laws being too "perverted". When they meet at a literary gathering, Karoline makes Kleist "uneasy," and immediately on meeting her he forgets her name. But soon "she seems to him the only person who is truly real in a horde of spectres," and she can read his thoughts.
5. Walt Whitman in Chris Adrian, Gob's grief.
Gob survives the Civil War, unlike his brother Tomo, who ran off to join the army at the age of 11 and died during his first battle. Walt Whitman, meanwhile, dreams his brother has been lost in the war, only to find him at a hospital just slightly wounded. When brother George is moved elsewhere, Walt lingers, making himself useful to doctors and nurses, first at this hospital, and then another, and another. He chats with wounded soldiers, reads to them, distributes oranges, writes letters, or just sits, watching "with excited worry". It is Whitman Gob turns to when he needs a man full of emotion to power a machine he has built to bring the Civil War dead back to life.
6. Gertrude Stein in Monique Truong, The book of salt.
In this sensuous, language-drunk novel, Bính has answered an advertisement: "Two American ladies wish to retain a cook." The two American ladies are Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Like his "Mesdames," Bính is an outsider on many counts – a Vietnamese exile in Paris, a servant, a homosexual. While he is aware of Stein's disdain for punctuation and her affection for rhyme, he is perhaps more interested in the details of their daily life – the two days it took Miss Toklas to cut off Stein's billowing hair, her unwillingness to answer the door, and Miss Toklas's glorious mustache.
7. Henry James in Colm Tóibín, The master.
Tóibín's novel covers just five years of James's expatriate life – from the disastrous debut of his play Guy Domville in London in January 1895 to January 1900, when his brother William leaves Henry's home in Rye. Henry writes, he travels, he recalls various losses. Asked on the cusp of the new century what he intends to write next, Henry says, "'I am a poor storyteller … a romancer, interested in dramatic niceties … Once I wrote about youth and America and now I am left with exile and middle age and stories of disappointment …'"
8. Franz Kafka in Moacyr Scliar, Kafka's leopards.
It is 1916, and Mousy, a Russian Jew on a Trotskyite mission, leaves his village to obtain a coded message. He's not a very able spy, and ends up believing Kafka to be the bearer of this message. He tries to visit him at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute, where an officious secretary informs him that Dr Kafka cannot be seen without an appointment. Mousy arranges for Dr Kafka to leave the text at his hotel. Unable to make sense of the missive, Mousy considers a reprimand: "Can what is out of the reach of the majority of readers be revolutionary?" Indeed!
9. Franz Kafka in I. B. Singer, A friend of Kafka.
Kafka's presence here is even more attenuated: he doesn't appear at all except in the (frequent) reminiscences of Jacques Kohn, one-time actor and now a "sick and broken man". Broken and also broke: the narrator, a self-effacing writer, is always willing to lend Jacques a zloty to hear his marvellous stories. The centerpiece involves a bejeweled countess who pounds on the ancient Kohn's door in the wee hours, desperately trying to escape her murderous boyfriend; her eventual presence in Jacques' bed inspires a miracle. But always Kohn returns to Kafka: meeting him in Vienna; ("he spouted aphorisms and paradoxes"); his genius; his writings; his illusions about women; the advice he gave him; Kohn's attempt to bring the virginal Kafka to a brothel …
10. Marco Polo in Italo Calvino, Invisible cities.
Perhaps I cheat again, since Marco Polo's Travels was written by a ghostwriter, the romance writer Rustichello. In Invisible cities, however, there is no Rustichello, only Polo, who enchants the Great Khan with tales of his travels to cities at the furthest reaches of the emperor's realm – thin cities, trading cities, continuous cities, hidden cities. There is, for example, Octavia, the spider-web city, its foundation a net suspended over an abyss. You haven't yet described Venice, Kublai Khan says toward the end of the book, and Marco replies, "What else do you believe I have been talking to you about?"
------
I'm not sure I can suggest anything, but they were made of sterner stuff BTL:
"Kit Marlowe in Anthony Burgess's A dead man in Deptford." // "Marlowe in A dead man in Deptford by Burgess, Joseph Conrad in The history of Costaguana by Juan Gabriel Vasquez." // "Another one with Joseph Conrad: he's the central (albeit largely unseen) figure in Today by David Miller." // "In Edmund White's moving Hotel de Dream, Conrad appears again when the dying Stephen Crane is visited by him.
"Roberto Bolano in Cercas's Soldiers of Salamis." // "Beat me to it. i especially like it because Bolano is used as device to investigate the nature of history, narrative and fiction rather than as a cheap way of using someone else's fame to create some interest." // "I also enjoyed the irony that Bolano's appearance predates the English appearance of any of his works, IIRC."
"A good one - Arthur Conan Doyle, in Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. I enjoyed that book very much." // "I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the books (something to do with the number 7) nor the author, but Arthur Conan Doyle is also the main character in one in which he meets a man who inspires him to create Sherlock Holmes, and Bram Stoker also makes an appearance. It goes through the world of Victorian Spiritualism."
Proust in Philippe Besson, In the absence of men.
Nemirovsky in The Mirador by her daughter, Elisabeth Gille.
"Rand and Hemingway in Old School by Tobias Wolff." // "Ah, how could I forget? The scene with Rand is perfect. Now I'm reminded of Old School, I think it's Robert Frost rather than Hem..." // "Of course! One of the best books I have ever read. Pure joy."
Guardian, 2014-02-05.
"A highly unlikely scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza employee's guide to saving the world is about real people. Historical figures who, with varying degrees of befuddlement, arrive in a world in which Pythagoreans, Whigs, and Dadaists seek converts through evangelical fast-food chains; armed followers of scientist and theologian Roger Bacon battle with powerful Cathars for rights to the untranslatable Voynich manuscript; and everyone is under threat from renegade 'book groups' that hope to radicalise the middle classes.
"What hubris to insert real people into works of fiction, what folly! An author can only fail: devotees despise the result, on principle; others dismiss the work, believing it relies too much on the words, and personalities, of greater minds.
"Still, this is not the first time I've engaged in such folly, and it won't be the last. I gain comfort from other authors, some of them favorite authors, who share my writerly fascination with 'real people' (real writers, to be specific). I offer, then, 10 writings – novels, mostly – featuring writers from history."
1. Siegfried Sassoon in Pat Barker, Regeneration.
Pat Barker's justly celebrated Regeneration concerns W. H. R. Rivers, the innovative psychiatrist who found new ways to treat first world war officers suffering shell shock, among them the poet Siegfried Sassoon. In fact, Sassoon has been declared mentally unsound because, although a decorated officer, he has publicly declared that he is 'finished' with the war, unable to continue supporting its aims. Playing a supporting role: the poet Wilfred Owen, with whom Sassoon exchanges poems. "'Owen, for God's sake, this is War Office propaganda.' 'No, it's not.' 'Read that line.' Owen read. 'Well, it certainly isn't meant to be.'"
2. John Clare in Adam Foulds, The quickening maze.
John Clare actually is mentally ill. At the age of 44 he is admitted to a private asylum on the edge of Epping Forest. There he suffers delusions but still writes poetry and is allowed to wander the grounds more or less freely. Staying at the asylum for a few weeks with his brother is Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who mourns the death of a close friend. Both are consumed by loss; they do not meet. While Clare visits with gypsies, Tennyson takes long walks and is convinced to invest (disastrously) in an automated wood-carving device.
3. Novalis in Penelope Fitzgerald, The blue flower.
Another Romantic poet. Novalis is Friedrich von Hardenberg (or 'Fritz'), a brilliant student of history and philosophy. He is 22 in 1794 when he falls in love with 12-year-old Sophie. His brother is blunt: he calls Sophie 'empty-headed' and wonders that already she has a double chin. Too young to attend public balls, Sophie is 'afraid' of marriage, but nonetheless becomes engaged to Fritz two days before her 13th birthday, only to {spoiler alert} die at the age of barely 15.
4. Heinrich von Kleist in Christa Wolf, No place on Earth.
What is it about the Romantics? Here it's an 1804 meeting between Kleist and the now-forgotten poet Karoline von Günderrode. "Happiness," thinks Kleist, "is the place where I am not"; she feels "no urge to do anything which maintains the world," its demands and laws being too "perverted". When they meet at a literary gathering, Karoline makes Kleist "uneasy," and immediately on meeting her he forgets her name. But soon "she seems to him the only person who is truly real in a horde of spectres," and she can read his thoughts.
5. Walt Whitman in Chris Adrian, Gob's grief.
Gob survives the Civil War, unlike his brother Tomo, who ran off to join the army at the age of 11 and died during his first battle. Walt Whitman, meanwhile, dreams his brother has been lost in the war, only to find him at a hospital just slightly wounded. When brother George is moved elsewhere, Walt lingers, making himself useful to doctors and nurses, first at this hospital, and then another, and another. He chats with wounded soldiers, reads to them, distributes oranges, writes letters, or just sits, watching "with excited worry". It is Whitman Gob turns to when he needs a man full of emotion to power a machine he has built to bring the Civil War dead back to life.
6. Gertrude Stein in Monique Truong, The book of salt.
In this sensuous, language-drunk novel, Bính has answered an advertisement: "Two American ladies wish to retain a cook." The two American ladies are Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Like his "Mesdames," Bính is an outsider on many counts – a Vietnamese exile in Paris, a servant, a homosexual. While he is aware of Stein's disdain for punctuation and her affection for rhyme, he is perhaps more interested in the details of their daily life – the two days it took Miss Toklas to cut off Stein's billowing hair, her unwillingness to answer the door, and Miss Toklas's glorious mustache.
7. Henry James in Colm Tóibín, The master.
Tóibín's novel covers just five years of James's expatriate life – from the disastrous debut of his play Guy Domville in London in January 1895 to January 1900, when his brother William leaves Henry's home in Rye. Henry writes, he travels, he recalls various losses. Asked on the cusp of the new century what he intends to write next, Henry says, "'I am a poor storyteller … a romancer, interested in dramatic niceties … Once I wrote about youth and America and now I am left with exile and middle age and stories of disappointment …'"
8. Franz Kafka in Moacyr Scliar, Kafka's leopards.
It is 1916, and Mousy, a Russian Jew on a Trotskyite mission, leaves his village to obtain a coded message. He's not a very able spy, and ends up believing Kafka to be the bearer of this message. He tries to visit him at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute, where an officious secretary informs him that Dr Kafka cannot be seen without an appointment. Mousy arranges for Dr Kafka to leave the text at his hotel. Unable to make sense of the missive, Mousy considers a reprimand: "Can what is out of the reach of the majority of readers be revolutionary?" Indeed!
9. Franz Kafka in I. B. Singer, A friend of Kafka.
Kafka's presence here is even more attenuated: he doesn't appear at all except in the (frequent) reminiscences of Jacques Kohn, one-time actor and now a "sick and broken man". Broken and also broke: the narrator, a self-effacing writer, is always willing to lend Jacques a zloty to hear his marvellous stories. The centerpiece involves a bejeweled countess who pounds on the ancient Kohn's door in the wee hours, desperately trying to escape her murderous boyfriend; her eventual presence in Jacques' bed inspires a miracle. But always Kohn returns to Kafka: meeting him in Vienna; ("he spouted aphorisms and paradoxes"); his genius; his writings; his illusions about women; the advice he gave him; Kohn's attempt to bring the virginal Kafka to a brothel …
10. Marco Polo in Italo Calvino, Invisible cities.
Perhaps I cheat again, since Marco Polo's Travels was written by a ghostwriter, the romance writer Rustichello. In Invisible cities, however, there is no Rustichello, only Polo, who enchants the Great Khan with tales of his travels to cities at the furthest reaches of the emperor's realm – thin cities, trading cities, continuous cities, hidden cities. There is, for example, Octavia, the spider-web city, its foundation a net suspended over an abyss. You haven't yet described Venice, Kublai Khan says toward the end of the book, and Marco replies, "What else do you believe I have been talking to you about?"
------
I'm not sure I can suggest anything, but they were made of sterner stuff BTL:
"Kit Marlowe in Anthony Burgess's A dead man in Deptford." // "Marlowe in A dead man in Deptford by Burgess, Joseph Conrad in The history of Costaguana by Juan Gabriel Vasquez." // "Another one with Joseph Conrad: he's the central (albeit largely unseen) figure in Today by David Miller." // "In Edmund White's moving Hotel de Dream, Conrad appears again when the dying Stephen Crane is visited by him.
"Roberto Bolano in Cercas's Soldiers of Salamis." // "Beat me to it. i especially like it because Bolano is used as device to investigate the nature of history, narrative and fiction rather than as a cheap way of using someone else's fame to create some interest." // "I also enjoyed the irony that Bolano's appearance predates the English appearance of any of his works, IIRC."
"A good one - Arthur Conan Doyle, in Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. I enjoyed that book very much." // "I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the books (something to do with the number 7) nor the author, but Arthur Conan Doyle is also the main character in one in which he meets a man who inspires him to create Sherlock Holmes, and Bram Stoker also makes an appearance. It goes through the world of Victorian Spiritualism."
Proust in Philippe Besson, In the absence of men.
Nemirovsky in The Mirador by her daughter, Elisabeth Gille.
"Rand and Hemingway in Old School by Tobias Wolff." // "Ah, how could I forget? The scene with Rand is perfect. Now I'm reminded of Old School, I think it's Robert Frost rather than Hem..." // "Of course! One of the best books I have ever read. Pure joy."
60Cynfelyn
Graeme Simsion's top 10 difficult love stories.
Guardian, 2014-02-12.
Ahead of Valentine's Day, novelist Graeme Simsion chooses some useful literary reminders that love can be a hard-won joy.
"'You don't find love; love finds you' says the blurb for The Rosie Project. It's romantic to attribute love to serendipity rather than effort, but I think enduring love is something we have to make rather than discover. The most engaging, uplifting and comedic stories come from our efforts to create and sustain love in difficult circumstances with imperfect human materials.
"I've ranked my selection of love stories in order of increasing degree of difficulty. The Rosie Project, in which Don Tillman's social ineptitude is the main obstacle, would fall somewhere in the middle. I have sidestepped the romantic challenges faced by vampires."
1. Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's diary.
Bridget Jones suffers no mental or physical illness; there is no war going on around her; she faces no real obstacle besides her own personality. It's obstacle enough. Everyone's heard of this book, but I suspect not many men read it. They should: the pitch-perfect voice and genuinely funny comedy put it in a different class to most chick lit, enough to edge out Nick Hornby's High fidelity for this "beginners" slot.
2. John Fowles, Daniel Martin.
The eponymous protagonist is a screenwriter and novelist, but I read Daniel Martin before I had ambitions of being either. If there was a connection, it was with the idea of love being thwarted by circumstances but never entirely extinguished. Daniel's love is for his friend's wife Jane, who is also the sister of his estranged wife. When his friend dies, Daniel is in a new relationship, but decides to take Jane on a cruise to the Middle East. When I read Daniel Martin 25 years ago, I was well placed to judge his rendering of the moral dilemma and emotional turmoil, though not to the extent of "wife's sister", which I'd suggest is a no-go zone.
3. Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the time of cholera.
When it comes to love postponed, Love in the time of cholera puts Daniel Martin in the shade. Florentino and Fermina fall in love in their youth, but Fermina's father and then Fermina herself stand in the way of Florentino. Despite Fermina marrying what in a romantic comedy would be called the Bellamy character – the respectable choice – Florentino waits. And waits. Into old age. When does devotion become obsession?
4. Toni Jordan, Addition.
The nearest thing to a sister novel to The Rosie Project: a first-person story of someone – in this case a woman – who believes their psychological oddness will forever stand in the way of a relationship. There's a strong comedic thread, laced with wry self-awareness. Grace's obsession is with numbers and counting. Seamus comes into her life and is initially accepting – but then wants her to take medication. Addition copped some flak for finding comedy in mental illness and supposedly encouraging sufferers not to take their meds: my wife, a psychiatrist, thinks Jordan describes the dilemma pretty well.
5. Matthew Quick, The good luck of right now.
Matthew Quick specialises in the marginalised. Bartholomew, mocked at school for being a "retard", has lived with his mother for all of his 38 years. When she dies, he has to strike out on his own, with the help of the maverick local priest, a man diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The love interest is a psychologically-damaged library volunteer. Her alien-believing housemate completes the motley crew as they set out on a road trip to meet Bartholomew's father. Oh, and it's written as a series of letters to Richard Gere.
6. Matthew Quick, The silver linings playbook.
Yes, I like Matthew Quick. This is his best-known novel, thanks to the film with Robert De Niro. The book does not have a contract with De Niro, so it can focus on Pat's efforts to reunite with his wife after being discharged from a neurological/psychiatric facility. Unlike in the film, Pat is not labelled bipolar, but he definitely has some issues. So does Tiffany – who finds something of value in Pat and goes after it with tenacity and ingenuity.
7. Haruki Murakami, Norwegian wood.
It's interesting how many of the books on this list have been made into or optioned as films: the unconventional or difficult love story is more a staple of the screen than the page. In a premise reminiscent of Daniel Martin, Toru's friend Kizuki has committed suicide at 19, and Toru has become close to his girlfriend Naoko, a fragile woman who is admitted to a psychiatric institution. The novel is as much a fascinating window into the ennui of Japanese student life as a story of frustrated love.
8. Jojo Moyes, Me before you.
The protagonists would never be matched by an internet dating site, but more practical imperatives bring them together. Louisa is retained to care for Will, a quadriplegic at the point of giving up on life. It's a great premise for a string of clichés, but Moyes constructs a realistic, intelligent and moving story with a decent dose of comic relief.
9. Andrew Davidson, The Gargoyle.
A man is hideously disfigured as a result of burns sustained in a car accident. A sculptor, Marianne, apparently with psychiatric problems, comes to visit and then care for him. But this is no English patient. Our protagonists have met in a past life, which only Marianne is aware of. The setting alternates between 14th-century Germany and the present day. The supernatural is not my normal fare, but the story of Marianne's devotion, whatever the motivation, is remarkably moving.
10. Laurie Frankel, Goodbye for now.
Anyone who has spent time interacting with Siri on their iPhone will require only a slight stretch of the imagination to accept the premise here – reconstructing online personalities from social media records after the death of their owners. After Sam programs a Skype version of Meredith's late grandmother, the two go into the business of bringing back the deceased. The twist is predictable, but it's engrossing light reading that will leave you with something to think about after you've finished with the tissues.
------
A varied selection of comments and recommendations BTL, of which here are half a dozen messages and exchanges:
"I was given The Gargoyle to read by someone and it lay on my book pile for a long time, but I was very pleased when I got into it. Never read anything quite like that before, it is a book that has stayed with me, and probably always will." // "Thanks for mentioning The Gargoyle - such a strange and wonderful book! Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Jinni would qualify as well, I think. (As would Christopher Moore's You suck (a love story). Yes, vampires but to quote that other immortal: bite me!)"
"Haven't read all of these by any means but Love in the time of cholera would always rate very highly with me. Wonderful book!"
Jojo Moyes, Me before you. "I picked this for a holiday 'light' read because of the colourful cover and was pleasantly surprised by it ... it wasn't what I expected at all but much more than that ... and remember it stuck in mind head for a few days after ... as the best books tend to." // "Definitely got me thinking. It really is a book which made me question my beliefs about life, love and everything inbetween. I read Never let me go (I haven't seen the film version) around the same time and that also left with with more questions than answers about what I thought I knew."
"Why are all the characters in these books 'psychologically fragile'?" // "Because most of the nominations are rubbish weekend books for bourgeois bores. Read Women in love by Lawrence and delight in the play of several well-rounded characters who refuse this icky, submissive, and utterly saccharine nonsense." // "It is indeed a fabulously beautiful book." // "Agree there but not with you on Lawrence I am afraid."
Graham Greene, The end of the affair. "I read it as a teenager and it's stayed with me ever since. Beautiful, beautiful love story."
"Rhett and Scarlett in Gone with the wind."
Guardian, 2014-02-12.
Ahead of Valentine's Day, novelist Graeme Simsion chooses some useful literary reminders that love can be a hard-won joy.
"'You don't find love; love finds you' says the blurb for The Rosie Project. It's romantic to attribute love to serendipity rather than effort, but I think enduring love is something we have to make rather than discover. The most engaging, uplifting and comedic stories come from our efforts to create and sustain love in difficult circumstances with imperfect human materials.
"I've ranked my selection of love stories in order of increasing degree of difficulty. The Rosie Project, in which Don Tillman's social ineptitude is the main obstacle, would fall somewhere in the middle. I have sidestepped the romantic challenges faced by vampires."
1. Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's diary.
Bridget Jones suffers no mental or physical illness; there is no war going on around her; she faces no real obstacle besides her own personality. It's obstacle enough. Everyone's heard of this book, but I suspect not many men read it. They should: the pitch-perfect voice and genuinely funny comedy put it in a different class to most chick lit, enough to edge out Nick Hornby's High fidelity for this "beginners" slot.
2. John Fowles, Daniel Martin.
The eponymous protagonist is a screenwriter and novelist, but I read Daniel Martin before I had ambitions of being either. If there was a connection, it was with the idea of love being thwarted by circumstances but never entirely extinguished. Daniel's love is for his friend's wife Jane, who is also the sister of his estranged wife. When his friend dies, Daniel is in a new relationship, but decides to take Jane on a cruise to the Middle East. When I read Daniel Martin 25 years ago, I was well placed to judge his rendering of the moral dilemma and emotional turmoil, though not to the extent of "wife's sister", which I'd suggest is a no-go zone.
3. Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the time of cholera.
When it comes to love postponed, Love in the time of cholera puts Daniel Martin in the shade. Florentino and Fermina fall in love in their youth, but Fermina's father and then Fermina herself stand in the way of Florentino. Despite Fermina marrying what in a romantic comedy would be called the Bellamy character – the respectable choice – Florentino waits. And waits. Into old age. When does devotion become obsession?
4. Toni Jordan, Addition.
The nearest thing to a sister novel to The Rosie Project: a first-person story of someone – in this case a woman – who believes their psychological oddness will forever stand in the way of a relationship. There's a strong comedic thread, laced with wry self-awareness. Grace's obsession is with numbers and counting. Seamus comes into her life and is initially accepting – but then wants her to take medication. Addition copped some flak for finding comedy in mental illness and supposedly encouraging sufferers not to take their meds: my wife, a psychiatrist, thinks Jordan describes the dilemma pretty well.
5. Matthew Quick, The good luck of right now.
Matthew Quick specialises in the marginalised. Bartholomew, mocked at school for being a "retard", has lived with his mother for all of his 38 years. When she dies, he has to strike out on his own, with the help of the maverick local priest, a man diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The love interest is a psychologically-damaged library volunteer. Her alien-believing housemate completes the motley crew as they set out on a road trip to meet Bartholomew's father. Oh, and it's written as a series of letters to Richard Gere.
6. Matthew Quick, The silver linings playbook.
Yes, I like Matthew Quick. This is his best-known novel, thanks to the film with Robert De Niro. The book does not have a contract with De Niro, so it can focus on Pat's efforts to reunite with his wife after being discharged from a neurological/psychiatric facility. Unlike in the film, Pat is not labelled bipolar, but he definitely has some issues. So does Tiffany – who finds something of value in Pat and goes after it with tenacity and ingenuity.
7. Haruki Murakami, Norwegian wood.
It's interesting how many of the books on this list have been made into or optioned as films: the unconventional or difficult love story is more a staple of the screen than the page. In a premise reminiscent of Daniel Martin, Toru's friend Kizuki has committed suicide at 19, and Toru has become close to his girlfriend Naoko, a fragile woman who is admitted to a psychiatric institution. The novel is as much a fascinating window into the ennui of Japanese student life as a story of frustrated love.
8. Jojo Moyes, Me before you.
The protagonists would never be matched by an internet dating site, but more practical imperatives bring them together. Louisa is retained to care for Will, a quadriplegic at the point of giving up on life. It's a great premise for a string of clichés, but Moyes constructs a realistic, intelligent and moving story with a decent dose of comic relief.
9. Andrew Davidson, The Gargoyle.
A man is hideously disfigured as a result of burns sustained in a car accident. A sculptor, Marianne, apparently with psychiatric problems, comes to visit and then care for him. But this is no English patient. Our protagonists have met in a past life, which only Marianne is aware of. The setting alternates between 14th-century Germany and the present day. The supernatural is not my normal fare, but the story of Marianne's devotion, whatever the motivation, is remarkably moving.
10. Laurie Frankel, Goodbye for now.
Anyone who has spent time interacting with Siri on their iPhone will require only a slight stretch of the imagination to accept the premise here – reconstructing online personalities from social media records after the death of their owners. After Sam programs a Skype version of Meredith's late grandmother, the two go into the business of bringing back the deceased. The twist is predictable, but it's engrossing light reading that will leave you with something to think about after you've finished with the tissues.
------
A varied selection of comments and recommendations BTL, of which here are half a dozen messages and exchanges:
"I was given The Gargoyle to read by someone and it lay on my book pile for a long time, but I was very pleased when I got into it. Never read anything quite like that before, it is a book that has stayed with me, and probably always will." // "Thanks for mentioning The Gargoyle - such a strange and wonderful book! Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Jinni would qualify as well, I think. (As would Christopher Moore's You suck (a love story). Yes, vampires but to quote that other immortal: bite me!)"
"Haven't read all of these by any means but Love in the time of cholera would always rate very highly with me. Wonderful book!"
Jojo Moyes, Me before you. "I picked this for a holiday 'light' read because of the colourful cover and was pleasantly surprised by it ... it wasn't what I expected at all but much more than that ... and remember it stuck in mind head for a few days after ... as the best books tend to." // "Definitely got me thinking. It really is a book which made me question my beliefs about life, love and everything inbetween. I read Never let me go (I haven't seen the film version) around the same time and that also left with with more questions than answers about what I thought I knew."
"Why are all the characters in these books 'psychologically fragile'?" // "Because most of the nominations are rubbish weekend books for bourgeois bores. Read Women in love by Lawrence and delight in the play of several well-rounded characters who refuse this icky, submissive, and utterly saccharine nonsense." // "It is indeed a fabulously beautiful book." // "Agree there but not with you on Lawrence I am afraid."
Graham Greene, The end of the affair. "I read it as a teenager and it's stayed with me ever since. Beautiful, beautiful love story."
"Rhett and Scarlett in Gone with the wind."
61Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Stephanie Perkins's top 10 most romantic books.
Guardian, 2014-02-13.
Stephanie Perkins is author of Anna and the french kiss, published by Usborne Publishing. Lola and the boy next door is due out in June 2014, followed by Isla and the happily ever after in summer 2014.
"I'm drawn to romance. If a novel or film or television show has even a hint of a love story, it's guaranteed to be the element in which I'll find myself the most heavily invested. I crave stolen glances. Declarations of adoration. Passionate first kisses.
"It's unsurprising that my own novels are filled with such moments. Writing about love is another way to relish love. Here are a few books that I find inspiring. They're listed in no particular order with the exception of the first, which is, unquestionably, my top pick. It's probably yours, too."
1. Jane Austen.
As most of us agree that she was a genius, I won't try to explain something you already understand or debate about which of her titles is best. They're all the best. Though I'll happily take this opportunity to give a shout-out to Mr Tilney. Why don't we talk about him more often? He's spectacular.
2. Diana Gabaldon, Outlander.
A historical-adventure-science fiction-fantasy novel doesn't sound very accessible, but somehow it works on the page. And, boy, does it work. It's easy to become obsessed with time-traveling British Army nurse Claire and her redheaded Scotsman Jamie. This entire series is as delicious as it is epic.
3. Juliet Marillier, Wildwood dancing.
One of my favorite novels ever, this is a cross between The twelve dancing princesses and The frog prince. Set in the forest of historical Romania, it features both types of romance – true love as well as the traditional definition, the sublime and mysterious. Marillier made me fall head-over-heels for an amphibian. That, my friends, takes talent.
4. Gayle Forman, If I stay.
The stakes here are as high as they come. It's literally life or death for the main character, post-car accident, as her boyfriend pleads with her to live. This book made me cry – wonderful, enormous, gut-wrenching tears – in public. Make sure you read it before the film comes out later this year.
5. Craig Thompson, Blankets.
As a young girl, I never felt comfortable in the male-dominated world of comics, but as a young woman, someone placed this book into my hands, and it honestly changed my life. Now I read as many graphic novels as I do written novels. The romance inside this autobiographical tale is one of its most compelling aspects, and its gorgeous illustrations heighten every visceral emotion.
6. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre.
A librarian once told me that you could know everything about a person if you knew their preference – Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. I do believe there's a grain of truth to this. I'm a Jane Eyre gal. Take from that what you will.
7. Meg Cabot, The princess diaries.
The series that turned me into an avid fan of young adult literature. A Bridget Jones for teens (minus that new, depressing, widow business), Mia Thermopolis and Michael Moscovitz are a charmingly nerdy-funny-real couple. I wish I could be their best friend.
8. William Goldman, The princess bride.
Goldman penned the screenplay, but the book – which he wrote over a decade earlier – is even better. It's sharp and hilarious and utterly romantic. Take Westley's swoony declaration to Buttercup in the beginning: "Every time you said 'Farm Boy do this' you thought I was answering 'As you wish' but that's only because you were hearing wrong. 'I love you' was what it was, but you never heard, and you never heard."
9. Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl.
Rowell has become something of a phenomenon in America. All of her novels are delightful, but this one about a nervous-but-enthusiastic writer had me kicking with glee. (Though I can't imagine why this particular brand of protagonist would appeal to me.) (Oh wait I totally can.)
10. John Keats, Bright star : love letters and poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne.
There's nothing more romantic than a true love story, and the letters and poems that Keats wrote to his betrothed, Fanny Brawne, contain some of the most romantic passages in existence. I would've fainted to have received a letter with such an achingly sexy sentence as this: "I will imagine you Venus tonight and pray, pray, pray to your star like a heathen."
Guardian, 2014-02-13.
Stephanie Perkins is author of Anna and the french kiss, published by Usborne Publishing. Lola and the boy next door is due out in June 2014, followed by Isla and the happily ever after in summer 2014.
"I'm drawn to romance. If a novel or film or television show has even a hint of a love story, it's guaranteed to be the element in which I'll find myself the most heavily invested. I crave stolen glances. Declarations of adoration. Passionate first kisses.
"It's unsurprising that my own novels are filled with such moments. Writing about love is another way to relish love. Here are a few books that I find inspiring. They're listed in no particular order with the exception of the first, which is, unquestionably, my top pick. It's probably yours, too."
1. Jane Austen.
As most of us agree that she was a genius, I won't try to explain something you already understand or debate about which of her titles is best. They're all the best. Though I'll happily take this opportunity to give a shout-out to Mr Tilney. Why don't we talk about him more often? He's spectacular.
2. Diana Gabaldon, Outlander.
A historical-adventure-science fiction-fantasy novel doesn't sound very accessible, but somehow it works on the page. And, boy, does it work. It's easy to become obsessed with time-traveling British Army nurse Claire and her redheaded Scotsman Jamie. This entire series is as delicious as it is epic.
3. Juliet Marillier, Wildwood dancing.
One of my favorite novels ever, this is a cross between The twelve dancing princesses and The frog prince. Set in the forest of historical Romania, it features both types of romance – true love as well as the traditional definition, the sublime and mysterious. Marillier made me fall head-over-heels for an amphibian. That, my friends, takes talent.
4. Gayle Forman, If I stay.
The stakes here are as high as they come. It's literally life or death for the main character, post-car accident, as her boyfriend pleads with her to live. This book made me cry – wonderful, enormous, gut-wrenching tears – in public. Make sure you read it before the film comes out later this year.
5. Craig Thompson, Blankets.
As a young girl, I never felt comfortable in the male-dominated world of comics, but as a young woman, someone placed this book into my hands, and it honestly changed my life. Now I read as many graphic novels as I do written novels. The romance inside this autobiographical tale is one of its most compelling aspects, and its gorgeous illustrations heighten every visceral emotion.
6. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre.
A librarian once told me that you could know everything about a person if you knew their preference – Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. I do believe there's a grain of truth to this. I'm a Jane Eyre gal. Take from that what you will.
7. Meg Cabot, The princess diaries.
The series that turned me into an avid fan of young adult literature. A Bridget Jones for teens (minus that new, depressing, widow business), Mia Thermopolis and Michael Moscovitz are a charmingly nerdy-funny-real couple. I wish I could be their best friend.
8. William Goldman, The princess bride.
Goldman penned the screenplay, but the book – which he wrote over a decade earlier – is even better. It's sharp and hilarious and utterly romantic. Take Westley's swoony declaration to Buttercup in the beginning: "Every time you said 'Farm Boy do this' you thought I was answering 'As you wish' but that's only because you were hearing wrong. 'I love you' was what it was, but you never heard, and you never heard."
9. Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl.
Rowell has become something of a phenomenon in America. All of her novels are delightful, but this one about a nervous-but-enthusiastic writer had me kicking with glee. (Though I can't imagine why this particular brand of protagonist would appeal to me.) (Oh wait I totally can.)
10. John Keats, Bright star : love letters and poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne.
There's nothing more romantic than a true love story, and the letters and poems that Keats wrote to his betrothed, Fanny Brawne, contain some of the most romantic passages in existence. I would've fainted to have received a letter with such an achingly sexy sentence as this: "I will imagine you Venus tonight and pray, pray, pray to your star like a heathen."
62Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Keiron Pim's top 10 dinosaurs.
Guardian, 2014-02-14.
Imagine festival site takeover: From a drippy Tyrannosaurus to lost worlds packed with monsters, the author of The bumper book of dinosaurs selects the best books which explore extinct monsters:
"Dinosaurs have great appeal as a subject in so many ways, but there are three aspects in particular that I found while working on my book The bumper book of dinosaurs. For one, these huge, spectacular, often ferocious beasts that pounded around our planet many millions of years ago are just inherently exciting and it's a very enjoyable challenge to try to describe them.
"Secondly, this is the best time ever to write a book about dinosaurs – they're being discovered at a faster rate than ever before and the research is developing at equal pace. Scientists are now able to picture what colour some were, reproduce the eerie call emitted by the herbivore Parasaurolophus, calculate their running speed, and scan their skulls to deduce the shape and composition of their brains. There's some incredible research going on and thus ever-more interesting material for authors to deploy in their work.
"And three, by learning about dinosaurs you're soon learning about mythology, astronomy, evolutionary theory and geology, to name only a few areas. It's also a subject full of amazing characters – intrepid fossil-hunters and brilliant scientists – and great stories of thrilling discoveries and fierce rivalries.
"Here are ten wildly diverse books that I think will have a similar effect: some of them well-told stories that make good use of dinosaurs as objects of fear and marvel, some factual works that cast fresh light on the Mesozoic world, and some books for young readers that I enjoyed when I was small or now enjoy reading with my children. All of them, at some level or other, are simply great fun."
1. John Conway, C. M. Kosemen & Darren Naish, All yesterdays.
Palaeo-artists create detailed depictions of ancient life-forms, working only with the hard facts of fossil bones and a degree of informed speculation. In most cases we know almost nothing about the soft tissue that covered these bones. This book's strange and wonderful illustrations by John Conway and C. M. Kosemen show how far it is possible to speculate while remaining within the bounds of possibility. Here we see T-rex asleep, the herbivore Protoceratops in goat-like pose nibbling vegetation halfway up a tree, and the ornithopod Ouranosaurus – whose skeleton bears heightened spines along its back – depicted with a fleshy hump akin to that of a bison, rather than with a thin sail of skin as it is more traditionally interpreted.
2. Steve White (ed.), Dinosaur art : the world's greatest palaeoart.
For a more general survey of ten of the finest dinosaur illustrators at work today, along with insights into their working methods, Steve White's lavish book is highly recommended. Memorable pictures include Martin's exquisite depiction of a Styracosaurus ambling through a forest dappled by shafts of sunlight, and Sibbick's gorgeously detailed underwater scene showing a sea teeming with ammonites, the spiral-shelled creatures whose fossils now litter the Jurassic cliff-faces at locations such as Dorset and Yorkshire.
3. Julia Donaldson, Tyrannosaurus Drip.
Julia Donaldson introduces us to a little dinosaur that wants to be a vegetarian – which is hard when you live in a family of Tyrannosauruses! Tyrannosaurus Drip, as his older sisters cruelly term him, is actually a duckbilled dinosaur who ended up in the wrong nest while merely an egg … but despite his placid nature, when put to the test he reveals that he's made of stern stuff.
4. Darren Naish, The great dinosaur discoveries.
The story of dinosaur palaeontology is a story of adventure and discovery across inhospitable locations around the globe. Fossil-hunters such as Barnum Brown, the man who discovered Tyrannosaurus in 1902, have gone down in legend. In this book Darren Naish travels through the past few centuries to detail how understanding of the subject has developed.
5. Jim Ottaviani, Bone sharps, cowboys, and thunder lizards.
One of the greatest tales from that tumultuous history of dinosaur discovery is the episode often called "the Bone Wars", which formed the inspiration for this graphic novel. It charts the famous feud between two 19th century American palaeontologists, Othniel Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, whose mutual loathing prompted each to do all he could to undermine the other's work.
6. Pamela Duncan Edwards (illus. Deborah Allwright), Dinosaur sleepover.
Knowing that dinosaurs were on the whole rather intimidating beasts, children's writers have often exploited the trick of turning them into something that subverts our expectations. In this book a little boy reassures his large but very timid dino-friend that there's no need to fear going to a sleepover.
7. Arthur Conan Doyle, The lost world.
In the words of Doyle's narrator, newspaper journalist Edward Malone, "it is only when a man goes out into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come from within sight of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards." And so Malone embarks on an adventure with the volatile Professor Challenger to explore a remote South American plateau – one that Challenger insists is inhabited by dinosaurs. They were still quite a novelty when Doyle published his novella in 1912.
8. Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park.
The lost world was an early example of the winning formula by which dinosaurs and humans are placed in terrifying juxtaposition, but Crichton's novel is by far the best known. The very thought of a dinosaur such as Tyrannosaurus being resurrected is enough to provoke a bristle of fear but in the same instant an almost irresistible curiosity, a paradox that explains the book and subsequent Steven Spielberg movies' huge appeal.
9. James Mayhew, Katie and the dinosaurs.
James Mayhew invents a hidden room at the Natural History Museum through which, during a visit with her Grandma, Katie discovers an assortment of living dinosaurs and other amazing animals from the Mesozoic era. She rescues a baby dinosaur, feeds a Tyrannosaurus, and also encounters a Hadrosaurus, pterosaurs, a plesiosaur, an ichthyosaur and a Brontosaurus, which should properly be called Apatosaurus but we'll forgive the author given that his illustrations are so charming. They're strongly reminiscent of the work of Edward Ardizzone, always one of my favourite children's book artists.
10. Phyllis Arkle, The village dinosaur.
I remember reading this at school in the mid-1980s and being tantalised by the idea that you might just possibly find a dinosaur in a quarry not so far from where you live. (Turns out that the nearest dinosaur-bearing quarry to my home in north Norfolk was in Peterborough, which isn't so close really; glad I didn't know that when I was five. Dinosaurs extracted from the Jurassic clay at the town's brickworks include the stegosaur Loricatosaurus and the ankylosaur Sarcolestes.) In Phyllis Arkle's well-loved story Jed befriends a dinosaur discovered alive by local quarrymen. At first not everyone is so enamoured of the huge sauropod, for instance when he snacks on people's flowers and blunders through the village just before judges arrive from the local Best Kept Village competition. But finally Dino uses his great strength to avert a train crash and proves himself a hero. Arkle and the illustrator Eccles Williams followed it with a sequel, Two village dinosaurs. Both titles are out of print now but quite easily obtainable on the internet.
Guardian, 2014-02-14.
Imagine festival site takeover: From a drippy Tyrannosaurus to lost worlds packed with monsters, the author of The bumper book of dinosaurs selects the best books which explore extinct monsters:
"Dinosaurs have great appeal as a subject in so many ways, but there are three aspects in particular that I found while working on my book The bumper book of dinosaurs. For one, these huge, spectacular, often ferocious beasts that pounded around our planet many millions of years ago are just inherently exciting and it's a very enjoyable challenge to try to describe them.
"Secondly, this is the best time ever to write a book about dinosaurs – they're being discovered at a faster rate than ever before and the research is developing at equal pace. Scientists are now able to picture what colour some were, reproduce the eerie call emitted by the herbivore Parasaurolophus, calculate their running speed, and scan their skulls to deduce the shape and composition of their brains. There's some incredible research going on and thus ever-more interesting material for authors to deploy in their work.
"And three, by learning about dinosaurs you're soon learning about mythology, astronomy, evolutionary theory and geology, to name only a few areas. It's also a subject full of amazing characters – intrepid fossil-hunters and brilliant scientists – and great stories of thrilling discoveries and fierce rivalries.
"Here are ten wildly diverse books that I think will have a similar effect: some of them well-told stories that make good use of dinosaurs as objects of fear and marvel, some factual works that cast fresh light on the Mesozoic world, and some books for young readers that I enjoyed when I was small or now enjoy reading with my children. All of them, at some level or other, are simply great fun."
1. John Conway, C. M. Kosemen & Darren Naish, All yesterdays.
Palaeo-artists create detailed depictions of ancient life-forms, working only with the hard facts of fossil bones and a degree of informed speculation. In most cases we know almost nothing about the soft tissue that covered these bones. This book's strange and wonderful illustrations by John Conway and C. M. Kosemen show how far it is possible to speculate while remaining within the bounds of possibility. Here we see T-rex asleep, the herbivore Protoceratops in goat-like pose nibbling vegetation halfway up a tree, and the ornithopod Ouranosaurus – whose skeleton bears heightened spines along its back – depicted with a fleshy hump akin to that of a bison, rather than with a thin sail of skin as it is more traditionally interpreted.
2. Steve White (ed.), Dinosaur art : the world's greatest palaeoart.
For a more general survey of ten of the finest dinosaur illustrators at work today, along with insights into their working methods, Steve White's lavish book is highly recommended. Memorable pictures include Martin's exquisite depiction of a Styracosaurus ambling through a forest dappled by shafts of sunlight, and Sibbick's gorgeously detailed underwater scene showing a sea teeming with ammonites, the spiral-shelled creatures whose fossils now litter the Jurassic cliff-faces at locations such as Dorset and Yorkshire.
3. Julia Donaldson, Tyrannosaurus Drip.
Julia Donaldson introduces us to a little dinosaur that wants to be a vegetarian – which is hard when you live in a family of Tyrannosauruses! Tyrannosaurus Drip, as his older sisters cruelly term him, is actually a duckbilled dinosaur who ended up in the wrong nest while merely an egg … but despite his placid nature, when put to the test he reveals that he's made of stern stuff.
4. Darren Naish, The great dinosaur discoveries.
The story of dinosaur palaeontology is a story of adventure and discovery across inhospitable locations around the globe. Fossil-hunters such as Barnum Brown, the man who discovered Tyrannosaurus in 1902, have gone down in legend. In this book Darren Naish travels through the past few centuries to detail how understanding of the subject has developed.
5. Jim Ottaviani, Bone sharps, cowboys, and thunder lizards.
One of the greatest tales from that tumultuous history of dinosaur discovery is the episode often called "the Bone Wars", which formed the inspiration for this graphic novel. It charts the famous feud between two 19th century American palaeontologists, Othniel Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, whose mutual loathing prompted each to do all he could to undermine the other's work.
6. Pamela Duncan Edwards (illus. Deborah Allwright), Dinosaur sleepover.
Knowing that dinosaurs were on the whole rather intimidating beasts, children's writers have often exploited the trick of turning them into something that subverts our expectations. In this book a little boy reassures his large but very timid dino-friend that there's no need to fear going to a sleepover.
7. Arthur Conan Doyle, The lost world.
In the words of Doyle's narrator, newspaper journalist Edward Malone, "it is only when a man goes out into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come from within sight of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards." And so Malone embarks on an adventure with the volatile Professor Challenger to explore a remote South American plateau – one that Challenger insists is inhabited by dinosaurs. They were still quite a novelty when Doyle published his novella in 1912.
8. Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park.
The lost world was an early example of the winning formula by which dinosaurs and humans are placed in terrifying juxtaposition, but Crichton's novel is by far the best known. The very thought of a dinosaur such as Tyrannosaurus being resurrected is enough to provoke a bristle of fear but in the same instant an almost irresistible curiosity, a paradox that explains the book and subsequent Steven Spielberg movies' huge appeal.
9. James Mayhew, Katie and the dinosaurs.
James Mayhew invents a hidden room at the Natural History Museum through which, during a visit with her Grandma, Katie discovers an assortment of living dinosaurs and other amazing animals from the Mesozoic era. She rescues a baby dinosaur, feeds a Tyrannosaurus, and also encounters a Hadrosaurus, pterosaurs, a plesiosaur, an ichthyosaur and a Brontosaurus, which should properly be called Apatosaurus but we'll forgive the author given that his illustrations are so charming. They're strongly reminiscent of the work of Edward Ardizzone, always one of my favourite children's book artists.
10. Phyllis Arkle, The village dinosaur.
I remember reading this at school in the mid-1980s and being tantalised by the idea that you might just possibly find a dinosaur in a quarry not so far from where you live. (Turns out that the nearest dinosaur-bearing quarry to my home in north Norfolk was in Peterborough, which isn't so close really; glad I didn't know that when I was five. Dinosaurs extracted from the Jurassic clay at the town's brickworks include the stegosaur Loricatosaurus and the ankylosaur Sarcolestes.) In Phyllis Arkle's well-loved story Jed befriends a dinosaur discovered alive by local quarrymen. At first not everyone is so enamoured of the huge sauropod, for instance when he snacks on people's flowers and blunders through the village just before judges arrive from the local Best Kept Village competition. But finally Dino uses his great strength to avert a train crash and proves himself a hero. Arkle and the illustrator Eccles Williams followed it with a sequel, Two village dinosaurs. Both titles are out of print now but quite easily obtainable on the internet.
63Cynfelyn
Vikram Chandra's top 10 computer books.
Guardian, 2014-02-19.
"The impulse to write my first non-fiction book, Geek sublime : writing fiction, coding software, came from my own lived experience as novelist and sometimes-programmer. Both professions require a daily engagement with language, and programmers as well as writers search for clarity, expressiveness and elegance. And both subcultures produce their own hierarchies of value, their own mythologies.
"A lot has been written and read about writers, but the culture that produces computing – and therefore the social and political landscapes we live in now – remains largely unknown to outsiders. Here is a selection of books that offer insight, that might constitute an informal anthropology and history of computing."
1. Charles Petzold, Code : the hidden language of computer hardware and software.
Despite being surrounded by computers, most of us have no idea how they work. In this masterly exposition, Petzold starts from first principles, showing how machines use logic to compute numbers. His writing is clear, eloquent and entertaining, and once you've read Code, you will never again treat computers as mysterious, magical objects. An essential companion piece to Petzold's book is James Gleick's The information : a history, a theory, a flood. Gleick's engrossing history of information theory illustrates our dawning understanding of the fact that we are "creatures of information" who live in a universe that is also information: a "bit" – a fundamental unit of information – can be a magnetised fleck on a hard disk or a gene or a quantum particle. Along the way, Gleick introduces the reader to the pioneers of information theory – Claude Shannon, Alan Turing, Ada Byron – and their groundbreaking ideas.
2. Tracy Kidder, The soul of a new machine.
More than 30 years old, but still unsurpassed as a description of working programmers and the problems they tackle. Kidder watched the engineers and programmers at the Data General Corporation build a new minicomputer in just a year; the "veterans" on the project were 35-year-olds who hired fresh college graduates willing to sacrifice themselves to make the machine work. This story of epic effort, technical idealism and management cynicism is repeated in many a startup today.
3. Steven Levy, Hackers : heroes of the computer revolution.
The story of the heady early days of the invention of personal computing is nowhere better told than here. Levy compellingly recreates the guerrilla actions by the members of the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club, who attempted to liberate mainframe computing from its watchful bureaucratic guardians and make it accessible to the masses, and also the excitement and creativity of the Homebrew computer club, which first met in a garage in Menlo Park in 1975 and brought together Steve Wozniak and Adam Osborne and many other scruffy eccentrics who created personal computing.
4. Scott Rosenberg, Dreaming in code : two dozen programmers, three years, 4,732 bugs, and one quest for transcendent software.
One of the peculiarities of Silicon Valley culture is that failure can be a virtue, as long as one fails honourably in an attempt to create something new and learns from the failure. Large software projects crash and burn more often than outsiders might assume, and Rosenberg shows the reader why. His sympathetic but clear-eyed depiction of the effort by a hand-picked team of programmers led by Mitch Kapor (the creator of Lotus 1-2-3) to create an all-encompassing manager of personal information becomes a worthy modern successor to Tracy Kidder's ode to the heroism and hubris of coders.
5. Nathan Ensmenger, The computer boys take over : computers, programmers, and the politics of technical expertise.
Eniac, the first fully programmable computer put into operation, was programmed entirely by women – the famous "Eniac girls" – continuing a tradition begun by Ada Byron and Grace Hopper. Yet, programming – especially in the US – has become a mostly male domain; one that is plagued by sexism and a weird geek machismo. Ensmenger shows how and why this might be so in his perceptive, pioneering history. He argues that the "masculinisation of computing" was a contingent social and political process that attempted to restructure what was at first thought of as a clerical, "mechanical" service – similar to those provided by secretaries or telephone switchboard operators – into a demanding intellectual discipline requiring intelligence and creativity. The exclusion of women from this newly reconfigured sphere was purposeful: "professionalisation" requires masculinisation.
6. Fred Vogelstein, Dogfight : how Apple and Google went to war and started a revolution.
Here, the hackers have grown up and become ruthless corporate overlords. They betray each other, lie, engage in endless battles over the billions of dollars at stake in mobile computing, and "go nuclear" with patent lawsuits. Vogelstein is a veteran journalist who has reported on Silicon Valley for decades, and his patiently cultivated sources reveal the truth behind all those choreographed product presentations that have so beguiled journalists and consumers: "yelling, screaming, backstabbing, dejection, panic and fear".
7. David Kushner, Masters of doom : how two guys created an empire and transformed pop culture.
Computer gaming is now a bigger industry than Hollywood. Kushner takes the reader back to the mid-80s, when computer games were played mostly by shut-in nerds. The "two guys" of Kushner's title are "the two Johns", John Romero and John Carmack, who founded the aptly named id Software and created a seminal series of games: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake. In his portrait of the now-legendary duo and their rocky relationship, Kushner creates a vivid picture of obsession, extraordinary technical skill and creativity pitted against severe hardware constraints, and a gaming industry coming into its own.
8. Douglas Coupland, Microserfs.
As fiction and social document, Microserfs holds up well. If you want to know what it's like to be a common drudge inside the great feudalistic machines of software production, and to experience the exultation and terror of startup life, this is the book to read. Similarly Ellen Ullman's The bug is a beautifully written novel about a programmer's attempt to find, fix and vanquish a computer bug or error so elusive that it is given a name: "the Jester". The protagonist's quest after this ever-vanishing and reappearing "Heisenbug" becomes a poignant meditation on technology's effects on humans.
9. Iain M. Banks, The Culture novels
Techies are vividly alive to the possibilities of the future, so it's no surprise that their favourite genre is science fiction; I myself share the widespread geek love for these novels. The Culture is a galaxy and species-spanning post-scarcity, utopian, anarchist society, which Banks uses to explore fundamental questions about morality, pleasure and metaphysical meaning. Read the whole sequence, but if you must choose one, start with The player of games, in which life itself becomes a game.
10. Charles Petzold, The annotated Turing : a guided tour through Alan Turing's historic paper on computability and the Turing Machine.
And finally, a pick for when you are feeling especially adventurous and curious. Most of the time, we non-scientists make do with explanations of theoretical advances that are finally just collections of mystifying metaphors and hand-waving gestures. In The annotated Turing, Petzold – one of the great explicators of our time – provides a painstaking, line-by-line and dazzlingly lucid reading of Turing's famous 36-page paper On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem. By the end of Petzold's commentary on Turing, you will understand what the Entscheidungsproblem was, and you will have come into close contact with the thinking that created the Turing Machine and so changed our world.
Guardian, 2014-02-19.
"The impulse to write my first non-fiction book, Geek sublime : writing fiction, coding software, came from my own lived experience as novelist and sometimes-programmer. Both professions require a daily engagement with language, and programmers as well as writers search for clarity, expressiveness and elegance. And both subcultures produce their own hierarchies of value, their own mythologies.
"A lot has been written and read about writers, but the culture that produces computing – and therefore the social and political landscapes we live in now – remains largely unknown to outsiders. Here is a selection of books that offer insight, that might constitute an informal anthropology and history of computing."
1. Charles Petzold, Code : the hidden language of computer hardware and software.
Despite being surrounded by computers, most of us have no idea how they work. In this masterly exposition, Petzold starts from first principles, showing how machines use logic to compute numbers. His writing is clear, eloquent and entertaining, and once you've read Code, you will never again treat computers as mysterious, magical objects. An essential companion piece to Petzold's book is James Gleick's The information : a history, a theory, a flood. Gleick's engrossing history of information theory illustrates our dawning understanding of the fact that we are "creatures of information" who live in a universe that is also information: a "bit" – a fundamental unit of information – can be a magnetised fleck on a hard disk or a gene or a quantum particle. Along the way, Gleick introduces the reader to the pioneers of information theory – Claude Shannon, Alan Turing, Ada Byron – and their groundbreaking ideas.
2. Tracy Kidder, The soul of a new machine.
More than 30 years old, but still unsurpassed as a description of working programmers and the problems they tackle. Kidder watched the engineers and programmers at the Data General Corporation build a new minicomputer in just a year; the "veterans" on the project were 35-year-olds who hired fresh college graduates willing to sacrifice themselves to make the machine work. This story of epic effort, technical idealism and management cynicism is repeated in many a startup today.
3. Steven Levy, Hackers : heroes of the computer revolution.
The story of the heady early days of the invention of personal computing is nowhere better told than here. Levy compellingly recreates the guerrilla actions by the members of the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club, who attempted to liberate mainframe computing from its watchful bureaucratic guardians and make it accessible to the masses, and also the excitement and creativity of the Homebrew computer club, which first met in a garage in Menlo Park in 1975 and brought together Steve Wozniak and Adam Osborne and many other scruffy eccentrics who created personal computing.
4. Scott Rosenberg, Dreaming in code : two dozen programmers, three years, 4,732 bugs, and one quest for transcendent software.
One of the peculiarities of Silicon Valley culture is that failure can be a virtue, as long as one fails honourably in an attempt to create something new and learns from the failure. Large software projects crash and burn more often than outsiders might assume, and Rosenberg shows the reader why. His sympathetic but clear-eyed depiction of the effort by a hand-picked team of programmers led by Mitch Kapor (the creator of Lotus 1-2-3) to create an all-encompassing manager of personal information becomes a worthy modern successor to Tracy Kidder's ode to the heroism and hubris of coders.
5. Nathan Ensmenger, The computer boys take over : computers, programmers, and the politics of technical expertise.
Eniac, the first fully programmable computer put into operation, was programmed entirely by women – the famous "Eniac girls" – continuing a tradition begun by Ada Byron and Grace Hopper. Yet, programming – especially in the US – has become a mostly male domain; one that is plagued by sexism and a weird geek machismo. Ensmenger shows how and why this might be so in his perceptive, pioneering history. He argues that the "masculinisation of computing" was a contingent social and political process that attempted to restructure what was at first thought of as a clerical, "mechanical" service – similar to those provided by secretaries or telephone switchboard operators – into a demanding intellectual discipline requiring intelligence and creativity. The exclusion of women from this newly reconfigured sphere was purposeful: "professionalisation" requires masculinisation.
6. Fred Vogelstein, Dogfight : how Apple and Google went to war and started a revolution.
Here, the hackers have grown up and become ruthless corporate overlords. They betray each other, lie, engage in endless battles over the billions of dollars at stake in mobile computing, and "go nuclear" with patent lawsuits. Vogelstein is a veteran journalist who has reported on Silicon Valley for decades, and his patiently cultivated sources reveal the truth behind all those choreographed product presentations that have so beguiled journalists and consumers: "yelling, screaming, backstabbing, dejection, panic and fear".
7. David Kushner, Masters of doom : how two guys created an empire and transformed pop culture.
Computer gaming is now a bigger industry than Hollywood. Kushner takes the reader back to the mid-80s, when computer games were played mostly by shut-in nerds. The "two guys" of Kushner's title are "the two Johns", John Romero and John Carmack, who founded the aptly named id Software and created a seminal series of games: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake. In his portrait of the now-legendary duo and their rocky relationship, Kushner creates a vivid picture of obsession, extraordinary technical skill and creativity pitted against severe hardware constraints, and a gaming industry coming into its own.
8. Douglas Coupland, Microserfs.
As fiction and social document, Microserfs holds up well. If you want to know what it's like to be a common drudge inside the great feudalistic machines of software production, and to experience the exultation and terror of startup life, this is the book to read. Similarly Ellen Ullman's The bug is a beautifully written novel about a programmer's attempt to find, fix and vanquish a computer bug or error so elusive that it is given a name: "the Jester". The protagonist's quest after this ever-vanishing and reappearing "Heisenbug" becomes a poignant meditation on technology's effects on humans.
9. Iain M. Banks, The Culture novels
Techies are vividly alive to the possibilities of the future, so it's no surprise that their favourite genre is science fiction; I myself share the widespread geek love for these novels. The Culture is a galaxy and species-spanning post-scarcity, utopian, anarchist society, which Banks uses to explore fundamental questions about morality, pleasure and metaphysical meaning. Read the whole sequence, but if you must choose one, start with The player of games, in which life itself becomes a game.
10. Charles Petzold, The annotated Turing : a guided tour through Alan Turing's historic paper on computability and the Turing Machine.
And finally, a pick for when you are feeling especially adventurous and curious. Most of the time, we non-scientists make do with explanations of theoretical advances that are finally just collections of mystifying metaphors and hand-waving gestures. In The annotated Turing, Petzold – one of the great explicators of our time – provides a painstaking, line-by-line and dazzlingly lucid reading of Turing's famous 36-page paper On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem. By the end of Petzold's commentary on Turing, you will understand what the Entscheidungsproblem was, and you will have come into close contact with the thinking that created the Turing Machine and so changed our world.
64Cynfelyn
Sorry for the delay. Slightly distracted. Some of no. 63's BTL comments and recommendations:
Tracy Kidder, The soul of a new machine. "Although a book about a computer, much of it could be recognised by anybody involved in product development." // "I read it years ago and lost the original. Time to buy and reread it."
George Dyson, Turing's cathedral and Darwin among the machines. "The best books about the history and ideas in computing I've read. Really fascinating books."
Neal Stephenson, In the beginning was the command line. "Also available free online here."
(The 'free online' version has since been claimed by link rot. An Internet Archive copy is available at http://web.archive.org/web/20140301072736/http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning...; caveat emptor).
"Fiction-wise, I'd nominate Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, which not only covers the history of computing but is a fantastic thriller as well."
"Interesting list: ScFi wise on computers I'd recommend Gibson (or even Asimov) over Banks, he wrote some great stuff but for me it doesn't really sit in a list about computers. Some personal favourites: Close to the machine : technophilia and its discontents by Ellen Ullman - Ullman was a working programmer and the book is phylosophical and rich in ideas about what it's like to programme. The cuckoo's egg by Clifford Stoll - facisnating true story of tracking a hacker through the networks in the 1990s."
"Very glad to see Microserfs in this list. But a William Gibson would also get into my top 10." // "Good call. I would have to narrow it down to one from the Sprawl trilogy."
Tracy Kidder, The soul of a new machine. "Although a book about a computer, much of it could be recognised by anybody involved in product development." // "I read it years ago and lost the original. Time to buy and reread it."
George Dyson, Turing's cathedral and Darwin among the machines. "The best books about the history and ideas in computing I've read. Really fascinating books."
Neal Stephenson, In the beginning was the command line. "Also available free online here."
(The 'free online' version has since been claimed by link rot. An Internet Archive copy is available at http://web.archive.org/web/20140301072736/http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning...; caveat emptor).
"Fiction-wise, I'd nominate Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, which not only covers the history of computing but is a fantastic thriller as well."
"Interesting list: ScFi wise on computers I'd recommend Gibson (or even Asimov) over Banks, he wrote some great stuff but for me it doesn't really sit in a list about computers. Some personal favourites: Close to the machine : technophilia and its discontents by Ellen Ullman - Ullman was a working programmer and the book is phylosophical and rich in ideas about what it's like to programme. The cuckoo's egg by Clifford Stoll - facisnating true story of tracking a hacker through the networks in the 1990s."
"Very glad to see Microserfs in this list. But a William Gibson would also get into my top 10." // "Good call. I would have to narrow it down to one from the Sprawl trilogy."
65Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Simon Mason's top 10 fictional crimes.
Guardian, 2014-02-20.
Simon Mason is the author of new YA crime thriller Running girl. When popular and ambitious school girl Chloe goes missing, it suddenly seems like she might not have been so popular after all. The list of suspects lengthens by the minute as super-intelligent, but too cool for school, fifteen year old Garvie Smith takes on violent gangs and the police in his attempt to track down the killer. Running girl is this month's Teen book club read.
"Crime novels offer various delights, including atmospheric locations, charismatic detectives, courageous acts, vicious deeds and mysterious events. They also offer crimes, of course. But crimes are not the exclusive property of crime novels. Sometimes the most interesting crimes are not in crime novels at all. Hamlet (murder), Oliver Twist (burglary, pickpocketing, fencing, prostitution and murder), The wind in the willows (cheeking the police – for which Mr Toad receives fifteen years in jail), and a huge number of other stories, show a marked fascination with criminal wrong-doing. We are, in fact, highly attuned to crime, as if in some way it tells us something deeply important about ourselves.
Here are ten stories featuring compelling crimes, all racing, heart-stopping reads."
1. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and punishment.
A drama of conscience. The student Raskolnikov's murder of an old pawnbroker is pathetic. The story is no mystery: we know all along who the murderer is, and how he did it. But it remains extraordinarily tense and exciting. Why did he do it? Will he be caught? Will he confess? Dostoevsky takes us into Raskolnikov's mind, a desperately unsafe place to be.
2. Graham Greene, The third man.
A drama of a lack of conscience. In post-war Vienna, Rollo Martins attends the funeral of his old friend Harry Lime. A few days later Martins catches sight of him in the street. It turns out Lime is wanted for supplying dodgy medicines on the black market. Children have died. Lime just shrugs. 'In these days, old man, nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't, so why should we?'
3. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The adventure of the Red-Headed League.
A crime of astonishing ingenuity. Not only do we not know the criminal's identity we don't know what crime is being committed. All we know is what the bewildered red-headed Jabez Wilson tells Sherlock Holmes: that in answer to an advertisement he secured a position worth four pounds a week copying out the Encyclopedia Britannica purely because of the colour of his hair. 'Refreshingly unusual,' comments Holmes.
4. Truman Capote, In cold blood.
Banal crime; the banality of evil. In November 1959, Capote read an newspaper article about an unsolved multiple killing in Garden City, a small town in Kansas. Six years, and thousands of interviews, later, he finished a painstakingly-detailed, utterly dispassionate account of the murders by two small-time crooks, who planned a robbery with no witnesses, and ended up with four corpses and a little over forty dollars in cash.
5. Agatha Christie, And then there were none.
Crime as conjuring trick. Ten guests assemble at the island home of a man – U. N. Owen – who is puzzlingly absent. One of them dies. Then there were nine. Shortly afterwards, eight. Then seven. What's going on? Who's responsible? Like Houdini, Christie had a gift for the impossible, setting formal problems too difficult ever to be solved – then solving them. As a sort of bonus, the whole story is a nightmare: it crawls with horror.
6. Umberto Eco, The name of the rose.
Theological crime: a crime of the mind, of the imagination. In a quiet medieval Abbey in northern Italy, William of Baskerville (nice nod to Sherlock) is called in to investigate the death of a young illuminator. What he finds is a monastery rife with fierce rivalries, bitter memories and a deadly secret which keeps drawing him back to the library and its hidden collection of forbidden books. It seems beliefs are worth killing for.
7. John le Carré, The spy who came in from the cold.
Another crime that sums up a whole world: the geo-political crime of the Cold War, necessitating (for some justifying) all kinds of killing, theft, extortion and – le Carré's speciality – acts of treachery. After losing one agent too many in Berlin, Alec Leamus is given one last task in the field: to bring down Hans-Dieter Mundt, Abteilung's deputy director of operations in East Germany. What follows is a story of astonishing deceit and double-crossing.
8. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Chronicle of a death foretold.
Crime as revenge, as an honour killing. Marquez was a magician. In the first sentence of the book he tells us what will happen: that Santiago Nasar will be stabbed to death by the Vicario brothers. On the last page it happens. In between, he mesmerizes us with the story of why Nasar must die – a murder in which the whole town is implicated.
9. Patricia Highsmith, The talented Mr Ripley.
Logical crime. Tom Ripley is holidaying with Dickie Greenleaf far from their American homes. Tom is poor. Dickie is rich. Why not kill Dickie and assume his identity? Why not kill again to protect your secret? And why not get away with it? Why not keep getting away with it? Most stories about crime have in-built systems of punishment, or at least disapproval. This one doesn't.
10. Barbara Vine, A fatal inversion.
Psychological crime. In the heat-wave summer of 1976, a group of young hedonists – three men, two girls – camp out at Wyvis Hall, then go their separate ways. Ten years later the body of a young woman and a baby are found in the grounds. What happened? The hypnotic plot, withholding from us the identity of the victim, confronts us with ambiguous acts, and poses troubling questions about guilt and justice.
Guardian, 2014-02-20.
Simon Mason is the author of new YA crime thriller Running girl. When popular and ambitious school girl Chloe goes missing, it suddenly seems like she might not have been so popular after all. The list of suspects lengthens by the minute as super-intelligent, but too cool for school, fifteen year old Garvie Smith takes on violent gangs and the police in his attempt to track down the killer. Running girl is this month's Teen book club read.
"Crime novels offer various delights, including atmospheric locations, charismatic detectives, courageous acts, vicious deeds and mysterious events. They also offer crimes, of course. But crimes are not the exclusive property of crime novels. Sometimes the most interesting crimes are not in crime novels at all. Hamlet (murder), Oliver Twist (burglary, pickpocketing, fencing, prostitution and murder), The wind in the willows (cheeking the police – for which Mr Toad receives fifteen years in jail), and a huge number of other stories, show a marked fascination with criminal wrong-doing. We are, in fact, highly attuned to crime, as if in some way it tells us something deeply important about ourselves.
Here are ten stories featuring compelling crimes, all racing, heart-stopping reads."
1. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and punishment.
A drama of conscience. The student Raskolnikov's murder of an old pawnbroker is pathetic. The story is no mystery: we know all along who the murderer is, and how he did it. But it remains extraordinarily tense and exciting. Why did he do it? Will he be caught? Will he confess? Dostoevsky takes us into Raskolnikov's mind, a desperately unsafe place to be.
2. Graham Greene, The third man.
A drama of a lack of conscience. In post-war Vienna, Rollo Martins attends the funeral of his old friend Harry Lime. A few days later Martins catches sight of him in the street. It turns out Lime is wanted for supplying dodgy medicines on the black market. Children have died. Lime just shrugs. 'In these days, old man, nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't, so why should we?'
3. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The adventure of the Red-Headed League.
A crime of astonishing ingenuity. Not only do we not know the criminal's identity we don't know what crime is being committed. All we know is what the bewildered red-headed Jabez Wilson tells Sherlock Holmes: that in answer to an advertisement he secured a position worth four pounds a week copying out the Encyclopedia Britannica purely because of the colour of his hair. 'Refreshingly unusual,' comments Holmes.
4. Truman Capote, In cold blood.
Banal crime; the banality of evil. In November 1959, Capote read an newspaper article about an unsolved multiple killing in Garden City, a small town in Kansas. Six years, and thousands of interviews, later, he finished a painstakingly-detailed, utterly dispassionate account of the murders by two small-time crooks, who planned a robbery with no witnesses, and ended up with four corpses and a little over forty dollars in cash.
5. Agatha Christie, And then there were none.
Crime as conjuring trick. Ten guests assemble at the island home of a man – U. N. Owen – who is puzzlingly absent. One of them dies. Then there were nine. Shortly afterwards, eight. Then seven. What's going on? Who's responsible? Like Houdini, Christie had a gift for the impossible, setting formal problems too difficult ever to be solved – then solving them. As a sort of bonus, the whole story is a nightmare: it crawls with horror.
6. Umberto Eco, The name of the rose.
Theological crime: a crime of the mind, of the imagination. In a quiet medieval Abbey in northern Italy, William of Baskerville (nice nod to Sherlock) is called in to investigate the death of a young illuminator. What he finds is a monastery rife with fierce rivalries, bitter memories and a deadly secret which keeps drawing him back to the library and its hidden collection of forbidden books. It seems beliefs are worth killing for.
7. John le Carré, The spy who came in from the cold.
Another crime that sums up a whole world: the geo-political crime of the Cold War, necessitating (for some justifying) all kinds of killing, theft, extortion and – le Carré's speciality – acts of treachery. After losing one agent too many in Berlin, Alec Leamus is given one last task in the field: to bring down Hans-Dieter Mundt, Abteilung's deputy director of operations in East Germany. What follows is a story of astonishing deceit and double-crossing.
8. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Chronicle of a death foretold.
Crime as revenge, as an honour killing. Marquez was a magician. In the first sentence of the book he tells us what will happen: that Santiago Nasar will be stabbed to death by the Vicario brothers. On the last page it happens. In between, he mesmerizes us with the story of why Nasar must die – a murder in which the whole town is implicated.
9. Patricia Highsmith, The talented Mr Ripley.
Logical crime. Tom Ripley is holidaying with Dickie Greenleaf far from their American homes. Tom is poor. Dickie is rich. Why not kill Dickie and assume his identity? Why not kill again to protect your secret? And why not get away with it? Why not keep getting away with it? Most stories about crime have in-built systems of punishment, or at least disapproval. This one doesn't.
10. Barbara Vine, A fatal inversion.
Psychological crime. In the heat-wave summer of 1976, a group of young hedonists – three men, two girls – camp out at Wyvis Hall, then go their separate ways. Ten years later the body of a young woman and a baby are found in the grounds. What happened? The hypnotic plot, withholding from us the identity of the victim, confronts us with ambiguous acts, and poses troubling questions about guilt and justice.
66Cynfelyn
Rory MacLean's top 10 Berliners in literature.
Guardian, 2014-02-26.
"To me Berlin is as much a conceit as a reality. Why? Because the city is forever in the process of becoming, never being, and so lives more powerfully in the imagination. Long before setting eyes on it, the outsider feels its absences as much as its presence: the sense of lives lived, dreams realised and evils executed with an intensity so shocking that they shook its fabric.
"Over the years, so much of it has been lost, invented or reinvented that the mind rushes to fill the vacuum, fleshing out the invisible, linking the observed city with the place portrayed in 10 thousand films, paintings and – above all – books. Yesterday echoes along today's streets and the ideas and characters conjured up by Berlin's authors can seem to be as solid as its bricks and mortar."
1. Sally Bowles in Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.
More than any other foreign writer, Isherwood's fictional autobiography – or autobiographical fiction – has shaped Berlin. His deceptively simple stories, conjured up following a three-year stint in the capital, form the basis of most outsiders' idea of the city. Central to them is the irresistible Sally Bowles: sharp and amoral, vivacious rather than beautiful, flaunting her sexuality. In Sally (who was based on the English actor Jean Ross) as in all his characters (himself included), Isherwood teases the reader with hints of reality, while constructing a much more compelling illusion.
(Probably Jean Iris Ross Cockburn, 1911-1973. Not on LT).
2. Franz Biberkopf in Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin.
Any portrait which hopes to reflect the city's creative nature needs to let invention cohabit with reality, to juxtapose fiction with fact. In Döblin's innovative masterpiece – the most important work of literature in the Weimar years – the story of small-time crook Biberkopf is told through speeches, songs, newspaper articles and above all from multiple points of view. On the cusp of the Nazis rise to power, through an inner voice filled with remorse, contradiction and indecision, Biberkopf's life – like that of every other resident – is swept forward by events beyond his control.
3. Wilhelm von Humboldt in Measuring the world by Daniel Kehlmann.
At the end of the 18th century, two brilliant and eccentric young scientists set out to measure the world; one by travelling and experiencing it, the other by staying at home and theorising about it. The adventurous von Humboldt – like Goethe – favoured experience, the scientific approach that finally lost out to the theorists, as we know today. Kehlmann's masterful work is rare in Berlin literature, being learned, entertaining and a worldwide bestseller. In commercial terms, it's the most successful German novel since Patrick Süskind's Perfume.
4. Hendrik Höfgen in Mephisto : novel of a career by Klaus Mann.
Hendrik Höfgen, an ambitious, second-rate theatre actor, rises from amateur player to national star by aligning himself with the Nazis. As he performs Faust's Mephisto, he realises too late that he has made a pact with the devil. Klaus Mann's great novel is a thinly disguised portrait of Gustaf Gründgens, an actor whose brilliant career was undisturbed by the dictatorship years. Two decades after the book's publication (and in a striking example of life imitating art), Gründgens himself played Mephistopheles, in a performance which many still consider to have been the greatest interpretation of the role ever given.
5. Otto and Elise Hampel in Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada.
Following the death of their son in battle, Otto and Elise Hampel, a working-class couple, wrote anonymous postcards urging their fellow Berliners to resist and overthrow the Nazis. Their true story was transformed into a remarkable novel by Fallada, who developed his characters from the Hampels' Gestapo files, selecting and tailoring his own wartime experience. Fallada's heartbreaking declaration that every individual matters shaped me as a writer.
6. Alec Leamas in The spy who came in from the cold by John le Carré.
John le Carré's first sight of the Berlin Wall filled him with disgust and outrage, inspiring him to write his seminal book in five intense weeks. Spies were vain fools, traitors, "pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives," he wrote. Through Alec Leamas, the novel's antihero, he too helped to transform the city, weaving further intricacy into its mythology, freezing in time a place both perilous and clandestine: black winter canals, deep dark shadows, and the "weasel faces of the brainwashed little thugs who guarded the Kremlin's latest battlement".
7. Frank Lehmann in Berlin blues by Sven Regener.
Frank Lehmann works in bars in 1980s Kreuzberg, west Berlin's squatter and student heartland (and today the city's trendiest neighbourhood). After years of sidestepping and indolence, Lehmann is an incorrigible and decadent loafer. He has avoided the demands of parents, landlords, neighbours and women – until his lazy existence is threatened by one unforeseen incident after another … including the fall of the Wall. Expect alcohol, anarchists, spinning hangovers and the Eagles' Hotel California.
8. Klaus Uhltzscht in Heroes like us by Thomas Brussig.
Across that heinous divide, Klaus Uhltzscht is the aspiring teenage Nobel laureate of East Berlin. He claims to be German history's "missing link", who will come to breach the Berlin Wall. In this bold and hilarious comedy of terrors, Thomas Brussig writes of the absurd iniquity of the death strip that cut through Berlin's heart, of the U-Bahn trains running beneath it, of a child spying on the Stasi, and of the penis responsible for reuniting the divided city. After encountering Uhltzscht, no male reader will look at the end of the cold war (or his member) in the same way.
9. Timothy Garton Ash in The file by Timothy Garton Ash.
"Guten Tag," says bustling Frau Schulz, "you have a very interesting file." A buff-coloured Stasi file, two inches thick, leads historian Timothy Garton Ash to rediscover his younger self through the eyes of the east German secret police, and then to confront those who informed against him. At first personal, then universal, Garton Ash's deeply moral, wise and wry work demonstrates how it is all but impossible to establish historical truth, how far our lives are built on forgetting, and how much our actions depend on the time and place in which we live. Remember history or be bound to repeat it. Essential reading.
10. Mike Klingberg in Why we took the car by Wolfgang Herrndorf.
Fourteen-year-old Berlin schoolboy Mike Klingberg leads a boring and friendless life, until a strange new Russian classmate, Tschick, dares him to go on a road trip – without parents, without a map, with no destination. At once a literary tall tale and coming-of-age odyssey in a stolen car, Why we took the car is Germany's Thelma and Louise – wild, tender, charming and very funny, now made especially poignant by author Herrndorf's recent diagnosis of brain cancer, and suicide.
------
The first half dozen BTL:
"The City Lit guide to Berlin is really good. Well chosen extracts including from several of the books mentioned here."
"I'm reading Berlin Alexanderplatz at the moment, funnily enough, and it is indeed brilliant."
"Pretty sure Kehlmann's book is more about Wilhelms brother Alexander von Humboldt! Also, not that much of it takes place in Berlin ..." // "Yes, Wilhelm is only marginally involved in the story. I think it's an error that should have been picked up by the copy editors at the Guardian."
"Surely Corporal Joseph Porta, of the Sven Hassel series of books, has to be in here. A Berliner down to his bootsoles, chef, lover, soldier, conman ..."
"Bernard Samson from the trilogy of trilogies by Len Deighton?"
"Miriam Weber is the most indelible among the many souls -- and those lacking in souls -- Anna Funder captured in Stasiland : stories from behind the Berlin Wall."
Guardian, 2014-02-26.
"To me Berlin is as much a conceit as a reality. Why? Because the city is forever in the process of becoming, never being, and so lives more powerfully in the imagination. Long before setting eyes on it, the outsider feels its absences as much as its presence: the sense of lives lived, dreams realised and evils executed with an intensity so shocking that they shook its fabric.
"Over the years, so much of it has been lost, invented or reinvented that the mind rushes to fill the vacuum, fleshing out the invisible, linking the observed city with the place portrayed in 10 thousand films, paintings and – above all – books. Yesterday echoes along today's streets and the ideas and characters conjured up by Berlin's authors can seem to be as solid as its bricks and mortar."
1. Sally Bowles in Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.
More than any other foreign writer, Isherwood's fictional autobiography – or autobiographical fiction – has shaped Berlin. His deceptively simple stories, conjured up following a three-year stint in the capital, form the basis of most outsiders' idea of the city. Central to them is the irresistible Sally Bowles: sharp and amoral, vivacious rather than beautiful, flaunting her sexuality. In Sally (who was based on the English actor Jean Ross) as in all his characters (himself included), Isherwood teases the reader with hints of reality, while constructing a much more compelling illusion.
(Probably Jean Iris Ross Cockburn, 1911-1973. Not on LT).
2. Franz Biberkopf in Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin.
Any portrait which hopes to reflect the city's creative nature needs to let invention cohabit with reality, to juxtapose fiction with fact. In Döblin's innovative masterpiece – the most important work of literature in the Weimar years – the story of small-time crook Biberkopf is told through speeches, songs, newspaper articles and above all from multiple points of view. On the cusp of the Nazis rise to power, through an inner voice filled with remorse, contradiction and indecision, Biberkopf's life – like that of every other resident – is swept forward by events beyond his control.
3. Wilhelm von Humboldt in Measuring the world by Daniel Kehlmann.
At the end of the 18th century, two brilliant and eccentric young scientists set out to measure the world; one by travelling and experiencing it, the other by staying at home and theorising about it. The adventurous von Humboldt – like Goethe – favoured experience, the scientific approach that finally lost out to the theorists, as we know today. Kehlmann's masterful work is rare in Berlin literature, being learned, entertaining and a worldwide bestseller. In commercial terms, it's the most successful German novel since Patrick Süskind's Perfume.
4. Hendrik Höfgen in Mephisto : novel of a career by Klaus Mann.
Hendrik Höfgen, an ambitious, second-rate theatre actor, rises from amateur player to national star by aligning himself with the Nazis. As he performs Faust's Mephisto, he realises too late that he has made a pact with the devil. Klaus Mann's great novel is a thinly disguised portrait of Gustaf Gründgens, an actor whose brilliant career was undisturbed by the dictatorship years. Two decades after the book's publication (and in a striking example of life imitating art), Gründgens himself played Mephistopheles, in a performance which many still consider to have been the greatest interpretation of the role ever given.
5. Otto and Elise Hampel in Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada.
Following the death of their son in battle, Otto and Elise Hampel, a working-class couple, wrote anonymous postcards urging their fellow Berliners to resist and overthrow the Nazis. Their true story was transformed into a remarkable novel by Fallada, who developed his characters from the Hampels' Gestapo files, selecting and tailoring his own wartime experience. Fallada's heartbreaking declaration that every individual matters shaped me as a writer.
6. Alec Leamas in The spy who came in from the cold by John le Carré.
John le Carré's first sight of the Berlin Wall filled him with disgust and outrage, inspiring him to write his seminal book in five intense weeks. Spies were vain fools, traitors, "pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives," he wrote. Through Alec Leamas, the novel's antihero, he too helped to transform the city, weaving further intricacy into its mythology, freezing in time a place both perilous and clandestine: black winter canals, deep dark shadows, and the "weasel faces of the brainwashed little thugs who guarded the Kremlin's latest battlement".
7. Frank Lehmann in Berlin blues by Sven Regener.
Frank Lehmann works in bars in 1980s Kreuzberg, west Berlin's squatter and student heartland (and today the city's trendiest neighbourhood). After years of sidestepping and indolence, Lehmann is an incorrigible and decadent loafer. He has avoided the demands of parents, landlords, neighbours and women – until his lazy existence is threatened by one unforeseen incident after another … including the fall of the Wall. Expect alcohol, anarchists, spinning hangovers and the Eagles' Hotel California.
8. Klaus Uhltzscht in Heroes like us by Thomas Brussig.
Across that heinous divide, Klaus Uhltzscht is the aspiring teenage Nobel laureate of East Berlin. He claims to be German history's "missing link", who will come to breach the Berlin Wall. In this bold and hilarious comedy of terrors, Thomas Brussig writes of the absurd iniquity of the death strip that cut through Berlin's heart, of the U-Bahn trains running beneath it, of a child spying on the Stasi, and of the penis responsible for reuniting the divided city. After encountering Uhltzscht, no male reader will look at the end of the cold war (or his member) in the same way.
9. Timothy Garton Ash in The file by Timothy Garton Ash.
"Guten Tag," says bustling Frau Schulz, "you have a very interesting file." A buff-coloured Stasi file, two inches thick, leads historian Timothy Garton Ash to rediscover his younger self through the eyes of the east German secret police, and then to confront those who informed against him. At first personal, then universal, Garton Ash's deeply moral, wise and wry work demonstrates how it is all but impossible to establish historical truth, how far our lives are built on forgetting, and how much our actions depend on the time and place in which we live. Remember history or be bound to repeat it. Essential reading.
10. Mike Klingberg in Why we took the car by Wolfgang Herrndorf.
Fourteen-year-old Berlin schoolboy Mike Klingberg leads a boring and friendless life, until a strange new Russian classmate, Tschick, dares him to go on a road trip – without parents, without a map, with no destination. At once a literary tall tale and coming-of-age odyssey in a stolen car, Why we took the car is Germany's Thelma and Louise – wild, tender, charming and very funny, now made especially poignant by author Herrndorf's recent diagnosis of brain cancer, and suicide.
------
The first half dozen BTL:
"The City Lit guide to Berlin is really good. Well chosen extracts including from several of the books mentioned here."
"I'm reading Berlin Alexanderplatz at the moment, funnily enough, and it is indeed brilliant."
"Pretty sure Kehlmann's book is more about Wilhelms brother Alexander von Humboldt! Also, not that much of it takes place in Berlin ..." // "Yes, Wilhelm is only marginally involved in the story. I think it's an error that should have been picked up by the copy editors at the Guardian."
"Surely Corporal Joseph Porta, of the Sven Hassel series of books, has to be in here. A Berliner down to his bootsoles, chef, lover, soldier, conman ..."
"Bernard Samson from the trilogy of trilogies by Len Deighton?"
"Miriam Weber is the most indelible among the many souls -- and those lacking in souls -- Anna Funder captured in Stasiland : stories from behind the Berlin Wall."
67Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / John McNally's top 10 true or false science facts.
Guardian, 2014-02-27.
My latest book Infinity Drake and the sons of Scarlatti is the first in a new series of adventure thrillers in which the hero, Finn, gets caught up with his mad scientist uncle in a secret race to destroy an escaped bio-weapon – the Scarlatti Wasp – before it destroys life on earth. Just another day in the life of an average 12-year-old. But … a pitiless trillionaire terrorist sabotages the project and Finn gets shrunk to 9mm and finds himself way behind enemy lines with a couple of soldiers and bunch of weapons – missing, presumed dead.
The thrill-a-minute consequences contain some stunning action and some stunning science. But how much of that science is fiction and how much fact? Check out my top 10 true or false crazy science "facts" and see how if you know the difference between them!
(To preserve some of the suspense, let's edit the column to the extent of gathering the questions at the top of the message, all the while bearing in mind some wise words from The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy: "Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy, and it is in order that this situation should not be in any way exacerbated that the following facts will now be revealed in advance": the answers are at the bottom of the message - Cynfelyn).
True or false:
1. Each of us is made up of 7 octillion atoms (7 followed 27 zeros) that are mostly empty space. If you could squeeze all the empty space out of those atoms, you could reduce the entire human race to the size of a sugar lump.
2. You can take an insect, turn it into a bullet and fire it out of a gun.
3. Our sense of smell works, not chemically by scent molecules locking onto receptors in the nose, but by quantum vibration, whereby smells wobble some strange bit of our noses in a way we don't really understand.
4. There are 14 million insects on earth for every single human being, or in other words 14 million insects that can be apportioned to you personally. Call them your own private army.
5. Niels Bohr – the father of sub-atomic physics and a true genius of the 20th century and possibly the brainiest man ever to walk the planet – used to be a footballer.
6. Polo mints possess a quality called "triboluminescence" which means they will light up when snapped in half.
7. Trees blow up when lightning strikes.
8. Great White Sharks are more deadly than mosquitoes.
9. Pigs can be killed, near frozen and brought back to life.
10. If aliens on a planet 65 million light years away are looking at us right now, all they'll see are dinosaurs.
------
Answers:
1. True. Look at this diagram of a hydrogen atom. (You’ll have to click through to the original article for the diagram. Thanks - Cynfelyn). Notice the distance between the nucleus and the electron. At true scale this distance is enormous. If you imagine the nucleus as a pea in the middle of a football stadium, then the electron would be a gnat whizzing around the very edge of the top row of seats. If you could bring the gnat right up close to the pea and eliminate all the empty space in between, then you could reduce humanity to the size of a sugar lump.
In the book Finn's mad scientist Uncle Al builds a machine that can squash out some of this empty space, reducing Finn and a bunch of soldiers to 150th of their actual size.
2. False. It would vaporise and there'd be bits of legs and guts everywhere. It might make your enemy go "Ur.." but it wouldn't kill them. Although you can weaponise an insect and turn it into a killing machine in its own right.
In World War Two the Japanese dropped infected fleas over China to spread cholera, killing nearly half a million people. During the Cold War each side developed horrific insect killing machines - hybrid fleas, mosquitoes and other insects that would carry and spread diseases and other lethal biological or nerve agents. The plan was to drop them over enemy cities or armies.
In the book, the Scarlatti Wasp was developed during research into just such a program, but the project was shelved because it was so horrific. And then someone released it …
3. True. Possibly. For many years medical science has assumed smell is a chemical process. Some scientists now think that scent molecules wobble about in such a way they emit an electron that can be picked up by smell receptors in the nose. In part it could explain the fantastic sense of smell some animals and insects have. Bloodhounds have a sense of smell 10 to 100 million times more powerful than a human's. A silkworm can smell a mate seven miles away.
In my book the Scarlatti wasps can pick up each other's scent over tens of miles.
4. False. In fact there are at least 140 million insects per person. Do the math. The number of insects in existence is thought to be 10 to the power of 18 or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000; the global human population is thought to be 7,100,000,000: making a neat 142,857,142.86 per head. Let's just hope they never turn on us ...
In my book Finn collects just a tiny fraction of his share, which seems fair enough. If you go to his website he'll show you how to set up a lamp trap and start a collection of your own.
5. True. He used to play in goal for the Danish side Akademisk Boldklub, and his brother played in mid-field (was so good in fact he played for Denmark). Everybody in Denmark loved Niels, he was brainy, personable, an all round super star and national hero. So much so the Danish brewer Carlsberg built him a house and gifted him a lifetime supply of free beer. Hic.
If it weren't for him, Uncle Al would never have been able to build the Boldklub Accelerator which reduces the size of atoms. Other notable if unlikely goalkeepers include Albert Camus (French existential novelist), Pope John Paul II (last Pope but one), Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) and Che Guevara (Cuban revolutionary).
6. True. Find a very dark place and snap or crush a Polo mint and it will release a tiny flash of light. It is thought this is caused by the electrons trapped in the crystalline structure of the sugars being released suddenly and violently: they rush about to find a new place to go – hence the glow. The same can be observed when opening a strip of sellotape along the line where the adhesive bond is being unbroken. Also it's a property of certain minerals.
In the book Finn wears round his neck a piece of the mineral sphalerite which belonged to his father, then his mother, and which passed on to him after her death. It will glow simply by being scratched and he likes to keep it next to his heart.
7. True. The water inside them instantly boils and expands blowing most of the tree to smithereens. This isn't in the book, I just love it as a fact.
8. False. Bite for bite, sure the shark is nastier, but in terms of slaughter there's no comparison. Mosquito bites – which spread diseases like malaria – kill an estimated one million people per year – mostly children under five – while less than six are killed by shark bites. In fact hippos, deers, bees, dogs, ants, jellyfish, cows, horses spiders and snakes are all more likely to kill you than a shark. But then who wants to see a horror movie call Moo?
So don't be concerned that a few insects get wasted in the book. There's a lot of machine gun blood and guts action against spiders, ants – wasps certainly – very few of which are innocent.
9. True. Scientists have anesthetised pigs, drained their blood, nearly frozen them (getting down to 10C) , then reversed the process and brought them successfully back to life with an electric shock. They don't technically die, they are kept in a state of suspended animation. Many insect species (with the right type of blood) can be kept at a temperature of -10C for very long periods and still come back to life. The larvae of one type of midge can be kept in liquid nitrogen at temperature of -200C for three days and still pop up as good as new.
The Scarlatti wasp is kept on ice in a state of suspended animation for many years before being brought back to life.
10. True. When you look out into space you're not just seeing a place, you're also seeing a time – the time it's taken the light to travel to you.
The universe is both very much smaller and much larger than we tend to think. A light year is the distance travelled by light in the course of a year. Or 5.88 trillion miles. So 5.88 trillion times 65 million makes … a Lot. Indeed the total size of the observable universe is 46 billion light years – and that may be only the start of it. It may be infinite, and one of an infinite number of parallel universes …
What's out there? God? Aliens? More science?
Such thoughts make my brain ache, but here's another thought to bear in mind across the Infinity Drake series. Finn's father, Ethan Drake, went missing during an experiment into this kind of thing. Nobody knows how it happened, and nobody knows where he is. But maybe, somehow, somewhere out there … there is an answer. Keep reading!
Guardian, 2014-02-27.
My latest book Infinity Drake and the sons of Scarlatti is the first in a new series of adventure thrillers in which the hero, Finn, gets caught up with his mad scientist uncle in a secret race to destroy an escaped bio-weapon – the Scarlatti Wasp – before it destroys life on earth. Just another day in the life of an average 12-year-old. But … a pitiless trillionaire terrorist sabotages the project and Finn gets shrunk to 9mm and finds himself way behind enemy lines with a couple of soldiers and bunch of weapons – missing, presumed dead.
The thrill-a-minute consequences contain some stunning action and some stunning science. But how much of that science is fiction and how much fact? Check out my top 10 true or false crazy science "facts" and see how if you know the difference between them!
(To preserve some of the suspense, let's edit the column to the extent of gathering the questions at the top of the message, all the while bearing in mind some wise words from The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy: "Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy, and it is in order that this situation should not be in any way exacerbated that the following facts will now be revealed in advance": the answers are at the bottom of the message - Cynfelyn).
True or false:
1. Each of us is made up of 7 octillion atoms (7 followed 27 zeros) that are mostly empty space. If you could squeeze all the empty space out of those atoms, you could reduce the entire human race to the size of a sugar lump.
2. You can take an insect, turn it into a bullet and fire it out of a gun.
3. Our sense of smell works, not chemically by scent molecules locking onto receptors in the nose, but by quantum vibration, whereby smells wobble some strange bit of our noses in a way we don't really understand.
4. There are 14 million insects on earth for every single human being, or in other words 14 million insects that can be apportioned to you personally. Call them your own private army.
5. Niels Bohr – the father of sub-atomic physics and a true genius of the 20th century and possibly the brainiest man ever to walk the planet – used to be a footballer.
6. Polo mints possess a quality called "triboluminescence" which means they will light up when snapped in half.
7. Trees blow up when lightning strikes.
8. Great White Sharks are more deadly than mosquitoes.
9. Pigs can be killed, near frozen and brought back to life.
10. If aliens on a planet 65 million light years away are looking at us right now, all they'll see are dinosaurs.
------
Answers:
1. True. Look at this diagram of a hydrogen atom. (You’ll have to click through to the original article for the diagram. Thanks - Cynfelyn). Notice the distance between the nucleus and the electron. At true scale this distance is enormous. If you imagine the nucleus as a pea in the middle of a football stadium, then the electron would be a gnat whizzing around the very edge of the top row of seats. If you could bring the gnat right up close to the pea and eliminate all the empty space in between, then you could reduce humanity to the size of a sugar lump.
In the book Finn's mad scientist Uncle Al builds a machine that can squash out some of this empty space, reducing Finn and a bunch of soldiers to 150th of their actual size.
2. False. It would vaporise and there'd be bits of legs and guts everywhere. It might make your enemy go "Ur.." but it wouldn't kill them. Although you can weaponise an insect and turn it into a killing machine in its own right.
In World War Two the Japanese dropped infected fleas over China to spread cholera, killing nearly half a million people. During the Cold War each side developed horrific insect killing machines - hybrid fleas, mosquitoes and other insects that would carry and spread diseases and other lethal biological or nerve agents. The plan was to drop them over enemy cities or armies.
In the book, the Scarlatti Wasp was developed during research into just such a program, but the project was shelved because it was so horrific. And then someone released it …
3. True. Possibly. For many years medical science has assumed smell is a chemical process. Some scientists now think that scent molecules wobble about in such a way they emit an electron that can be picked up by smell receptors in the nose. In part it could explain the fantastic sense of smell some animals and insects have. Bloodhounds have a sense of smell 10 to 100 million times more powerful than a human's. A silkworm can smell a mate seven miles away.
In my book the Scarlatti wasps can pick up each other's scent over tens of miles.
4. False. In fact there are at least 140 million insects per person. Do the math. The number of insects in existence is thought to be 10 to the power of 18 or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000; the global human population is thought to be 7,100,000,000: making a neat 142,857,142.86 per head. Let's just hope they never turn on us ...
In my book Finn collects just a tiny fraction of his share, which seems fair enough. If you go to his website he'll show you how to set up a lamp trap and start a collection of your own.
5. True. He used to play in goal for the Danish side Akademisk Boldklub, and his brother played in mid-field (was so good in fact he played for Denmark). Everybody in Denmark loved Niels, he was brainy, personable, an all round super star and national hero. So much so the Danish brewer Carlsberg built him a house and gifted him a lifetime supply of free beer. Hic.
If it weren't for him, Uncle Al would never have been able to build the Boldklub Accelerator which reduces the size of atoms. Other notable if unlikely goalkeepers include Albert Camus (French existential novelist), Pope John Paul II (last Pope but one), Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) and Che Guevara (Cuban revolutionary).
6. True. Find a very dark place and snap or crush a Polo mint and it will release a tiny flash of light. It is thought this is caused by the electrons trapped in the crystalline structure of the sugars being released suddenly and violently: they rush about to find a new place to go – hence the glow. The same can be observed when opening a strip of sellotape along the line where the adhesive bond is being unbroken. Also it's a property of certain minerals.
In the book Finn wears round his neck a piece of the mineral sphalerite which belonged to his father, then his mother, and which passed on to him after her death. It will glow simply by being scratched and he likes to keep it next to his heart.
7. True. The water inside them instantly boils and expands blowing most of the tree to smithereens. This isn't in the book, I just love it as a fact.
8. False. Bite for bite, sure the shark is nastier, but in terms of slaughter there's no comparison. Mosquito bites – which spread diseases like malaria – kill an estimated one million people per year – mostly children under five – while less than six are killed by shark bites. In fact hippos, deers, bees, dogs, ants, jellyfish, cows, horses spiders and snakes are all more likely to kill you than a shark. But then who wants to see a horror movie call Moo?
So don't be concerned that a few insects get wasted in the book. There's a lot of machine gun blood and guts action against spiders, ants – wasps certainly – very few of which are innocent.
9. True. Scientists have anesthetised pigs, drained their blood, nearly frozen them (getting down to 10C) , then reversed the process and brought them successfully back to life with an electric shock. They don't technically die, they are kept in a state of suspended animation. Many insect species (with the right type of blood) can be kept at a temperature of -10C for very long periods and still come back to life. The larvae of one type of midge can be kept in liquid nitrogen at temperature of -200C for three days and still pop up as good as new.
The Scarlatti wasp is kept on ice in a state of suspended animation for many years before being brought back to life.
10. True. When you look out into space you're not just seeing a place, you're also seeing a time – the time it's taken the light to travel to you.
The universe is both very much smaller and much larger than we tend to think. A light year is the distance travelled by light in the course of a year. Or 5.88 trillion miles. So 5.88 trillion times 65 million makes … a Lot. Indeed the total size of the observable universe is 46 billion light years – and that may be only the start of it. It may be infinite, and one of an infinite number of parallel universes …
What's out there? God? Aliens? More science?
Such thoughts make my brain ache, but here's another thought to bear in mind across the Infinity Drake series. Finn's father, Ethan Drake, went missing during an experiment into this kind of thing. Nobody knows how it happened, and nobody knows where he is. But maybe, somehow, somewhere out there … there is an answer. Keep reading!
68Cynfelyn
Brian Payton's top 10 books about Alaska
Guardian, 2014-03-05.
"What is Alaska? Rugged homeland of resilient Native Americans, former Russian colony, site of the only battle of the second world war to take place on US soil … wait a minute, second world war battlefield? Believe it. The blind spot most of us have about Alaska is nearly as vast as its geography – it's about seven times the size of the UK. In 1943, one of the toughest and least-known American battles of the war took place in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Discovering this little-known historical fact compelled me to study Alaska's remarkable history and eventually write my second novel, a tale of wartime survival and devotion, The wind is not a river.
"Alaska is a place at the very limits of the American drive to "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country" – the exhortation made famous by the 19th-century author Horace Greeley. Greeley's advice soon came to be understood in the popular culture as: "Go West, young man, and find your fame and your fortune." Alaska is a place apart from the contiguous United States, and it shares more in common with Canada's Yukon territory and British Columbia. It is a place of big dreams and harsh realities, astounding landscape, curious politics (including a long-standing independence party), midnight summer sun, and shockingly brief winter days. Alaska also offers the increasingly rare opportunity to live in close proximity to vast tracts of wilderness. The following shortlist includes books I discovered while living (briefly) in Alaska, and through gathering research for my novel. This collection of fiction, nonfiction, and verse has found a permanent home on my bookshelf."
1. John McPhee, Coming into the country
This book, more than any other I have read, accurately reflected back to me the stark realities and wide-ranging possibilities facing Alaska near the close of the 20th century, while offering insight into what the state might become. McPhee is a grand master of narrative nonfiction. Required reading for anyone who wants to know about the grand themes and petty politics of the largest state in the US.
2. Jon Krakauer, Into the wild.
A bestselling book and critically acclaimed movie, Into the wild tells the tale of one young man's search for meaning in wilderness that ends in an abandoned bus in Alaska. The book is about so much more than the state itself. It's also about what people bring to Alaska – disaffection, idealism, the search for reinvention and redemption – that ends up being swallowed by one of the wildest places in North America.
3. Corey Ford, Where the sea breaks its back.
This is an extraordinary and compelling account of a 1741-1742 Russian expedition. Ford vividly recounts the story of naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller's voyage to the Aleutian Islands and what would eventually become the colony of Russian America. Wonderful writing and gripping tales of the Russian discovery of the new world.
4. John Muir, Travels in Alaska.
The Scottish-American naturalist and explorer showed up in Alaska 138 years after Steller, just a dozen years after the US purchased Alaska from the cash-strapped Russians for about two pennies per acre. This insightful, enthusiastic and closely observed travelogue offers description and language as grandiose as the place itself. "To the lover of pure wildness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world … it seems as if surely we must at length reach the very paradise of the poets, the abode of the blessed."
5. Robert Service, Songs of a sourdough.
Service, a British-Canadian poet and writer, was known as "the bard of the Yukon". OK, so it's not Alaska proper, but the state and Canada's Yukon territory are kissing cousins, and share much in the way of folklore and culture. And most prospectors had to travel through Alaska to get to the Klondike goldfields. Service wrote colourful and compulsively entertaining verse about gold rush life in the north. Alaskans try and claim him as their own. As a graduate of Robert Service High School in Anchorage, Alaska, I made a point of memorising Service's The cremation of Sam McGee. I still have several verses rolling around inside my head.
6. Jack London, White Fang.
One of the most popular books by American writer Jack London also happens to be set in the Yukon during the time of the Klondike Gold Rush. The story follows the life story of a wolf-dog hybrid that finds its way from the chaos of famine and violence, in both the natural world and at the jagged edge of human society, to a kind of redemption in a life of domesticity in the care of one gentle man. Brutal and gripping.
7. Brian Garfield, The thousand-mile war : World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians.
There are numerous nonfiction accounts of the war in Alaska; first and foremost among those is Garfield's excellent – and compulsively readable – military history of what some call the "forgotten war." Richly detailed and deeply researched, it deserves a far wider audience.
8. Ray Hudson, Moments rightly placed : an Aleutian memoir.
A sensitive and insightful account of 28 years living in the Aleutian Islands from the perspective of an outsider. I believe the best reportage is the kind that involves a writer immersing himself or herself in a place, culture and time. These days, being still and letting the story reveal itself is difficult to accomplish and increasingly rare. Ray Hudson offers personal and enriching insight into Aleut culture in this fine memoir.
9. Jack London, Call of the wild.
A novella that preceded White Fang, London's Call of the wild tells a similarly engrossing tale of sled dogs and men set in the Klondike. Unlike White Fang, with its ultimate redemption, Call of the wild details a fall from a civilised to a primitive state. Influenced by both Charles Darwin and Friedrich Nietzsche, London's most famous work is rich in symbolism and imagery, a blend of allegory and fable about the "survival of the fittest". This classic and enduring tale of the mythic north secured London's place in the cannon of American literature.
10. Jonathan Raban, Passage to Juneau.
The British-born journalist and novelist takes readers on an involving personal and physical journey through fascinating history and waterways to the state that bills itself as "the last frontier". So much about what Alaska really is can only be understood through what it takes to get there. Before the advent of regularly scheduled air service, what one had to do to reach this place profoundly affected its literature. Alaska was one of the last places in North America to be mapped and explored. As Raban well knows, the journey to Alaska can still be transformational.
------
There are only 34 messages BTL, but oodles of recommendations (click through to see them all), including:
"It's a beautiful place! Rugged and harsh filled with stark beauty. You should also add to the list: Small feet big land : adventure, home, and family on the edge of Alaska by Erin Mckittrick and Shadows on the Koyukuk : an Alaskan native's life along the river by Sidney Huntington and Jim Rearden. Great reads!"
"No night is too long, Barbara Vine. Gorgeous!"
"I can't argue with your list's first choice, but I think there are a few more which need to be mentioned. Because Alaska is so vast and largely uncharted, any list you make should be longer. I found these books quite good:
The whales they give themselves by Karen Brewster
The wake of the unseen object, Tom Kizzia
Narrow road to the deep north by Katherine McNamara
I suspect that Subhankar's collection of essays should also be mentioned for people who have not done much reading on Alaska:
Arctic voices : resistance at the tipping point, Subhankar Banerjee."
"My sister lived in Alaska for a few years and I got to visit a couple of times. I agree that McPhee's book was special and helped me glimpse some of the history and mindset. I don't get cable so I don't watch The deadliest catch. Glimpses of it show me that it probably has educated a lot of people about that world. Long before, when my brother-in-law was a king crab fisherman, the novel Highliners was revered by the local community."
"And another Call of the wild, more recently: wonderful tale from Guy Grieve who left his family at home and went off for a year to build a cabin 300 miles from the nearest road. Funnily enough he was on the radio at the weekend talking about that, and later adventures. Then there's Brian Keenan, healing from his ordeals with John McCarthy, with Four quarters of light. Or dog-sled racing with John Balzar in Lure of the quest; the Iditarod and more." / "And more dog-sled trials with Alastair Scott, who travelled 800 mile along the line of the Arctic Circle in Tracks across Alaska; a fine writer indeed." / "Raban's Passage to Juneau, hailed by many, is one of the few books I had to put down, unfinished. It didn't work for me; perhaps the timing was wrong. But Brian Payton, I knew that name was familiar; he came up with some marvellous phrasing with In bear country, though I don't recall Alaska being on those travels. It's a book that needs reading again though."
"Hello from Nome, Alaska. I like Johnny's girl by Kim Rich. Good read about organized crime in Anchorage in the 1960's. Not all the wildlife is on the tundra up here."
(With many thanks to Tim and the team for dealing with this weekend's spam attack, and switching touchstones back on. Let's finally post this column now and see how it fares).
Guardian, 2014-03-05.
"What is Alaska? Rugged homeland of resilient Native Americans, former Russian colony, site of the only battle of the second world war to take place on US soil … wait a minute, second world war battlefield? Believe it. The blind spot most of us have about Alaska is nearly as vast as its geography – it's about seven times the size of the UK. In 1943, one of the toughest and least-known American battles of the war took place in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Discovering this little-known historical fact compelled me to study Alaska's remarkable history and eventually write my second novel, a tale of wartime survival and devotion, The wind is not a river.
"Alaska is a place at the very limits of the American drive to "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country" – the exhortation made famous by the 19th-century author Horace Greeley. Greeley's advice soon came to be understood in the popular culture as: "Go West, young man, and find your fame and your fortune." Alaska is a place apart from the contiguous United States, and it shares more in common with Canada's Yukon territory and British Columbia. It is a place of big dreams and harsh realities, astounding landscape, curious politics (including a long-standing independence party), midnight summer sun, and shockingly brief winter days. Alaska also offers the increasingly rare opportunity to live in close proximity to vast tracts of wilderness. The following shortlist includes books I discovered while living (briefly) in Alaska, and through gathering research for my novel. This collection of fiction, nonfiction, and verse has found a permanent home on my bookshelf."
1. John McPhee, Coming into the country
This book, more than any other I have read, accurately reflected back to me the stark realities and wide-ranging possibilities facing Alaska near the close of the 20th century, while offering insight into what the state might become. McPhee is a grand master of narrative nonfiction. Required reading for anyone who wants to know about the grand themes and petty politics of the largest state in the US.
2. Jon Krakauer, Into the wild.
A bestselling book and critically acclaimed movie, Into the wild tells the tale of one young man's search for meaning in wilderness that ends in an abandoned bus in Alaska. The book is about so much more than the state itself. It's also about what people bring to Alaska – disaffection, idealism, the search for reinvention and redemption – that ends up being swallowed by one of the wildest places in North America.
3. Corey Ford, Where the sea breaks its back.
This is an extraordinary and compelling account of a 1741-1742 Russian expedition. Ford vividly recounts the story of naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller's voyage to the Aleutian Islands and what would eventually become the colony of Russian America. Wonderful writing and gripping tales of the Russian discovery of the new world.
4. John Muir, Travels in Alaska.
The Scottish-American naturalist and explorer showed up in Alaska 138 years after Steller, just a dozen years after the US purchased Alaska from the cash-strapped Russians for about two pennies per acre. This insightful, enthusiastic and closely observed travelogue offers description and language as grandiose as the place itself. "To the lover of pure wildness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world … it seems as if surely we must at length reach the very paradise of the poets, the abode of the blessed."
5. Robert Service, Songs of a sourdough.
Service, a British-Canadian poet and writer, was known as "the bard of the Yukon". OK, so it's not Alaska proper, but the state and Canada's Yukon territory are kissing cousins, and share much in the way of folklore and culture. And most prospectors had to travel through Alaska to get to the Klondike goldfields. Service wrote colourful and compulsively entertaining verse about gold rush life in the north. Alaskans try and claim him as their own. As a graduate of Robert Service High School in Anchorage, Alaska, I made a point of memorising Service's The cremation of Sam McGee. I still have several verses rolling around inside my head.
6. Jack London, White Fang.
One of the most popular books by American writer Jack London also happens to be set in the Yukon during the time of the Klondike Gold Rush. The story follows the life story of a wolf-dog hybrid that finds its way from the chaos of famine and violence, in both the natural world and at the jagged edge of human society, to a kind of redemption in a life of domesticity in the care of one gentle man. Brutal and gripping.
7. Brian Garfield, The thousand-mile war : World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians.
There are numerous nonfiction accounts of the war in Alaska; first and foremost among those is Garfield's excellent – and compulsively readable – military history of what some call the "forgotten war." Richly detailed and deeply researched, it deserves a far wider audience.
8. Ray Hudson, Moments rightly placed : an Aleutian memoir.
A sensitive and insightful account of 28 years living in the Aleutian Islands from the perspective of an outsider. I believe the best reportage is the kind that involves a writer immersing himself or herself in a place, culture and time. These days, being still and letting the story reveal itself is difficult to accomplish and increasingly rare. Ray Hudson offers personal and enriching insight into Aleut culture in this fine memoir.
9. Jack London, Call of the wild.
A novella that preceded White Fang, London's Call of the wild tells a similarly engrossing tale of sled dogs and men set in the Klondike. Unlike White Fang, with its ultimate redemption, Call of the wild details a fall from a civilised to a primitive state. Influenced by both Charles Darwin and Friedrich Nietzsche, London's most famous work is rich in symbolism and imagery, a blend of allegory and fable about the "survival of the fittest". This classic and enduring tale of the mythic north secured London's place in the cannon of American literature.
10. Jonathan Raban, Passage to Juneau.
The British-born journalist and novelist takes readers on an involving personal and physical journey through fascinating history and waterways to the state that bills itself as "the last frontier". So much about what Alaska really is can only be understood through what it takes to get there. Before the advent of regularly scheduled air service, what one had to do to reach this place profoundly affected its literature. Alaska was one of the last places in North America to be mapped and explored. As Raban well knows, the journey to Alaska can still be transformational.
------
There are only 34 messages BTL, but oodles of recommendations (click through to see them all), including:
"It's a beautiful place! Rugged and harsh filled with stark beauty. You should also add to the list: Small feet big land : adventure, home, and family on the edge of Alaska by Erin Mckittrick and Shadows on the Koyukuk : an Alaskan native's life along the river by Sidney Huntington and Jim Rearden. Great reads!"
"No night is too long, Barbara Vine. Gorgeous!"
"I can't argue with your list's first choice, but I think there are a few more which need to be mentioned. Because Alaska is so vast and largely uncharted, any list you make should be longer. I found these books quite good:
The whales they give themselves by Karen Brewster
The wake of the unseen object, Tom Kizzia
Narrow road to the deep north by Katherine McNamara
I suspect that Subhankar's collection of essays should also be mentioned for people who have not done much reading on Alaska:
Arctic voices : resistance at the tipping point, Subhankar Banerjee."
"My sister lived in Alaska for a few years and I got to visit a couple of times. I agree that McPhee's book was special and helped me glimpse some of the history and mindset. I don't get cable so I don't watch The deadliest catch. Glimpses of it show me that it probably has educated a lot of people about that world. Long before, when my brother-in-law was a king crab fisherman, the novel Highliners was revered by the local community."
"And another Call of the wild, more recently: wonderful tale from Guy Grieve who left his family at home and went off for a year to build a cabin 300 miles from the nearest road. Funnily enough he was on the radio at the weekend talking about that, and later adventures. Then there's Brian Keenan, healing from his ordeals with John McCarthy, with Four quarters of light. Or dog-sled racing with John Balzar in Lure of the quest; the Iditarod and more." / "And more dog-sled trials with Alastair Scott, who travelled 800 mile along the line of the Arctic Circle in Tracks across Alaska; a fine writer indeed." / "Raban's Passage to Juneau, hailed by many, is one of the few books I had to put down, unfinished. It didn't work for me; perhaps the timing was wrong. But Brian Payton, I knew that name was familiar; he came up with some marvellous phrasing with In bear country, though I don't recall Alaska being on those travels. It's a book that needs reading again though."
"Hello from Nome, Alaska. I like Johnny's girl by Kim Rich. Good read about organized crime in Anchorage in the 1960's. Not all the wildlife is on the tundra up here."
(With many thanks to Tim and the team for dealing with this weekend's spam attack, and switching touchstones back on. Let's finally post this column now and see how it fares).
69Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Janis MacKay's top 10 books set on the ocean.
Guardian, 2014-03-05.
"When writing this list I realised that my real influences in terms of the sea – apart from living next to the sea itself – have been poems, stories and songs. The Celtic tradition is steeped in oral stories, songs and ballads, with the sea used to evoke feelings of longing, yearning and desire.
"You will see this love for Scottish folk tradition reflected in my Magnus Fin series of books, and I have combined some of my favourite traditional stories, along with some fantastic modern adventures, in the following list:"
1. Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped.
I love this book and the wonderfully depicted characters. There are sea adventures galore here. I have many strong images from this book; a young boy in ragged sailor's clothes who turns up at the front door and – though half starved – dances a sailor's hornpipe for the bemused David Balfour, is one.
2. William Golding, Lord of the Flies.
We did this book in school way back when and I loved it. I remember it as thrilling and unsettling. I have a conch shell that I bought on holiday in Turkey and whenever anyone manages to blow it and I hear that deep fog horn sound I am back with these children from Lord of the Flies - marooned on a desert island.
3. Duncan Williamson, Tales of the Sea People.
These are transcribed traditional oral stories and myths about selkies - the mythic seals that take off their seal skins and become human – that inspired my own character; Magnus Fin. As a storyteller myself I love these old stories; told, as the traveller tradition says, "eye to eye, mouth to mouth, heart to heart."
4. Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn.
I loved this book and the character of Huck. He hides on a island, feigns his death, then tries to help Jim escape cruelty and slavery. It is full of adventure and is about friendships formed in adversity.
5. J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan.
I read this recently and it is a real romp. Every story character and story setting you could imagine finds its way into this tale; pirates, native American princesses, lost boys, walking the gang-plank, Captain Hook and a dog that happens to be a childminder. Books like this are great for opening your imagination.
6. George Mackay Brown, Winter tales.
George Mackay Brown who lived on the Orkney islands, has many wonderful stories about the sea. One story I love, from his collection of short stories called Winter tales, is 'Shell Story'. In this story a group of old woman feed the gulls after every dinner time, believing them to be the souls of drowned fishermen and sailors. I remember the great storyteller Duncan Williamson saying to me: "Don't complain about the price of fish – the price of fish is men's lives." This story is a reminder of that, told in a poignant way.
7. Edward Lear, The owl and the pussycat.
This poem has a timeless ability to capture the imaginations of children, young and old. Lear is a master of description, evoking a vivid image of the two main characters bobbing happily along on the ocean and the land where the bong-tree grows!
8. Wendy Orr, Nim's island.
A wonderful fantasy adventure set on a paradise island. Nim is a strong character with fun animals for friends, living a life that many children would undoubtedly choose for themselves.
9. Yann Martel, Life of Pi.
The ultimate adventure set on the high seas, Life of Pi has to be read to be believed (or disbelieved). Featuring shipwrecks, cannibalism, carnivorous plants and a 450-pound Bengal tiger, this story holds the reader in its grip from beginning to end.
10. Julie Bertagna, Exodus.
A science fiction novel based on the very real problem of rising sea levels, this book harnesses the merciless power of the ocean to convey a strong message about the dangers of global warming with an action packed futuristic adventure.
------
No BTL comments, as per usual with children's books top tens. In lieu, perhaps I could make a couple of suggestions for swaps. My main complaint is the inclusion of island novels that aren't really set on (or in the case of my first suggestion, under) the ocean:
Jules Verne, 20,000 leagues under the sea, instead of William Golding, Lord of the Flies. The children arrive on the island by aeroplane and are taken off by Royal Navy cruiser, for goodness sake.
William Golding, Martin Pincher, instead of Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn. Or was the untamed Mississippi really so big as to be an inland ocean? Is Martin Pincher too old for older children?
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, another island book I would no more give shelf space as an ocean book than I would Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons. Ransomes's We didn't mean to go to sea and Peter Duck, however, are both more than good enough and have more than enough sea-pages to take Peter Pan's place.
Wendy Orr, Nim's island. Going by the LT descriptions for the book and the film, this sounds as if it is no more an ocean book than Maurice Sendak, Where the wild things are or Henry de Vere Stacpoole, The blue lagoon, to go from one extreme to the other. Instead, how about Eirik the Red's saga? Perhaps the Magnus Magnusson translation in Penguin Classic's The Vinland sagas, which also contains The Greenlanders' saga, an island story from the world's largest island.
Guardian, 2014-03-05.
"When writing this list I realised that my real influences in terms of the sea – apart from living next to the sea itself – have been poems, stories and songs. The Celtic tradition is steeped in oral stories, songs and ballads, with the sea used to evoke feelings of longing, yearning and desire.
"You will see this love for Scottish folk tradition reflected in my Magnus Fin series of books, and I have combined some of my favourite traditional stories, along with some fantastic modern adventures, in the following list:"
1. Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped.
I love this book and the wonderfully depicted characters. There are sea adventures galore here. I have many strong images from this book; a young boy in ragged sailor's clothes who turns up at the front door and – though half starved – dances a sailor's hornpipe for the bemused David Balfour, is one.
2. William Golding, Lord of the Flies.
We did this book in school way back when and I loved it. I remember it as thrilling and unsettling. I have a conch shell that I bought on holiday in Turkey and whenever anyone manages to blow it and I hear that deep fog horn sound I am back with these children from Lord of the Flies - marooned on a desert island.
3. Duncan Williamson, Tales of the Sea People.
These are transcribed traditional oral stories and myths about selkies - the mythic seals that take off their seal skins and become human – that inspired my own character; Magnus Fin. As a storyteller myself I love these old stories; told, as the traveller tradition says, "eye to eye, mouth to mouth, heart to heart."
4. Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn.
I loved this book and the character of Huck. He hides on a island, feigns his death, then tries to help Jim escape cruelty and slavery. It is full of adventure and is about friendships formed in adversity.
5. J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan.
I read this recently and it is a real romp. Every story character and story setting you could imagine finds its way into this tale; pirates, native American princesses, lost boys, walking the gang-plank, Captain Hook and a dog that happens to be a childminder. Books like this are great for opening your imagination.
6. George Mackay Brown, Winter tales.
George Mackay Brown who lived on the Orkney islands, has many wonderful stories about the sea. One story I love, from his collection of short stories called Winter tales, is 'Shell Story'. In this story a group of old woman feed the gulls after every dinner time, believing them to be the souls of drowned fishermen and sailors. I remember the great storyteller Duncan Williamson saying to me: "Don't complain about the price of fish – the price of fish is men's lives." This story is a reminder of that, told in a poignant way.
7. Edward Lear, The owl and the pussycat.
This poem has a timeless ability to capture the imaginations of children, young and old. Lear is a master of description, evoking a vivid image of the two main characters bobbing happily along on the ocean and the land where the bong-tree grows!
8. Wendy Orr, Nim's island.
A wonderful fantasy adventure set on a paradise island. Nim is a strong character with fun animals for friends, living a life that many children would undoubtedly choose for themselves.
9. Yann Martel, Life of Pi.
The ultimate adventure set on the high seas, Life of Pi has to be read to be believed (or disbelieved). Featuring shipwrecks, cannibalism, carnivorous plants and a 450-pound Bengal tiger, this story holds the reader in its grip from beginning to end.
10. Julie Bertagna, Exodus.
A science fiction novel based on the very real problem of rising sea levels, this book harnesses the merciless power of the ocean to convey a strong message about the dangers of global warming with an action packed futuristic adventure.
------
No BTL comments, as per usual with children's books top tens. In lieu, perhaps I could make a couple of suggestions for swaps. My main complaint is the inclusion of island novels that aren't really set on (or in the case of my first suggestion, under) the ocean:
Jules Verne, 20,000 leagues under the sea, instead of William Golding, Lord of the Flies. The children arrive on the island by aeroplane and are taken off by Royal Navy cruiser, for goodness sake.
William Golding, Martin Pincher, instead of Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn. Or was the untamed Mississippi really so big as to be an inland ocean? Is Martin Pincher too old for older children?
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, another island book I would no more give shelf space as an ocean book than I would Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons. Ransomes's We didn't mean to go to sea and Peter Duck, however, are both more than good enough and have more than enough sea-pages to take Peter Pan's place.
Wendy Orr, Nim's island. Going by the LT descriptions for the book and the film, this sounds as if it is no more an ocean book than Maurice Sendak, Where the wild things are or Henry de Vere Stacpoole, The blue lagoon, to go from one extreme to the other. Instead, how about Eirik the Red's saga? Perhaps the Magnus Magnusson translation in Penguin Classic's The Vinland sagas, which also contains The Greenlanders' saga, an island story from the world's largest island.
70Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Katiedoglovesbooks's top five secret reads.
More confessions of a justified bookworm as a site member reveals her secret, under-the-covers-with-a-torch books.
Guardian, 2014-03-05.
1. Anna Kemp & Sara Ogilvie, Dogs don't do ballet
This is such a funny book because the Dad keeps on saying "Dogs don't do ballet" but Biff, the dog, knows that's not true. He keeps following his owner, a little girl, to ballet class and he ends up dancing on stage. He's fabulous!
I have a pink toy dog and I pretend he's Biff and that he's doing ballet. My whole family loves this book.
2. Jill Murphy, The worst witch.
Mildred Hubble goes to Cackles Academy and she's the worst witch in the school. Only she isn't exactly bad at all, things just seem to happen to her. It's not her fault but she often gets sent to the headmistress. I used to pretend to fly on a broomstick to school and everyone used to call me Mildred.
3. Emily Bearn, Nutmeg and Tumtum : trouble at Rose Cottage.
Two town mice start living in the kitchen of Rose Cottage, which spells trouble for Nutmeg and Tumtum who live behind the dresser, in a broom cupboard. The new mice aren't very kind and they play tricks on Nutmeg and Tumtum. They're there because money is hidden under the floorboards and the race is on to see who can get it.
It's exciting and I know that Nutmeg is real (I once wrote to her and left the letter out at night and she wrote back to me).
4. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone.
What an amazing magical world. I know lots of people will have done this review but I just have to put it in. I really like Hermione, Ron is really funny, and Harry is brave. My favourite character is Hermione.
5. Maryrose Wood, The incorrigible children of Ashton Place : the howling.
In this story, a woman called Penelope goes to this amazing hall called Ashton Place to be a governess for the incorrigible children. The children pretend to be dogs howling and barking. Sometimes they have to sleep in the barn because they're so noisy. I like the book because it's funny about these really naughty children.
------
Yes, a third best tens column published on the same day! And there'll be another 'tomorrow'. There must have been something in the water, other than what's in the water 10.5 years later.
And yes, the Guardian once ran an online children's book club. I'm fairly sure it's gone now.
More confessions of a justified bookworm as a site member reveals her secret, under-the-covers-with-a-torch books.
Guardian, 2014-03-05.
1. Anna Kemp & Sara Ogilvie, Dogs don't do ballet
This is such a funny book because the Dad keeps on saying "Dogs don't do ballet" but Biff, the dog, knows that's not true. He keeps following his owner, a little girl, to ballet class and he ends up dancing on stage. He's fabulous!
I have a pink toy dog and I pretend he's Biff and that he's doing ballet. My whole family loves this book.
2. Jill Murphy, The worst witch.
Mildred Hubble goes to Cackles Academy and she's the worst witch in the school. Only she isn't exactly bad at all, things just seem to happen to her. It's not her fault but she often gets sent to the headmistress. I used to pretend to fly on a broomstick to school and everyone used to call me Mildred.
3. Emily Bearn, Nutmeg and Tumtum : trouble at Rose Cottage.
Two town mice start living in the kitchen of Rose Cottage, which spells trouble for Nutmeg and Tumtum who live behind the dresser, in a broom cupboard. The new mice aren't very kind and they play tricks on Nutmeg and Tumtum. They're there because money is hidden under the floorboards and the race is on to see who can get it.
It's exciting and I know that Nutmeg is real (I once wrote to her and left the letter out at night and she wrote back to me).
4. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone.
What an amazing magical world. I know lots of people will have done this review but I just have to put it in. I really like Hermione, Ron is really funny, and Harry is brave. My favourite character is Hermione.
5. Maryrose Wood, The incorrigible children of Ashton Place : the howling.
In this story, a woman called Penelope goes to this amazing hall called Ashton Place to be a governess for the incorrigible children. The children pretend to be dogs howling and barking. Sometimes they have to sleep in the barn because they're so noisy. I like the book because it's funny about these really naughty children.
------
Yes, a third best tens column published on the same day! And there'll be another 'tomorrow'. There must have been something in the water, other than what's in the water 10.5 years later.
And yes, the Guardian once ran an online children's book club. I'm fairly sure it's gone now.
71Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / / Katherine Rundell's top 10 orphans.
Guardian, 2014-03-06.
"There are good reasons for the wealth of fantastic, gutsy orphans in children's literature. Parents, with their concern for safety and the law, are a dampener on adventure: orphans are allowed to make their own rules, fight their own battles and invent their own food. Orphans exert a gravitational pull on the world: they attract trouble and luck and magic. Without parents to protect you, enforce order and inflict grown-up priorities on a storyline, orphans are free to run wild and live large and daring lives.
"And orphans are walking possibilities: you might turn out to be lost prince, a Egyptian king, a wizard. My book Rooftoppers is thick with orphans and near-orphans, because the books I loved most as a child were the ones where children were free to act without reference to the dull concerns of the adult world."
1. Mowgli, in The jungle book by Rudyard Kipling.
Mowgli's parents are eaten by a tiger, and he is taken in by a family of wise and friendly wolves. Freed from restraints of civilisation, he is allowed to consort with haughty panthers and anxious bears. The Disney film is fantastic, but the book – which is earnest and witty by turns - is even better.
2. Cinderella.
Cinderella is the purest of orphan-transformation tales; her absolute misery makes her luck and glamour the greater. Certainly, shoe size as a method for selecting a life-partner seemed to me, as a child, peculiar, but the fairy godmother's artistic ingenuity and arbitrary deadlines make her one of the greatest benevolent despots in literature.
3. Cat Chant, in Charmed life by Diana Wynne Jones.
When Cat's parents die in a boating accident and he is sent to Chrestomanci castle with his ruthless sister Gwendolyn, where he discovers he is a powerful enchanter. This is a story about courage, wit and dressing gowns more than it is about orphans, but it is a spectacularly good book, and Harry Potter owes a great deal to its tone and scope.
4. Anne, in Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery.
Anne is an orphan hungry for love. In her quest for friendship and permanency, she does nothing by halves: "We must join hands, so. It ought to be over running water. We'll just imagine this path is running water. I'll repeat the oath first. I solemnly swear to be faithful to my bosom friend as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Now you say it and put my name in."
5. Alex Rider, in Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz.
Alex's orphan status means that there is nobody to tell him to be home for supper, to hold on tight or wash his face. Stories in which children take on traditionally adult jobs require dead or absent parents, and as a child spy, like Kim in Rudyard Kipling's novel 100 years before, Alex needs to be free of worrying mothers and fathers.
6. Harry, in Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling.
Harry is an orphan whose destiny is marked out visibly on his face. His parent's death give him impetus and passion; his inherited wealth gives him independence, his friends and protectors give him courage, and his hundreds of millions of readers give him a place in history.
7. Lyra, in His dark materials trilogy by Philip Pullman.
Lyra believes she is an orphan, and has the courage, independence and spirit of one. Part guttersnipe, part duchess, she has the ability to attract strangers and warriors, and amasses a glorious band of defenders: witches, armoured bears, aeronauts.
8. Sophie, in The BFG by Roald Dahl.
Sophie is snatched from her orphanage window and launched on a world of frobscottle and snozzcumbers, giants and dreams. She is of the quietly sensible brand of orphan; resilient, quick-witted and kind, and the malaproping BFG is the most magnificent surrogate parent a child could hope for.
9. Peter, in Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie.
Peter Pan is not exactly an orphan – he leaves his parents, rather than vice versa – but he is bold and wild and alone. Anyone who knows only the Disney version must read the book, which is infinitely more madcap and dark than the animation. The last line is one of my favourites in literature: "When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter's mother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless."
10. The Fossil sisters, in Ballet shoes by Noel Streatfeild.
The world of Pauline, Petrova and Posy is warm and wise. Their concerns are domestic, but their souls are heroic and they recognise early on the enfranchising potential that is at the root of all orphan stories: "We three Fossils vow to try and put our names in history books because it's our very own and nobody can say it's because of our grandfathers." They go on to do exactly that.
------
Wikipedia even has a category (a whole stable) of pages of fictional orphans, including some in alphabetical order by first name, roughly from the Artful Dodger (Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist) to Violet Baudelaire (Lemony Snicket, A series of unfortunate events. And some pages in alphebetical order by family name, roughly from Frodo Baggins in 'you know what' to Voldemort in 'you know who'.
Although Wikipedia does cop out by including those who have only lost one parent, including, e.g. Principal Skinner from The Simpsons, whose mother, Agnes, is very much still alive. Ridiculous. It would be silly to think of Gru, with his nagging mother in the Despicable me franchise, as an orphan alongside Margo, Edith and Agnes. It also feels like they've listed most of the characters in A song of ice and fire as orphans, presumably on the grounds that their parents die in the course of the series. Hmm. But perhaps not childrens' material. (/soap box).
------
ETA the date.
Guardian, 2014-03-06.
"There are good reasons for the wealth of fantastic, gutsy orphans in children's literature. Parents, with their concern for safety and the law, are a dampener on adventure: orphans are allowed to make their own rules, fight their own battles and invent their own food. Orphans exert a gravitational pull on the world: they attract trouble and luck and magic. Without parents to protect you, enforce order and inflict grown-up priorities on a storyline, orphans are free to run wild and live large and daring lives.
"And orphans are walking possibilities: you might turn out to be lost prince, a Egyptian king, a wizard. My book Rooftoppers is thick with orphans and near-orphans, because the books I loved most as a child were the ones where children were free to act without reference to the dull concerns of the adult world."
1. Mowgli, in The jungle book by Rudyard Kipling.
Mowgli's parents are eaten by a tiger, and he is taken in by a family of wise and friendly wolves. Freed from restraints of civilisation, he is allowed to consort with haughty panthers and anxious bears. The Disney film is fantastic, but the book – which is earnest and witty by turns - is even better.
2. Cinderella.
Cinderella is the purest of orphan-transformation tales; her absolute misery makes her luck and glamour the greater. Certainly, shoe size as a method for selecting a life-partner seemed to me, as a child, peculiar, but the fairy godmother's artistic ingenuity and arbitrary deadlines make her one of the greatest benevolent despots in literature.
3. Cat Chant, in Charmed life by Diana Wynne Jones.
When Cat's parents die in a boating accident and he is sent to Chrestomanci castle with his ruthless sister Gwendolyn, where he discovers he is a powerful enchanter. This is a story about courage, wit and dressing gowns more than it is about orphans, but it is a spectacularly good book, and Harry Potter owes a great deal to its tone and scope.
4. Anne, in Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery.
Anne is an orphan hungry for love. In her quest for friendship and permanency, she does nothing by halves: "We must join hands, so. It ought to be over running water. We'll just imagine this path is running water. I'll repeat the oath first. I solemnly swear to be faithful to my bosom friend as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Now you say it and put my name in."
5. Alex Rider, in Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz.
Alex's orphan status means that there is nobody to tell him to be home for supper, to hold on tight or wash his face. Stories in which children take on traditionally adult jobs require dead or absent parents, and as a child spy, like Kim in Rudyard Kipling's novel 100 years before, Alex needs to be free of worrying mothers and fathers.
6. Harry, in Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling.
Harry is an orphan whose destiny is marked out visibly on his face. His parent's death give him impetus and passion; his inherited wealth gives him independence, his friends and protectors give him courage, and his hundreds of millions of readers give him a place in history.
7. Lyra, in His dark materials trilogy by Philip Pullman.
Lyra believes she is an orphan, and has the courage, independence and spirit of one. Part guttersnipe, part duchess, she has the ability to attract strangers and warriors, and amasses a glorious band of defenders: witches, armoured bears, aeronauts.
8. Sophie, in The BFG by Roald Dahl.
Sophie is snatched from her orphanage window and launched on a world of frobscottle and snozzcumbers, giants and dreams. She is of the quietly sensible brand of orphan; resilient, quick-witted and kind, and the malaproping BFG is the most magnificent surrogate parent a child could hope for.
9. Peter, in Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie.
Peter Pan is not exactly an orphan – he leaves his parents, rather than vice versa – but he is bold and wild and alone. Anyone who knows only the Disney version must read the book, which is infinitely more madcap and dark than the animation. The last line is one of my favourites in literature: "When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter's mother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless."
10. The Fossil sisters, in Ballet shoes by Noel Streatfeild.
The world of Pauline, Petrova and Posy is warm and wise. Their concerns are domestic, but their souls are heroic and they recognise early on the enfranchising potential that is at the root of all orphan stories: "We three Fossils vow to try and put our names in history books because it's our very own and nobody can say it's because of our grandfathers." They go on to do exactly that.
------
Wikipedia even has a category (a whole stable) of pages of fictional orphans, including some in alphabetical order by first name, roughly from the Artful Dodger (Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist) to Violet Baudelaire (Lemony Snicket, A series of unfortunate events. And some pages in alphebetical order by family name, roughly from Frodo Baggins in 'you know what' to Voldemort in 'you know who'.
Although Wikipedia does cop out by including those who have only lost one parent, including, e.g. Principal Skinner from The Simpsons, whose mother, Agnes, is very much still alive. Ridiculous. It would be silly to think of Gru, with his nagging mother in the Despicable me franchise, as an orphan alongside Margo, Edith and Agnes. It also feels like they've listed most of the characters in A song of ice and fire as orphans, presumably on the grounds that their parents die in the course of the series. Hmm. But perhaps not childrens' material. (/soap box).
------
ETA the date.
72Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Sian Cain's top 10 books to read now you've finished The Hunger Games.
Guardian, 2014-03-11.
(In 2024, Sian Cain is deputy culture editor for Guardian Australia, and just about the first author of one of these columns not to be on LT. It's always nice to have something new in the world).
"A dystopian future with a strong, female protagonist that manages to be both an action-packed romp and a thought piece on mass media and revolution. There is a lot to love about The Hunger Games! For all the readers who have finished The Hunger Games and want to move on to something equally thrilling, we volunteer this top 10 as tribute.
"In this list, we tried to avoid the obvious YA reads released in the recent surge of Hunger-Games-inspired publishing, to instead present a unique selection of cult favourites and classics. Try something new!"
1. Koushun Takami, Battle Royale.
In an alternate Japan, 42 children are sent to a deserted island to fight to the death as part of The Program, a military project to control the population with fear. There are no rules, except one person must die every 24 hours or everyone will be killed.
As a caution: this is a lot more gorey than The Hunger Games and we only recommend it to discerning readers with strong stomachs. For graphic novel fans, Battle Royale is also a manga series (which manages to be both pretty and exceptionally bloody – again, only for older young adults).
2. Michael Grant, Gone.
Everyone over the age of 15 suddenly disappears. No trace, no explanation. The children that remain are left to rebuild society and figure out just what happened to all the adults.
Gone is not strictly-dystopian fiction and it lacks a female protagonist like Katniss, but the series is so much fun and it moves like a film – not a bad thing for people who struggle to finish a book. Goneis guaranteed to tear anyone away from their PlayStation or Xbox. Yes, even you.
3. Jack Womack, Random acts of senseless violence.
A work of dystopian fiction that has only recently come back into print, Random acts of senseless violence has been a favourite of speculative fiction fans for yonks. Lola Hart is a 12-year-old girl living in a future New York and this book is her diary. As society breaks down, Lola transforms from a typical pre-teen into a murderous, street thief, driven by her desperation to survive in the chaos around her. With a female protagonist (tick!), clever use of writing style (tick tick!) and some heart-pounding scenes (tick tick tick!), this is a fantastic, mature read to follow The Hunger Games.
4. H. G. Wells, The sleeper awakes.
Graham falls asleep in 1897 and wakes up 200 years later. Not only has society and technology moved on without him, he is isolated by the ruling powers who have used him as a symbol to repress the masses. But the leader of the rebellion is just as power hungry as the ruling party and Graham finds himself trapped between two bad leaders and one unhappy population. While the language is classical, H. G. Wells's book is rollicking good yarn full of plane battles, futuristic technology and chases through the streets.
5. Ursula Le Guin, The lathe of Heaven.
While the book is set in 2002, that was a distant future when The Lathe of Heaven was written in 1971. George has dreams that change reality – when he wakes up, everyone lives in the new reality unknowingly but he alone remembers everything before. He begins to see a psychiatrist, who begins to use George for his own reasons. A bit more science-fiction than The Hunger Games but with the same vein of rebellion. And everyone loves Le Guin.
6. Lauren Oliver, Delirium.
Delirium is set in present-day America in an alternate universe. Love is treated as a disease by the totalitarian government, who call it amor deliria nervosa. Everyone receives a permanent cure at the age of 18, but just before her birthday, Lena falls in love with Alex, a man who refused the cure who lives in limbo outside the borders. Before they can escape, Lena is captured. We could also recommend Matched by Ally Condie, which deals with similar themes if you have already read Delirium.
7. Hugh Howey, Wool.
Humanity lives in the Silos, tunnels underneath the surface of the ravaged Earth. People live in fear of their leaders, with being sent to the surface and a painful death by gassing a common punishment for dissenters. Feeling properly miserable, Holston decides to go voluntarily to the surface and discovers the lie everyone believes to be true. Wool is a twisting trilogy that contains much more of the politics that the Hunger Games only touched upon.
8. Philip K. Dick, The penultimate truth.
Almost the classic version of Wool, humanity lives in underground tanks after the apparent destruction of the surface of the earth after World War Three. The people live in fear as the government keep them in check with tales of faceless enemies and nuclear waste above ground. But they are lying: the war ended ages ago and they are living in splendour in what was New York City. In typical Philip K. Dick fashion, The penultimate truth is full of big ideas about media, politics and the power of people.
9. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451.
The classic example of dystopian fiction, along with 1984 and Brave new world. Fahrenheit 451 is about a future America where books are outlawed and firemen are employed to destroy them. But fireman Guy has begun to take books home to keep ... A cautionary tale about censorship, government and the alluring emptiness of mass media. Like Katniss, Guy is a non-conformist who struggles with his individuality.
10. Veronica Roth, Divergent.
Finally: it may appear on every 'so-you-read-Hunger-Games' list, but it is for good reason. Divergent has a strong female protagonist in Tris, who is a rare 'divergent', someone who is equally suited to multiple factions in the city of Chicago. It is better to be in a faction than be factionless, so Tris joins one and undergoes initiation after initiation while remaining removed from the tricks and manipulation of the rest of her cohort due to her divergent status. Lots of action, lots of focus on training and fighting, it is a perfect series to follow on from The Hunger Games. And look, there is even a movie franchise coming too.
Guardian, 2014-03-11.
(In 2024, Sian Cain is deputy culture editor for Guardian Australia, and just about the first author of one of these columns not to be on LT. It's always nice to have something new in the world).
"A dystopian future with a strong, female protagonist that manages to be both an action-packed romp and a thought piece on mass media and revolution. There is a lot to love about The Hunger Games! For all the readers who have finished The Hunger Games and want to move on to something equally thrilling, we volunteer this top 10 as tribute.
"In this list, we tried to avoid the obvious YA reads released in the recent surge of Hunger-Games-inspired publishing, to instead present a unique selection of cult favourites and classics. Try something new!"
1. Koushun Takami, Battle Royale.
In an alternate Japan, 42 children are sent to a deserted island to fight to the death as part of The Program, a military project to control the population with fear. There are no rules, except one person must die every 24 hours or everyone will be killed.
As a caution: this is a lot more gorey than The Hunger Games and we only recommend it to discerning readers with strong stomachs. For graphic novel fans, Battle Royale is also a manga series (which manages to be both pretty and exceptionally bloody – again, only for older young adults).
2. Michael Grant, Gone.
Everyone over the age of 15 suddenly disappears. No trace, no explanation. The children that remain are left to rebuild society and figure out just what happened to all the adults.
Gone is not strictly-dystopian fiction and it lacks a female protagonist like Katniss, but the series is so much fun and it moves like a film – not a bad thing for people who struggle to finish a book. Goneis guaranteed to tear anyone away from their PlayStation or Xbox. Yes, even you.
3. Jack Womack, Random acts of senseless violence.
A work of dystopian fiction that has only recently come back into print, Random acts of senseless violence has been a favourite of speculative fiction fans for yonks. Lola Hart is a 12-year-old girl living in a future New York and this book is her diary. As society breaks down, Lola transforms from a typical pre-teen into a murderous, street thief, driven by her desperation to survive in the chaos around her. With a female protagonist (tick!), clever use of writing style (tick tick!) and some heart-pounding scenes (tick tick tick!), this is a fantastic, mature read to follow The Hunger Games.
4. H. G. Wells, The sleeper awakes.
Graham falls asleep in 1897 and wakes up 200 years later. Not only has society and technology moved on without him, he is isolated by the ruling powers who have used him as a symbol to repress the masses. But the leader of the rebellion is just as power hungry as the ruling party and Graham finds himself trapped between two bad leaders and one unhappy population. While the language is classical, H. G. Wells's book is rollicking good yarn full of plane battles, futuristic technology and chases through the streets.
5. Ursula Le Guin, The lathe of Heaven.
While the book is set in 2002, that was a distant future when The Lathe of Heaven was written in 1971. George has dreams that change reality – when he wakes up, everyone lives in the new reality unknowingly but he alone remembers everything before. He begins to see a psychiatrist, who begins to use George for his own reasons. A bit more science-fiction than The Hunger Games but with the same vein of rebellion. And everyone loves Le Guin.
6. Lauren Oliver, Delirium.
Delirium is set in present-day America in an alternate universe. Love is treated as a disease by the totalitarian government, who call it amor deliria nervosa. Everyone receives a permanent cure at the age of 18, but just before her birthday, Lena falls in love with Alex, a man who refused the cure who lives in limbo outside the borders. Before they can escape, Lena is captured. We could also recommend Matched by Ally Condie, which deals with similar themes if you have already read Delirium.
7. Hugh Howey, Wool.
Humanity lives in the Silos, tunnels underneath the surface of the ravaged Earth. People live in fear of their leaders, with being sent to the surface and a painful death by gassing a common punishment for dissenters. Feeling properly miserable, Holston decides to go voluntarily to the surface and discovers the lie everyone believes to be true. Wool is a twisting trilogy that contains much more of the politics that the Hunger Games only touched upon.
8. Philip K. Dick, The penultimate truth.
Almost the classic version of Wool, humanity lives in underground tanks after the apparent destruction of the surface of the earth after World War Three. The people live in fear as the government keep them in check with tales of faceless enemies and nuclear waste above ground. But they are lying: the war ended ages ago and they are living in splendour in what was New York City. In typical Philip K. Dick fashion, The penultimate truth is full of big ideas about media, politics and the power of people.
9. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451.
The classic example of dystopian fiction, along with 1984 and Brave new world. Fahrenheit 451 is about a future America where books are outlawed and firemen are employed to destroy them. But fireman Guy has begun to take books home to keep ... A cautionary tale about censorship, government and the alluring emptiness of mass media. Like Katniss, Guy is a non-conformist who struggles with his individuality.
10. Veronica Roth, Divergent.
Finally: it may appear on every 'so-you-read-Hunger-Games' list, but it is for good reason. Divergent has a strong female protagonist in Tris, who is a rare 'divergent', someone who is equally suited to multiple factions in the city of Chicago. It is better to be in a faction than be factionless, so Tris joins one and undergoes initiation after initiation while remaining removed from the tricks and manipulation of the rest of her cohort due to her divergent status. Lots of action, lots of focus on training and fighting, it is a perfect series to follow on from The Hunger Games. And look, there is even a movie franchise coming too.
73Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / David Mackintosh's top 10 illustration and design tips.
Guardian, 2014-03-11.
David Macintosh is rather a busy bee. Not only is he the author of Marshall Armstrong is new to our school, The Frank Show and his latest book Standing in for Lincoln Green, he is also a renowned illustrator and designer and the man behind the design of Lauren Child's books including Clarice Bean and Charlie and Lola.
Here he shares a great selection of top tips for budding illustrators and designers of all ages.
Tip 1 – How to keep ideas:
If I think of something for a book, I'll write it in a notebook. It could be a title I like, or something I overheard on the tube or just an idea that I can build a story around. Often I just carry a story about in my head for ages, working on it in there until I sit down at the laptop or with a pencil to get it going. I find it quicker to play with the ideas using a pencil on paper, than typing on my laptop (see Tip 3).
Tip 2 – Page size:
What size should the book be? Would it be better portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal)? Or square? I go to a book store or library and see what books look good. If I see something I like I'll measure it. You don't need an airtight reason for liking it, it might just feel right for your story. But it is very important because it will effect the size and shape of your illustrations.
Tip 3 – Storyboard it:
Before you start your artwork, you need to plan things a bit. How will the story work as a physical book? A standard picture book is 32 pages long, so you need to decide where the words will fall throughout the book. I plan the book out, spread by spread, on a big sheet of layout paper. I break the text up where I see good breaks in the story line, and my picture ideas influence where the breaks sit too. It's not as easy as it sounds, but you have to start somewhere. I scribble in ideas of the pictures on these little spreads as I go along. Doing it this way is like taking a bird's eye view of your book and it's a great way of seeing at a glance how the story and illustrations develop across all the pages.
Tip 4 – Make a mini dummy:
It's very useful to see the storyboard in three dimensions. You get a real feel for how the pages turn when you're reading your book and if the breaks you've made are good for the delivery of the story.
At a later stage, I make a dummy at the real size of the book to get a better feel of the end product. It doesn't take long and it's extremely useful when you're pitching it to your publisher too.
Tip 5 – Turn up the contrast:
A busy page with a lot of words on it followed by a page with a tiny ant on it and no words can be very dramatic. Contrast makes things interesting and avoids it being repetitive. Also, a page without text can really create atmosphere. It places all the emphasis upon the picture and the reader is on their own with the information they're getting from that picture. It's very effective and can be used to alter rhythm and pace in the story in different ways. A bit like music in a film.
Tip 6 – Fail and then fail better:
Your first idea isn't always the best idea. The best way I know of deciding what works is to find out what doesn't work. I do many drawings of a composition to see what's not going to work. I then convince myself which is the best of my ideas through the process of comparison.
Tip 7 – Big type:
I like the look of big type especially in contrast to smaller shapes. Letter forms are interesting and graphically pleasing to me, and in obvious ways you can use them to show emphasis in dialogue or scale. I have always admired books with big type. It's useful for when there is a character who has a loud voice or is very small.
Tip 8 – The text and illustrations work hand in hand:
You don't want your pictures working against your words. As your book develops, the picture ideas will influence what you've written, so don't be afraid to make changes. A picture may say something better than the words you've written, so you may find yourself deleting some of the words (if you're illustrating another author's words, it's not always as simple as this!). There's no point repeating in pictures what is already written in the words. Good illustrations extend and enhance the words, not just repeat them.
Tip 9 – Pin it up:
I always blow-up my storyboard and pin it to the wall near where i work so that I can quickly refer to it.
Tip 10 – These are tips, not rules:
Everyone works differently. Some of my books begin with a storyboard then the text is written around the pictures and sometimes I write the story first. But I can never not be thinking of the pictures when I'm writing words and vice versa. It just doesn't happen. I'm also thinking about the type of paper, and the typeface (font) and layout I think will work simultaneously. As a picture book author, I present my ideas to the publisher as a dummy book, words and pictures together, like a book. So, nobody sees the words separately to my picture ideas which is how I want it. It's only a picture book when the words are involved with the pictures.
So see what works best for you.
Guardian, 2014-03-11.
David Macintosh is rather a busy bee. Not only is he the author of Marshall Armstrong is new to our school, The Frank Show and his latest book Standing in for Lincoln Green, he is also a renowned illustrator and designer and the man behind the design of Lauren Child's books including Clarice Bean and Charlie and Lola.
Here he shares a great selection of top tips for budding illustrators and designers of all ages.
Tip 1 – How to keep ideas:
If I think of something for a book, I'll write it in a notebook. It could be a title I like, or something I overheard on the tube or just an idea that I can build a story around. Often I just carry a story about in my head for ages, working on it in there until I sit down at the laptop or with a pencil to get it going. I find it quicker to play with the ideas using a pencil on paper, than typing on my laptop (see Tip 3).
Tip 2 – Page size:
What size should the book be? Would it be better portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal)? Or square? I go to a book store or library and see what books look good. If I see something I like I'll measure it. You don't need an airtight reason for liking it, it might just feel right for your story. But it is very important because it will effect the size and shape of your illustrations.
Tip 3 – Storyboard it:
Before you start your artwork, you need to plan things a bit. How will the story work as a physical book? A standard picture book is 32 pages long, so you need to decide where the words will fall throughout the book. I plan the book out, spread by spread, on a big sheet of layout paper. I break the text up where I see good breaks in the story line, and my picture ideas influence where the breaks sit too. It's not as easy as it sounds, but you have to start somewhere. I scribble in ideas of the pictures on these little spreads as I go along. Doing it this way is like taking a bird's eye view of your book and it's a great way of seeing at a glance how the story and illustrations develop across all the pages.
Tip 4 – Make a mini dummy:
It's very useful to see the storyboard in three dimensions. You get a real feel for how the pages turn when you're reading your book and if the breaks you've made are good for the delivery of the story.
At a later stage, I make a dummy at the real size of the book to get a better feel of the end product. It doesn't take long and it's extremely useful when you're pitching it to your publisher too.
Tip 5 – Turn up the contrast:
A busy page with a lot of words on it followed by a page with a tiny ant on it and no words can be very dramatic. Contrast makes things interesting and avoids it being repetitive. Also, a page without text can really create atmosphere. It places all the emphasis upon the picture and the reader is on their own with the information they're getting from that picture. It's very effective and can be used to alter rhythm and pace in the story in different ways. A bit like music in a film.
Tip 6 – Fail and then fail better:
Your first idea isn't always the best idea. The best way I know of deciding what works is to find out what doesn't work. I do many drawings of a composition to see what's not going to work. I then convince myself which is the best of my ideas through the process of comparison.
Tip 7 – Big type:
I like the look of big type especially in contrast to smaller shapes. Letter forms are interesting and graphically pleasing to me, and in obvious ways you can use them to show emphasis in dialogue or scale. I have always admired books with big type. It's useful for when there is a character who has a loud voice or is very small.
Tip 8 – The text and illustrations work hand in hand:
You don't want your pictures working against your words. As your book develops, the picture ideas will influence what you've written, so don't be afraid to make changes. A picture may say something better than the words you've written, so you may find yourself deleting some of the words (if you're illustrating another author's words, it's not always as simple as this!). There's no point repeating in pictures what is already written in the words. Good illustrations extend and enhance the words, not just repeat them.
Tip 9 – Pin it up:
I always blow-up my storyboard and pin it to the wall near where i work so that I can quickly refer to it.
Tip 10 – These are tips, not rules:
Everyone works differently. Some of my books begin with a storyboard then the text is written around the pictures and sometimes I write the story first. But I can never not be thinking of the pictures when I'm writing words and vice versa. It just doesn't happen. I'm also thinking about the type of paper, and the typeface (font) and layout I think will work simultaneously. As a picture book author, I present my ideas to the publisher as a dummy book, words and pictures together, like a book. So, nobody sees the words separately to my picture ideas which is how I want it. It's only a picture book when the words are involved with the pictures.
So see what works best for you.
74Cynfelyn
Stephen May's top 10 impostors in fiction.
Guardian, 2014-03-12.
"Fakers, phonies and frauds: tragically these can be some of the most dazzling, most beguiling – and most fun – people you can meet. And what is true for life goes double for fiction.
"Writing my latest book which is partly about identity theft I realised I was part of a long literary tradition. Not that my hapless impostor really comes close to matching some of these rogues."
1. L. Frank Baum, The wonderful wizard of Oz.
As everyone surely knows, the Wizard of this story actually turns out to be an ordinary old man, blown to Oz from Omaha in a balloon. Oz is a fable about the importance of self-belief, but also a commentary on how much power rests on simple tricks. Oz tells us that charisma is not necessarily an innate quality restricted to a few exceptional individuals, but is a gift from ordinary people eager to have a hero to worship. In this case the wizard is a reluctant impostor – he doesn't want to be all-powerful, he just wants to return home and work in a circus. Don't we all?
2. Donald E. Westlake, Two much.
Art Dodge invents a twin brother so he can date two different women. It works pretty well until he gets confused, and one of the women thinks her boyfriend's brother has made a pass at her. She insists her boyfriend – Bart – confront his sleazy bro and wants to be there when he does. It's a problem. Of course it's no surprise that Art's losing the plot because he is also trying to stay one step ahead of some mobsters he has mortally offended. Writer Westlake was no stranger to false identities himself having published books under at least 16 names.
3. Eric Garcia, Matchstick men.
Roy and Frankie are matchstick men – con artists. Partners in elegant crimes for years, they know each other like brothers. Frankie is the adventurous one, hungry for a big score. While Roy is the careful one. But it is also cautious Roy who has to deal with discovering he has a spiky teenage daughter who wants to learn the grifting ropes. There are, disappointingly for British readers, no references to either the painter L. S. Lowry or the classic 1970s pop hit of the same title.
4. Anne Fine, Madame Doubtfire.
A messy divorce results in successful businesswoman Miranda Hilliard severely restricting the amount of time her three children can spend with their father, Daniel, an out-of-work actor. Daniel doesn't opt for any Fathers4Justice style stunts, but instead transforms himself into Madame Doubtfire, the nanny hired by his wife to look after the kids. It ends as you would expect, with the parents reconciling and the whole thing becoming a Hollywood vehicle for Robin Williams. A rare example of a fictional impostor who is also an example of humanity's basic decency.
5. Fay Weldon, The life and loves of a she-devil.
Labelled a "she-devil" by her faithless husband, Bobbo, Ruth resolves to behave accordingly. Disappearing from his life so completely that Bobbo thinks she's dead. Ruth is actually using a string of aliases to ruin his life and that of his mistress, the nauseatingly fragrant Mary Fisher. The increasingly extreme acts of vengeance climax in Ruth living in her Mary's mansion, having had plastic surgery to look exactly like her now dead rival. She is looking forward to Bobbo's release from the jail term she engineered for him, but only so she can make his life so miserable that prison seems like a golden age. Ruth is brutal and implacable. In a good way.
6. Alexandre Dumas, The Count Of Monte Cristo.
The novel that tells us "All human wisdom is contained in these two words: wait and hope." Which seems about right. Edmond Dante is wrongly imprisoned, but escapes from jail and acquires a fortune. Creating the new identity of the Count of Monte Cristo, he dedicates his life to taking imaginative vengeance on his enemies, who learn his true identity at the moment the revenge is completed. As well as becoming the Count, our hero takes on at least eight other aliases during the course of the novel, including Sinbad the Sailor and, less believably, an English milord.
7. Alexandre Dumas, The man in the iron mask.
In this fantastically complicated Three musketeers novel the man in the mask is Phillipe, the twin brother of the French King Louis XIV. Musketeer Aramis plots to swap the royal brothers, putting the twin on the throne as part of a long game which is intended to ensure that the new king will help his own rise to becoming cardinal and, eventually, Pope. Becoming Pope – surely what every self-respecting impostor should aspire to.
8. Geoffrey Chaucer, The pardoner's tale.
Possibly my favourite story ever. The essence of all crime fiction is contained in this story. Three men find some serious treasure. One goes to get celebratory hooch but is murdered by the others on his return. Unfortunately for his treacherous compadres he has poisoned the booze. A very effective parable about the dangerous effects of sudden wealth and one that should be read to all lottery winners. Its power is in no way diminished by being told by a clergyman who is also a fornicating drunkard offering sinners absolution for cash.
9. Patricia Highsmith, The talented Mr Ripley.
The first of a series of novels collectively known by admirers as The Ripliad, the books follow Tom Ripley a young man who murders a rich acquaintance, Dickie Greenleaf, and then assumes his identity. Unusually, the killer goes unpunished – rewarded even. This story ends with Ripley happily rich, having reverted to his own identity as the beneficiary of Dickie's will. There is a suggestion that he will be haunted by paranoia for the rest of his life, wondering if he "was going to see policemen on every pier". But you suspect he might be able to live with that.
10. George Macdonald Fraser, Flashman.
Introduced by Thomas Hughes in his 1840 novel Tom Brown's schooldays as a bully and a coward, the Harry Flashman character was revived by George Macdonald Fraser in the 1960s as – well, as a bully and a coward. Not to mention an incorrigible womaniser. However, Macdonald Fraser's adult Flashman is also able to portray himself as a hero of Victorian wars from Afghanistan to the Boxer Rebellion. Narrated with candid verve by Flashman himself, each rollicking adventure ends with our anti-hero more famous, more bemedalled and more attractive to society women than ever before. The stories are great but the real enjoyment of these books comes from the footnotes which offer a powerful insight into British colonial foolishness.
------
Half a dozen BTL comments and recommendations:
Herman Melville, The confidence man.
"No Walter White from Breaking bad pretending to be good and nice guy when a Meth producer?" // "Stephen May unmasks literature's most compelling pretenders" // "I feel there is lot from the novel Ripley's game in Breaking bad. In particular, there is a film adaptation of the novel by Wim Wenders called The American friend. Dennis Hopper as Ripley recruits mild mannered picture framer Bruno Ganz, who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, to carry out a mafia hit job to leave enough money for his family. And it all gets horribly out of control and ends up in a mob turf war." // "Wonderful though Breaking bad is, it's not a book, which is presumably why Walter's not mentioned. Also, his invention of the Heisenberg persona to carry out his bad deeds owes a lot to Brecht's The good person of Szechwan." // "But am I right in thinking in the book he didn't actually have a terminal illness, that was one of Ripley's mind games/scams? There's also another version with John Malkovich as Ripley, I think, and Dougray Scott is his "terminally ill" hit man who wants the cash, as you say, for his family. I've The American friend on my Sky+, must watch it. Damn now I want to go and read Patricia Highsmith's entire oeuvre, and last I checked they weren't available on Kindle so no instant literary gratification for me ..."
"Robert Wringham in The private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner. Best imposter ever ... or is he?"
"Surely Charles Kinbote should be on this list (if not at the top), the madman-narrator at the heart of Nabakov's Pale fire, the very essence and spirit of the impostor in literature and as narrative role-player." // "But then you might start to consider the role of Botkin and end up with a sore head." / "You could have the whole ten made up of Nabokov novels - hardly any in which there isn't imposture and doubling of some sort. Pale fire at number one though, certainly."
"Ronald (or is it Rupert?) Eustace Psmith masquerading as Ralston McTodd in Leave it to Psmith. Almost any Blandings Castle novel, surely. Blandings has impostors, after all, the way other places have mice." // "Wodehouse more generally, with Piccadilly Jim an especially good one when it comes to impersonation - the hero has to pretend to be himself (it's not quite as complicated as it sounds, but still pretty ingenious)." // " 'Blandings has impostors, after all, the way other places have mice'. Exactly. I'd suggest The Earl of Ickenham in Uncle Fred in the springtime is up there with Psmith's Ralston McTodd."
"I guess Frank Abagnale doesn't count because he's a real person?"
Guardian, 2014-03-12.
"Fakers, phonies and frauds: tragically these can be some of the most dazzling, most beguiling – and most fun – people you can meet. And what is true for life goes double for fiction.
"Writing my latest book which is partly about identity theft I realised I was part of a long literary tradition. Not that my hapless impostor really comes close to matching some of these rogues."
1. L. Frank Baum, The wonderful wizard of Oz.
As everyone surely knows, the Wizard of this story actually turns out to be an ordinary old man, blown to Oz from Omaha in a balloon. Oz is a fable about the importance of self-belief, but also a commentary on how much power rests on simple tricks. Oz tells us that charisma is not necessarily an innate quality restricted to a few exceptional individuals, but is a gift from ordinary people eager to have a hero to worship. In this case the wizard is a reluctant impostor – he doesn't want to be all-powerful, he just wants to return home and work in a circus. Don't we all?
2. Donald E. Westlake, Two much.
Art Dodge invents a twin brother so he can date two different women. It works pretty well until he gets confused, and one of the women thinks her boyfriend's brother has made a pass at her. She insists her boyfriend – Bart – confront his sleazy bro and wants to be there when he does. It's a problem. Of course it's no surprise that Art's losing the plot because he is also trying to stay one step ahead of some mobsters he has mortally offended. Writer Westlake was no stranger to false identities himself having published books under at least 16 names.
3. Eric Garcia, Matchstick men.
Roy and Frankie are matchstick men – con artists. Partners in elegant crimes for years, they know each other like brothers. Frankie is the adventurous one, hungry for a big score. While Roy is the careful one. But it is also cautious Roy who has to deal with discovering he has a spiky teenage daughter who wants to learn the grifting ropes. There are, disappointingly for British readers, no references to either the painter L. S. Lowry or the classic 1970s pop hit of the same title.
4. Anne Fine, Madame Doubtfire.
A messy divorce results in successful businesswoman Miranda Hilliard severely restricting the amount of time her three children can spend with their father, Daniel, an out-of-work actor. Daniel doesn't opt for any Fathers4Justice style stunts, but instead transforms himself into Madame Doubtfire, the nanny hired by his wife to look after the kids. It ends as you would expect, with the parents reconciling and the whole thing becoming a Hollywood vehicle for Robin Williams. A rare example of a fictional impostor who is also an example of humanity's basic decency.
5. Fay Weldon, The life and loves of a she-devil.
Labelled a "she-devil" by her faithless husband, Bobbo, Ruth resolves to behave accordingly. Disappearing from his life so completely that Bobbo thinks she's dead. Ruth is actually using a string of aliases to ruin his life and that of his mistress, the nauseatingly fragrant Mary Fisher. The increasingly extreme acts of vengeance climax in Ruth living in her Mary's mansion, having had plastic surgery to look exactly like her now dead rival. She is looking forward to Bobbo's release from the jail term she engineered for him, but only so she can make his life so miserable that prison seems like a golden age. Ruth is brutal and implacable. In a good way.
6. Alexandre Dumas, The Count Of Monte Cristo.
The novel that tells us "All human wisdom is contained in these two words: wait and hope." Which seems about right. Edmond Dante is wrongly imprisoned, but escapes from jail and acquires a fortune. Creating the new identity of the Count of Monte Cristo, he dedicates his life to taking imaginative vengeance on his enemies, who learn his true identity at the moment the revenge is completed. As well as becoming the Count, our hero takes on at least eight other aliases during the course of the novel, including Sinbad the Sailor and, less believably, an English milord.
7. Alexandre Dumas, The man in the iron mask.
In this fantastically complicated Three musketeers novel the man in the mask is Phillipe, the twin brother of the French King Louis XIV. Musketeer Aramis plots to swap the royal brothers, putting the twin on the throne as part of a long game which is intended to ensure that the new king will help his own rise to becoming cardinal and, eventually, Pope. Becoming Pope – surely what every self-respecting impostor should aspire to.
8. Geoffrey Chaucer, The pardoner's tale.
Possibly my favourite story ever. The essence of all crime fiction is contained in this story. Three men find some serious treasure. One goes to get celebratory hooch but is murdered by the others on his return. Unfortunately for his treacherous compadres he has poisoned the booze. A very effective parable about the dangerous effects of sudden wealth and one that should be read to all lottery winners. Its power is in no way diminished by being told by a clergyman who is also a fornicating drunkard offering sinners absolution for cash.
9. Patricia Highsmith, The talented Mr Ripley.
The first of a series of novels collectively known by admirers as The Ripliad, the books follow Tom Ripley a young man who murders a rich acquaintance, Dickie Greenleaf, and then assumes his identity. Unusually, the killer goes unpunished – rewarded even. This story ends with Ripley happily rich, having reverted to his own identity as the beneficiary of Dickie's will. There is a suggestion that he will be haunted by paranoia for the rest of his life, wondering if he "was going to see policemen on every pier". But you suspect he might be able to live with that.
10. George Macdonald Fraser, Flashman.
Introduced by Thomas Hughes in his 1840 novel Tom Brown's schooldays as a bully and a coward, the Harry Flashman character was revived by George Macdonald Fraser in the 1960s as – well, as a bully and a coward. Not to mention an incorrigible womaniser. However, Macdonald Fraser's adult Flashman is also able to portray himself as a hero of Victorian wars from Afghanistan to the Boxer Rebellion. Narrated with candid verve by Flashman himself, each rollicking adventure ends with our anti-hero more famous, more bemedalled and more attractive to society women than ever before. The stories are great but the real enjoyment of these books comes from the footnotes which offer a powerful insight into British colonial foolishness.
------
Half a dozen BTL comments and recommendations:
Herman Melville, The confidence man.
"No Walter White from Breaking bad pretending to be good and nice guy when a Meth producer?" // "Stephen May unmasks literature's most compelling pretenders" // "I feel there is lot from the novel Ripley's game in Breaking bad. In particular, there is a film adaptation of the novel by Wim Wenders called The American friend. Dennis Hopper as Ripley recruits mild mannered picture framer Bruno Ganz, who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, to carry out a mafia hit job to leave enough money for his family. And it all gets horribly out of control and ends up in a mob turf war." // "Wonderful though Breaking bad is, it's not a book, which is presumably why Walter's not mentioned. Also, his invention of the Heisenberg persona to carry out his bad deeds owes a lot to Brecht's The good person of Szechwan." // "But am I right in thinking in the book he didn't actually have a terminal illness, that was one of Ripley's mind games/scams? There's also another version with John Malkovich as Ripley, I think, and Dougray Scott is his "terminally ill" hit man who wants the cash, as you say, for his family. I've The American friend on my Sky+, must watch it. Damn now I want to go and read Patricia Highsmith's entire oeuvre, and last I checked they weren't available on Kindle so no instant literary gratification for me ..."
"Robert Wringham in The private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner. Best imposter ever ... or is he?"
"Surely Charles Kinbote should be on this list (if not at the top), the madman-narrator at the heart of Nabakov's Pale fire, the very essence and spirit of the impostor in literature and as narrative role-player." // "But then you might start to consider the role of Botkin and end up with a sore head." / "You could have the whole ten made up of Nabokov novels - hardly any in which there isn't imposture and doubling of some sort. Pale fire at number one though, certainly."
"Ronald (or is it Rupert?) Eustace Psmith masquerading as Ralston McTodd in Leave it to Psmith. Almost any Blandings Castle novel, surely. Blandings has impostors, after all, the way other places have mice." // "Wodehouse more generally, with Piccadilly Jim an especially good one when it comes to impersonation - the hero has to pretend to be himself (it's not quite as complicated as it sounds, but still pretty ingenious)." // " 'Blandings has impostors, after all, the way other places have mice'. Exactly. I'd suggest The Earl of Ickenham in Uncle Fred in the springtime is up there with Psmith's Ralston McTodd."
"I guess Frank Abagnale doesn't count because he's a real person?"
75Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Piet Grobler's top 10 multicultural books.
Guardian.
South African-born illustrator of The magic bojabi tree and Fussy Freya shares ten of the best picture books which aim for a more inclusive world.
"Many lovely picture books celebrate cultural diversity by retelling or reinterpreting myths and folk tales. This list of 10 focuses more on picture books that are consciously proclaiming that all cultures in our world deserve respect, that no cultures are inferior to others and that multiculturalism enriches our lives.
"Since nobody (especially not a child!) appreciates being preached at, the books with subdued and hidden messages are often the most successful ones. I hope you enjoy my list."
1. Shaun Tan, The arrival.
This "silent" or wordless book – crossover between graphic novel and picture book – will, without doubt, become a classic. It is a sensitive story about the fears, but also joys of immigrants in an alien and strange new land. Priceless. Tan was a previous winner of the Astrid Lindgren memorial award, the biggest international picture book prize.
2. Armin Greder, The island.
The illustrations in this picture book are hauntingly beautiful but also fairly upsetting. The island tells the tale of a xenophobic island community whose fear of the "other" (those who are different from "us") turns them into intolerant and spiteful people whose hateful deeds lead to a terrible crime and also to more isolation.
3. David McKee, Tusk tusk.
The white elephants and the black elephants in a forest do not get along… prejudice and discrimination seems to be part of their make-up! McKee's tells and illustrates in his unique, humorous way how intolerance could easily turn into violent behaviour.
4. Peter Sis, The wall : growing up behind the iron curtain.
The American Peter Sis, an immigrant from the Czech Republic, tells the story of his childhood in a communist country and his discovering of Western culture, and how it was rather much more fun than dangerous or subversive!
5. Pub. in assoc. with Amnesty International, We are all born free : the declaration of human rights in pictures.
The rights of all humans – based on freedom, peace and justice – are explained to children in this picture book, illustrated by leading international picture book illustrators.
6. Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw, Same, same but different.
Two pen friends; one boy from the USA and the other from India, discover how their worlds, though very different, are also so similar because of the many human characteristics they share. The Illustrations are happy and vibrant and never revert to the didactic.
7. Alix Barzelay (illus. Valerio Vidali & Jennifer Uman), Jemmy Button.
This story of a boy taken from his jungle community into "civilisation" in the 1800s has been illustrated beautifully by two illustrators. The text never gives away too much and requires the reader's engagement.
8. Deborah Wiles (illus. Jerome Lagarrigue), Freedom summer.
This beautifully illustrated and multi-award winning book is set in the Deep South of the USA in 1964; a grim reminder of societies that did not often appreciate sharing with people from other cultures.
9. Sally M. Walker (illus. Sean Qualls), Freedom song.
The story about an American slave boy who hid in a box to get to the North has been told in more picture books, but the illustrations of Sean Qualls convince me that this one has to be the favourite.
10. Niki Daly, Not so fast, Songololo.
As a South-African who grew up in South Africa during the Apartheid era, I have to include this iconic book. This was the first South African picture book (in 1987) to feature black main characters in a book aimed at a predominantly white readership. In sensitive watercolours, Daly tells the story of a little boy who accompanies his grandma to the city, where she buys him a new pair of sneakers. Beautiful.
Guardian.
South African-born illustrator of The magic bojabi tree and Fussy Freya shares ten of the best picture books which aim for a more inclusive world.
"Many lovely picture books celebrate cultural diversity by retelling or reinterpreting myths and folk tales. This list of 10 focuses more on picture books that are consciously proclaiming that all cultures in our world deserve respect, that no cultures are inferior to others and that multiculturalism enriches our lives.
"Since nobody (especially not a child!) appreciates being preached at, the books with subdued and hidden messages are often the most successful ones. I hope you enjoy my list."
1. Shaun Tan, The arrival.
This "silent" or wordless book – crossover between graphic novel and picture book – will, without doubt, become a classic. It is a sensitive story about the fears, but also joys of immigrants in an alien and strange new land. Priceless. Tan was a previous winner of the Astrid Lindgren memorial award, the biggest international picture book prize.
2. Armin Greder, The island.
The illustrations in this picture book are hauntingly beautiful but also fairly upsetting. The island tells the tale of a xenophobic island community whose fear of the "other" (those who are different from "us") turns them into intolerant and spiteful people whose hateful deeds lead to a terrible crime and also to more isolation.
3. David McKee, Tusk tusk.
The white elephants and the black elephants in a forest do not get along… prejudice and discrimination seems to be part of their make-up! McKee's tells and illustrates in his unique, humorous way how intolerance could easily turn into violent behaviour.
4. Peter Sis, The wall : growing up behind the iron curtain.
The American Peter Sis, an immigrant from the Czech Republic, tells the story of his childhood in a communist country and his discovering of Western culture, and how it was rather much more fun than dangerous or subversive!
5. Pub. in assoc. with Amnesty International, We are all born free : the declaration of human rights in pictures.
The rights of all humans – based on freedom, peace and justice – are explained to children in this picture book, illustrated by leading international picture book illustrators.
6. Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw, Same, same but different.
Two pen friends; one boy from the USA and the other from India, discover how their worlds, though very different, are also so similar because of the many human characteristics they share. The Illustrations are happy and vibrant and never revert to the didactic.
7. Alix Barzelay (illus. Valerio Vidali & Jennifer Uman), Jemmy Button.
This story of a boy taken from his jungle community into "civilisation" in the 1800s has been illustrated beautifully by two illustrators. The text never gives away too much and requires the reader's engagement.
8. Deborah Wiles (illus. Jerome Lagarrigue), Freedom summer.
This beautifully illustrated and multi-award winning book is set in the Deep South of the USA in 1964; a grim reminder of societies that did not often appreciate sharing with people from other cultures.
9. Sally M. Walker (illus. Sean Qualls), Freedom song.
The story about an American slave boy who hid in a box to get to the North has been told in more picture books, but the illustrations of Sean Qualls convince me that this one has to be the favourite.
10. Niki Daly, Not so fast, Songololo.
As a South-African who grew up in South Africa during the Apartheid era, I have to include this iconic book. This was the first South African picture book (in 1987) to feature black main characters in a book aimed at a predominantly white readership. In sensitive watercolours, Daly tells the story of a little boy who accompanies his grandma to the city, where she buys him a new pair of sneakers. Beautiful.
76Cynfelyn
Peter Fröberg Idling's top 10 books about Cambodia
Guardian, 2014-03-19.
"One of my very first memories was the public celebration in Stockholm of the 'liberation' of Cambodia in 1975. I was two years old and had been born into the anti-Vietnam war movement. I was seven when Pol Pot was toppled a few years later, and the ghastly images of the killing fields made a strong impression on me. But it was not until I moved to Cambodia in 2001 that the country turned into something of an obsession. To me this intriguing little kingdom became a way to understand the world: through the Cambodian lens many things became clearer.
"My first book about Cambodia, Pol Pot's smile, deals with the Khmer Rouge's devastating revolution and follows in the tracks of a Swedish delegation who travelled through the genocide without seeing anything alarming. My new book, Song for an approaching storm, is set in the 50s, two decades before the catastrophe. The two have enabled me to spend years in Cambodia, both in the past and the present.
"One might look at my following selection and ask where the contemporary Cambodian novels are. The answer, sadly, is that the authors in Cambodia are marginalised and struggling – there aren't even any publishing houses. Very little of their work is translated into English. Thus, there are many foreign authors in the following list. But good literature knows no nationality or borders."
1. Vann Nath, A Cambodian prison portrait.
There are many myths about the Khmer Rouge's bloodthirstiness and brutality, but there was at least one place where they all were real: Security Prison 21, the secret police's killing machine. Of the 14,000 or so prisoners who were brought there for questioning, only a handful survived. One of them were the artist Vann Nath (1946-2011). In this thin little book, he describes his horrifying year behind the barbed wired walls of S-21. I had the privilege to meet him a couple of times and to me he was a man of very rare moral dignity; he resembled a Cambodian Nelson Mandela. He pitied his torturers as fellow humans, without forgiving them their deeds. This book ranks among the most important and strongest witness-stories of world literature.
2. Marguerite Duras, The sea wall.
Marguerite Duras's breakthrough novel was published in 1950 and most of the elements that would become the base for her masterpiece, The lover, more than 30 years later are already there. A fatherless French teenager, living in great poverty at a small plantation in rural Cambodia, gets involved with a much older but wealthy Chinese businessman. Age, race and class make them an impossible couple. Her mother and brother cynically tries to wring a few piastres out of the indecent affair. Less romantic and more sleazy than The lover, but equally good.
3. Nic Dunlop, The lost executioner.
The head of S-21, Kang Kek Iew, AKA Comrade Duch, is central in this remarkable book. In 1997, the photographer and journalist Nic Dunlop more or less stumbled upon Duch, who had been hiding since the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Duch is a paradoxal figure: with a poor peasant background, he graduated as the second best student in the country. He got drawn into the Khmer Rouge and rose through the ranks. After the fall of the regime, he became a born again Christian. Dunlop's book is empathic, intelligent and a real page-turner. The monster becomes a man.
4. Helen Grant Ross & Darryl Leon Collings, Building Cambodia.
In the romantic picture of the old French Indochina, there are beautifully faded colonial buildings. But in Cambodia, it is actually the structures from the following decades that are the most fascinating. Blending traditional architecture with European modernism, the then young Cambodian architects, led by the maestro Vann Molyvann, created a fascinating school, like a Cambodian Bauhaus. This short-lived movement's legacy is now being destroyed by short-sighted capitalism. But the story is well told in this book, awash with beautiful photographs.
5. Philip Short, Pol Pot : anatomy of a nightmare.
In David Chandler's excellent biography Brother Number One from 1993, the author has an eerie feeling of being watched by the elusive and smiling dictator while he is writing the book. A decade later, Philip Short manages to drag Pol Pot out of the shadows. Where the earlier biographer had a more academic approach, Short's book reads almost like a thriller at times. The research he has put into the book is in itself mindblowing, and the result constitutes a large and important step towards understanding the Cambodian tragedy.
6. Norman Lewis, A dragon apparent.
This modern classic was once a beautiful account of a distant place: French Indochina in its twilight. Now it is also the story of a lost world. Norman Lewis traveled through Saigon to Phnom Penh, and then via Angkor Wat on to Laos. Every person Lewis meets – monks, farmers, royalty, colonialists – become important in his or her own right; the writer's keen eye for telling detail puts the reader right beside him.
7. Milton Osborne, Phnom Penh.
It's easy to be seduced by Phnom Penh, but also to be exhausted, as it's overwhelming in so many ways. It is therefore most helpful to read Milton Osborne's personal and interesting cultural and literary history of this fairly new capital (permanent since 1866). Osborne arrived in 1959 and the city has since been a continuing part of his life. His book will make the bustling city more comprehensible – though it remains as overwhelming as ever.
8. Kong Chhean, Cambodian folk stories from the Gatiloke.
A handful of the 112 folk stories in the Gatiloke, which was used by Cambodian monks to teach their faith and committed to paper in the late 19th century. One shouldn't make too much of this mix of fables, fairytales and moral lessons, but they offer an interesting insight into some traditional Cambodian beliefs. Some of them have slapstick qualities; others draw moral conclusions that are surprising to a western reader.
9. Henri Locard, Pol Pot's little red book.
This is an intriguing little book for the interested reader who has already one or two more general titles about the Khmer Rouge under his belt. Henri Locard has collected and commented on hundreds of Khmer Rouge propaganda sayings; together they open the door to the chilling and paranoid mindset the revolution created. To quote one of the most famous lines: "To destroy you is no loss; to preserve you is no gain."
10. Han Suyin, Four faces.
This novel is a charming bagatelle in Han Suyin's oeuvre. The story is set in the early 60s and revolves around a farcical author congress in Siem Reap, the small, sleepy town in the shadow of Angkor Wat. The congress is just a facade for cold-war conspiracy and suspicion – and shady opium trafficking. The farce, lightly sprinkled with eroticism, turns briefly into a political thriller, and then after a murder and a failed coup d'état, it turns yet again and becomes an Agatha Christie-inspired whodunnit, with the peaceful and slightly surreal Cambodian kingdom as a backdrop.
------
After more than a month without posting to this thread, let's get back to it.
"There aren't even any publishing houses (in Cambodia)." Well, hopefully that at least has changed in the last ten years. Here's half a dozen BLT recommendations:
William Shawcross, Sideshow.
Francois Bizot, The gate.
Jon Swain, River of time.
"Short's biography of Pol Pot is exceptional - although I find his argument that the origin of KR ideology can be found in a tortured combination of Marxism and Theravada Budism less than entirely convincing. Kheiu Samphan's Reflections on Cambodian history is worth a look as an example of moral abdication and utter gutlessness."
Lina Goldberg, Move to Cambodia. "Not the same as those listed above, of course, but a practical guide for new expats."
G. Muller, Colonial Cambodia's 'Bad Frenchmen' : the rise of French rule and the life of Thomas Caraman, 1840-87. "Great history."
Guardian, 2014-03-19.
"One of my very first memories was the public celebration in Stockholm of the 'liberation' of Cambodia in 1975. I was two years old and had been born into the anti-Vietnam war movement. I was seven when Pol Pot was toppled a few years later, and the ghastly images of the killing fields made a strong impression on me. But it was not until I moved to Cambodia in 2001 that the country turned into something of an obsession. To me this intriguing little kingdom became a way to understand the world: through the Cambodian lens many things became clearer.
"My first book about Cambodia, Pol Pot's smile, deals with the Khmer Rouge's devastating revolution and follows in the tracks of a Swedish delegation who travelled through the genocide without seeing anything alarming. My new book, Song for an approaching storm, is set in the 50s, two decades before the catastrophe. The two have enabled me to spend years in Cambodia, both in the past and the present.
"One might look at my following selection and ask where the contemporary Cambodian novels are. The answer, sadly, is that the authors in Cambodia are marginalised and struggling – there aren't even any publishing houses. Very little of their work is translated into English. Thus, there are many foreign authors in the following list. But good literature knows no nationality or borders."
1. Vann Nath, A Cambodian prison portrait.
There are many myths about the Khmer Rouge's bloodthirstiness and brutality, but there was at least one place where they all were real: Security Prison 21, the secret police's killing machine. Of the 14,000 or so prisoners who were brought there for questioning, only a handful survived. One of them were the artist Vann Nath (1946-2011). In this thin little book, he describes his horrifying year behind the barbed wired walls of S-21. I had the privilege to meet him a couple of times and to me he was a man of very rare moral dignity; he resembled a Cambodian Nelson Mandela. He pitied his torturers as fellow humans, without forgiving them their deeds. This book ranks among the most important and strongest witness-stories of world literature.
2. Marguerite Duras, The sea wall.
Marguerite Duras's breakthrough novel was published in 1950 and most of the elements that would become the base for her masterpiece, The lover, more than 30 years later are already there. A fatherless French teenager, living in great poverty at a small plantation in rural Cambodia, gets involved with a much older but wealthy Chinese businessman. Age, race and class make them an impossible couple. Her mother and brother cynically tries to wring a few piastres out of the indecent affair. Less romantic and more sleazy than The lover, but equally good.
3. Nic Dunlop, The lost executioner.
The head of S-21, Kang Kek Iew, AKA Comrade Duch, is central in this remarkable book. In 1997, the photographer and journalist Nic Dunlop more or less stumbled upon Duch, who had been hiding since the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Duch is a paradoxal figure: with a poor peasant background, he graduated as the second best student in the country. He got drawn into the Khmer Rouge and rose through the ranks. After the fall of the regime, he became a born again Christian. Dunlop's book is empathic, intelligent and a real page-turner. The monster becomes a man.
4. Helen Grant Ross & Darryl Leon Collings, Building Cambodia.
In the romantic picture of the old French Indochina, there are beautifully faded colonial buildings. But in Cambodia, it is actually the structures from the following decades that are the most fascinating. Blending traditional architecture with European modernism, the then young Cambodian architects, led by the maestro Vann Molyvann, created a fascinating school, like a Cambodian Bauhaus. This short-lived movement's legacy is now being destroyed by short-sighted capitalism. But the story is well told in this book, awash with beautiful photographs.
5. Philip Short, Pol Pot : anatomy of a nightmare.
In David Chandler's excellent biography Brother Number One from 1993, the author has an eerie feeling of being watched by the elusive and smiling dictator while he is writing the book. A decade later, Philip Short manages to drag Pol Pot out of the shadows. Where the earlier biographer had a more academic approach, Short's book reads almost like a thriller at times. The research he has put into the book is in itself mindblowing, and the result constitutes a large and important step towards understanding the Cambodian tragedy.
6. Norman Lewis, A dragon apparent.
This modern classic was once a beautiful account of a distant place: French Indochina in its twilight. Now it is also the story of a lost world. Norman Lewis traveled through Saigon to Phnom Penh, and then via Angkor Wat on to Laos. Every person Lewis meets – monks, farmers, royalty, colonialists – become important in his or her own right; the writer's keen eye for telling detail puts the reader right beside him.
7. Milton Osborne, Phnom Penh.
It's easy to be seduced by Phnom Penh, but also to be exhausted, as it's overwhelming in so many ways. It is therefore most helpful to read Milton Osborne's personal and interesting cultural and literary history of this fairly new capital (permanent since 1866). Osborne arrived in 1959 and the city has since been a continuing part of his life. His book will make the bustling city more comprehensible – though it remains as overwhelming as ever.
8. Kong Chhean, Cambodian folk stories from the Gatiloke.
A handful of the 112 folk stories in the Gatiloke, which was used by Cambodian monks to teach their faith and committed to paper in the late 19th century. One shouldn't make too much of this mix of fables, fairytales and moral lessons, but they offer an interesting insight into some traditional Cambodian beliefs. Some of them have slapstick qualities; others draw moral conclusions that are surprising to a western reader.
9. Henri Locard, Pol Pot's little red book.
This is an intriguing little book for the interested reader who has already one or two more general titles about the Khmer Rouge under his belt. Henri Locard has collected and commented on hundreds of Khmer Rouge propaganda sayings; together they open the door to the chilling and paranoid mindset the revolution created. To quote one of the most famous lines: "To destroy you is no loss; to preserve you is no gain."
10. Han Suyin, Four faces.
This novel is a charming bagatelle in Han Suyin's oeuvre. The story is set in the early 60s and revolves around a farcical author congress in Siem Reap, the small, sleepy town in the shadow of Angkor Wat. The congress is just a facade for cold-war conspiracy and suspicion – and shady opium trafficking. The farce, lightly sprinkled with eroticism, turns briefly into a political thriller, and then after a murder and a failed coup d'état, it turns yet again and becomes an Agatha Christie-inspired whodunnit, with the peaceful and slightly surreal Cambodian kingdom as a backdrop.
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After more than a month without posting to this thread, let's get back to it.
"There aren't even any publishing houses (in Cambodia)." Well, hopefully that at least has changed in the last ten years. Here's half a dozen BLT recommendations:
William Shawcross, Sideshow.
Francois Bizot, The gate.
Jon Swain, River of time.
"Short's biography of Pol Pot is exceptional - although I find his argument that the origin of KR ideology can be found in a tortured combination of Marxism and Theravada Budism less than entirely convincing. Kheiu Samphan's Reflections on Cambodian history is worth a look as an example of moral abdication and utter gutlessness."
Lina Goldberg, Move to Cambodia. "Not the same as those listed above, of course, but a practical guide for new expats."
G. Muller, Colonial Cambodia's 'Bad Frenchmen' : the rise of French rule and the life of Thomas Caraman, 1840-87. "Great history."
77Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Tanya Byrne's top 10 black characters in children's books.
Guardian, 2014-03-20.
"Earlier in the week, author Walter Dean Myers wrote a piece for the New York Times asking Where are the people of color (POC) in children's books?
"As a POC myself, it's something I've always been aware of – that most of the characters in books aren't like me – but for a long time I didn't question it. It's something I learned to live with, like people always asking me where I'm from. Actually, live around is probably more apt, kind of like a bad knee I don't bother complaining about any more. But things are getting better, right? Park in Rainbow Rowell's wildly successful Eleanor & Park is half-Korean, and the latest novels from Patrick Ness, Keren David and James Dawson all feature characters of colour. But according to a study by the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin which said that of the 3,200 children's books published in 2013, only 93 were about black people.
"93. It's time to complain. Not just because 93 out of 3,200 isn't enough, but because, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said in her TED Talk about the danger of the single story, we are all impressionable and vulnerable in the face of a story, particularly as children. Stories matter, she says. The characters who tell them do too because every child deserves to grow up thinking that they can be Harry Potter. After all, these books change our view of the world so they should represent every corner of it, shouldn't they?
"And every voice."
Tanya Byrne's is the author of Heart-shaped bruise and Follow me down, her third novel will be published later this year.
1. Malorie Blackman, Noughts & Crosses.
In this series the people with dark skin are the ruling class and everyone else is the underclass. Reversing race roles sounds simple, but the trouble with privilege is that people try to understand someone else's experience by comparing it to their own. What Blackman does here is offer an alternative history altogether.
2. Walter Dean Myers, Monster.
Given this list was prompted by a piece from Walter Dean Myers, it would be remiss of me not to mention his remarkable novel, Monster, which won the Printz in 2000 and is about a sixteen-year old boy on trial for murder.
3. Jacqueline Woodson, If you come softly.
Woodson's books could take up most of the top ten, but If you come softly, the story of an African-American boy and a Jewish girl who fall in love, is my favourite.
4. Justine Larbalestier, Liar.
I became aware of this book a couple of years ago following the furor on twitter when the cover was whitewashed. It's about Micah who is a compulsive liar and pretty much gets away with it until her boyfriend dies and things start to unravel.
5. Mal Peet, Keeper.
This was Peet's first novel, which he wrote because he thought football books for children were "pretty much crap". He's certainly redressed the balance with this, the story of a black South American footballer called El Gato.
6. Nick Lake, In darkness.
This is the challenging but beautiful story of 15-year-old Shorty who is trapped after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Not the easiest read but who said books should be?
7. Ursula K Le Guin, A wizard of Earthsea.
This was first published in 1968, but is still much loved today and tells the story of a young mage named Ged who is sent to a special school for wizards.
8. Nnedi Okorafor, Akata witch.
I became aware of this book after hearing Rick Riordan talk about it. It's the story of Sunny who has magical abilities and has to track down a serial killer.
9. Sherri L. Smith, Flygirl.
Set in the middle of the second world war, Flygirl is about Ida Mae Jones who tries to pass for white so that she can join the Air Force. It deals not just with racism and sexism, but identity in general. Something any teenager can relate to.
10. Crystal Chan, Bird.
I'm yet to read this but I've heard so many good things about this book that I had to include it on this list. It's the story of 12-year-old Jewel who was born the day her brother John "Bird" died. When she meets a boy who is also called John and even looks a bit like her brother if he'd grown up to be that age, her family think it's a sign.
------
BTL comments were not switched on on the original column, as usual with the children's books columns.
Guardian, 2014-03-20.
"Earlier in the week, author Walter Dean Myers wrote a piece for the New York Times asking Where are the people of color (POC) in children's books?
"As a POC myself, it's something I've always been aware of – that most of the characters in books aren't like me – but for a long time I didn't question it. It's something I learned to live with, like people always asking me where I'm from. Actually, live around is probably more apt, kind of like a bad knee I don't bother complaining about any more. But things are getting better, right? Park in Rainbow Rowell's wildly successful Eleanor & Park is half-Korean, and the latest novels from Patrick Ness, Keren David and James Dawson all feature characters of colour. But according to a study by the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin which said that of the 3,200 children's books published in 2013, only 93 were about black people.
"93. It's time to complain. Not just because 93 out of 3,200 isn't enough, but because, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said in her TED Talk about the danger of the single story, we are all impressionable and vulnerable in the face of a story, particularly as children. Stories matter, she says. The characters who tell them do too because every child deserves to grow up thinking that they can be Harry Potter. After all, these books change our view of the world so they should represent every corner of it, shouldn't they?
"And every voice."
Tanya Byrne's is the author of Heart-shaped bruise and Follow me down, her third novel will be published later this year.
1. Malorie Blackman, Noughts & Crosses.
In this series the people with dark skin are the ruling class and everyone else is the underclass. Reversing race roles sounds simple, but the trouble with privilege is that people try to understand someone else's experience by comparing it to their own. What Blackman does here is offer an alternative history altogether.
2. Walter Dean Myers, Monster.
Given this list was prompted by a piece from Walter Dean Myers, it would be remiss of me not to mention his remarkable novel, Monster, which won the Printz in 2000 and is about a sixteen-year old boy on trial for murder.
3. Jacqueline Woodson, If you come softly.
Woodson's books could take up most of the top ten, but If you come softly, the story of an African-American boy and a Jewish girl who fall in love, is my favourite.
4. Justine Larbalestier, Liar.
I became aware of this book a couple of years ago following the furor on twitter when the cover was whitewashed. It's about Micah who is a compulsive liar and pretty much gets away with it until her boyfriend dies and things start to unravel.
5. Mal Peet, Keeper.
This was Peet's first novel, which he wrote because he thought football books for children were "pretty much crap". He's certainly redressed the balance with this, the story of a black South American footballer called El Gato.
6. Nick Lake, In darkness.
This is the challenging but beautiful story of 15-year-old Shorty who is trapped after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Not the easiest read but who said books should be?
7. Ursula K Le Guin, A wizard of Earthsea.
This was first published in 1968, but is still much loved today and tells the story of a young mage named Ged who is sent to a special school for wizards.
8. Nnedi Okorafor, Akata witch.
I became aware of this book after hearing Rick Riordan talk about it. It's the story of Sunny who has magical abilities and has to track down a serial killer.
9. Sherri L. Smith, Flygirl.
Set in the middle of the second world war, Flygirl is about Ida Mae Jones who tries to pass for white so that she can join the Air Force. It deals not just with racism and sexism, but identity in general. Something any teenager can relate to.
10. Crystal Chan, Bird.
I'm yet to read this but I've heard so many good things about this book that I had to include it on this list. It's the story of 12-year-old Jewel who was born the day her brother John "Bird" died. When she meets a boy who is also called John and even looks a bit like her brother if he'd grown up to be that age, her family think it's a sign.
------
BTL comments were not switched on on the original column, as usual with the children's books columns.
78Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Non Pratt's top 10 teens in trouble.
Guardian, 2014-03-23.
"There's a line on the back of my book that says 'Growing up can be trouble, but that's how you find out what really matters.' (It's a great line – I wish I'd written it!) I might have focused on writing about the problems faced by a girl who gets pregnant at fifteen, but that's by no means the only trouble teens can find themselves in, and it's certainly not the only kind of trouble I want to read about.
"The characters in the following books find themselves in some of the most complex and challenging situations you'll find in teen fiction today and I love every single one of them for tackling their problems in the same way anyone would: with difficulty."
1. Anne Cassidy, Looking for JJ.
Looking for JJ sees its 10th anniversary this year and tells the story of Alice Tully, embarking on a new life, just as an old news story about Jennifer Jones, the young girl who killed her classmate, hits the headlines once more. The interplay between past and present provide the heart of the story: are there things for which you can - and should - never be forgiven? My answer to this changed between starting the book and finishing it.
2. Sophia Bennett, You don't know me.
The book's set-up – four friends, Sasha, Nell, Jodie and Rose accidentally entering as a girl group for a TV talent show – could lead you to think this is the happy-ever-after of a glamorous fairytale … Only this is tale tempered by a healthy dose of reality. As accessible as it is intelligent, You don't know me is a clever commentary on the consequences of insta-fame as well as a sympathetic story of the fragility of friendship under pressure.
3. Anthony McGowan, Hello, darkness.
When Johnny is framed for the slaughter of the school pets, he is drawn into the underbelly of the school's social hierarchy as he seeks the real killer to clear his name (after all, he knows it's not him … doesn't he?). Johnny is an unreliable narrator of epic proportions – but the fact that you know better than to trust him doesn't stop you being sucked inside his head to experience his unravelling mental state as if it's your own. This book is both darkly funny and just plain dark.
4. Leila Sales, This song will save your life.
Elise is the girl no one likes at school and the effect on her is (unsurprisingly) damaging. When she comes across Start, an underground nightclub, and she starts DJ-ing, she finds a place where people don't just accept her – they like her. The depiction of classroom bullying stripped back the years, leaving me as raw as if they happened yesterday afternoon, but Elise's journey provides the kind of hope I could have used growing up. (Her music tips would have helped too!)
5. Cath Crowley, Graffiti moon.
Ed is Shadow, a talented graffiti artist; Lucy is the girl obsessed with uncovering Shadow's identity so she can fall in love with him. Ed is the one in trouble: is he Ed, unemployed school dropout without hope for a future, or is he Shadow, the artist Lucy sees in his pictures? Set on one perfect night, Ed takes Lucy on a Shadow hunt across the streets of Melbourne, a night of romance, lyricism and art. Told in dual narrative (with some bonus, brilliant, poems dropped in from Ed's friend/partner in crime, Leo), Graffiti Moon is a joy and delight.
6. Patrick Ness, The knife of never letting go.
It would be hard to think of anyone in more trouble than Todd in The knife of never letting go, the only book on this list not set in the real world. It might seem that Todd's struggle is one of staying alive, but his story is also about the power of society to silence its members and how it oppresses those who refuse to conform. Todd's fierce desire to retain his agency in the onslaught of Noise from others' thoughts is one that is incredibly relevant to those discovering their voice in the noise of an Internet age.
7. Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls.
Although Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak was the novel that first introduced me to YA over a decade ago and remains a favourite, this book is the more haunting. Lia is a recovering anorexic, struggling to accept both herself and the people who love her as she dwells on the ghost of Cassie, her friend and fellow 'winter girl', who has starved herself to death. A terrifying and insightful look into the pain and fears of an outlook that is difficult for many people to appreciate.
8. Phil Earle, Heroic.
The story's dual narrative is driven predominantly by Sonny, who's getting by on the Ghost Estate whilst his older brother's away fighting. It is, however, Jammy's time in Afghanistan that really strikes home, bridging the gap between our view of war from afar and the reality experienced by those on the frontline - and the consequences of them coming home. Empathetic, thought provoking and, as always with Earle's writing, full of heart.
9. James Dawson, Cruel summer.
Proof that teens don't have to be 'troubled' to find themselves in at the deep end, Cruel Summer features a group of teens on holiday a year after one of their number perished in 'questionable' circumstances. Cleverly riffing on familiar horror movie tropes, Dawson also shows a healthy respect for the Point Horror and Christopher Pike novels that stormed the classroom when I was a teen, crafting a refreshing reboot of the genre for a new generation.
10. Melina Marchetta, On the Jellicoe Road.
Reading On the Jellicoe Road is a lot like falling in love: the beginning is as confusing as it is enticing, but the reward for holding your nerve is immense. The present-day narrative focuses on Taylor Markham, embroiled in a fiercely fought territorial battle between the Jellicoe School (which she attends), the Townies and the Cadets. This is interspersed with gradually unfolding flashbacks to an event that has an unknowable impact on Taylor's life … A modern masterpiece featuring one of the most compelling characters I've ever encountered (Jonah Griggs, leader of the Cadets), this Australian classic is probably the best book you've never read.
Guardian, 2014-03-23.
"There's a line on the back of my book that says 'Growing up can be trouble, but that's how you find out what really matters.' (It's a great line – I wish I'd written it!) I might have focused on writing about the problems faced by a girl who gets pregnant at fifteen, but that's by no means the only trouble teens can find themselves in, and it's certainly not the only kind of trouble I want to read about.
"The characters in the following books find themselves in some of the most complex and challenging situations you'll find in teen fiction today and I love every single one of them for tackling their problems in the same way anyone would: with difficulty."
1. Anne Cassidy, Looking for JJ.
Looking for JJ sees its 10th anniversary this year and tells the story of Alice Tully, embarking on a new life, just as an old news story about Jennifer Jones, the young girl who killed her classmate, hits the headlines once more. The interplay between past and present provide the heart of the story: are there things for which you can - and should - never be forgiven? My answer to this changed between starting the book and finishing it.
2. Sophia Bennett, You don't know me.
The book's set-up – four friends, Sasha, Nell, Jodie and Rose accidentally entering as a girl group for a TV talent show – could lead you to think this is the happy-ever-after of a glamorous fairytale … Only this is tale tempered by a healthy dose of reality. As accessible as it is intelligent, You don't know me is a clever commentary on the consequences of insta-fame as well as a sympathetic story of the fragility of friendship under pressure.
3. Anthony McGowan, Hello, darkness.
When Johnny is framed for the slaughter of the school pets, he is drawn into the underbelly of the school's social hierarchy as he seeks the real killer to clear his name (after all, he knows it's not him … doesn't he?). Johnny is an unreliable narrator of epic proportions – but the fact that you know better than to trust him doesn't stop you being sucked inside his head to experience his unravelling mental state as if it's your own. This book is both darkly funny and just plain dark.
4. Leila Sales, This song will save your life.
Elise is the girl no one likes at school and the effect on her is (unsurprisingly) damaging. When she comes across Start, an underground nightclub, and she starts DJ-ing, she finds a place where people don't just accept her – they like her. The depiction of classroom bullying stripped back the years, leaving me as raw as if they happened yesterday afternoon, but Elise's journey provides the kind of hope I could have used growing up. (Her music tips would have helped too!)
5. Cath Crowley, Graffiti moon.
Ed is Shadow, a talented graffiti artist; Lucy is the girl obsessed with uncovering Shadow's identity so she can fall in love with him. Ed is the one in trouble: is he Ed, unemployed school dropout without hope for a future, or is he Shadow, the artist Lucy sees in his pictures? Set on one perfect night, Ed takes Lucy on a Shadow hunt across the streets of Melbourne, a night of romance, lyricism and art. Told in dual narrative (with some bonus, brilliant, poems dropped in from Ed's friend/partner in crime, Leo), Graffiti Moon is a joy and delight.
6. Patrick Ness, The knife of never letting go.
It would be hard to think of anyone in more trouble than Todd in The knife of never letting go, the only book on this list not set in the real world. It might seem that Todd's struggle is one of staying alive, but his story is also about the power of society to silence its members and how it oppresses those who refuse to conform. Todd's fierce desire to retain his agency in the onslaught of Noise from others' thoughts is one that is incredibly relevant to those discovering their voice in the noise of an Internet age.
7. Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls.
Although Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak was the novel that first introduced me to YA over a decade ago and remains a favourite, this book is the more haunting. Lia is a recovering anorexic, struggling to accept both herself and the people who love her as she dwells on the ghost of Cassie, her friend and fellow 'winter girl', who has starved herself to death. A terrifying and insightful look into the pain and fears of an outlook that is difficult for many people to appreciate.
8. Phil Earle, Heroic.
The story's dual narrative is driven predominantly by Sonny, who's getting by on the Ghost Estate whilst his older brother's away fighting. It is, however, Jammy's time in Afghanistan that really strikes home, bridging the gap between our view of war from afar and the reality experienced by those on the frontline - and the consequences of them coming home. Empathetic, thought provoking and, as always with Earle's writing, full of heart.
9. James Dawson, Cruel summer.
Proof that teens don't have to be 'troubled' to find themselves in at the deep end, Cruel Summer features a group of teens on holiday a year after one of their number perished in 'questionable' circumstances. Cleverly riffing on familiar horror movie tropes, Dawson also shows a healthy respect for the Point Horror and Christopher Pike novels that stormed the classroom when I was a teen, crafting a refreshing reboot of the genre for a new generation.
10. Melina Marchetta, On the Jellicoe Road.
Reading On the Jellicoe Road is a lot like falling in love: the beginning is as confusing as it is enticing, but the reward for holding your nerve is immense. The present-day narrative focuses on Taylor Markham, embroiled in a fiercely fought territorial battle between the Jellicoe School (which she attends), the Townies and the Cadets. This is interspersed with gradually unfolding flashbacks to an event that has an unknowable impact on Taylor's life … A modern masterpiece featuring one of the most compelling characters I've ever encountered (Jonah Griggs, leader of the Cadets), this Australian classic is probably the best book you've never read.
79Cynfelyn
Karen Joy Fowler's top 10 books about intelligent animals
Guardian, 2014-03-26.
"Charlotte's web was first read to me by my mother. I can still remember the moment when, having caught the tremor in her voice, I looked up, saw her face, and realised with great shock that clever, generous Charlotte might die. It was the first book in which I experienced the death of a character; I don't think I'd understood such a thing was even possible and I know I couldn't have managed Little women, much less the relentless Tess of the D'Urbervilles, all those years later if Charlotte's web hadn't toughened me up. Of all the responses I've gotten to We are all completely beside ourselves, I was most pleased by a reviewer who identified Charlotte's web as its progenitor. The tradition of great non-human characters has always been a potent one and it was and continues to be an important book to me.
"Of course, I must be careful insisting on Charlotte's non-human character. Children's books are filled with humans in animal guise. They take bedtime baths, hear bedtime stories, and kiss their parents goodnight. They play peaceably, predator and prey, in the great fictional kingdoms, or sometimes, as in Charlotte's web, they try very hard not to be killed and eaten. Perhaps as a result, it's been easy for our culture to think of sympathy for our fellow creatures as a childish thing. You grow up, and however you might wish it otherwise, fewer and fewer of the books you read feature non-human characters. Of those that do, some remain more human than others.
"As a quick aside , I note that the great writer Jonathan Lethem, in reference to Dickens's Dombey and Son, has encouraged the reader to imagine Dickens's characters as though they were animals – "clever, eccentric badgers", wily foxes and cats – and all in Victorian costume. The only thing that prevents Dickens from being the greatest animal novelist of all time, Lethem argues, is the lack of animals.
"Here is my list of some favourite books with animal characters, in roughly the order in which I encountered them."
1. Kenneth Grahame, The wind in the willows.
Chosen not only, (but mostly) for Mr Toad – the character who thinks well of himself for reasons inexplicable to those around him – but also for the philosophical Ratty and the gentle Mole. The book begins slowly, but ends in fisticuffs!
2. T. H. White, The once and future king.
Merlin's tutelage consists of lessons in which young Arthur becomes a series of other animals – birds, ants, fish – in order to learn about ethics and politics. The creatures Arthur meets in his childhood are all there, advising and encouraging, at the transcendent moment when he pulls the sword from the stone.
3. Richard Adams, Watership Down.
An epic rabbit adventure with a cast of remarkable characters: Fiver, the oracle, Hazel, the thinker and leader, and Bigwig, the warrior. Adams employs many of the science-fiction pleasures of inventive world building as well as a struggle against invasive totalitarianism. For a while, I had a certain fluency in the Lapine language, but this has grown rusty with disuse.
4. George Orwell, Animal Farm.
I am including this because it is a great and consequential book, though it really has little to do with non-humans and is full of pig slander.
5. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick.
Perhaps the greatest non-human character book of all time. Funnier than I expected when I finally read it after years of pretending I already had. The white whale functions in the book as many things to many people, including the implacable and mindless maw of nature, but its final reckoning with the Pequod at least leaves open the possibility of intelligent self-preservation or even a focused revenge.
6. Carol Emshwiller, Carmen Dog.
Women all over the world are turning into animals – orangutans, bears, and snapping turtles – but the central character of Emshwiller's book, Pooch, is a dog becoming a woman. This picaresque follows the adventures of an innocent abroad in a dangerous world. Comic, magical and ultimately extremely big-hearted.
7. Leonie Swann, Three bags full.
I've chosen this book to represent the many in which animals solve mysteries, in this case, the murder of a shepherd is slowly unraveled by the flock of sheep he left behind. Admirable efforts are made to keep the logic sheep-like throughout.
8. Jane Smiley, Horse heaven.
A capacious and audacious novel about the world of horseracing, which includes several horse narrators – Froney's Sis, Epic Steam, Residual – but my favorite is Justa Bob, a gelding with a good attitude despite his long, hard fall down.
9. Kij Johnson, Fudoki.
A story within a story, as an elderly princess in Heian-era Japan recounts the more adventurous life of a cat who becomes for a time a cat-like woman. Johnson deals often with non-human characters, but this a particularly lovely example of her work, and contains wonderfully imagined, if unlikely, details of cat culture.
10. David Wroblewski, The story of Edgar Sawtelle.
A loose retelling of Hamlet, but set on a dog breeding farm in Wisconsin in the 70s. The role of Ophelia is taken on very touchingly by the gifted canine and occasional point of view character, Almondine. A review in the Chicago Tribune identified Wroblewski's book as "easily the best work of fiction ever written about dogs". A bold claim, but also a defensible one.
------
There are BTL suggestions of what strike me as humans in animal skins, rather than non-human characters, including (arguably) Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr Fox; Dodie Smith, The twilight barking, "The much better sequel to 101 dalmations; Charles Perrault, Puss-in-boots; Dick King-Smith, The sheep-pig; and the Chronicles of Narnia.
Others, either featuring non-human animal characters, or with which I am not familiar, include:
Mr Bones in Paul Auster's Timbuktu.
Sam Savage, Firmin.
Sheila Burnford, The incredible journey, Anna Sewell, Black Beauty, Michelle Paver, Chronicles of ancient darkeness.
Jack London, Call of the wild and White Fang.
Robert C. O'Brien, Mrs Frisby and the rats of NiMH.
Richard Adams, The plague dogs. "I enjoyed that more than Watership Down, although as a kid I was traumatised by the animated movie having an unexpectedly different ending!"
Tom McCaughren's fox books, Run with the wind, Run swift, run free. "Great books, http://www.tommccaughren.net/"
Robert Merle, The day of the dolphin.
Mikhail Bulgakov, Heart of a dog. "The first part is narrated by an intelligent street dog. Read that, and it's hard to look at a hungry stray dog again in quite the same way." "I remember reading that for the first time. Such an amazing book."
Guardian, 2014-03-26.
"Charlotte's web was first read to me by my mother. I can still remember the moment when, having caught the tremor in her voice, I looked up, saw her face, and realised with great shock that clever, generous Charlotte might die. It was the first book in which I experienced the death of a character; I don't think I'd understood such a thing was even possible and I know I couldn't have managed Little women, much less the relentless Tess of the D'Urbervilles, all those years later if Charlotte's web hadn't toughened me up. Of all the responses I've gotten to We are all completely beside ourselves, I was most pleased by a reviewer who identified Charlotte's web as its progenitor. The tradition of great non-human characters has always been a potent one and it was and continues to be an important book to me.
"Of course, I must be careful insisting on Charlotte's non-human character. Children's books are filled with humans in animal guise. They take bedtime baths, hear bedtime stories, and kiss their parents goodnight. They play peaceably, predator and prey, in the great fictional kingdoms, or sometimes, as in Charlotte's web, they try very hard not to be killed and eaten. Perhaps as a result, it's been easy for our culture to think of sympathy for our fellow creatures as a childish thing. You grow up, and however you might wish it otherwise, fewer and fewer of the books you read feature non-human characters. Of those that do, some remain more human than others.
"As a quick aside , I note that the great writer Jonathan Lethem, in reference to Dickens's Dombey and Son, has encouraged the reader to imagine Dickens's characters as though they were animals – "clever, eccentric badgers", wily foxes and cats – and all in Victorian costume. The only thing that prevents Dickens from being the greatest animal novelist of all time, Lethem argues, is the lack of animals.
"Here is my list of some favourite books with animal characters, in roughly the order in which I encountered them."
1. Kenneth Grahame, The wind in the willows.
Chosen not only, (but mostly) for Mr Toad – the character who thinks well of himself for reasons inexplicable to those around him – but also for the philosophical Ratty and the gentle Mole. The book begins slowly, but ends in fisticuffs!
2. T. H. White, The once and future king.
Merlin's tutelage consists of lessons in which young Arthur becomes a series of other animals – birds, ants, fish – in order to learn about ethics and politics. The creatures Arthur meets in his childhood are all there, advising and encouraging, at the transcendent moment when he pulls the sword from the stone.
3. Richard Adams, Watership Down.
An epic rabbit adventure with a cast of remarkable characters: Fiver, the oracle, Hazel, the thinker and leader, and Bigwig, the warrior. Adams employs many of the science-fiction pleasures of inventive world building as well as a struggle against invasive totalitarianism. For a while, I had a certain fluency in the Lapine language, but this has grown rusty with disuse.
4. George Orwell, Animal Farm.
I am including this because it is a great and consequential book, though it really has little to do with non-humans and is full of pig slander.
5. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick.
Perhaps the greatest non-human character book of all time. Funnier than I expected when I finally read it after years of pretending I already had. The white whale functions in the book as many things to many people, including the implacable and mindless maw of nature, but its final reckoning with the Pequod at least leaves open the possibility of intelligent self-preservation or even a focused revenge.
6. Carol Emshwiller, Carmen Dog.
Women all over the world are turning into animals – orangutans, bears, and snapping turtles – but the central character of Emshwiller's book, Pooch, is a dog becoming a woman. This picaresque follows the adventures of an innocent abroad in a dangerous world. Comic, magical and ultimately extremely big-hearted.
7. Leonie Swann, Three bags full.
I've chosen this book to represent the many in which animals solve mysteries, in this case, the murder of a shepherd is slowly unraveled by the flock of sheep he left behind. Admirable efforts are made to keep the logic sheep-like throughout.
8. Jane Smiley, Horse heaven.
A capacious and audacious novel about the world of horseracing, which includes several horse narrators – Froney's Sis, Epic Steam, Residual – but my favorite is Justa Bob, a gelding with a good attitude despite his long, hard fall down.
9. Kij Johnson, Fudoki.
A story within a story, as an elderly princess in Heian-era Japan recounts the more adventurous life of a cat who becomes for a time a cat-like woman. Johnson deals often with non-human characters, but this a particularly lovely example of her work, and contains wonderfully imagined, if unlikely, details of cat culture.
10. David Wroblewski, The story of Edgar Sawtelle.
A loose retelling of Hamlet, but set on a dog breeding farm in Wisconsin in the 70s. The role of Ophelia is taken on very touchingly by the gifted canine and occasional point of view character, Almondine. A review in the Chicago Tribune identified Wroblewski's book as "easily the best work of fiction ever written about dogs". A bold claim, but also a defensible one.
------
There are BTL suggestions of what strike me as humans in animal skins, rather than non-human characters, including (arguably) Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr Fox; Dodie Smith, The twilight barking, "The much better sequel to 101 dalmations; Charles Perrault, Puss-in-boots; Dick King-Smith, The sheep-pig; and the Chronicles of Narnia.
Others, either featuring non-human animal characters, or with which I am not familiar, include:
Mr Bones in Paul Auster's Timbuktu.
Sam Savage, Firmin.
Sheila Burnford, The incredible journey, Anna Sewell, Black Beauty, Michelle Paver, Chronicles of ancient darkeness.
Jack London, Call of the wild and White Fang.
Robert C. O'Brien, Mrs Frisby and the rats of NiMH.
Richard Adams, The plague dogs. "I enjoyed that more than Watership Down, although as a kid I was traumatised by the animated movie having an unexpectedly different ending!"
Tom McCaughren's fox books, Run with the wind, Run swift, run free. "Great books, http://www.tommccaughren.net/"
Robert Merle, The day of the dolphin.
Mikhail Bulgakov, Heart of a dog. "The first part is narrated by an intelligent street dog. Read that, and it's hard to look at a hungry stray dog again in quite the same way." "I remember reading that for the first time. Such an amazing book."
80Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Anthea Bell's top 10 books for children in translation.
Guardian, 2024-03-27.
Legendary translator Anthea Bell began translating Asterix in 1969, eight years after the books first appeared in French. Anthea is responsible for some of Asterix's finest puns and it was she who changed the name of Obelix's small, evil-tempered dog from Idéfix to Dogmatix, and transformed Panoramix into Getafix. Here Anthea Bell shares her top 10 favourite books in translation that she would recommend for children.
1. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Children's & household tales.
This is the 200th anniversary year of the first edition of the famous tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, and where better to start? The traditional tales are for everyone, and lend themselves to retellings like Philip Pullman's, or variations like Angela Carter's The bloody chamber, and in Germany novelist Karen Duve's Grrrimm (sic).
2. The King James Bible.
I mean that seriously. Religion needn't come into it. Good readers of 10 onwards can enjoy the rousing stories; what they don't fully understand now they will later. Aged nine, I had no idea what profession Rahab the harlot practised, only that she was the heroine of her own story, and spared when she let Joshua's men into Jericho. If those young readers also have imagination, it will be caught by the cadences of the Authorized Version, a great glory of English literature. But it must be the AV; nothing else will do.
3. Hans Andersen, Fairy tales.
I prefer Grimm, but I must not neglect Denmark's national treasure, whose stories are the first of the "art fairy tales". Andersen is best where he comes closest to the traditional roots; he took 'The tinderbox' from the Grimms' group of soldiers' tales. And it's only the ending of 'The little mermaid' that's kitschy. He usually stays on the right side of the sentimentality line.
4. Johanna Spyri, Heidi.
I read Heidi when I was eight, and was fascinated. I hardly even understood what a translation was, but Heidi and I were both country children, I in the flat East Anglian farming countryside, she in the high Alpine meadows – and what a difference. Without knowing it, I had seen the power of translation to open your eyes to other worlds.
5. Arthur Ransome, Old Peter's Russian tales.
I'm not playing quite fair, since this is not so much a translation as a retelling from the collection of the Russian folklorist Alexander Afanasyev. Ransome wrote it during his years in Russia. Most people who have read it in childhood greatly prefer it to all those Swallows and Amazons – and it is with a pleasurable shock in later life that one finds references to the same tales in Russian music.
6. Erich Kästner, Emil and the detectives.
A classic, set in Berlin before the Second World War. The enterprising Emil and his friends live in their own boys' microcosm. As a Jewish writer, Kästner had his books burnt and watched the immolation himself. But the story goes that even Hitler said Emil should be spared the bonfire, on the grounds of sheer popularity.
7. André Maurois, Fattypuffs and Thinifers.
The title itself is a brilliant rendering of the original Patapoufs et Filifers. This fantasy, written between the two world wars, has references to the politics of the time if you care to look for them, but does not depend on that for continued enjoyment today.
8. Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking.
The first of Lindgren's famous books about the little girl with superhuman strength. Alison Lurie has described children's literature as the last refuge of the politically incorrect, and Pippi with her provocative, gleeful naughtiness is surely the supreme example.
9. Hergé, Tintin.
The French and Belgians can and do present anything (even Proust) in bande dessinée or comic strip format, but only two out of many series have ever caught on in the English-speaking world. As I am involved in the second series, I will cite the first, the adventures of boy reporter Tintin. While there have been a number of recent spin-offs, the original albums are as popular as ever.
10. Cornelia Funke, Reckless.
And here we come full circle to the Grimms' influence again. Funke's fertile imagination, as translated here by Oliver Latsch, both plays on traditional themes like shape-changing and others of her own invention. The hero of this story and its sequel, Fearless, is even called Jacob Reckless and has a brother called Will. Funke has done much to persuade modern publishers that foreign children's literature is worth translating.
Guardian, 2024-03-27.
Legendary translator Anthea Bell began translating Asterix in 1969, eight years after the books first appeared in French. Anthea is responsible for some of Asterix's finest puns and it was she who changed the name of Obelix's small, evil-tempered dog from Idéfix to Dogmatix, and transformed Panoramix into Getafix. Here Anthea Bell shares her top 10 favourite books in translation that she would recommend for children.
1. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Children's & household tales.
This is the 200th anniversary year of the first edition of the famous tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, and where better to start? The traditional tales are for everyone, and lend themselves to retellings like Philip Pullman's, or variations like Angela Carter's The bloody chamber, and in Germany novelist Karen Duve's Grrrimm (sic).
2. The King James Bible.
I mean that seriously. Religion needn't come into it. Good readers of 10 onwards can enjoy the rousing stories; what they don't fully understand now they will later. Aged nine, I had no idea what profession Rahab the harlot practised, only that she was the heroine of her own story, and spared when she let Joshua's men into Jericho. If those young readers also have imagination, it will be caught by the cadences of the Authorized Version, a great glory of English literature. But it must be the AV; nothing else will do.
3. Hans Andersen, Fairy tales.
I prefer Grimm, but I must not neglect Denmark's national treasure, whose stories are the first of the "art fairy tales". Andersen is best where he comes closest to the traditional roots; he took 'The tinderbox' from the Grimms' group of soldiers' tales. And it's only the ending of 'The little mermaid' that's kitschy. He usually stays on the right side of the sentimentality line.
4. Johanna Spyri, Heidi.
I read Heidi when I was eight, and was fascinated. I hardly even understood what a translation was, but Heidi and I were both country children, I in the flat East Anglian farming countryside, she in the high Alpine meadows – and what a difference. Without knowing it, I had seen the power of translation to open your eyes to other worlds.
5. Arthur Ransome, Old Peter's Russian tales.
I'm not playing quite fair, since this is not so much a translation as a retelling from the collection of the Russian folklorist Alexander Afanasyev. Ransome wrote it during his years in Russia. Most people who have read it in childhood greatly prefer it to all those Swallows and Amazons – and it is with a pleasurable shock in later life that one finds references to the same tales in Russian music.
6. Erich Kästner, Emil and the detectives.
A classic, set in Berlin before the Second World War. The enterprising Emil and his friends live in their own boys' microcosm. As a Jewish writer, Kästner had his books burnt and watched the immolation himself. But the story goes that even Hitler said Emil should be spared the bonfire, on the grounds of sheer popularity.
7. André Maurois, Fattypuffs and Thinifers.
The title itself is a brilliant rendering of the original Patapoufs et Filifers. This fantasy, written between the two world wars, has references to the politics of the time if you care to look for them, but does not depend on that for continued enjoyment today.
8. Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking.
The first of Lindgren's famous books about the little girl with superhuman strength. Alison Lurie has described children's literature as the last refuge of the politically incorrect, and Pippi with her provocative, gleeful naughtiness is surely the supreme example.
9. Hergé, Tintin.
The French and Belgians can and do present anything (even Proust) in bande dessinée or comic strip format, but only two out of many series have ever caught on in the English-speaking world. As I am involved in the second series, I will cite the first, the adventures of boy reporter Tintin. While there have been a number of recent spin-offs, the original albums are as popular as ever.
10. Cornelia Funke, Reckless.
And here we come full circle to the Grimms' influence again. Funke's fertile imagination, as translated here by Oliver Latsch, both plays on traditional themes like shape-changing and others of her own invention. The hero of this story and its sequel, Fearless, is even called Jacob Reckless and has a brother called Will. Funke has done much to persuade modern publishers that foreign children's literature is worth translating.
81Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Sophie McKenzie's top 10 mothers in children's books.
Guardian, 2014-03-29.
"Ah, mothers and mother figures. They get a mixed press in children's books.
"There are two basic types that appear again and again: saints and monsters. Saints are those loving and reliable mums who hover in the background of their children's lives while the kids themselves go on adventures. Monsters are mothers – or more likely stepmothers or substitute mums – who exist in stories to thwart the hopes and dreams of the young main characters.
"Often the mothers in children's books are dead. This isn't because children's authors like killing them off, but because one of the big challenges for any kids writer, especially those who, like me, set their stories in the contemporary world, is to get the adults out of the way as soon as possible, so that the youngsters can take centre stage. Here are a few of the mums – and mother figures – who stand out for me."
1. Mrs Weasley in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling.
Harry himself is, famously, an orphan and it might be fairer to argue that the people who "parent" Harry the most through the series are Dumbledore and Hagrid. However, Mrs Weasley is the most motherly of mums, a loving and reliable figure who is at the very heart of her own large family and who offers Harry the sort of home life during the holidays that he can only dream of at the Dursleys.
2. The stepmother in Hansel and Gretel.
I could have picked any number of evil stepmums from the many fairy tales in which they feature. These characters are always fixated on the children as a threat to their relationship with the father and intent on murdering them or, at least, getting them out of the way. I find the way in which the stepmum in Hansel and Gretel convinces the father to abandon his own children particularly chilling.
3. The mother in Helen Cooper, The baby who wouldn't go to bed.
Helen Cooper presents a mother trying to persuade her child to accept that its bedtime. As with all the best picture books, it appeals to adults (often the ones choosing and reading the story) as well as young readers. It stands out for me because bedtime tensions present such a universal tussle for mums and kids everywhere. I read and reread this one to my own son when he was little.
4. Mrs Large in Jill Murphy, Five minutes peace.
Mothers everywhere will also relate to Mrs Large trying to find Five minutes peace in Jill Murphy's picture book of the same name. Mrs Large's children follow her everywhere and it's the detail in this story – from the sibling rivalry between the older children to the visual depictions of Mrs Large's weary face – that make it stand out.
5. Miss Porter in Malorie Blackman, The monster crisp-guzzler.
Miss Porter is a teacher who turns into a dragon when she eats crisps. In this brilliantly entertaining book for early readers, Miss Porter is definitely a nurturing mother figure to her pupils. And yet, as a dragon, she is also a monster – albeit a benign one. She transforms, but never threatens her pupils. In fact they love her and when she looks set to lose her job they are devastated. In the end, when main character, Mira, is in danger, it is Miss Porter who saves her – and in so doing, saves her own job. The monster crisp-guzzler plays with the idea that your mum might have a life apart from her identity as a mother, but will ultimately always be there for you.
6. Mom in Betsy Byars, The cartoonist.
No such reassurance is offered by this Mom. She dismisses Alfie's love of cartoon drawing, comparing him constantly – and negatively - to his wayward older brother, Bubba. Unsurprisingly Alfie withdraws to his attic room but then this oasis comes under threat too. Alfie's mother is a monster of a very subtle kind. She undermines her son by refusing to accept him as he is. Though The cartoonist is set in a very specific time and place and although Mom is a fully rounded character, many children will relate to the portrait of a parent who is so clearly dissatisfied with how they are turning out, especially in comparison with a favoured sibling.
7. Marigold in Jacqueline Wilson, The illustrated mum.
While Alfie's Mom is emotionally absent for her son, Marigold is physically neglectful of her two girls. As ever with Jacqueline Wilson, the characters are complex and the story draws you in right from the start. Marigold is a terrible mother in many ways and yet her younger daughter, Dolphin adores her. As a mum myself, I found this book heart-breaking.
8. Lucinda in the Night School series by C. J. Daugherty.
Allie's grandmother Lucinda is a particularly unusual mother figure. Not only is she protective towards her granddaughter without being warm and loving, but she is also extremely powerful within the wider world, outside school and family. In the first three books of the series she hovers in the background throughout all Allie's adventures: severe, authoritative and morally ambivalent. A fabulous character in a great series.
9. The mother in Nina Bawden, The witch's daughter.
Perdita grows up in the shadow of her dead mother who, she is told, was a witch. Kept apart from other children and supposedly gifted with second sight, Perdita is desperately lonely until the chance to make new friends changes her life forever. All children grow up under the influence of their mothers and in this book, Nina Bawden shows just how powerful their legacy can be.
10. Marmee in Louisa May Alcott, Little women.
Back to the traditional with Marmee, the epitome of the solid adult figure. She holds her family together while dad is away, much like the mother in E. Nesbit's The railway children. She is never central to the story, but she is the moral compass for her daughters and provides them with a stable home from which they can venture and grow. Without her the girls would be lost.
------
BTL wasn't opened, as per usual with the children's books columns.
We have (had?) a copy of the Welsh version of Helen Cooper's The baby who wouldn't go to bed, 'Y plentyn nad oedd am gysgu', along with another seven titles. Her full page illustrations made her books firm favourites with my 'younglings', especially the Pumpkin soup series.
We didn't have Jill Murphy's Five minutes peace, but we did have a copy of the Welsh version of her Peace at last, 'Heddwch o'r diwedd'. But we'll have to wait for "Top 10 fathers in children's books" for that to have a chance at five minutes of fame.
The past tense is because my better half took a lot of the children's early books to a car boot sale, and I'm still not entirely sure what's gone. Hey ho.
Guardian, 2014-03-29.
"Ah, mothers and mother figures. They get a mixed press in children's books.
"There are two basic types that appear again and again: saints and monsters. Saints are those loving and reliable mums who hover in the background of their children's lives while the kids themselves go on adventures. Monsters are mothers – or more likely stepmothers or substitute mums – who exist in stories to thwart the hopes and dreams of the young main characters.
"Often the mothers in children's books are dead. This isn't because children's authors like killing them off, but because one of the big challenges for any kids writer, especially those who, like me, set their stories in the contemporary world, is to get the adults out of the way as soon as possible, so that the youngsters can take centre stage. Here are a few of the mums – and mother figures – who stand out for me."
1. Mrs Weasley in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling.
Harry himself is, famously, an orphan and it might be fairer to argue that the people who "parent" Harry the most through the series are Dumbledore and Hagrid. However, Mrs Weasley is the most motherly of mums, a loving and reliable figure who is at the very heart of her own large family and who offers Harry the sort of home life during the holidays that he can only dream of at the Dursleys.
2. The stepmother in Hansel and Gretel.
I could have picked any number of evil stepmums from the many fairy tales in which they feature. These characters are always fixated on the children as a threat to their relationship with the father and intent on murdering them or, at least, getting them out of the way. I find the way in which the stepmum in Hansel and Gretel convinces the father to abandon his own children particularly chilling.
3. The mother in Helen Cooper, The baby who wouldn't go to bed.
Helen Cooper presents a mother trying to persuade her child to accept that its bedtime. As with all the best picture books, it appeals to adults (often the ones choosing and reading the story) as well as young readers. It stands out for me because bedtime tensions present such a universal tussle for mums and kids everywhere. I read and reread this one to my own son when he was little.
4. Mrs Large in Jill Murphy, Five minutes peace.
Mothers everywhere will also relate to Mrs Large trying to find Five minutes peace in Jill Murphy's picture book of the same name. Mrs Large's children follow her everywhere and it's the detail in this story – from the sibling rivalry between the older children to the visual depictions of Mrs Large's weary face – that make it stand out.
5. Miss Porter in Malorie Blackman, The monster crisp-guzzler.
Miss Porter is a teacher who turns into a dragon when she eats crisps. In this brilliantly entertaining book for early readers, Miss Porter is definitely a nurturing mother figure to her pupils. And yet, as a dragon, she is also a monster – albeit a benign one. She transforms, but never threatens her pupils. In fact they love her and when she looks set to lose her job they are devastated. In the end, when main character, Mira, is in danger, it is Miss Porter who saves her – and in so doing, saves her own job. The monster crisp-guzzler plays with the idea that your mum might have a life apart from her identity as a mother, but will ultimately always be there for you.
6. Mom in Betsy Byars, The cartoonist.
No such reassurance is offered by this Mom. She dismisses Alfie's love of cartoon drawing, comparing him constantly – and negatively - to his wayward older brother, Bubba. Unsurprisingly Alfie withdraws to his attic room but then this oasis comes under threat too. Alfie's mother is a monster of a very subtle kind. She undermines her son by refusing to accept him as he is. Though The cartoonist is set in a very specific time and place and although Mom is a fully rounded character, many children will relate to the portrait of a parent who is so clearly dissatisfied with how they are turning out, especially in comparison with a favoured sibling.
7. Marigold in Jacqueline Wilson, The illustrated mum.
While Alfie's Mom is emotionally absent for her son, Marigold is physically neglectful of her two girls. As ever with Jacqueline Wilson, the characters are complex and the story draws you in right from the start. Marigold is a terrible mother in many ways and yet her younger daughter, Dolphin adores her. As a mum myself, I found this book heart-breaking.
8. Lucinda in the Night School series by C. J. Daugherty.
Allie's grandmother Lucinda is a particularly unusual mother figure. Not only is she protective towards her granddaughter without being warm and loving, but she is also extremely powerful within the wider world, outside school and family. In the first three books of the series she hovers in the background throughout all Allie's adventures: severe, authoritative and morally ambivalent. A fabulous character in a great series.
9. The mother in Nina Bawden, The witch's daughter.
Perdita grows up in the shadow of her dead mother who, she is told, was a witch. Kept apart from other children and supposedly gifted with second sight, Perdita is desperately lonely until the chance to make new friends changes her life forever. All children grow up under the influence of their mothers and in this book, Nina Bawden shows just how powerful their legacy can be.
10. Marmee in Louisa May Alcott, Little women.
Back to the traditional with Marmee, the epitome of the solid adult figure. She holds her family together while dad is away, much like the mother in E. Nesbit's The railway children. She is never central to the story, but she is the moral compass for her daughters and provides them with a stable home from which they can venture and grow. Without her the girls would be lost.
------
BTL wasn't opened, as per usual with the children's books columns.
We have (had?) a copy of the Welsh version of Helen Cooper's The baby who wouldn't go to bed, 'Y plentyn nad oedd am gysgu', along with another seven titles. Her full page illustrations made her books firm favourites with my 'younglings', especially the Pumpkin soup series.
We didn't have Jill Murphy's Five minutes peace, but we did have a copy of the Welsh version of her Peace at last, 'Heddwch o'r diwedd'. But we'll have to wait for "Top 10 fathers in children's books" for that to have a chance at five minutes of fame.
The past tense is because my better half took a lot of the children's early books to a car boot sale, and I'm still not entirely sure what's gone. Hey ho.
82Cynfelyn
Charles Fernyhough's top 10 books on memory.
Guardian, 2014-04-02.
"When I told people that I was going to write a book on memory, I saw 'good luck with that' written on a few faces. Memory is a massive topic. Any intelligent system needs some way of tracking where it is in time, and that means remembering where it has been. No surprise, then, that studying memory proliferates into numerous sub-disciplines. You can specialise in short-term memory (memory traces that persist for a few seconds) or cast your net into memories that stretch back through an entire human lifetime. An essential distinction is between memory for facts (semantic memory) and memory for events (episodic memory). I was interested in a branch of memory research that straddles the two: autobiographical memory, or the memory we have for the events of our own lives.
"Roughly four decades of research (with historical precedents that stretch back much further) tell us that this kind of memory is essentially reconstructive. A memory is stitched together in the present moment from several different kinds of information, in a process that's subject to the current beliefs and biases of the person doing the remembering. But surveys tell us that many people remain wedded to a view of memories as immutable, static possessions. Why do we get memory so wrong? One possible reason is that memories are precious to us: they define us in many ways, and so we react with discomfort to the idea that they are the constructions of a story-telling mind.
"Although few scientists would quibble with the idea of the reconstructive nature of memory, there have been some hot new developments: in understanding the social dimensions of remembering, particularly in the very young and very old; in working out how memory functions in trauma and extreme emotion; and in linking remembering the past to thinking about the future, to imagination and to creativity. Keeping up with the latest research meant that I stuck mainly to journal articles when writing Pieces of light. But several books, although sometimes a little out of date, had profound influences on my thinking about memory's slippery charms."
1. Douwe Draaisma, Why life speeds up as you get older.
Memory has been a topic of fascination for centuries. For the long view on how humans have gone about studying it, this book by a Dutch historian of psychology is hard to beat. In poised, humorous prose, he ranges from the stories of respondents to an 1899 survey who had "flashbulb" memories of hearing of the death of Abraham Lincoln, to the diary study of psychologist Willem Wagenaar, who for six years wrote out a daily memory so that he could test his own forgetting, to the nineteenth-century French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau, who asked why the years speed by more quickly as we age.
2. Daniel L. Schacter, Searching for memory.
Harvard psychologist Schacter has been a leading figure in the cognitive neuroscience of episodic memory. In this, his first book, he provides a detailed and highly readable account of how memories are encoded, stored and retrieved, how remembering is damaged and preserved in amnesia, and how memories are distorted by trauma. Particularly interesting is his focus on how memory processes are depicted and interrogated by visual artists, although the pictures unfortunately don't reproduce too well in the paperback. While the field of memory has moved on a fair bit in the eighteen years since this was published, its erudition and scientific authority make it unmatched as an introduction to the study of autobiographical memory.
3. Mary Carruthers, The craft of thought.
Memory was a big thing when books had to be copied out by hand. Building on classical ideas, such as the "method of loci" attributed to Simonides (think of a place and fill it with striking images corresponding to the items you want to remember), our medieval ancestors turned remembering into a developed art. Carruthers provides a brilliant critique of key texts such as Frances Yates's The art of memory, showing that medieval memoria was nothing less than a theory of the recombinative power of thought. Carruthers' dense, ambitious analysis of the medieval mind is an extraordinary work of scholarship.
4. Damon Galgut, In a strange room.
In memory, we narrativise ourselves like novelists. Galgut's unsettling triptych of travel stories (shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize) play disarming tricks with perspective, as the Damon in the stories flips identities with Damon the narrator. Echoing psychologists' distinction between 'field' (first-person) and 'observer' (third-person) memories, Galgut makes austere, uneasy fiction from the idea that we are both the actors and the witnesses in memory.
5. Alan Baddeley, Michael W. Eysenck & Michael C. Anderson, Memory.
British psychologist Baddeley's work transformed the science of short-term memory, or working memory as it is now more typically known. Comprehensive and readable, this popular textbook, co-authored with two other eminent psychologists, is a great resource for those setting out on the academic study of memory.
6. A. R. Luria, The mind of a mnemonist.
You can remember too much. In this classic case study, Russian neuropsychologist Luria tells the story of his patient S. (Solomon Shereshevsky) who harnessed his synaesthetic powers to perform preternatural feats of remembering. Aside from his scientific prowess, Luria is a wonderfully humane writer, and brings S.'s intense, troubled imagination, through which he perceived reality 'as though through a haze', vividly to life.
7. Julian Barnes, The sense of an ending.
To the extent to which they track selves through time, all novels are about memory. But Barnes's 2011 Man Booker-winning novel thinks more deeply about it than most. Middle-aged protagonist Tony finds himself trying to make sense of past relationships and their painful consequences, questioning the reliability of his own story-telling mind as he explores how memories are charged with and shaped by emotion.
8. Harriet Harvey Wood & A. S. Byatt (ed's), Memory: an anthology.
Writers over the centuries have had plenty to say about memory. From Virginia Woolf on the birth of the self to Steven Rose on memory molecules, this endlessly fascinating sourcebook gathers writings from the classical era to the present day, covering territory from the literary to the neuroscientific.
9. W. G. Sebald, Austerlitz.
The medium of memory is narrative, and the best writers on the topic can mimic its reconstructive processes. Sebald creates fictions that are like memories themselves: fragments of fact and imagination restlessly reorganised into shifting renditions of the past. Austerlitz's memories of his childhood in Sebald's final novel build to an anxious, enigmatic portrait of a mind trying to place itself in time.
10. Marcel Proust, In search of lost time.
It's not just about the petite madeleine. Proust's name has entered cognitive science as code for the power of involuntary memory, but there is much more to his masterpiece than the redolent taste of a tisane-soaked morceau. As critic Roger Shattuck observed, Marcel's million-word quest to reconstruct his life story shows us how memory orchestrates selves in relation: the person doing the remembering held in vibrant tension with the remembered self from long ago. Both co-exist in a memory, meaning that remembering is about the present almost as much as it's about the past.
------
The first half dozen books recommended or commented on BTL:
"I used to enjoy 'The art of memory' by Frances A. Yates, it's about the way people trained memory before the age of computers." "That's a wonderful book, and my edition has some fabulous Renaissance drawings representing Giordano Bruni's memory palace."
"Another good one is Kurt Danziger's Marking the mind: a history of memory (Cambridge, 2008)." "That is a wonderful book!"
Frederic Bartlett, Remembering. "Loved it - was very influential on me when I was more seriously involved in painting - sadly find little time because of 'important' work commitments." "And related to that is The image of the city, by Kevin Lynch, exploring the way we make mental maps of out environment." "You're right, it's an absolulely foundational work. Well ahead of its time."
"You appear to have forgotten You can have an amazing memory by Dominic O'Brien."
Henri Bergson, Matter and memory.
"The Carruthers book, with it's counterpart, The book of memory, are partly demolition jobs on Frances Yates but only exist because Yates asked good questions; her other works also opened avenues of enquiry. I've added comments before about Gene Wolfe and John Crowley, but the latter's 'Aegypt' touches on what the past might have been like had Yates been right."
Guardian, 2014-04-02.
"When I told people that I was going to write a book on memory, I saw 'good luck with that' written on a few faces. Memory is a massive topic. Any intelligent system needs some way of tracking where it is in time, and that means remembering where it has been. No surprise, then, that studying memory proliferates into numerous sub-disciplines. You can specialise in short-term memory (memory traces that persist for a few seconds) or cast your net into memories that stretch back through an entire human lifetime. An essential distinction is between memory for facts (semantic memory) and memory for events (episodic memory). I was interested in a branch of memory research that straddles the two: autobiographical memory, or the memory we have for the events of our own lives.
"Roughly four decades of research (with historical precedents that stretch back much further) tell us that this kind of memory is essentially reconstructive. A memory is stitched together in the present moment from several different kinds of information, in a process that's subject to the current beliefs and biases of the person doing the remembering. But surveys tell us that many people remain wedded to a view of memories as immutable, static possessions. Why do we get memory so wrong? One possible reason is that memories are precious to us: they define us in many ways, and so we react with discomfort to the idea that they are the constructions of a story-telling mind.
"Although few scientists would quibble with the idea of the reconstructive nature of memory, there have been some hot new developments: in understanding the social dimensions of remembering, particularly in the very young and very old; in working out how memory functions in trauma and extreme emotion; and in linking remembering the past to thinking about the future, to imagination and to creativity. Keeping up with the latest research meant that I stuck mainly to journal articles when writing Pieces of light. But several books, although sometimes a little out of date, had profound influences on my thinking about memory's slippery charms."
1. Douwe Draaisma, Why life speeds up as you get older.
Memory has been a topic of fascination for centuries. For the long view on how humans have gone about studying it, this book by a Dutch historian of psychology is hard to beat. In poised, humorous prose, he ranges from the stories of respondents to an 1899 survey who had "flashbulb" memories of hearing of the death of Abraham Lincoln, to the diary study of psychologist Willem Wagenaar, who for six years wrote out a daily memory so that he could test his own forgetting, to the nineteenth-century French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau, who asked why the years speed by more quickly as we age.
2. Daniel L. Schacter, Searching for memory.
Harvard psychologist Schacter has been a leading figure in the cognitive neuroscience of episodic memory. In this, his first book, he provides a detailed and highly readable account of how memories are encoded, stored and retrieved, how remembering is damaged and preserved in amnesia, and how memories are distorted by trauma. Particularly interesting is his focus on how memory processes are depicted and interrogated by visual artists, although the pictures unfortunately don't reproduce too well in the paperback. While the field of memory has moved on a fair bit in the eighteen years since this was published, its erudition and scientific authority make it unmatched as an introduction to the study of autobiographical memory.
3. Mary Carruthers, The craft of thought.
Memory was a big thing when books had to be copied out by hand. Building on classical ideas, such as the "method of loci" attributed to Simonides (think of a place and fill it with striking images corresponding to the items you want to remember), our medieval ancestors turned remembering into a developed art. Carruthers provides a brilliant critique of key texts such as Frances Yates's The art of memory, showing that medieval memoria was nothing less than a theory of the recombinative power of thought. Carruthers' dense, ambitious analysis of the medieval mind is an extraordinary work of scholarship.
4. Damon Galgut, In a strange room.
In memory, we narrativise ourselves like novelists. Galgut's unsettling triptych of travel stories (shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize) play disarming tricks with perspective, as the Damon in the stories flips identities with Damon the narrator. Echoing psychologists' distinction between 'field' (first-person) and 'observer' (third-person) memories, Galgut makes austere, uneasy fiction from the idea that we are both the actors and the witnesses in memory.
5. Alan Baddeley, Michael W. Eysenck & Michael C. Anderson, Memory.
British psychologist Baddeley's work transformed the science of short-term memory, or working memory as it is now more typically known. Comprehensive and readable, this popular textbook, co-authored with two other eminent psychologists, is a great resource for those setting out on the academic study of memory.
6. A. R. Luria, The mind of a mnemonist.
You can remember too much. In this classic case study, Russian neuropsychologist Luria tells the story of his patient S. (Solomon Shereshevsky) who harnessed his synaesthetic powers to perform preternatural feats of remembering. Aside from his scientific prowess, Luria is a wonderfully humane writer, and brings S.'s intense, troubled imagination, through which he perceived reality 'as though through a haze', vividly to life.
7. Julian Barnes, The sense of an ending.
To the extent to which they track selves through time, all novels are about memory. But Barnes's 2011 Man Booker-winning novel thinks more deeply about it than most. Middle-aged protagonist Tony finds himself trying to make sense of past relationships and their painful consequences, questioning the reliability of his own story-telling mind as he explores how memories are charged with and shaped by emotion.
8. Harriet Harvey Wood & A. S. Byatt (ed's), Memory: an anthology.
Writers over the centuries have had plenty to say about memory. From Virginia Woolf on the birth of the self to Steven Rose on memory molecules, this endlessly fascinating sourcebook gathers writings from the classical era to the present day, covering territory from the literary to the neuroscientific.
9. W. G. Sebald, Austerlitz.
The medium of memory is narrative, and the best writers on the topic can mimic its reconstructive processes. Sebald creates fictions that are like memories themselves: fragments of fact and imagination restlessly reorganised into shifting renditions of the past. Austerlitz's memories of his childhood in Sebald's final novel build to an anxious, enigmatic portrait of a mind trying to place itself in time.
10. Marcel Proust, In search of lost time.
It's not just about the petite madeleine. Proust's name has entered cognitive science as code for the power of involuntary memory, but there is much more to his masterpiece than the redolent taste of a tisane-soaked morceau. As critic Roger Shattuck observed, Marcel's million-word quest to reconstruct his life story shows us how memory orchestrates selves in relation: the person doing the remembering held in vibrant tension with the remembered self from long ago. Both co-exist in a memory, meaning that remembering is about the present almost as much as it's about the past.
------
The first half dozen books recommended or commented on BTL:
"I used to enjoy 'The art of memory' by Frances A. Yates, it's about the way people trained memory before the age of computers." "That's a wonderful book, and my edition has some fabulous Renaissance drawings representing Giordano Bruni's memory palace."
"Another good one is Kurt Danziger's Marking the mind: a history of memory (Cambridge, 2008)." "That is a wonderful book!"
Frederic Bartlett, Remembering. "Loved it - was very influential on me when I was more seriously involved in painting - sadly find little time because of 'important' work commitments." "And related to that is The image of the city, by Kevin Lynch, exploring the way we make mental maps of out environment." "You're right, it's an absolulely foundational work. Well ahead of its time."
"You appear to have forgotten You can have an amazing memory by Dominic O'Brien."
Henri Bergson, Matter and memory.
"The Carruthers book, with it's counterpart, The book of memory, are partly demolition jobs on Frances Yates but only exist because Yates asked good questions; her other works also opened avenues of enquiry. I've added comments before about Gene Wolfe and John Crowley, but the latter's 'Aegypt' touches on what the past might have been like had Yates been right."
83Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Rebecca Westcott's top 10 diary books.
Guardian, 2014-04-03.
"The relationship between a diary and a diarist is supposedly a private, sacred affair. A diary's pages are the ideal place to record your deepest, heart-felt passions or your darkest desires, safe in the knowledge that your diary will take those secrets to the grave. Write whatever you like – it's all totally secret.
"Isn't it? Err, well no, actually. Because once those thoughts are out of your head and onto the page they can be seen by anybody. They can be found. Which is kind of the whole point of writing something down in the first place, isn't it? To have it read.
"I am fairly unscrupulous. I will hesitate only as long as it takes me to find a comfy chair before I start reading any diary that I happen to stumble upon (or find after hours of searching in my daughter's bedroom…). Diaries are intriguing. They offer us an insight into someone else's head. If we're really lucky they provide reassurance that other people think like we do. The best part about reading a diary (and this applies to reading your own, old diaries) is discovering what the writer of that diary chose to record. What was important to them on that day? Seemingly irrelevant, mundane comments can say a lot about a person, even if it's that "I had the biggest laugh at school today. Jason was messing about with a Bovril sandwich and somehow it ended up being shoved down my jumper (I hasten to add that it was wrapped in cellophane). I got it out, crawled over to James' bag and put it inside without him seeing. Everyone else saw – it was well funny." The unabridged entry goes on for so long that I ended up adding three sides of A4 paper to my diary, so hilarious was the incident of the Bovril sandwich. I was 16-years-old. I was supposed to be revising for my GCSEs.
"Books based on diaries give a reader something really special. The feeling that someone is confiding in you; sharing things with you that they would never tell another living soul. There are many fantastic books for children and teenagers with a diary format. These are my top ten, in no particular order as these books are so diverse that it would be impossible to compare them to each other."
1. Sita Brahmachari, Artichoke hearts.
12-year-old Mira's beloved Nana Josie is dying. There is no doubt about this – Nana has plans to decorate her own coffin and when it arrives on Mira's birthday it's clear that Nana hasn't got long to go. At the same time, Mira joins a writing club at school where she is encouraged to write a diary. The timing is perfect. Things are changing and Mira is suddenly less keen to confide in her best friend. The diary becomes her keeper of secrets. This is a beautiful book, full of what it means to love and be loved. It also contains the sentence I most wish I had written. It's a sentence that keeps coming back to me and could be the opening line to a thousand different stories. "You can have too much history when you're only twelve years old." Sita Brahmachari has created characters that leave you longing to know more about them and their lives.
2. Anne Frank, The diary of a young girl.
Mention children's books based on a diary to most people and this is the first one they'll think of. Since its first publication in 1947 it has been translated into 70 languages and sold over 30 million copies.
It's a great example of a diary being written to be read. When Anne first began her diary in 1942, it was intended as a personal journal, for her eyes only. That changed in 1944 when she heard that the Dutch government was looking to collect letters and diaries after the war that would show the plight of the Dutch people. At this point, Anne revisited her old diaries, adding more detail and editing existing entries. She wanted to become a famous writer and imagined her diaries as a way of enabling that.
This fact makes reading The diary of a young girl a doubly powerful experience. Anne was a real teenager with real teenage concerns - the back of the book describes her as "an ordinary yet extraordinary teenage girl." So, pretty much like all teenage girls, then. Her chatty, friendly style of writing means that her diary entries possess a dry humour despite being poignant and devastatingly awful. This is a children's book that is as much for adults as it is for children.
3. Dodie Smith, I capture the castle.
It is 1934 and 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain has decided to keep a journal. She has two motivations – to practise her speed writing and to prepare herself for writing a novel. However, the six months that follow are so full of change and drama that Cassandra's journal becomes a place where she records all that is happening (and quite a lot that isn't happening too). This story explores sibling relationships, loyalty and ultimately, the issue of unbalanced love. We meet highly likeable, touching characters who are prepared to love more than they are loved. There is a lot of passion flying around this book and it culminates in one of the most powerful endings I have ever read. I found myself applauding Cassandra's sense of self-worth while feeling incredibly sad that it had to end this way.
4. Robert C. O'Brien, Z for Zachariah.
16 year old Ann Burden believes that she is the only survivor of a nuclear holocaust. That is, until the day that Mr Loomis walks into her valley, wearing a protective suit and dragging a wagon of provisions behind him. This was one of my favourite books as a teenager and the feeling of sinister menace that I remembered was just as strong when I recently re-read it. What if you were the last female on earth?
In Ann, we are given a strong heroine who considers practicality at every step but isn't averse to a little daydreaming. Her diary is written over a period of three months and the ending is haunting. You desperately wish that it could somehow be different but it's clear that Ann is taking the only action available to her.
5. Jeff Kinney, Diary of a wimpy kid.
My kids, along with millions of others the world over, absolutely love these books. You only need to read the first few entries to understand why. In Gregg Heffley, we are given a character who lies, cheats and does whatever he deems necessary to get through his day. He suffers at the hands of his big brother, Rodrick and struggles to understand why his parents are so totally devoted to his little brother. The only person available for Gregg to assert any power over is his friend, Rowley – and even that goes wrong when he pushes Rowley too far over the worm-terrorising incident. I asked my son to explain why he thinks these books are international bestsellers. His answer – Gregg isn't particularly good at anything and that's what makes him so appealing to kids. He's an unlikely hero – a hero without heroic qualities. There's a bit of Gregg Heffley in everyone.
6. Louise Rennison, Angus, thongs and full frontal snogging.
This is not a book to read on public transport unless you are comfortable with laughing hysterically in a crowded train carriage. Georgia is feeling the pressure of teenage life – Dad's disappeared to the other side of the world in search of work, she's pretty sure Mum is having an affair with the builder and her little sister, Libby, has a penchant for hiding her dirty nappies in Georgia's room. What I love about this book is the relationship that Georgia has with her friends. It's honest and brutal and very, very realistic. A brilliant book for 12+ readers who will all find something about Georgia that they can identify with.
7. Berlie Doherty, Dear Nobody.
This book is an excellent read for older teenagers. The story of Chris and Helen and their little Nobody is heartbreaking and thought provoking. It isn't strictly a diary - the majority of the story is told from the point of view of Chris as he recalls the events of the last nine months. His memories are interspersed with letters written by Helen to their unborn baby – both of which create a diary feel throughout the book. Chris is desperate to do the right thing and take responsibility for his actions, but Helen won't let him. The relationship between Helen and her mother is difficult but ultimately, the arrival of Nobody helps to heal generations of hurt.
8. Judy Blume, Are you there God? It's me, Margaret.
This book was written in 1970 and is still being enjoyed by pre-teen and early teenagers today. It's another book that, while not strictly written in a diary format, creates the intimate feeling of a diary. Written in the first person by 11-year-old Margaret, we are taken on a journey of awkward moments, humiliating experiences and some serious self-doubt. Margaret 'talks' to God throughout the story, asking his advice and telling him her deepest secrets – she talks to God in the way that another girl might write a diary. The real beauty of this book lies in Margaret's innocence – she feels angry with God and loudly professes to have no religion but not once does she question the reality of God.
I loved this book when I was younger and have recently passed it to my 12-year-old daughter. "It's full of cringe-worthy stuff," she told me, before she disappeared to her room to continue reading. Obviously that's a good thing!
9. Anne Fine, Diary of a killer cat.
This book is great for readers aged six-nine years (although when I recently read it as a bedtime story to my six-year-old son, my 12-year-old daughter snuck in to listen as she remembered enjoying it so much when she was younger). We are told the story from the point of view of Tuffy, the killer cat, who likes to talk straight and tell it like it is. Tuffy's no-nonsense approach makes him a charismatic narrator. Right up until the end, we have no idea whether he is a villain or a hero, and this makes it a book that children don't want to put down.
10. Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole.
I first read this book when I was 13 ¾ years old and thought it was the funniest book I'd ever read in my life. The week where Adrian decides to paint over his Noddy wallpaper with black paint is truly one of the funniest scenes I think I've ever read.
Reading this again as an adult, with a more parental perspective, I can hear the sadness in Adrian's voice, which I didn't really notice as a teen reader – then, I just thought it was funny (as have my own children). Adrian is a teenage boy in desperate need of a hot bath and some care and attention, but his parents are too engrossed in their own issues (plus, he is a highly annoying teenager with a large streak of arrogance). Everyone will know someone like Adrian – this book will remain a firm favourite for teenagers and adults alike, for many, many more years to come.
Guardian, 2014-04-03.
"The relationship between a diary and a diarist is supposedly a private, sacred affair. A diary's pages are the ideal place to record your deepest, heart-felt passions or your darkest desires, safe in the knowledge that your diary will take those secrets to the grave. Write whatever you like – it's all totally secret.
"Isn't it? Err, well no, actually. Because once those thoughts are out of your head and onto the page they can be seen by anybody. They can be found. Which is kind of the whole point of writing something down in the first place, isn't it? To have it read.
"I am fairly unscrupulous. I will hesitate only as long as it takes me to find a comfy chair before I start reading any diary that I happen to stumble upon (or find after hours of searching in my daughter's bedroom…). Diaries are intriguing. They offer us an insight into someone else's head. If we're really lucky they provide reassurance that other people think like we do. The best part about reading a diary (and this applies to reading your own, old diaries) is discovering what the writer of that diary chose to record. What was important to them on that day? Seemingly irrelevant, mundane comments can say a lot about a person, even if it's that "I had the biggest laugh at school today. Jason was messing about with a Bovril sandwich and somehow it ended up being shoved down my jumper (I hasten to add that it was wrapped in cellophane). I got it out, crawled over to James' bag and put it inside without him seeing. Everyone else saw – it was well funny." The unabridged entry goes on for so long that I ended up adding three sides of A4 paper to my diary, so hilarious was the incident of the Bovril sandwich. I was 16-years-old. I was supposed to be revising for my GCSEs.
"Books based on diaries give a reader something really special. The feeling that someone is confiding in you; sharing things with you that they would never tell another living soul. There are many fantastic books for children and teenagers with a diary format. These are my top ten, in no particular order as these books are so diverse that it would be impossible to compare them to each other."
1. Sita Brahmachari, Artichoke hearts.
12-year-old Mira's beloved Nana Josie is dying. There is no doubt about this – Nana has plans to decorate her own coffin and when it arrives on Mira's birthday it's clear that Nana hasn't got long to go. At the same time, Mira joins a writing club at school where she is encouraged to write a diary. The timing is perfect. Things are changing and Mira is suddenly less keen to confide in her best friend. The diary becomes her keeper of secrets. This is a beautiful book, full of what it means to love and be loved. It also contains the sentence I most wish I had written. It's a sentence that keeps coming back to me and could be the opening line to a thousand different stories. "You can have too much history when you're only twelve years old." Sita Brahmachari has created characters that leave you longing to know more about them and their lives.
2. Anne Frank, The diary of a young girl.
Mention children's books based on a diary to most people and this is the first one they'll think of. Since its first publication in 1947 it has been translated into 70 languages and sold over 30 million copies.
It's a great example of a diary being written to be read. When Anne first began her diary in 1942, it was intended as a personal journal, for her eyes only. That changed in 1944 when she heard that the Dutch government was looking to collect letters and diaries after the war that would show the plight of the Dutch people. At this point, Anne revisited her old diaries, adding more detail and editing existing entries. She wanted to become a famous writer and imagined her diaries as a way of enabling that.
This fact makes reading The diary of a young girl a doubly powerful experience. Anne was a real teenager with real teenage concerns - the back of the book describes her as "an ordinary yet extraordinary teenage girl." So, pretty much like all teenage girls, then. Her chatty, friendly style of writing means that her diary entries possess a dry humour despite being poignant and devastatingly awful. This is a children's book that is as much for adults as it is for children.
3. Dodie Smith, I capture the castle.
It is 1934 and 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain has decided to keep a journal. She has two motivations – to practise her speed writing and to prepare herself for writing a novel. However, the six months that follow are so full of change and drama that Cassandra's journal becomes a place where she records all that is happening (and quite a lot that isn't happening too). This story explores sibling relationships, loyalty and ultimately, the issue of unbalanced love. We meet highly likeable, touching characters who are prepared to love more than they are loved. There is a lot of passion flying around this book and it culminates in one of the most powerful endings I have ever read. I found myself applauding Cassandra's sense of self-worth while feeling incredibly sad that it had to end this way.
4. Robert C. O'Brien, Z for Zachariah.
16 year old Ann Burden believes that she is the only survivor of a nuclear holocaust. That is, until the day that Mr Loomis walks into her valley, wearing a protective suit and dragging a wagon of provisions behind him. This was one of my favourite books as a teenager and the feeling of sinister menace that I remembered was just as strong when I recently re-read it. What if you were the last female on earth?
In Ann, we are given a strong heroine who considers practicality at every step but isn't averse to a little daydreaming. Her diary is written over a period of three months and the ending is haunting. You desperately wish that it could somehow be different but it's clear that Ann is taking the only action available to her.
5. Jeff Kinney, Diary of a wimpy kid.
My kids, along with millions of others the world over, absolutely love these books. You only need to read the first few entries to understand why. In Gregg Heffley, we are given a character who lies, cheats and does whatever he deems necessary to get through his day. He suffers at the hands of his big brother, Rodrick and struggles to understand why his parents are so totally devoted to his little brother. The only person available for Gregg to assert any power over is his friend, Rowley – and even that goes wrong when he pushes Rowley too far over the worm-terrorising incident. I asked my son to explain why he thinks these books are international bestsellers. His answer – Gregg isn't particularly good at anything and that's what makes him so appealing to kids. He's an unlikely hero – a hero without heroic qualities. There's a bit of Gregg Heffley in everyone.
6. Louise Rennison, Angus, thongs and full frontal snogging.
This is not a book to read on public transport unless you are comfortable with laughing hysterically in a crowded train carriage. Georgia is feeling the pressure of teenage life – Dad's disappeared to the other side of the world in search of work, she's pretty sure Mum is having an affair with the builder and her little sister, Libby, has a penchant for hiding her dirty nappies in Georgia's room. What I love about this book is the relationship that Georgia has with her friends. It's honest and brutal and very, very realistic. A brilliant book for 12+ readers who will all find something about Georgia that they can identify with.
7. Berlie Doherty, Dear Nobody.
This book is an excellent read for older teenagers. The story of Chris and Helen and their little Nobody is heartbreaking and thought provoking. It isn't strictly a diary - the majority of the story is told from the point of view of Chris as he recalls the events of the last nine months. His memories are interspersed with letters written by Helen to their unborn baby – both of which create a diary feel throughout the book. Chris is desperate to do the right thing and take responsibility for his actions, but Helen won't let him. The relationship between Helen and her mother is difficult but ultimately, the arrival of Nobody helps to heal generations of hurt.
8. Judy Blume, Are you there God? It's me, Margaret.
This book was written in 1970 and is still being enjoyed by pre-teen and early teenagers today. It's another book that, while not strictly written in a diary format, creates the intimate feeling of a diary. Written in the first person by 11-year-old Margaret, we are taken on a journey of awkward moments, humiliating experiences and some serious self-doubt. Margaret 'talks' to God throughout the story, asking his advice and telling him her deepest secrets – she talks to God in the way that another girl might write a diary. The real beauty of this book lies in Margaret's innocence – she feels angry with God and loudly professes to have no religion but not once does she question the reality of God.
I loved this book when I was younger and have recently passed it to my 12-year-old daughter. "It's full of cringe-worthy stuff," she told me, before she disappeared to her room to continue reading. Obviously that's a good thing!
9. Anne Fine, Diary of a killer cat.
This book is great for readers aged six-nine years (although when I recently read it as a bedtime story to my six-year-old son, my 12-year-old daughter snuck in to listen as she remembered enjoying it so much when she was younger). We are told the story from the point of view of Tuffy, the killer cat, who likes to talk straight and tell it like it is. Tuffy's no-nonsense approach makes him a charismatic narrator. Right up until the end, we have no idea whether he is a villain or a hero, and this makes it a book that children don't want to put down.
10. Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole.
I first read this book when I was 13 ¾ years old and thought it was the funniest book I'd ever read in my life. The week where Adrian decides to paint over his Noddy wallpaper with black paint is truly one of the funniest scenes I think I've ever read.
Reading this again as an adult, with a more parental perspective, I can hear the sadness in Adrian's voice, which I didn't really notice as a teen reader – then, I just thought it was funny (as have my own children). Adrian is a teenage boy in desperate need of a hot bath and some care and attention, but his parents are too engrossed in their own issues (plus, he is a highly annoying teenager with a large streak of arrogance). Everyone will know someone like Adrian – this book will remain a firm favourite for teenagers and adults alike, for many, many more years to come.
84Cynfelyn
Laura Lippmann's top 10 books about missing persons.
Guardian, 2014-04-09.
"My friend Harlan Coben observed that murder stories may be intriguing, but the open-ended nature of missing person stories make them even more compelling. They are real-life ghost stories, in which those who remain behind are haunted endlessly by the possible fates of those who have left them. In writing After I'm gone, I thought a lot about how we can ever reconcile ourselves to the loss of someone vital. Even if – or especially if – it's a person that others feel we have no real claim on.
"And while most missing person stories centre on those left behind, the 'disappeared' have their stories to tell as well. These are often crime stories, and always love stories.
"In fact, the most satisfying ones are those in which a bereft loved one becomes determined to track down the missing person, at any cost. My favourites include all these varieties and more – even a children's story of a literal disappearance that sets off a riot in Toledo, Ohio."
1. Gillian Flynn, Gone girl.
I read this book in galleys and loved it, but had no idea it would be THE book of 2012. And 2013. And now 2014. (It remained on the New York Times bestseller list into this year and is about to be released in paperback.) At this point, it's the standard-bearer for crime novels about missing women. Nick and Amy are the perfect couple, except, of course, they're not and her disappearance – on their fifth wedding anniversary – leads to a twisty, ingenious and wonderfully dark story.
2. Megan Abbott, The song is you.
One of my favourite crime writers, Abbott is probably best known for her stunning novels that centre on the lives of contemporary teenage girls. But she also has written several outstanding period pieces, including this one, inspired by the 1949 disappearance of the actress Jean Spangler. The story is told from the point of view of jaded PR guy Gil 'Hop' Hopkins and, to use the parlance of its characters, it's a knock-out.
3. Alison Gaylin, And she was.
I'm obsessed with memory, in part because I recognise how imperfect mine is. Gaylin comes at it from a different perspective in this, the first book in a terrific series. Private investigator Brenna Spector has a rare (but very real) neurological disorder, one that allows her to remember everything – but only since the moment her own sister got into a strange car, never to be seen again. That childhood tragedy comes back to haunt her when she investigates a missing persons case that appears to be related to the disappearance of a six-year-old girl – and her own life.
4. Alafair Burke, If you were here.
A reporter on the hunt for nothing more than a hot story is surprised when a videotape of a subway rescue shows a woman who looks remarkably like an old friend who has been missing for years. Another great take on the age-old question of how well we know anyone – even our spouses. Especially our spouses.
5. Stewart O'Nan, Songs for the missing.
A young woman goes out one evening and never comes home. It sounds so simple, but, of course, it's anything but. O'Nan is that rare literary writer who takes crime-novel tropes and really does transform them.
6. Tom Perrotta, The leftovers.
A Rapture-like phenomenon has led to the simultaneous disappearance of millions of souls. Perrotta, who has been called the American Chekhov, is interested in what happens to those left behind in one small town, the myriad ways that people search for meaning in the wake of an incomprehensible tragedy.
7. Edward Eager, Half magic.
I consider it my mission in life to recommend an Eager book whenever possible. In this one, three sisters and a brother in 1920s America discover a coin that grants wishes by halves. A well-read group steeped in the works of E. Nesbit – whom Eager championed and credited in every book he wrote – they eventually learn to control their magic. But when the youngest, bored at the movies, wishes not to be there, she is suddenly only half-there – she more or less disappears, causing a riot.
8. Neil Gordon, The company you keep.
We think of the stories of the disappeared as belonging to those who are left behind. But Gordon's 2003 allows us inside the story of a man who has gone on the run to escape his recently discovered past – as a former 60s revolutionary responsible for a man's death. Forced to leave his seven-year-old daughter in a New York hotel room, Jacob Sinai attempts, years later, to explain himself to her.
9. Herman Wouk, Marjorie Morningstar.
Noel Airman is a bit of a cad. After one of the longest seductions in fiction – really, Andrew Marvell would marvel – he jumps on an ocean liner to escape his young lover, leaving behind a rather cruel and very lengthy letter explaining why he is going somewhere she won't be able to find him. But although Marjorie has made the then-tragic error of sleeping with a man who will not marry her (the novel is set in the 1930s), she's wise enough to know that a man who is through with a young woman doesn't write a 20-page, single-typed letter saying this over and over again. Marjorie eventually gets her man. And realises she doesn't want him.
10. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita.
It's often overlooked, but Lolita is the confession of a man who has spent some time tracking down the mystery man who "stole" his beloved. (It should be pointed out that his beloved is his stepdaughter, whom he has been raping repeatedly.) Nabokov has immense fun dropping various clues to the identity of Lolita's new companion, even hiding his name in a twisty line of French.
------
From BTL:
"I have just finished The leftovers and really enjoyed it. Same can be said about Gone girl (read it a while back), but number one on the list is a bit much. What about Lovely bones? Most of the time they think she is missing at least." "I think it's different because we know she's not missing, so there's no mystery about her fate. It becomes more of a study of her family's reactions than truly a missing person's novel."
Stieg Larsson, Girl With the dragon tattoo. "Girl goes missing for about 40 years, explanation is brilliant in it's simplicity and upon thinking it through the author drops a few clues that are glaringly obvious."
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita. "You can't just blunder in there and say Lolita is raped, it's not as final as that in the book." (Cue pile-on, for which see the original column, by clicking through, as per usual, from the word "Guardian" at the top of the column).
Andrea Barrett, The voyage of the Narwhal. "A wonderful book about one of the searches for the missing explorer, Sir John Franklin."
Ian McEwan, The child in time. "Every parent's nightmare."
Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock. "The first novel that came to my mind when I saw the headline."
Guardian, 2014-04-09.
"My friend Harlan Coben observed that murder stories may be intriguing, but the open-ended nature of missing person stories make them even more compelling. They are real-life ghost stories, in which those who remain behind are haunted endlessly by the possible fates of those who have left them. In writing After I'm gone, I thought a lot about how we can ever reconcile ourselves to the loss of someone vital. Even if – or especially if – it's a person that others feel we have no real claim on.
"And while most missing person stories centre on those left behind, the 'disappeared' have their stories to tell as well. These are often crime stories, and always love stories.
"In fact, the most satisfying ones are those in which a bereft loved one becomes determined to track down the missing person, at any cost. My favourites include all these varieties and more – even a children's story of a literal disappearance that sets off a riot in Toledo, Ohio."
1. Gillian Flynn, Gone girl.
I read this book in galleys and loved it, but had no idea it would be THE book of 2012. And 2013. And now 2014. (It remained on the New York Times bestseller list into this year and is about to be released in paperback.) At this point, it's the standard-bearer for crime novels about missing women. Nick and Amy are the perfect couple, except, of course, they're not and her disappearance – on their fifth wedding anniversary – leads to a twisty, ingenious and wonderfully dark story.
2. Megan Abbott, The song is you.
One of my favourite crime writers, Abbott is probably best known for her stunning novels that centre on the lives of contemporary teenage girls. But she also has written several outstanding period pieces, including this one, inspired by the 1949 disappearance of the actress Jean Spangler. The story is told from the point of view of jaded PR guy Gil 'Hop' Hopkins and, to use the parlance of its characters, it's a knock-out.
3. Alison Gaylin, And she was.
I'm obsessed with memory, in part because I recognise how imperfect mine is. Gaylin comes at it from a different perspective in this, the first book in a terrific series. Private investigator Brenna Spector has a rare (but very real) neurological disorder, one that allows her to remember everything – but only since the moment her own sister got into a strange car, never to be seen again. That childhood tragedy comes back to haunt her when she investigates a missing persons case that appears to be related to the disappearance of a six-year-old girl – and her own life.
4. Alafair Burke, If you were here.
A reporter on the hunt for nothing more than a hot story is surprised when a videotape of a subway rescue shows a woman who looks remarkably like an old friend who has been missing for years. Another great take on the age-old question of how well we know anyone – even our spouses. Especially our spouses.
5. Stewart O'Nan, Songs for the missing.
A young woman goes out one evening and never comes home. It sounds so simple, but, of course, it's anything but. O'Nan is that rare literary writer who takes crime-novel tropes and really does transform them.
6. Tom Perrotta, The leftovers.
A Rapture-like phenomenon has led to the simultaneous disappearance of millions of souls. Perrotta, who has been called the American Chekhov, is interested in what happens to those left behind in one small town, the myriad ways that people search for meaning in the wake of an incomprehensible tragedy.
7. Edward Eager, Half magic.
I consider it my mission in life to recommend an Eager book whenever possible. In this one, three sisters and a brother in 1920s America discover a coin that grants wishes by halves. A well-read group steeped in the works of E. Nesbit – whom Eager championed and credited in every book he wrote – they eventually learn to control their magic. But when the youngest, bored at the movies, wishes not to be there, she is suddenly only half-there – she more or less disappears, causing a riot.
8. Neil Gordon, The company you keep.
We think of the stories of the disappeared as belonging to those who are left behind. But Gordon's 2003 allows us inside the story of a man who has gone on the run to escape his recently discovered past – as a former 60s revolutionary responsible for a man's death. Forced to leave his seven-year-old daughter in a New York hotel room, Jacob Sinai attempts, years later, to explain himself to her.
9. Herman Wouk, Marjorie Morningstar.
Noel Airman is a bit of a cad. After one of the longest seductions in fiction – really, Andrew Marvell would marvel – he jumps on an ocean liner to escape his young lover, leaving behind a rather cruel and very lengthy letter explaining why he is going somewhere she won't be able to find him. But although Marjorie has made the then-tragic error of sleeping with a man who will not marry her (the novel is set in the 1930s), she's wise enough to know that a man who is through with a young woman doesn't write a 20-page, single-typed letter saying this over and over again. Marjorie eventually gets her man. And realises she doesn't want him.
10. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita.
It's often overlooked, but Lolita is the confession of a man who has spent some time tracking down the mystery man who "stole" his beloved. (It should be pointed out that his beloved is his stepdaughter, whom he has been raping repeatedly.) Nabokov has immense fun dropping various clues to the identity of Lolita's new companion, even hiding his name in a twisty line of French.
------
From BTL:
"I have just finished The leftovers and really enjoyed it. Same can be said about Gone girl (read it a while back), but number one on the list is a bit much. What about Lovely bones? Most of the time they think she is missing at least." "I think it's different because we know she's not missing, so there's no mystery about her fate. It becomes more of a study of her family's reactions than truly a missing person's novel."
Stieg Larsson, Girl With the dragon tattoo. "Girl goes missing for about 40 years, explanation is brilliant in it's simplicity and upon thinking it through the author drops a few clues that are glaringly obvious."
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita. "You can't just blunder in there and say Lolita is raped, it's not as final as that in the book." (Cue pile-on, for which see the original column, by clicking through, as per usual, from the word "Guardian" at the top of the column).
Andrea Barrett, The voyage of the Narwhal. "A wonderful book about one of the searches for the missing explorer, Sir John Franklin."
Ian McEwan, The child in time. "Every parent's nightmare."
Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock. "The first novel that came to my mind when I saw the headline."
85Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Matt Haig's top ten robots.
Guardian, 2014-04-10.
"Robots are great. I am saying that now, so that when a future civilization of robots takes us captive they will search through the Guardian web archive and realise I said 'robots are great' and then they'll choose to save me.
"In fact, I love robots so much I have written a list of my top ten favourite fictional ones from film and literature (and pop music). Here it is:"
1. Marvin the Paranoid Android, from Douglas Adams, The hitchhikers' guide to the galaxy.
The trouble with having a brain 'the size of a planet' is that it can lead to all kinds of personality problems. In Marvin's case he is continually depressed and bored because no task he is given can ever occupy more than the tiniest fraction of his mind. He is, after all, 50,000 times more intelligent than the average human, or 30 billion times more intelligent than a live mattress. More than anything, Marvin teaches us the danger of too much knowledge. 'I could calculate your chances of survival,' he tells Arthur Dent at one point. 'But you wouldn't like it.'
2. The Iron Man, from Ted Hughes, The iron man.
Not to be confused with the brash Marvel superhero played by Robert Downey Jr, Ted Hughes' The iron man is a novel of mythic power. It was among my favourite books as a child, and still haunts me. Unlike a lot of fictional robots, this iron man's origins aren't ever known or explained. He just is. Though he is initially not treated well by humans (unless being trapped in an underground pit counts as good treatment) he still opts to save humanity when a strange alien threat appears in the form of a 'space-bat-angel-dragon'. A stoic hero.
3. Hal 9000, from Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: a space odyssey.
A controversial choice, perhaps. Is HAL really a robot? He is technically a computer program with artificial intelligence and his only physical presence is a camera eye, but in Kubrick's classic film version of the novel he does seem to be a physical presence, maybe because he controls a spaceship. Plus research tells me he has been inducted in the Robot Hall of Fame.
4. Daft Punk (band)
Daft Punk are technically Parisian musicians making quite a nice living by reinventing disco for the twenty-first century. But I think they also qualify as fictional robots too, as their masked robotic personas have made a stronger impression on our collective consciousness than the humans behind them. And as computers pretty much co-write half the charts these days, robot popstars are probably the future.
5. Tik-Tok, from L. Frank Baum, the Land of Oz books.
A special mention for one of fiction's earliest robots, he is not the most advanced technologically (a round-bodied mechanical man who needs to be wound up to function), but he set the template for fictional robots to come. He struggles with the concept of emotion but is a loyal servant to Dorothy.
6. Wall-E, from Wall-E.
My children Lucas and Pearl wouldn't forgive me if I didn't include their favourite robot. Wall-E is a 'Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth class' but – like all the best fictional robots – is so much more than his job title suggests. He falls in love, and even has a soft-spot for Barbara Streisand movies. The first half of this film, the part set on a humanless post-apocalyptic Earth, is up there with the sci-fi greats. This was Pixar's ET moment.
7. Elio, from Diana Wynne Jones, A tale of time city.
One of the reasons I loved time-travel yarn A Tale of Time City when I first read it in the eighties was the character of Elio. Elio is a humanoid robot from the future, who – like many others – is far more intelligent than the humans he hangs out with. The interesting thing about Elio is that he hates other robots, and gets angry when he sees them. It seems to be an ego thing.
8. The Stepford Wives, from Ira Levin, The Stepford wives.
Thanks to Julia Golding for reminding me of this. The male Stepford residents think they know the secret to a happy marriage – namely, to make sure your wife is an actual living robot.
9. R. Giskard Reventlov, from Isaac Asimov, the Robot stories.
A lot of the robots in Asimov's novels are interesting more as concepts than characters, but this one is different. As an unintended result of experiments carried out on him by the daughter of a famous roboticist, he ends up being able to read and influence emotions. ('Emotions are readily apparent, thoughts are not'.) His telepathy leads to a desire to save humanity. The 'R' stands for robot.
10. C3-PO, from Star Wars.
C3-PO may be fluent in over six million forms of communication, but you have to feel some sympathy for R2-D2, whose bleeps always seemed so positive and cheery placed next to the pedantic pessimism of his golden friend and translator. Still, C3-PO's neuroticism – along with Han Solo's smirk – weirdly remains one of the most human things about the first Star Wars trilogy, thanks to Anthony Daniels's voice and a rather touching case of separation anxiety (the poignant refrain of 'R2D2 where are you?' to this day tugs at my soul).
------
If ships' computers are acceptable (see Hal, no. 3 above), I would nominate one of the ships' computers from Blake's 7, the BBC TV series, broadcast 1978-1981. But I can't decide between Liberator's Zen and Scorpio's Slave.
Otherwise, other than Gort, or the Terminator robots, my best shot would be the short-lived tank Marvin talks on the connecting bridge between the twin towers of the The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy office blocks during the attack by the Frogstar Fighters. I think Marvin's conclusion was, "What a very stupid robot".
Guardian, 2014-04-10.
"Robots are great. I am saying that now, so that when a future civilization of robots takes us captive they will search through the Guardian web archive and realise I said 'robots are great' and then they'll choose to save me.
"In fact, I love robots so much I have written a list of my top ten favourite fictional ones from film and literature (and pop music). Here it is:"
1. Marvin the Paranoid Android, from Douglas Adams, The hitchhikers' guide to the galaxy.
The trouble with having a brain 'the size of a planet' is that it can lead to all kinds of personality problems. In Marvin's case he is continually depressed and bored because no task he is given can ever occupy more than the tiniest fraction of his mind. He is, after all, 50,000 times more intelligent than the average human, or 30 billion times more intelligent than a live mattress. More than anything, Marvin teaches us the danger of too much knowledge. 'I could calculate your chances of survival,' he tells Arthur Dent at one point. 'But you wouldn't like it.'
2. The Iron Man, from Ted Hughes, The iron man.
Not to be confused with the brash Marvel superhero played by Robert Downey Jr, Ted Hughes' The iron man is a novel of mythic power. It was among my favourite books as a child, and still haunts me. Unlike a lot of fictional robots, this iron man's origins aren't ever known or explained. He just is. Though he is initially not treated well by humans (unless being trapped in an underground pit counts as good treatment) he still opts to save humanity when a strange alien threat appears in the form of a 'space-bat-angel-dragon'. A stoic hero.
3. Hal 9000, from Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: a space odyssey.
A controversial choice, perhaps. Is HAL really a robot? He is technically a computer program with artificial intelligence and his only physical presence is a camera eye, but in Kubrick's classic film version of the novel he does seem to be a physical presence, maybe because he controls a spaceship. Plus research tells me he has been inducted in the Robot Hall of Fame.
4. Daft Punk (band)
Daft Punk are technically Parisian musicians making quite a nice living by reinventing disco for the twenty-first century. But I think they also qualify as fictional robots too, as their masked robotic personas have made a stronger impression on our collective consciousness than the humans behind them. And as computers pretty much co-write half the charts these days, robot popstars are probably the future.
5. Tik-Tok, from L. Frank Baum, the Land of Oz books.
A special mention for one of fiction's earliest robots, he is not the most advanced technologically (a round-bodied mechanical man who needs to be wound up to function), but he set the template for fictional robots to come. He struggles with the concept of emotion but is a loyal servant to Dorothy.
6. Wall-E, from Wall-E.
My children Lucas and Pearl wouldn't forgive me if I didn't include their favourite robot. Wall-E is a 'Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth class' but – like all the best fictional robots – is so much more than his job title suggests. He falls in love, and even has a soft-spot for Barbara Streisand movies. The first half of this film, the part set on a humanless post-apocalyptic Earth, is up there with the sci-fi greats. This was Pixar's ET moment.
7. Elio, from Diana Wynne Jones, A tale of time city.
One of the reasons I loved time-travel yarn A Tale of Time City when I first read it in the eighties was the character of Elio. Elio is a humanoid robot from the future, who – like many others – is far more intelligent than the humans he hangs out with. The interesting thing about Elio is that he hates other robots, and gets angry when he sees them. It seems to be an ego thing.
8. The Stepford Wives, from Ira Levin, The Stepford wives.
Thanks to Julia Golding for reminding me of this. The male Stepford residents think they know the secret to a happy marriage – namely, to make sure your wife is an actual living robot.
9. R. Giskard Reventlov, from Isaac Asimov, the Robot stories.
A lot of the robots in Asimov's novels are interesting more as concepts than characters, but this one is different. As an unintended result of experiments carried out on him by the daughter of a famous roboticist, he ends up being able to read and influence emotions. ('Emotions are readily apparent, thoughts are not'.) His telepathy leads to a desire to save humanity. The 'R' stands for robot.
10. C3-PO, from Star Wars.
C3-PO may be fluent in over six million forms of communication, but you have to feel some sympathy for R2-D2, whose bleeps always seemed so positive and cheery placed next to the pedantic pessimism of his golden friend and translator. Still, C3-PO's neuroticism – along with Han Solo's smirk – weirdly remains one of the most human things about the first Star Wars trilogy, thanks to Anthony Daniels's voice and a rather touching case of separation anxiety (the poignant refrain of 'R2D2 where are you?' to this day tugs at my soul).
------
If ships' computers are acceptable (see Hal, no. 3 above), I would nominate one of the ships' computers from Blake's 7, the BBC TV series, broadcast 1978-1981. But I can't decide between Liberator's Zen and Scorpio's Slave.
Otherwise, other than Gort, or the Terminator robots, my best shot would be the short-lived tank Marvin talks on the connecting bridge between the twin towers of the The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy office blocks during the attack by the Frogstar Fighters. I think Marvin's conclusion was, "What a very stupid robot".
87Cynfelyn
Robert Allison (2)'s top 10 novels of desert war.
Guardian, 2014-04-16.
(Note: This is Robert Allison (2), author of The letter bearer, 2014).
"The desert has always been fertile ground for novelists. Not only in the otherworldliness of the landscape but also for its capacity to act as an existential sounding board for characters; such vast expanses of emptiness naturally encouraging introspection and reflection. Factor in armed hostilities to so extreme and testing an environment and you have a stage set for the highest drama, the desert itself reliably assuming its adversarial role.
"From the campaigns of antiquity through to more recent conflicts, war in desert locations has provided the basis for some distinguished and popular literary offerings, and here – in no particular order – is a selection of 10 of them:"
1. Christopher Landon, Ice cold in Alex.
Now indelibly associated with the image of a grim and sandblasted John Mills from the 1958 movie adaptation, Landon's source novel is a brisk and entertaining yarn in its own right, its lean narrative never flagging even when addressing the unique technical challenges of desert driving. No wonder that his story of a lone ambulance crew trying to make it across the Western Desert and back to Allied-held Alexandria seems authentic in its detail, as Landon himself was an ambulance driver with the RAMC in north Africa during the second world war.
2. Cormac McCarthy, Blood meridian.
Widely held to be his finest novel, McCarthy's pitiless and virtuosic take on the American-Indian Wars of the 1840s won fame both for its hyperbolic, quasi-biblical prose and for its bludgeoning violence – though arguably its greatest achievement is in the creation of Judge Holden, a wily and erudite demi-god who gleefully fiddles and foxes his way from one slaughter to the next. Littered with scenes of carnage, the desert backdrop here is not only an inhospitable environment but a purgatorial doom, in which every living or natural thing seems to exist in a state of antipathy.
3. Derek Robinson, A good clean fight.
Robinson's story of RAF Hornet Squadron and its exploits in the Libyan desert in 1942 rises well above genre standards thanks to its energetic storytelling, its wealth of factual detail and the author's trademark gallows humour:
"What if it really is mined, sir?"
"I suppose that will become blindingly obvious, Pocock."
While the acts of derring-do might owe a fair bit to the sprit of Boy's Own, the action is underscored by a vein of authenticity that comes from the author's own RAF service, and the novel is admirably clean of gung-ho excess.
4. Frank Herbert, Dune.
While the milieu here is speculative, real-world landscapes and cultures certainly inform it, the clans warring over the Melange narcotic spice on desert planet Arrakis analogous to the western powers who colonised north Africa, while the indigenous Fremen can be likened to the Senussi tribe of the same region. Despite the many Arabic/Islamic references, however, Herbert's inspiration for the novel did not come from any African desert vista but from the Oregon Dunes, about which he wrote an (unpublished) article.
5. Kevin Powers, The yellow birds.
Powers' anecdotally-based story of a tour of duty in Iraq and its psychological aftershock is the standout from a number of entries dealing with the Gulf wars, and won much acclaim for its articulation of the long-term effects of combat stress. Enemy engagements here take place predominantly in built-up areas rather than across open ground, but this is still very much desert country – blinding, suffocatingly hot and persistently bewildering to its occupiers.
6. Geoffrey Wagner, The sands of valour.
Yet another novel written from the personal experience of a combatant. But while Wagner's account of tank warfare in north Africa is meticulous in its detailing of vehicles, tactics and battles, it's the unrelenting cycles of terror, relief and exhaustion experienced by the crews of armoured regiments that leave the strongest impression. Sometimes referred to as the land-bound equivalent of Nicholas Monsarrat's The cruel sea, this novel has not enjoyed the same enduring popularity, though both authors are adept in portraying the wearying strain of constant alert.
7. Michael Ondaatje, The English patient.
Ondaatje's Booker-winning masterpiece is more a plaint against ownership than an enquiry into the consequences of battle. Based (very) loosely on the history of the Hungarian desert cartographer and aristocrat, László Almásy, the novel sees the badly burned patient of the title assume anonymity after a doomed attempt to steal another man's wife. "Do you understand the sadness of geography?" Ondaatje asks, his dying patient's mythic desert landscapes divided and claimed by warring powers, their wonders reduced to mere waypoints and coordinates.
8. T. E. Lawrence, Seven pillars of wisdom.
By turns fascinating, infuriating and inspiring, this self-penned tale of Lawrence's role in the Arab revolt against the Turks and the emergence of the Arab League stands as a unique insight into the mind of an enigmatic and brilliant man. Unsurpassed as a perspective on the complexities of the Middle Eastern campaign, the book can nevertheless be considered at least part-fiction thanks to its questionable historicity and its tendency towards the lyrical and its ornate 19th-century prose style evidencing Lawrence's aspiration towards high art.
9. Cyril Joly, Take these men.
Essentially a memoir written as fiction, Cyril Joly's 1956 account of desert warfare as part of the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment in the second world war makes compelling reading. In terse prose, Joly spells out just how and why it was such a grim ordeal to be sealed into a steel hulk and sent out to face superior arms and equipment across acres of baking wilderness. And if his supporting characters sometimes seem class stereotypical, that social divide between the ranks is clearly how Joly saw it at the time.
10. A. E. W. Mason, The four feathers.
This 1902 classic is a more thoughtful and sombre rumination on duty and honour than its cinematic incarnations suggest. And while today's reader might find the novel's exploration of a guilt complex ultimately superficial, the novel's penitential hero, Harry Faversham, is still ahead of his time in bringing to light the moral and ethical quandaries of cowardice and the instinct to self preservation. The historical backdrop of the Sudanese Mahdist revolt encompasses a variety of richly-painted locales, most vivid amongst them being the slums of Cairo and Omdurman's hellish "House of Stone" prison.
------
Well, that's my fact of the week: Arrakis is based on the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. It's vaguely disappointing.
And a column that managed to name three stalwarts of the mainly black and white films in the Sunday early afternoon television slot of my youth. What a lot of war we lapped up in those days.
Anyway, BTL:
Flashman. "Afghanistan's pretty rough, innit?" "Flashy's journey through Apache territory ought to count, too." "He encounters Glanton's scalphunters there. Fraser mentioned his source (and Cormac McCarthy's) for that, Samuel Chamberlain's My confession. Not only was there a real Judge Holden, but he gave geology lectures to the gang. But not even McCarthy dared to give his protagonist the ending that life gave Chamberlain - fiction can only go so far." "Flashman's author George MacDonald Fraser also wrote one of the best WW2 true stories set in Burma - Quartered safe out here. It has the most rememberable first line of any book I have read (including Tale of two cities). 'The first time I smelt Jap was in a deep dry riverbed in the Dry Belt, somewhere near Meiktila.'"
"The English patient is for me one of those rare cases when the film really is preferable to the book. Or did I just not get it?" "Couldn't agree more. The movie is sublime - restrained without being 'stiff', emotive without being melodramatic, and arguably one of the most visually beautiful series ever committed to celluloid. The book ... isn't." "The book is infinitely superior to the film, which was ruined for me by Ralph Fiennes constipated style of acting." (Plus other comments from other points on the spectrum; for these see the original column).
"So no Biggles defends the desert, then?" "Having said that, though, I did really like Another job for Biggles - in addition to the usual "someone goes wandering off and gets lost in the desert" trope, the character who gets lost (it's Ginger. It's usually Ginger. They should keep him on a lead) accidentally drinks from a stream polluted with hashish and ends up lost in the desert while, essentially, tripping balls. It's delightful."
Beau Geste.
"The seven pillars of wisdom is my Desert Island 'book', I recommend that anyone interested should read it at least twice. T. E. Lawrence was a dreadful show-off but this is forgiveable-in his case." "If The seven pillars of wisdom is permissible, then I raise you Rommel? Gunner Who?"
"How could you miss Ice cold in Alex? Great book and fantastic movie to follow." "Eh? It's number one. He's got heatstroke corporal; get the jerry can from the Vickers and tip it over him. Forty hours till the meet-up with the LRDG. I just hope he can hold out till then." "One of my favourite war films. Only spoilt by the last 30 seconds when they drive away through the streets of 1950's Alexandria, flared skirts Land Rovers and 1950s cars a-plenty."
Guardian, 2014-04-16.
(Note: This is Robert Allison (2), author of The letter bearer, 2014).
"The desert has always been fertile ground for novelists. Not only in the otherworldliness of the landscape but also for its capacity to act as an existential sounding board for characters; such vast expanses of emptiness naturally encouraging introspection and reflection. Factor in armed hostilities to so extreme and testing an environment and you have a stage set for the highest drama, the desert itself reliably assuming its adversarial role.
"From the campaigns of antiquity through to more recent conflicts, war in desert locations has provided the basis for some distinguished and popular literary offerings, and here – in no particular order – is a selection of 10 of them:"
1. Christopher Landon, Ice cold in Alex.
Now indelibly associated with the image of a grim and sandblasted John Mills from the 1958 movie adaptation, Landon's source novel is a brisk and entertaining yarn in its own right, its lean narrative never flagging even when addressing the unique technical challenges of desert driving. No wonder that his story of a lone ambulance crew trying to make it across the Western Desert and back to Allied-held Alexandria seems authentic in its detail, as Landon himself was an ambulance driver with the RAMC in north Africa during the second world war.
2. Cormac McCarthy, Blood meridian.
Widely held to be his finest novel, McCarthy's pitiless and virtuosic take on the American-Indian Wars of the 1840s won fame both for its hyperbolic, quasi-biblical prose and for its bludgeoning violence – though arguably its greatest achievement is in the creation of Judge Holden, a wily and erudite demi-god who gleefully fiddles and foxes his way from one slaughter to the next. Littered with scenes of carnage, the desert backdrop here is not only an inhospitable environment but a purgatorial doom, in which every living or natural thing seems to exist in a state of antipathy.
3. Derek Robinson, A good clean fight.
Robinson's story of RAF Hornet Squadron and its exploits in the Libyan desert in 1942 rises well above genre standards thanks to its energetic storytelling, its wealth of factual detail and the author's trademark gallows humour:
"What if it really is mined, sir?"
"I suppose that will become blindingly obvious, Pocock."
While the acts of derring-do might owe a fair bit to the sprit of Boy's Own, the action is underscored by a vein of authenticity that comes from the author's own RAF service, and the novel is admirably clean of gung-ho excess.
4. Frank Herbert, Dune.
While the milieu here is speculative, real-world landscapes and cultures certainly inform it, the clans warring over the Melange narcotic spice on desert planet Arrakis analogous to the western powers who colonised north Africa, while the indigenous Fremen can be likened to the Senussi tribe of the same region. Despite the many Arabic/Islamic references, however, Herbert's inspiration for the novel did not come from any African desert vista but from the Oregon Dunes, about which he wrote an (unpublished) article.
5. Kevin Powers, The yellow birds.
Powers' anecdotally-based story of a tour of duty in Iraq and its psychological aftershock is the standout from a number of entries dealing with the Gulf wars, and won much acclaim for its articulation of the long-term effects of combat stress. Enemy engagements here take place predominantly in built-up areas rather than across open ground, but this is still very much desert country – blinding, suffocatingly hot and persistently bewildering to its occupiers.
6. Geoffrey Wagner, The sands of valour.
Yet another novel written from the personal experience of a combatant. But while Wagner's account of tank warfare in north Africa is meticulous in its detailing of vehicles, tactics and battles, it's the unrelenting cycles of terror, relief and exhaustion experienced by the crews of armoured regiments that leave the strongest impression. Sometimes referred to as the land-bound equivalent of Nicholas Monsarrat's The cruel sea, this novel has not enjoyed the same enduring popularity, though both authors are adept in portraying the wearying strain of constant alert.
7. Michael Ondaatje, The English patient.
Ondaatje's Booker-winning masterpiece is more a plaint against ownership than an enquiry into the consequences of battle. Based (very) loosely on the history of the Hungarian desert cartographer and aristocrat, László Almásy, the novel sees the badly burned patient of the title assume anonymity after a doomed attempt to steal another man's wife. "Do you understand the sadness of geography?" Ondaatje asks, his dying patient's mythic desert landscapes divided and claimed by warring powers, their wonders reduced to mere waypoints and coordinates.
8. T. E. Lawrence, Seven pillars of wisdom.
By turns fascinating, infuriating and inspiring, this self-penned tale of Lawrence's role in the Arab revolt against the Turks and the emergence of the Arab League stands as a unique insight into the mind of an enigmatic and brilliant man. Unsurpassed as a perspective on the complexities of the Middle Eastern campaign, the book can nevertheless be considered at least part-fiction thanks to its questionable historicity and its tendency towards the lyrical and its ornate 19th-century prose style evidencing Lawrence's aspiration towards high art.
9. Cyril Joly, Take these men.
Essentially a memoir written as fiction, Cyril Joly's 1956 account of desert warfare as part of the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment in the second world war makes compelling reading. In terse prose, Joly spells out just how and why it was such a grim ordeal to be sealed into a steel hulk and sent out to face superior arms and equipment across acres of baking wilderness. And if his supporting characters sometimes seem class stereotypical, that social divide between the ranks is clearly how Joly saw it at the time.
10. A. E. W. Mason, The four feathers.
This 1902 classic is a more thoughtful and sombre rumination on duty and honour than its cinematic incarnations suggest. And while today's reader might find the novel's exploration of a guilt complex ultimately superficial, the novel's penitential hero, Harry Faversham, is still ahead of his time in bringing to light the moral and ethical quandaries of cowardice and the instinct to self preservation. The historical backdrop of the Sudanese Mahdist revolt encompasses a variety of richly-painted locales, most vivid amongst them being the slums of Cairo and Omdurman's hellish "House of Stone" prison.
------
Well, that's my fact of the week: Arrakis is based on the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. It's vaguely disappointing.
And a column that managed to name three stalwarts of the mainly black and white films in the Sunday early afternoon television slot of my youth. What a lot of war we lapped up in those days.
Anyway, BTL:
Flashman. "Afghanistan's pretty rough, innit?" "Flashy's journey through Apache territory ought to count, too." "He encounters Glanton's scalphunters there. Fraser mentioned his source (and Cormac McCarthy's) for that, Samuel Chamberlain's My confession. Not only was there a real Judge Holden, but he gave geology lectures to the gang. But not even McCarthy dared to give his protagonist the ending that life gave Chamberlain - fiction can only go so far." "Flashman's author George MacDonald Fraser also wrote one of the best WW2 true stories set in Burma - Quartered safe out here. It has the most rememberable first line of any book I have read (including Tale of two cities). 'The first time I smelt Jap was in a deep dry riverbed in the Dry Belt, somewhere near Meiktila.'"
"The English patient is for me one of those rare cases when the film really is preferable to the book. Or did I just not get it?" "Couldn't agree more. The movie is sublime - restrained without being 'stiff', emotive without being melodramatic, and arguably one of the most visually beautiful series ever committed to celluloid. The book ... isn't." "The book is infinitely superior to the film, which was ruined for me by Ralph Fiennes constipated style of acting." (Plus other comments from other points on the spectrum; for these see the original column).
"So no Biggles defends the desert, then?" "Having said that, though, I did really like Another job for Biggles - in addition to the usual "someone goes wandering off and gets lost in the desert" trope, the character who gets lost (it's Ginger. It's usually Ginger. They should keep him on a lead) accidentally drinks from a stream polluted with hashish and ends up lost in the desert while, essentially, tripping balls. It's delightful."
Beau Geste.
"The seven pillars of wisdom is my Desert Island 'book', I recommend that anyone interested should read it at least twice. T. E. Lawrence was a dreadful show-off but this is forgiveable-in his case." "If The seven pillars of wisdom is permissible, then I raise you Rommel? Gunner Who?"
"How could you miss Ice cold in Alex? Great book and fantastic movie to follow." "Eh? It's number one. He's got heatstroke corporal; get the jerry can from the Vickers and tip it over him. Forty hours till the meet-up with the LRDG. I just hope he can hold out till then." "One of my favourite war films. Only spoilt by the last 30 seconds when they drive away through the streets of 1950's Alexandria, flared skirts Land Rovers and 1950s cars a-plenty."
88Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Cliff McNish's top 10 dogs in children's books.
Guardian, 2014-04-17.
Cliff McNish has just published his first dog-themed book aimed at 8-12 year-olds: Going home. The story is narrated by Ralph, who has been stuck in a dog rescue centre for five years after his heroic saving of a puppy resulted in terrible facial injuries.
"When I was asked to put together a top 10 list of children's books with amazing dogs the first thing I realised is that mutts in children's fiction have brilliant names. What self-respecting child called Jack or Emily wouldn't really rather be Pongo or Missis Pongo from Dodie Smith's The 101 dalmations? Or the mashed-up pit-bull from Larry Levin's Oogy? Sure, you can dream about being Spiderman or Batgirl, but why bother when you can be Sam Angus's Rocket in Soldier dog? You can even go to hell if you want, as boy Conor does with Scrote in Anthony McGowan's Hellbent, proving that even in the afterlife you can have a loyal hound at your side.
"Because that's the point, isn't it? Cats are tricksy and fickle, but you can rely on a dog. Which is why it's pretty hard to name five random children's books WITHOUT a dog in them somewhere. Try it.
"Of course, we have our famous Disney scamps. We have our classic dogs too – Sherlock to Sir Henry: 'They say it is the cry of the Hound of the Baskervilles'. And we have in children's literature a fair number, of course, of trusty undemanding companions who'd follow us, well, let's face it, anywhere. 'A place where there isn't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat or a train. It's far, far away.'
"In any case – woof! – here are some classics plus a few other exceptional dogs in children's literature you may be less familiar with."
Timmy from Enid Blyton, Famous Five series.
Yes, Timmy, Timsy, Tim, whatever you preferred to call him. It was definitely as easy to lose sleep over Timmy getting stuck down a rabbit hole in Five Go On A Hike Together than anything that happened to George, Julian, Anne or Dick. That little rascal could never get enough treats as far as I was concerned.
Toto from L. Frank Baum, the Oz books.
Reliable Toto. But did you know that in the later Oz books, as other animals are revealed to have the ability to speak, Toto finally admits that he can speak too — he just chooses not to! In the 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz Toto was played by a female brindle terrier named Terry who was actually paid more than the human actors at $125 per week.
Lassie from Eric Knight, Lassie come-home.
Rough Collie Lassie is most famous from her on-screen franchise (12 movies and several seasons of television), but she originated in a 1938 Saturday Evening Post story by Eric Knight, later expanded into his 1940 novel Lassie come-home.
Buck from Jack London, Call of the wild.
The great children's dog ever? My favourite, certainly. There's a paragraph in the novel where his owner, Thornton, asks Buck to haul an incredible pack-weight on his sledge. An impossible weight. A weight no dog should ever be able to pull. "Thornton knelt down by Buck's side. He took his head in his two hands and rested cheek on cheek. He did not playfully shake him, as was his wont, or murmur soft love curses; but he whispered in his ear. 'As you love me, Buck. As you love me.'" And does he? You bet he does.
The huskies from Gary Paulson, Ice race.
An extraordinary book about a writer/dog-lover and his relationship with his packs of huskies in the wilds of Canada and Alaska. The dogs are funny. They're brave. They save his life, too. And finally they haul him on the the Iditarod 1000 mile endurance trek across Alaska, the hardest man-and-dog race in the world. A children's book not well known at all in the UK, but tender, harshly beautiful and exhilarating.
Rufus from Allan Ahlberg, My brother's ghost.
Even after his death, Tom is there for his little sister Frances and brother Harry in this poignant short ghost novel written in 2001. As in so many other children's stories it is, however, a dog, this one their dead old mongrel Rufus, whose ghostly walks hold the narrative together and bind the characters.
Best Mate from Michael Morpurgo, Born to run.
Morpurgo has created a lot of memorable dogs for young readers – Shadow, Leroy, Little Manfred, take your pick – but I have a bit of a soft spot for greyhounds so I'm going for Best Mate. Dumped in a sack as a puppy, he ends up a champion greyhound. But what will happen when he can't run any more?
Hogni from Melvin Burgess, Bloodsong.
And as a complete contrast, let's branch into dogs that are also human. Not werewolves, but literal hybrids. In his sequel to the extraordinary 2000 novel Bloodsong, Burgess creates gay and horny Hogni, half man, half mongrel, falling hopelessly, hopelessly in love. No one does this sort of thing better than Burgess.
Nameless from Henrietta Branford, Fire bed and bone.
An unnamed old hunting dog narrates this tremendous Guardian's children's fiction award-winning novel from 1997. Set in rural England in 1381, unrest is spreading like plague among the peasants, rebellion is in the air, and life for man – and dog – is about to change dramatically. Tough, short and beautifully crafted.
Skye from Lauren St John, Dead Man's Cove.
OK. Let's circle back. Are you secretly missing Enid Blyton? Would you like your children to feel the same thrill you had reading the Famous Five or Secret Seven? Do you want them to experience that same sense of adventure, but nothing too scary, not too much jeopardy? Look no further than the Laura Marlin Mysteries. Accompanied by her trusty companion, Skye, a three-legged husky (and the dog she's always wanted) Laura Marlin longs for a life of excitement just like the characters in her favourite detective novels. And guess what? She finds it. Heart-warming.
------
I'm struggling to think of any more dogs in children's books. The best I can do, if Cliff McNish is allowed to mention the hound in The hound of the Baskervilles, is to mention Gaspode, whose Discworld story arc includes being Foul Ole Ron's dog, and leave it at that.
Guardian, 2014-04-17.
Cliff McNish has just published his first dog-themed book aimed at 8-12 year-olds: Going home. The story is narrated by Ralph, who has been stuck in a dog rescue centre for five years after his heroic saving of a puppy resulted in terrible facial injuries.
"When I was asked to put together a top 10 list of children's books with amazing dogs the first thing I realised is that mutts in children's fiction have brilliant names. What self-respecting child called Jack or Emily wouldn't really rather be Pongo or Missis Pongo from Dodie Smith's The 101 dalmations? Or the mashed-up pit-bull from Larry Levin's Oogy? Sure, you can dream about being Spiderman or Batgirl, but why bother when you can be Sam Angus's Rocket in Soldier dog? You can even go to hell if you want, as boy Conor does with Scrote in Anthony McGowan's Hellbent, proving that even in the afterlife you can have a loyal hound at your side.
"Because that's the point, isn't it? Cats are tricksy and fickle, but you can rely on a dog. Which is why it's pretty hard to name five random children's books WITHOUT a dog in them somewhere. Try it.
"Of course, we have our famous Disney scamps. We have our classic dogs too – Sherlock to Sir Henry: 'They say it is the cry of the Hound of the Baskervilles'. And we have in children's literature a fair number, of course, of trusty undemanding companions who'd follow us, well, let's face it, anywhere. 'A place where there isn't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat or a train. It's far, far away.'
"In any case – woof! – here are some classics plus a few other exceptional dogs in children's literature you may be less familiar with."
Timmy from Enid Blyton, Famous Five series.
Yes, Timmy, Timsy, Tim, whatever you preferred to call him. It was definitely as easy to lose sleep over Timmy getting stuck down a rabbit hole in Five Go On A Hike Together than anything that happened to George, Julian, Anne or Dick. That little rascal could never get enough treats as far as I was concerned.
Toto from L. Frank Baum, the Oz books.
Reliable Toto. But did you know that in the later Oz books, as other animals are revealed to have the ability to speak, Toto finally admits that he can speak too — he just chooses not to! In the 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz Toto was played by a female brindle terrier named Terry who was actually paid more than the human actors at $125 per week.
Lassie from Eric Knight, Lassie come-home.
Rough Collie Lassie is most famous from her on-screen franchise (12 movies and several seasons of television), but she originated in a 1938 Saturday Evening Post story by Eric Knight, later expanded into his 1940 novel Lassie come-home.
Buck from Jack London, Call of the wild.
The great children's dog ever? My favourite, certainly. There's a paragraph in the novel where his owner, Thornton, asks Buck to haul an incredible pack-weight on his sledge. An impossible weight. A weight no dog should ever be able to pull. "Thornton knelt down by Buck's side. He took his head in his two hands and rested cheek on cheek. He did not playfully shake him, as was his wont, or murmur soft love curses; but he whispered in his ear. 'As you love me, Buck. As you love me.'" And does he? You bet he does.
The huskies from Gary Paulson, Ice race.
An extraordinary book about a writer/dog-lover and his relationship with his packs of huskies in the wilds of Canada and Alaska. The dogs are funny. They're brave. They save his life, too. And finally they haul him on the the Iditarod 1000 mile endurance trek across Alaska, the hardest man-and-dog race in the world. A children's book not well known at all in the UK, but tender, harshly beautiful and exhilarating.
Rufus from Allan Ahlberg, My brother's ghost.
Even after his death, Tom is there for his little sister Frances and brother Harry in this poignant short ghost novel written in 2001. As in so many other children's stories it is, however, a dog, this one their dead old mongrel Rufus, whose ghostly walks hold the narrative together and bind the characters.
Best Mate from Michael Morpurgo, Born to run.
Morpurgo has created a lot of memorable dogs for young readers – Shadow, Leroy, Little Manfred, take your pick – but I have a bit of a soft spot for greyhounds so I'm going for Best Mate. Dumped in a sack as a puppy, he ends up a champion greyhound. But what will happen when he can't run any more?
Hogni from Melvin Burgess, Bloodsong.
And as a complete contrast, let's branch into dogs that are also human. Not werewolves, but literal hybrids. In his sequel to the extraordinary 2000 novel Bloodsong, Burgess creates gay and horny Hogni, half man, half mongrel, falling hopelessly, hopelessly in love. No one does this sort of thing better than Burgess.
Nameless from Henrietta Branford, Fire bed and bone.
An unnamed old hunting dog narrates this tremendous Guardian's children's fiction award-winning novel from 1997. Set in rural England in 1381, unrest is spreading like plague among the peasants, rebellion is in the air, and life for man – and dog – is about to change dramatically. Tough, short and beautifully crafted.
Skye from Lauren St John, Dead Man's Cove.
OK. Let's circle back. Are you secretly missing Enid Blyton? Would you like your children to feel the same thrill you had reading the Famous Five or Secret Seven? Do you want them to experience that same sense of adventure, but nothing too scary, not too much jeopardy? Look no further than the Laura Marlin Mysteries. Accompanied by her trusty companion, Skye, a three-legged husky (and the dog she's always wanted) Laura Marlin longs for a life of excitement just like the characters in her favourite detective novels. And guess what? She finds it. Heart-warming.
------
I'm struggling to think of any more dogs in children's books. The best I can do, if Cliff McNish is allowed to mention the hound in The hound of the Baskervilles, is to mention Gaspode, whose Discworld story arc includes being Foul Ole Ron's dog, and leave it at that.
89Cynfelyn
Children's Books top tens / Andrew Matthews's top 10 Shakespeare books for children.
Guardian, 2014-04-22.
"When I was 11, my Mum bought me a Complete works of Shakespeare, plonked me down in front of the TV, and switched on An age of kings. This was a BBC series that adapted eight of Shakespeare's history plays for television. I followed the text as I watched. The play was full of intrigue, treachery, betrayals, murders, battles, and rude jokes; by the time it finished, I was hooked. Shakespeare's beautiful language had dazzled me. Of course, at that age I didn't understand all the words, but I fell in love with the way they sounded.
"Shakespeare has been with me ever since. I studied his work at school, and at university, where I played the king in a production of Henry IV Part One. After university, I taught English in a comprehensive school, which involved more contact with Shakespeare, including appearing in amateur productions of The winter's tale and King Lear.
"At first, when Orchard Books asked me to tell the stories of the plays for younger readers, I panicked. I was just some bloke from Wales – what right did I have to muck about with the work of England's greatest writer? Then I thought a bit more deeply. Shakespeare didn't invent the plots of his plays, he took them from other playwrights, from history books, and from Ancient Greek and Roman writers. What he did with those plots was where his genius came in. All I was doing was borrowing the stories back from the plays, and telling them for a modern audience.
"This turned out to be incredibly difficult. Reducing Hamlet, a play that runs over three hours, to 2500 words (my absolute limit) was tough going. With each play, I faced the problem of deciding what to keep in, and what to leave out. I was lucky enough to work with two brilliant illustrators, Angela Barrett and Tony Ross. The books have been published in the USA, and have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, German, Korean and Chinese.
"I salute the other writers who have attempted the challenge of adapting Shakespeare for young readers. We've all succeeded and failed in our different ways, but one common factor unites us – William Shakespeare is the real star of the show."
1. Charles and Mary Lamb, Tales from Shakespeare.
This classic retelling has remained in print since 1807. The tales are true to the originals, and include much of Shakespeare's dialogue. However, the Lambs edited out anything they thought unsuitable for impressionable young minds. In their version of Twelfth Night, for instance, there is no mention of Malvolio, Sir Toby Belch, or Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Modern readers might find the style a little dry and long-winded, but this is the book that set the standard for all Shakespeare adaptors.
2. Leon Garfield, Shakespeare stories.
This book first appeared in 1985, and contains twelve of Shakespeare's plays. The retellings are almost re-imaginings of the plays as miniature novels. Garfield's style is, as always, brisk, lively, and wonderfully inventive, and the book is an excellent read in its own right. Michael Foreman's dark and brooding illustrations are masterly.
3. Geraldine McCaughrean, Stories from Shakespeare.
This is probably better for advanced or older readers, since the vocabulary can be demanding, but the book offers marvels of compression. McCaughrean manages to fit all the major characters – and a lot of the minor ones too – and incidents into a limited space. Her style is precise, but not dry, with imaginative flourishes that satisfy and illuminate. With nicely judged use of short extracts from the plays, this selection is one of the best available.
4. E. Nesbit, The children's Shakespeare.
These are competent, readable retellings. Though most of her writing is more than a century old, Nesbit still has the power to grip and enchant the reader. The stories tend towards the wordy, and heavily stress description and motivation, but they are nonetheless true to the spirit and atmosphere of the originals.
5. The Usborne illustrated stories from Shakespeare.
This book has retellings by Rosie Dickins, Leslie Sims, Conrad Mason and Louie Stowell, and is illustrated by Christa Unzer and Serena Riglietti. The plays tackled are Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, The tempest, A Midsummer Night's dream, Macbeth and Hamlet. A sumptuous publication, illustrated in full colour on every page, with pictures of the characters set at the beginning of each story. The prose is accessible, and the stories race along.
6. Hodder's The Shakespeare collection.
This is the work of various authors, including Anthony Masters, Jan Dean, Rebecca Lisle, Claire Bevan, Chris Powling, Tony Morris and Ross Collins. This series offers vivid retellings, illustrated in colour, and black and white. The illustrations vary to match the mood of the tales. A Midsummer Night's dream, for instance, has cartoon-like pictures, while the art work in The tempest is more realistic. The language is direct and simple, without any sense of 'writing down' to the reader. The plays come in single volumes, which are paperback-sized, and reassuringly slender. An excellent introduction to Shakespeare for younger readers.
7. Bloomsbury's Shakespeare today.
Contributors to the series include Tony Bradman, Jenny Oldfield, Robert Swindells, Sue Purkiss, Franzeska G. Ewart and Michael Cox. These are novel-length retellings intended for the teenage market. They adhere to the plots of the plays, and avoid Elizabethan English, though key lines from Shakespeare are skillfully woven into the narrative. Since these are longer than most of the other adaptations, characters are more rounded, and develop convincingly. The eye-grabbing covers are designed to appeal to the target audience, and suggest that Shakespeare's plays are not as fusty and boring as many people think.
8. Lois Burdett, Shakespeare can be fun series.
Plays available are Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's dream and The tempest. Lois Burdett is a Canadian who runs Shakespeare workshops for young children. The stories of the plays are told in rhyming couplets, and are illustrated with pictures and quotations from children who have participated in the workshops. These retellings are very child-friendly, and are an excellent source of ideas and approaches for both teachers and pupils. A useful and charming addition to the Shakespeare canon.
9. Marcia Williams, Mr William Shakespeare's plays.
This is an ingenious and delightful book. The plays are presented as a comic strip, with characters speaking lines taken directly from Shakespeare, and a simplified account of the plot running in a band under each strip. Around the edges of each page, we see characters from the audience in the Globe Theatre commenting on the action, as they would have done in real life. The seven plays on offer are Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's dream, The winter's tale, Hamlet and The tempest.
10. Susan Cooper, King of shadows.
This is not a retelling of the plays, but a novel that includes Shakespeare as a main character. Nat Field, a young American, travels to London to play Puck in a performance of A Midsummer Night's dream at the reconstructed Globe Theatre. He contracts a fever, and wakes up to find himself in Elizabethan times, and about to play Puck in the premiere of the play. The time-shift element is convincingly handled, and the reason behind it provides an elegant plot twist at the end of the book. Cooper's Shakespeare is warm, human, and sympathetic. I would recommend the novel to teenagers, or advanced readers.
Guardian, 2014-04-22.
"When I was 11, my Mum bought me a Complete works of Shakespeare, plonked me down in front of the TV, and switched on An age of kings. This was a BBC series that adapted eight of Shakespeare's history plays for television. I followed the text as I watched. The play was full of intrigue, treachery, betrayals, murders, battles, and rude jokes; by the time it finished, I was hooked. Shakespeare's beautiful language had dazzled me. Of course, at that age I didn't understand all the words, but I fell in love with the way they sounded.
"Shakespeare has been with me ever since. I studied his work at school, and at university, where I played the king in a production of Henry IV Part One. After university, I taught English in a comprehensive school, which involved more contact with Shakespeare, including appearing in amateur productions of The winter's tale and King Lear.
"At first, when Orchard Books asked me to tell the stories of the plays for younger readers, I panicked. I was just some bloke from Wales – what right did I have to muck about with the work of England's greatest writer? Then I thought a bit more deeply. Shakespeare didn't invent the plots of his plays, he took them from other playwrights, from history books, and from Ancient Greek and Roman writers. What he did with those plots was where his genius came in. All I was doing was borrowing the stories back from the plays, and telling them for a modern audience.
"This turned out to be incredibly difficult. Reducing Hamlet, a play that runs over three hours, to 2500 words (my absolute limit) was tough going. With each play, I faced the problem of deciding what to keep in, and what to leave out. I was lucky enough to work with two brilliant illustrators, Angela Barrett and Tony Ross. The books have been published in the USA, and have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, German, Korean and Chinese.
"I salute the other writers who have attempted the challenge of adapting Shakespeare for young readers. We've all succeeded and failed in our different ways, but one common factor unites us – William Shakespeare is the real star of the show."
1. Charles and Mary Lamb, Tales from Shakespeare.
This classic retelling has remained in print since 1807. The tales are true to the originals, and include much of Shakespeare's dialogue. However, the Lambs edited out anything they thought unsuitable for impressionable young minds. In their version of Twelfth Night, for instance, there is no mention of Malvolio, Sir Toby Belch, or Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Modern readers might find the style a little dry and long-winded, but this is the book that set the standard for all Shakespeare adaptors.
2. Leon Garfield, Shakespeare stories.
This book first appeared in 1985, and contains twelve of Shakespeare's plays. The retellings are almost re-imaginings of the plays as miniature novels. Garfield's style is, as always, brisk, lively, and wonderfully inventive, and the book is an excellent read in its own right. Michael Foreman's dark and brooding illustrations are masterly.
3. Geraldine McCaughrean, Stories from Shakespeare.
This is probably better for advanced or older readers, since the vocabulary can be demanding, but the book offers marvels of compression. McCaughrean manages to fit all the major characters – and a lot of the minor ones too – and incidents into a limited space. Her style is precise, but not dry, with imaginative flourishes that satisfy and illuminate. With nicely judged use of short extracts from the plays, this selection is one of the best available.
4. E. Nesbit, The children's Shakespeare.
These are competent, readable retellings. Though most of her writing is more than a century old, Nesbit still has the power to grip and enchant the reader. The stories tend towards the wordy, and heavily stress description and motivation, but they are nonetheless true to the spirit and atmosphere of the originals.
5. The Usborne illustrated stories from Shakespeare.
This book has retellings by Rosie Dickins, Leslie Sims, Conrad Mason and Louie Stowell, and is illustrated by Christa Unzer and Serena Riglietti. The plays tackled are Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, The tempest, A Midsummer Night's dream, Macbeth and Hamlet. A sumptuous publication, illustrated in full colour on every page, with pictures of the characters set at the beginning of each story. The prose is accessible, and the stories race along.
6. Hodder's The Shakespeare collection.
This is the work of various authors, including Anthony Masters, Jan Dean, Rebecca Lisle, Claire Bevan, Chris Powling, Tony Morris and Ross Collins. This series offers vivid retellings, illustrated in colour, and black and white. The illustrations vary to match the mood of the tales. A Midsummer Night's dream, for instance, has cartoon-like pictures, while the art work in The tempest is more realistic. The language is direct and simple, without any sense of 'writing down' to the reader. The plays come in single volumes, which are paperback-sized, and reassuringly slender. An excellent introduction to Shakespeare for younger readers.
7. Bloomsbury's Shakespeare today.
Contributors to the series include Tony Bradman, Jenny Oldfield, Robert Swindells, Sue Purkiss, Franzeska G. Ewart and Michael Cox. These are novel-length retellings intended for the teenage market. They adhere to the plots of the plays, and avoid Elizabethan English, though key lines from Shakespeare are skillfully woven into the narrative. Since these are longer than most of the other adaptations, characters are more rounded, and develop convincingly. The eye-grabbing covers are designed to appeal to the target audience, and suggest that Shakespeare's plays are not as fusty and boring as many people think.
8. Lois Burdett, Shakespeare can be fun series.
Plays available are Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's dream and The tempest. Lois Burdett is a Canadian who runs Shakespeare workshops for young children. The stories of the plays are told in rhyming couplets, and are illustrated with pictures and quotations from children who have participated in the workshops. These retellings are very child-friendly, and are an excellent source of ideas and approaches for both teachers and pupils. A useful and charming addition to the Shakespeare canon.
9. Marcia Williams, Mr William Shakespeare's plays.
This is an ingenious and delightful book. The plays are presented as a comic strip, with characters speaking lines taken directly from Shakespeare, and a simplified account of the plot running in a band under each strip. Around the edges of each page, we see characters from the audience in the Globe Theatre commenting on the action, as they would have done in real life. The seven plays on offer are Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's dream, The winter's tale, Hamlet and The tempest.
10. Susan Cooper, King of shadows.
This is not a retelling of the plays, but a novel that includes Shakespeare as a main character. Nat Field, a young American, travels to London to play Puck in a performance of A Midsummer Night's dream at the reconstructed Globe Theatre. He contracts a fever, and wakes up to find himself in Elizabethan times, and about to play Puck in the premiere of the play. The time-shift element is convincingly handled, and the reason behind it provides an elegant plot twist at the end of the book. Cooper's Shakespeare is warm, human, and sympathetic. I would recommend the novel to teenagers, or advanced readers.
90Cynfelyn
Matt Haig (1)'s top 10 writers to see live.
Guardian, 2014-04-23.
To mark World Book Night, which is being celebrated around the country with readings by some of our most celebrated writers, novelist Matt Haig applauds the authors who are stars of stage and page.
"Writers have a weird life. Ninety per cent of the time we are alone, in our attics, loafing around in our dressing gowns and trying not to punch our computers. And the rest of the time we are doing the exact opposite of this. You know, getting washed and going out into the world and performing in front of and then meeting fellow members of our species.
"It is all very strange. I mean, the reason we write is because we were the shy kids and yet now we are expected to get out there and put on a show, as if we were Lady Gaga. I, for one, am terrible at performing live. To choose to see me live is like choosing to have root canal work while watching an awkward silence competition. (I jest. I'm amazing live. That's what my mum says.) Some writers though, such as those below, are as brilliant off the page as they are on."
1. Sebastian Barry.
I had the experience of seeing Barry reading from his Costa-winning novel The secret scripture last year at a World Book Night event on the Southbank. I had never seen a reading like it. Seriously, it was a tour-de-force performance. His whole body shakes as he reads and he is certainly is unafraid to "do the voices".
2. Neil Gaiman.
Probably the closest thing the world of books has to a bona fide megastar. Wherever they are, Gaiman's events attract sell-out crowds and he somehow manages to create the kind of electric pre-appearance atmosphere more commonly found in rock venues and Roman ampitheatres. He could probably fill the O2.
3. Caitlin Moran.
Not every author who writes with energy and fizz and wit, can speak with exactly that same energy and fizz and wit in real actual human time. Moran is a prime example of this rare and exotic species.
4. Chuck Palahniuk.
To go to a Chuck Palahniuk reading is like visiting an extreme amusement park. You go as a kind of test of nerve. To date, 75 people are said to have fainted at Palahniuk events, usually while he is reading the grotesque short story Guts, which also demands readers to hold their breath for the duration of the tale.
5. Ruth Ozeki.
I was lucky enough to do an event with the Booker-shortlisted author of A tale for the time being last year in London. It was one of the most enjoyable I've done, and Ruth oozes warm wisdom and Zen-like charm.
6. David Levithan.
Confession. I haven't actually seen him live. But when I said aloud on Twitter that I was writing this piece, about 100 (OK, six) people I trust said I must include him. So he is duly included. And next time I get the chance, I'll see him and tell you if he is worthy of his spot.
7. Jeanette Winterson.
She is amazing live, and one of the few writers to read from her work exactly as you hear it in your head. She walks on with such confidence, never has any barrier between herself and the audience, and is the person I try to think of five seconds before I do any event.
8. A. L. Kennedy.
Kennedy is very funny live: so funny you can see why she decided to cross over into full-blown stand-up comedy. But her humour is, as you'd expect, the brainy and passionate kind.
9. Laura Dockrill.
Got to have a childen's witer/illustrator on the list – there are many brilliant ones to see live out there (Sarah McIntyre, Andy Stanton, Anthony McGowan, Philip Ardagh, Guy Parker-Rees) – but Dockrill is a must for sheer energy and colour. She is like Victoria Wood on Red Bull.
10. Jon McGregor.
Not one of the showiest or most showboating of authors to see live, but McGregor reads very well, and he also has a lot of interesting and important stuff to say about writing. Oh, and he's drily funny too. And I've just realised I haven't enough room for Nikesh Shukla, Val McDermid and Ian Rankin, who should also be on this list...
------
BTL includes:
"I'd add Willy Vlautin to this list. A fantastic writer and a funny, humble and interesting guy. He's also the singer/songwriter with a great band - Richmond Fontaine - and often ends his readings with a few solo versions of RF songs."
"Wot! No Terry Pratchett?" // "Once upon a time, he certainly deserved to be on this list, but sadly he's no longer up to public speaking." // "Yep, it's such a shame, as his readings and discussions of his work were always excellent, but he literally can't do the reading any more, and any kind of public speaking is a trial for him. For the kids' authors I'd have gone for Michael Rosen. Great fun and slightly subversive."
"I take it this little Haig feller doesn't care for poetry." // "'Read poetry. Especially poetry by Emily Dickinson. It might save you. Anne Sexton knows the mind, Walt Whitman knows grass, but Emily Dickinson knows everything.' Quote from The humans by Matt Haig. I imagine that if asked on a different day his list would have looked different. It's often only in retrospect you remember the names you missed." // "Maybe it's just that none of the poets he rates are that great at public appearances (or still alive, judging from that quote)."
"To listen to Junot Diaz is an education. He doesn't read his work so well, but the way he rolls and the great muscle of his brain is worth paying to see."
"I assume Caitlin Moran being on here is some kind of gag?"
"I heard Arthur Miller once years ago at a platform talk (about an hour long conversation with a writer or actor) on the at the National Theatre, in the early evenings before the play comes on. He was very impressive. I don't know if they still do them, but I was lucky enough to see Alec Guinness (talking about his diaries), Jeanne Moreau, Dirk Bogarde (an excellent writer he was) interviewing Lauren Bacall. In more recent times, Edna O'Brien was excellent, John Banville seems to be deeply in love with himself, and the late great Seamus Heaney was in a class of his own." // "Agree nobody does smug and preciousness and self regarding like Banville." // "I agree, Edna O'Brien reads her work extremely well."
Guardian, 2014-04-23.
To mark World Book Night, which is being celebrated around the country with readings by some of our most celebrated writers, novelist Matt Haig applauds the authors who are stars of stage and page.
"Writers have a weird life. Ninety per cent of the time we are alone, in our attics, loafing around in our dressing gowns and trying not to punch our computers. And the rest of the time we are doing the exact opposite of this. You know, getting washed and going out into the world and performing in front of and then meeting fellow members of our species.
"It is all very strange. I mean, the reason we write is because we were the shy kids and yet now we are expected to get out there and put on a show, as if we were Lady Gaga. I, for one, am terrible at performing live. To choose to see me live is like choosing to have root canal work while watching an awkward silence competition. (I jest. I'm amazing live. That's what my mum says.) Some writers though, such as those below, are as brilliant off the page as they are on."
1. Sebastian Barry.
I had the experience of seeing Barry reading from his Costa-winning novel The secret scripture last year at a World Book Night event on the Southbank. I had never seen a reading like it. Seriously, it was a tour-de-force performance. His whole body shakes as he reads and he is certainly is unafraid to "do the voices".
2. Neil Gaiman.
Probably the closest thing the world of books has to a bona fide megastar. Wherever they are, Gaiman's events attract sell-out crowds and he somehow manages to create the kind of electric pre-appearance atmosphere more commonly found in rock venues and Roman ampitheatres. He could probably fill the O2.
3. Caitlin Moran.
Not every author who writes with energy and fizz and wit, can speak with exactly that same energy and fizz and wit in real actual human time. Moran is a prime example of this rare and exotic species.
4. Chuck Palahniuk.
To go to a Chuck Palahniuk reading is like visiting an extreme amusement park. You go as a kind of test of nerve. To date, 75 people are said to have fainted at Palahniuk events, usually while he is reading the grotesque short story Guts, which also demands readers to hold their breath for the duration of the tale.
5. Ruth Ozeki.
I was lucky enough to do an event with the Booker-shortlisted author of A tale for the time being last year in London. It was one of the most enjoyable I've done, and Ruth oozes warm wisdom and Zen-like charm.
6. David Levithan.
Confession. I haven't actually seen him live. But when I said aloud on Twitter that I was writing this piece, about 100 (OK, six) people I trust said I must include him. So he is duly included. And next time I get the chance, I'll see him and tell you if he is worthy of his spot.
7. Jeanette Winterson.
She is amazing live, and one of the few writers to read from her work exactly as you hear it in your head. She walks on with such confidence, never has any barrier between herself and the audience, and is the person I try to think of five seconds before I do any event.
8. A. L. Kennedy.
Kennedy is very funny live: so funny you can see why she decided to cross over into full-blown stand-up comedy. But her humour is, as you'd expect, the brainy and passionate kind.
9. Laura Dockrill.
Got to have a childen's witer/illustrator on the list – there are many brilliant ones to see live out there (Sarah McIntyre, Andy Stanton, Anthony McGowan, Philip Ardagh, Guy Parker-Rees) – but Dockrill is a must for sheer energy and colour. She is like Victoria Wood on Red Bull.
10. Jon McGregor.
Not one of the showiest or most showboating of authors to see live, but McGregor reads very well, and he also has a lot of interesting and important stuff to say about writing. Oh, and he's drily funny too. And I've just realised I haven't enough room for Nikesh Shukla, Val McDermid and Ian Rankin, who should also be on this list...
------
BTL includes:
"I'd add Willy Vlautin to this list. A fantastic writer and a funny, humble and interesting guy. He's also the singer/songwriter with a great band - Richmond Fontaine - and often ends his readings with a few solo versions of RF songs."
"Wot! No Terry Pratchett?" // "Once upon a time, he certainly deserved to be on this list, but sadly he's no longer up to public speaking." // "Yep, it's such a shame, as his readings and discussions of his work were always excellent, but he literally can't do the reading any more, and any kind of public speaking is a trial for him. For the kids' authors I'd have gone for Michael Rosen. Great fun and slightly subversive."
"I take it this little Haig feller doesn't care for poetry." // "'Read poetry. Especially poetry by Emily Dickinson. It might save you. Anne Sexton knows the mind, Walt Whitman knows grass, but Emily Dickinson knows everything.' Quote from The humans by Matt Haig. I imagine that if asked on a different day his list would have looked different. It's often only in retrospect you remember the names you missed." // "Maybe it's just that none of the poets he rates are that great at public appearances (or still alive, judging from that quote)."
"To listen to Junot Diaz is an education. He doesn't read his work so well, but the way he rolls and the great muscle of his brain is worth paying to see."
"I assume Caitlin Moran being on here is some kind of gag?"
"I heard Arthur Miller once years ago at a platform talk (about an hour long conversation with a writer or actor) on the at the National Theatre, in the early evenings before the play comes on. He was very impressive. I don't know if they still do them, but I was lucky enough to see Alec Guinness (talking about his diaries), Jeanne Moreau, Dirk Bogarde (an excellent writer he was) interviewing Lauren Bacall. In more recent times, Edna O'Brien was excellent, John Banville seems to be deeply in love with himself, and the late great Seamus Heaney was in a class of his own." // "Agree nobody does smug and preciousness and self regarding like Banville." // "I agree, Edna O'Brien reads her work extremely well."
91Cynfelyn
Slightly out of chronological order, and not part of the Top Ten project, added as a result of one of today's news stories:
"The Welsh Conservatives have criticised a decision to remove John Steinbeck's 1930s novel Of mice and men from the GCSE curriculum because class discussions about the book, and the racial slurs it contains, have been distressing for some black pupils. As the BBC reports, Wales's children's commissioner Rocio Cifuentes said many black children "specifically mentioned this text and the harm that it caused them" when she spoke to them as part of research on racism in secondary schools."
A BTL comment mentioned that Michael Gove, a former English Tory secretary of state for education, removed Of mice and men from the English literature GCSE curriculum in England back in 2014, as part of a 'little Englander' campaign to weed out US texts in favour of more Dickens. This in turn was an excuse for the Guardian to publish:
John Sutherland (1)'s 10 American writers that English children should study for GCSE
Guardian, 2014-05-26:
Cynics will, of course, hear an echo of President Esposito in Woody Allen's Bananas. "From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish." From now on, decrees Michael Gove, the official literature of England will be English literature.
Gove has harped on this chauvinistic string for some time now. As he told his party conference, on assuming office: "The great tradition of our literature – Dryden, Pope, Swift, Byron, Keats, Shelley {presumably both Percy and Mary}, Austen, Dickens and Hardy – should be at the heart of school life." (His indifference to Scottish literature is odd for someone who went to an Aberdeen private school.)
He has expressed a personal distaste for John Steinbeck's Of mice and men. Some 90% of exam candidates answer on it, we're told. Gove clearly sees it as contaminated with the ideological prejudices of the left-leaning teaching profession. It's a novella set in a recession, about two migrants on zero-hours contracts. In short, it's a work of fiction propagandising for Roosevelt's New Deal and "social security" – those welfare dragons Iain Duncan Smith is endeavouring to slay. To kill a mockingbird, another title on the Gove blacklist, makes a collateral fictional push for the 1964 American civil rights bill. Arthur Miller's Crucible (it too will go) is an allegory about McCarthyism.
These texts are, Gove thinks (quite rightly), loaded, and he doesn't think the ideological baggage they're carrying is entirely relevant for British schoolchildren. It's an honest opinion.
My own honest opinion is that American literature should be as prominent on the British syllabus as British literature is on the American syllabus. And what should be highlighted in the texts for the British classroom is what William Carlos Williams called that unique "American grain". What, then, would be the best 10 prescribed works?
Why not kick off with Williams, to get the target in sight. Historically the starting point of American literature is Anne Bradstreet. All American literature, said the modern poet John Berryman, pays "homage to Mistress Bradstreet". It marks a difference between British and American literature from the start that the New World's founding figure is a woman.
Bradstreet was born in England in 1612. Her family was part of the Puritan "Great Migration" – under religious persecution – to "New England". Both her father and her husband would go on to be governors of Massachusetts. Bradstreet, meanwhile, was charged with running the family farm. She did it well. But she was something much more than a competent farmer's wife and the mother of his children.
The Puritans believed that daughters should be as well-educated as sons. Bradstreet was intelligent, extraordinarily well read and herself an ambitious writer. She wrote poetry as a spiritual exercise – an act of devotion – rather than for any fame, current or posthumous. Her poems tend to be short. Her life was too busy for long works.
Bradstreet's poems are quintessentially of the New World – as the Puritans saw America. Take, for example, her poignant Verses upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666:
I blest His name that gave and took,
That laid my goods now in the dust.
Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just.
It was His own, it was not mine …
The world no longer let me love,
My hope and treasure lies above.
It's a traditional Puritan sentiment: this world is of no real consequence – what matters is the world to come. But what one hears is an entirely new voice – an American voice, moreover the voice of an American "making" the new country. Bradstreet and her husband had built the house, now in ashes; they would, of course rebuild; America is a country constantly rebuilding America.
So: second on the syllabus, Mistress Bradstreet. Out of Puritanism came transcendentalism. Ralph Waldo Emerson is too dense and Moby-Dick too bloody long. Ideal would be Herman Melville's Benito Cereno, a novel about a "negro barber" shaving his white master – he is a servant but also that razor, and the barber himself, is a "cut-throat". Melville's work (hugely readable) allegorises the complex, post-civil war relationship of white and black.
Benito Cereno should be read alongside Toni Morrison's Beloved, the novel which takes up Uncle Tom's cabin and shakes all the sentimentality out of it, leaving a core of still blazing racial rage.
Walt Whitman, the self-declared disciple of Emerson, embodies another aspect of the transcendental tradition: its sense that "freedom", in all its many facets, is the essence of all American ideology, including poetic ideology. In Whitman's case, it took the form of "free verse" – poetry unshackled from rhyme, as the country itself had thrown off the shackles of colonialism in its war of independence against the British in 1776.
American literature thinks big. But it also has the ability to fashion greatness out of the simplest materials. You just have to dangle a verse of Emily Dickinson's in front of a class to make them want more. For example:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
A powerful and defining impulse in American literature of the 19th and 20th century is the "frontier thesis" – the idea that the essential quality and worth of Americanness is most clearly demonstrated in the struggle to push civilisation westward, from "shining ocean to shining ocean". James Fenimore Cooper (author of The last of the Mohicans) is an early exemplar. Virtually every cowboy novel and film springs from the same frontier thesis root. It's also a novel about genocide and ends with that melancholy proclamation: "The Pale Faces are masters of the earth, and the time of red-men has not yet come again."
The western is one of the few genres one cannot credit to the author Edgar Allan Poe, father of science fiction, "horror", and the detective story, notably The murders in the Rue Morgue.
So, to sum up: what makes American literature American? Is it the Puritan heritage, the constant battle to extend the frontier, the geographical and ethnic diversity, the aspiration for newness and greatness, the belief in America which underlies even denunciations of capitalist America, as in Arthur Miller's Death of a salesman (include that, by the way,) or the creative life it puts into "low" genres?
Yes; all of these things. But there is something else, even more important. Ernest Hemingway put his finger on it when he proclaimed: "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." What is definitive, Hemingway contends, is "voice": what Twain himself called dialect. You hear it in Huck's first sentence:
"You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter."
There is an American idiom which only American literature fully captures. The detective story writer Raymond Chandler, who gave great thought to the subject, called it "cadence". Huck Finn is currently unteachable because of its profuse (219) use of the n-word. Hemingway's own fiction bears out his point about the American idiom but the novel which, for me, most perfectly voices the modern American idiom is J. D. Salinger's The catcher in the rye. Read (and "hear") its first sentence:
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
How, in a word, would one describe the distinctive sound of that voice? The word, surely, would be "American". Quintessentially American.
Gove has specifically prescribed more of that David Copperfield kind of crap and more of Austen's exquisite literary carvings on her two inches of ivory. Well and good. But let's hear it for the US in the classroom as well.
John Sutherland's 10 US novels for GCSE students:
In the American grain (William Carlos Williams)
Selected poems (Anne Bradstreet)
Benito Cereno (Herman Melville)
Beloved (Toni Morrison)
Leaves of grass (Walt Whitman)
Selected poems (Emily Dickinson)
The murders in the Rue Morgue (Edgar Allan Poe)
The last of the Mohicans (James Fenimore Cooper)
Death of a salesman (Arthur Miller)
The catcher in the rye (J. D. Salinger)
------
There are over 650 BTL comments, including many more suggestions. But this message is quite long enough already.
"The Welsh Conservatives have criticised a decision to remove John Steinbeck's 1930s novel Of mice and men from the GCSE curriculum because class discussions about the book, and the racial slurs it contains, have been distressing for some black pupils. As the BBC reports, Wales's children's commissioner Rocio Cifuentes said many black children "specifically mentioned this text and the harm that it caused them" when she spoke to them as part of research on racism in secondary schools."
A BTL comment mentioned that Michael Gove, a former English Tory secretary of state for education, removed Of mice and men from the English literature GCSE curriculum in England back in 2014, as part of a 'little Englander' campaign to weed out US texts in favour of more Dickens. This in turn was an excuse for the Guardian to publish:
John Sutherland (1)'s 10 American writers that English children should study for GCSE
Guardian, 2014-05-26:
Cynics will, of course, hear an echo of President Esposito in Woody Allen's Bananas. "From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish." From now on, decrees Michael Gove, the official literature of England will be English literature.
Gove has harped on this chauvinistic string for some time now. As he told his party conference, on assuming office: "The great tradition of our literature – Dryden, Pope, Swift, Byron, Keats, Shelley {presumably both Percy and Mary}, Austen, Dickens and Hardy – should be at the heart of school life." (His indifference to Scottish literature is odd for someone who went to an Aberdeen private school.)
He has expressed a personal distaste for John Steinbeck's Of mice and men. Some 90% of exam candidates answer on it, we're told. Gove clearly sees it as contaminated with the ideological prejudices of the left-leaning teaching profession. It's a novella set in a recession, about two migrants on zero-hours contracts. In short, it's a work of fiction propagandising for Roosevelt's New Deal and "social security" – those welfare dragons Iain Duncan Smith is endeavouring to slay. To kill a mockingbird, another title on the Gove blacklist, makes a collateral fictional push for the 1964 American civil rights bill. Arthur Miller's Crucible (it too will go) is an allegory about McCarthyism.
These texts are, Gove thinks (quite rightly), loaded, and he doesn't think the ideological baggage they're carrying is entirely relevant for British schoolchildren. It's an honest opinion.
My own honest opinion is that American literature should be as prominent on the British syllabus as British literature is on the American syllabus. And what should be highlighted in the texts for the British classroom is what William Carlos Williams called that unique "American grain". What, then, would be the best 10 prescribed works?
Why not kick off with Williams, to get the target in sight. Historically the starting point of American literature is Anne Bradstreet. All American literature, said the modern poet John Berryman, pays "homage to Mistress Bradstreet". It marks a difference between British and American literature from the start that the New World's founding figure is a woman.
Bradstreet was born in England in 1612. Her family was part of the Puritan "Great Migration" – under religious persecution – to "New England". Both her father and her husband would go on to be governors of Massachusetts. Bradstreet, meanwhile, was charged with running the family farm. She did it well. But she was something much more than a competent farmer's wife and the mother of his children.
The Puritans believed that daughters should be as well-educated as sons. Bradstreet was intelligent, extraordinarily well read and herself an ambitious writer. She wrote poetry as a spiritual exercise – an act of devotion – rather than for any fame, current or posthumous. Her poems tend to be short. Her life was too busy for long works.
Bradstreet's poems are quintessentially of the New World – as the Puritans saw America. Take, for example, her poignant Verses upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666:
I blest His name that gave and took,
That laid my goods now in the dust.
Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just.
It was His own, it was not mine …
The world no longer let me love,
My hope and treasure lies above.
It's a traditional Puritan sentiment: this world is of no real consequence – what matters is the world to come. But what one hears is an entirely new voice – an American voice, moreover the voice of an American "making" the new country. Bradstreet and her husband had built the house, now in ashes; they would, of course rebuild; America is a country constantly rebuilding America.
So: second on the syllabus, Mistress Bradstreet. Out of Puritanism came transcendentalism. Ralph Waldo Emerson is too dense and Moby-Dick too bloody long. Ideal would be Herman Melville's Benito Cereno, a novel about a "negro barber" shaving his white master – he is a servant but also that razor, and the barber himself, is a "cut-throat". Melville's work (hugely readable) allegorises the complex, post-civil war relationship of white and black.
Benito Cereno should be read alongside Toni Morrison's Beloved, the novel which takes up Uncle Tom's cabin and shakes all the sentimentality out of it, leaving a core of still blazing racial rage.
Walt Whitman, the self-declared disciple of Emerson, embodies another aspect of the transcendental tradition: its sense that "freedom", in all its many facets, is the essence of all American ideology, including poetic ideology. In Whitman's case, it took the form of "free verse" – poetry unshackled from rhyme, as the country itself had thrown off the shackles of colonialism in its war of independence against the British in 1776.
American literature thinks big. But it also has the ability to fashion greatness out of the simplest materials. You just have to dangle a verse of Emily Dickinson's in front of a class to make them want more. For example:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
A powerful and defining impulse in American literature of the 19th and 20th century is the "frontier thesis" – the idea that the essential quality and worth of Americanness is most clearly demonstrated in the struggle to push civilisation westward, from "shining ocean to shining ocean". James Fenimore Cooper (author of The last of the Mohicans) is an early exemplar. Virtually every cowboy novel and film springs from the same frontier thesis root. It's also a novel about genocide and ends with that melancholy proclamation: "The Pale Faces are masters of the earth, and the time of red-men has not yet come again."
The western is one of the few genres one cannot credit to the author Edgar Allan Poe, father of science fiction, "horror", and the detective story, notably The murders in the Rue Morgue.
So, to sum up: what makes American literature American? Is it the Puritan heritage, the constant battle to extend the frontier, the geographical and ethnic diversity, the aspiration for newness and greatness, the belief in America which underlies even denunciations of capitalist America, as in Arthur Miller's Death of a salesman (include that, by the way,) or the creative life it puts into "low" genres?
Yes; all of these things. But there is something else, even more important. Ernest Hemingway put his finger on it when he proclaimed: "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." What is definitive, Hemingway contends, is "voice": what Twain himself called dialect. You hear it in Huck's first sentence:
"You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter."
There is an American idiom which only American literature fully captures. The detective story writer Raymond Chandler, who gave great thought to the subject, called it "cadence". Huck Finn is currently unteachable because of its profuse (219) use of the n-word. Hemingway's own fiction bears out his point about the American idiom but the novel which, for me, most perfectly voices the modern American idiom is J. D. Salinger's The catcher in the rye. Read (and "hear") its first sentence:
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
How, in a word, would one describe the distinctive sound of that voice? The word, surely, would be "American". Quintessentially American.
Gove has specifically prescribed more of that David Copperfield kind of crap and more of Austen's exquisite literary carvings on her two inches of ivory. Well and good. But let's hear it for the US in the classroom as well.
John Sutherland's 10 US novels for GCSE students:
In the American grain (William Carlos Williams)
Selected poems (Anne Bradstreet)
Benito Cereno (Herman Melville)
Beloved (Toni Morrison)
Leaves of grass (Walt Whitman)
Selected poems (Emily Dickinson)
The murders in the Rue Morgue (Edgar Allan Poe)
The last of the Mohicans (James Fenimore Cooper)
Death of a salesman (Arthur Miller)
The catcher in the rye (J. D. Salinger)
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