So He Takes the Dog - Jonathan Buckley

This is an easy read, but very difficult to categorise. Although it has a crime at its' centre and the narrator is a police officer, this is not really a mystery or detective story. Virtually nothing is resolved at the end.
It is well written, some excellent descriptions, none of the characters are wooden or one-dimensional. It starts with a body on the beach in the West Country. Much of the book is devoted to discovering who this well know local character - a tramp - truly was. As the book evolves he becomes less significant, while the lives of the others become changed and affected by the results of his murder.
Although this is a competent novel, I never really felt connected to the main character, and as the truth of the murder victim's early life is revealed it is neither shocking nor engaging.
Worth reading - but only if you haven't got lots more books to read of a much more compelling urgency! Rating: A solid 7/10

In Search of Leonard Woolf

I went to a talk given by Woolf's biographer, Victoria Glendinning as part of Jewish Book week. I'd seen her talk about Leonard before at the Southwold literary festival last November, but this was very different, as was being given to a Jewish audience. There were readings from Leonard's writing demonstrating how much his Jewishness impinged on his thinking. He was certainly not orthodox and non-practising, his wife Virginia was a gentile. He thought of himself as British, but came to realise that this was not how 'the establishment' viewed him. The greatest enigma to my mind was what exactly he saw in his wife. She was high-maintenance to say the least, she'd had several serious breakdowns and psycotic episodes, she was suicidal, her sister had off loaded her on Leonard to avoid having to look after her, she wasn't interested in sex (well certainly not with Leonard) and wrote a diary full of very offensive anti-semitic comments. Leonard, on the other hand was overbrimming with love and desire, but remained faithful to his wife until she died, and he provoked adoration in so many women - one of whom at least declared she had fallen in love with him on first sight. A fascinating man who deserves greater attention.

10 Books I Can't Live Without

World Book Day (on 1st March) is running a new list - not just a favourite book, but 10 books you couldn't live without. This is pretty clever - because it isn't the same list as the world's best books, or greatest works of literature. If you do lists like that then people will vote for the books that they believe are 'literary' - which isn't the same as entertaining, funny or essential reading.

My list is: (In no particular order)

E F Benson: Lucia Rising

Barbara Tuchman - A Distant Mirror

Barbara Pym: Excellent Women

Helene Hannf - 84 Charing Cross Road

Simon Raven: Alms for Oblivion

Anthony Powell - A Dance to the Music of Time

Annie Proux: The Shipping News

Barbara Vine - The Blood Doctor

Andrea Levy: A Small Island

Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

All these books I could read again and again.

How about you - what are your 10 Books that You Can't Live Without?

Smile Please - Jonathan Keates

I reckon Mr Keates has pretentions to be a literary novellist, and so he scatters the pages with incredibly long words; literary phraseology; words, phrases and conversations in foreign languages and makes cultural references - music, dance, theatre - that are hardly mainstream.

This is a bit of a problem if you're looking for a light read. The theme is an interesting one - a group of thirty something friends who have made it in their own fields of endeavour, and are now looking for something more. The bloom of youth has worn off and pre-middle age angst has cut in. Jonathan is a gay writer who has avoided the traditional theme of gay tragedy (AIDS, depression, failure and death) in favour of the new post AIDS themes - promiscuity (safe of course) inability to make long-term relationships, lust, lies and manipulation. This applies to all characters of whatever gender or orientation. However, I couldn't really connect with the characters - the lives they led are too distant from my own, and why is it necessary to include so much soft porn (straying occasionally into a area the is explicit enough to be hardcore).

Rating? 5 or 6/10

Black Swan Green - David Mitchell

This is probably a book I wouldn't have read if I wasn't asked to as part of one of my reading groups.

It is the tale of a year in the life of a 12 year old going on 14. It is probably not a typical a rite of passage book - but it does include the usual agenda items for those entering puberty - sex, school, relationships, family life, bulleying, adventure. It is set in the early 1980s - Malvinas War is the backdrop.

It is written through the boy's eyes. One of the flaws of the book is that although the language attempts to be 'authentically teenage' there are too many anachronisms, and the language is far too literary to be realistic. OK so Jason is a budding poet and stammerer who finds comfort in language (at one point suggests that a dictionary is light reading), it didn't quite come off. It is a bit too trite - his tormenters are defeated in a manner that most victims of bullying would find fanciful. I also think the author was trying too hard to demonstrate his knowledge of the period - constant references to period consumer items, and new technology became eventually tedious.

However, an easy read, engaging throughout - and you do feel sympathy for Jason in his attempts to fight through a difficult time in any boy's life.

My rating? 6/10

The Shipping News - (E) Annie Proux

I really enjoyed this book. Unusually I had seen the film with Kevin Spacey and Judi Dench before I read this book. I say unusually because normally I won't do both - watch the film and read the book, because I end up been disatisfied with one or the other - or both!

I think what I liked most is her style - the short sentences the constant similes and metaphors, staccato phrases pouring constantly and relentlessly. Ms Proux is a real expert in feelings and emotions, it is so rare to read a book where things come like revelations. Suddenly, out of blue comes the explanation of why the central character doesn't feel he can love anyone else - because he believes he is so unloveable that his only relationships can be abusive - with him as the victim.

This is a tale of a man who falls in love with a wrongun - she treats him bad. He moves from close to New York to his family's original home - Newfoundland, where life is truly on the edge - the climate, the conditions, the employment, everything is like a return to the nineteenth century. There is tragedy, but there is also redemption. He can't bring himself to tell his children that their mother (his wife the inappropriately named Petal) is dead. The result is that death (which is all around them in Newfoundland) no longer has realism. However, at the end of the book death as an issue is resolved in a blackly comic way - but in accordance with the book and the story.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough! My rating 9/10

John Mortimer - Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders

I really like the way John Mortimer writes - and I always hope that Rumpole is exactly like true lawyers (but I sneakily have my doubts!)

For those of you who don't know Rumpole he is a jobbing barrister specialising in crime. He rails against judges, his fellow lawyers, politicians and is in fear of his wife Hilda. However, he believes in the law - and always defends, will never become a QC or a judge. He is theatrical and forever quotes poetry and Shakespeare - much to the annoyance of his colleagues. But is he a very good barrister?

This particular volume finally reveals the facts behind the case that runs through all the previous Rumpole novels - the one that made Rumpole the barrister he was to become. As a newly qualified barrister he defends a young man accused of murdering his father and his father's friend. Against all odds Rumpole wins the case. However, he also wins a wife (a not entirely welcome victory as he forever refers to her as 'She - Who must be obeyed').

John Mortimer is witty, funny in parts, oh so readable, and is an old fashioned story teller. I can get through one of his books in a couple of days!

My rating? 9/10