English Passengers

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale

Wow, this was a good book. I mean, a really good book. Up there with Cloud Atlas as one of the best books I have ever read. In some ways it reminded me of Cloud Atlas - all the different voices in each section of the book, and there're some similarities between this book and one of the Cloud Atlas novellas.

In the 1850s, a mad English vicar, a doctor with unsettling theories about the relative merits of different human 'types', and a lazy youth whose parents want to make a man of him, inadvertently charter a Manx smuggling vessel, not knowing that stowed in the hold are barrels of brandy and other contraband. They are destined for Tasmania, which the vicar believes is the true site of the Garden of Eden. The smuggling vessel is on the run from English customs officials.

There's drama on the oceans, and when the expedition reaches Tasmania and treks through the bush they meet with life and death situations. I can't explain the whole plot, there is way too much of it, but there's humour, farce and drama throughout. Threaded through the tale of the three hapless Englishmen is the history of Tasmania's aboriginal population. This is one of those books where you learn some history as you read on - white settlers exterminated the entire population within about 30 years. There are some shocking incidents, based on actual history.

The novel's narrated in sections by different characters - an aborigine, the ship's captain, the vicar, the doctor, the youth, and shorter sections by other minor characters. Each one has a wholly different voice - you hardly need to read the section heading to know who's talking. It's a great book to read to see how this can be done, and the effectiveness of using different voices for each character.

I was blown away by this book, did not want to get to the end though I did want to know what happened to all the characters. Very satisfying ending. Thoroughly recommended - if you like historical novels you will love this one

Living In Perhaps

Living In Perhaps by Julia Widdows

Bought this one after reading a review on Sally Zigmond's blog (she has great taste in books, so I just follow her around like a puppy...).

Really enjoyed it. Brilliantly written, cleverly drawn unreliable narrator who you know you just can't trust from one page to the next. But what I loved most was the details of sixties suburbia, so beautifully observed. The author has created a world which felt so real I was really there. Carol's adopted, feels alienated from her family, isn't sure who she is, prefers visiting the eccentric neighbours, and living in her made-up world in which she's far more important.

The ending was left hanging - up to the reader what to believe. After all, the narrator's been lying all through, so who knows what really happened?

A spot of social history

I've just finished reading 'Through the Hard Times and the Good' by Chris Hare. This is a non-fiction book, a social history of Worthing from the early 1930s. It focusses on the creation and works of the organisation now known as Guild Care, which was previously known as Worthing Council for Social Services, and was a forerunner of the welfare state in Worthing.

The reason I bought and read this book is because I've been researching my family history, and my mum's side of the family are all from Worthing. Not only that, but my great-aunt was one of the original founders of Guild Care. In fact, she seems to have been something of a saint. I never met her - she was dead long before I was born - but I'd heard she was 'a bit of a charity worker'. Well that's the understatement of the century. She worked tirelessly, for no pay, for decades, helping Worthing's poor, needy and elderly. Some examples - she arranged for free dental treatment for children, care homes for the elderly, nursery provision for the young. A memo arrived from the Government, suggesting the setting up of Citizen's Advice Bureaus. My great-aunt got straight on to that the next day, and Worthing was the first town to get a CAB. Methold House, Guild Care's HQ in Worthing, is named after her.

This was a very readable book, well researched and illustrated. I feel I got to know my great-aunt as a result of it. It would be of interest to anyone interested in social history, or the history of Worthing.

Wasted by Nicola Morgan

I bought this one because I follow Nicola's blog, and she seemed so excited about this book's publication, I wanted to see what it was all about. It's a YA novel. Sadly I am not a YA, and therefore am not its intended audience. Also I now realised that I didn't actually realise what a YA novel really is. I suppose I thought it meant roughly the same as a crossover novel, ie one meant for kids but which also appeals to adults, like the Harry Potter series. But no, Wasted is an entirely different thing. It's aimed, I would say, at older teenagers. Fifteen and upwards. I think I'd have loved it when I was seventeen.

Actually I should rephrase that. I think I would first have loved it aged seventeen. I'm 44 now, and loved it anyway. When I bought it, I thought I'd pass it on to my kids. My older son (now 15) might like it in couple of years time (though there are no battling Romans or exploding orcs in it, so his tastes will need to broaden first). My younger son (now 12) is definitely too young for some of the themes.

That's what surprised me most about this book - the underage drinking, getting into clubs on false ids, spiked drinks, knife crime, alcoholism. Yes, all this goes on in real life. Yes, I guess all kids of the target audience range will be aware, to a greater or lesser extent, of all this. But I was surprised these things make it into books aimed at teens. (That's why I said I realise now I didn't know what YA fiction really was. When I was that age, there was no such genre. When you grew out of Enid Blyton and Arthur Ransome, you read your mum's Catherine Cooksons and Shirley Conrans, or your dad's Arthur C Clarks. Well, that's what I did anyway. It was that or my brother's Commando comics.)

Anyway the novel's been an education to me, in many ways. So what did I think of it?

Well, as I said, I loved it. Great voice. I would have said I don't like third person present tense, but it's absolutely right for this book. The language is simple and slightly staccato, but the prose is so well-formed it pulls you along quickly. The viewpoint is omniscient, we are hovering over the action, knowing everyone's thoughts, being given hints all through that tiny actions and decisions the characters make now are going to have unguessable and far-reaching consequences for them.

Because that's what the book's about - chance and luck, and infinite possible futures.

The time frame of the book is those halcyon days at the end of the summer term, when you've finished your last exams and are therefore free to do what you like. Jess joins a band and falls in love with Jack. Jack's obsessed with tossing a coin to make decisions, to make a sacrifice to fate in order to ward off bad luck. There's a gang of tarty girls who've got it in for the pair of them. Some bad stuff happens. Some bad stuff nearly happens. As the novel progresses, two versions of some chapters are given, to show how tiny differences can have huge effects on events. At the end the reader is invited to toss a coin to decide the final outcome. (I got heads. Sorry, Jack.)

It's a very unusual book, in terms of the voice, the theme and the structure. I hope it does very well.

The Missing

By Juliet Bates (Linen Press)

I bought The Missing following a review by Sally Zigmond, which led me to the Linen Press website. I also read a piece by Linen Press publisher Lynn Michell in which I was appalled to find that she makes a LOSS on every book sold via Amazon. Well I knew small presses made a lot less through Amazon than by selling direct, but to make a loss!?! I resolved to always buy small press books direct from the publisher, and also to try to buy about half my books from small presses in future.

Anyway, what about the book? It appealed to me because of the mystery element - who was this woman who may or may not be Anastasia, daughter of the Tsar? I've recently read another book about the end of the Russian royal family so was familiar with the events. But The Missing is an altogether different book, with themes of missing persons (of course!), and missing memories. How we rewrite our memories to fit with what we want to believe, now.

Journalist Frances is in Paris, trying to track down a woman named Ania believed by some to be Anastasia. But she's also trying to track down her past, her mother who walked out when she was six. And is she trying to find herself as well? There are stories within the story here - different versions of Ania's history given by different characters, and different takes on episodes in Frances's past as well.

Throughout the prose is beautiful, descriptive and melancholy. It carried me along in a gentle and seductive way, and I enjoyed the book immensely.

Hope Against Hope

Hope Against Hope By Sally Zigmond

Romping Victorian drama - two sisters separated by circumstances at the dawn of the Victorian era, when railways were the New Best Thing. We follow their fortunes in Harrogate and Paris, and eventually they're reunited.

Lovely memorable characters. Great plot. And Harrogate itself becomes a character - I love it when the setting becomes alive like this, without reams of description. It was a page-turner, a book for the beach. I should have left it for my summer holidays but couldn't.

I like historical fiction and am drawn to literary historical novels more than the family saga type. This one fell cleverly somewhere in between.

Affinity - Sarah Waters

I'm a big fan of Sarah Waters' books. I love historical fiction, and her World War II book, The Night Watch, was one of the best books I've ever read. So when I spotted Affinity while browsing idly in WHSmith one day I decided to treat myself.

I wasn't disappointed. While it didn't knock The Night Watch off my top spot, it was hugely enjoyable and hard to put down. I found myself curled up out of the wind, beside a stream which fed into Buttermere lake, reading it last week. Was annoyed when the rest of the family wanted to get on with the walk.

It's a spooky tale of a Victorian spinster who becomes involved with a woman in Millbank prison. The woman's been convicted of assault - she's a spirit medium and something went wrong at one of her sittings, a girl got hurt and her patron died of a heart attack. As the story progresses and the spinster becomes more and more involved with the convict, you have to decide whether the ghostly happenings are real or fraudulent. You're sucked into liking the convict character, so you want to believe her, but is she for real?