Reading matters

'Leadbelly' by Andrew Rule and John Silvester

Non-fiction - paperback; Blake Publishing; 288 pages; 2005.

Between 1995 and 2004 there were 34 underworld killings in Melbourne, Australia. Yes, 34. I don't think there were that many deaths in six-and-a-half series of The Sopranos and that has to be one of the most violent TV shows ever broadcast.

According to the authors "the size of the death toll varies from source to source because opinions vary about when the 'war' began and who are casualties and who are not". Even the concept of 'war' is disputed, because not all the murders are related, some are simply one-off hits to settle old scores. But police did establish that the bulk of the killings were part of a deadly feud between two rival gangs: the New Boys and the Carlton Crew.

Having followed this string of brutal and bloody murders from afar (I left Australia in mid-1998) via Melbourne's The Age website, I was anxious to read this book to piece all the crimes together in my head as one long narrative. Unfortunately, the book's structure doesn't work like that. Instead, what you get is 29 self-contained chapters that look at each crime in isolation. I imagine they were written like this for newspaper publication, but even so, I found it annoyingly repetitive in places -- explaining who characters are and how they are linked to each other and what terrible crimes they have committed -- which wears very thin very quickly.

And the prose style is terribly tabloid, surprising given that it's written by two journalists for whom I have the utmost respect (Andrew Rule's Strict Rules, a non-fiction account of his time touring the outback and staying with aboriginal communities, is extraordinarily good and worth tracking down if you get a chance, while Silvester's day-to-day reporting for The Age on the crimes covered in Leadbelly has been thorough, tenacious and imminently readable over the course of this ongoing gangland feud). Still, I wonder how much of this "dumbed down" style is simply a reflection of the market to which this book is aimed. It's not so much sloppily written, but it's riddled with unwarranted editorialising that I found patronising.

'Silent in the Grave' by Deanna Raybourn

Fiction - paperback; Mira Books; 544 pages; 2008. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Deanna Raybourn's debut novel, Silent in the Grave, kicks off with one of the more memorable opening lines I've ever had the pleasure of reading:

To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.

The "I" in question is Lady Julia Grey, who turns out to be the wonderfully feisty late-20-something heroine of this extraordinarily fun novel, which is set in Victorian London. Together with private investigator Nicholas Brisbane, a tall, dark and handsome man, she sets out to discover who murdered her husband, although she is initially sceptical that his death was caused by anything other than natural causes.

The ensuing investigation is hampered from the outset, not the least because Julia is from a rich family where she is expected to play the part of a bereaved widow for at least a year, closeted from the world in her large London townhouse. But also because Nicholas Brisbane isn't exactly the easiest person to work with, riddled as he is by a mysterious illness and an equally mysterious past.

Determined to seek justice before beginning her life afresh, Julia sets about interviewing her servants and searching their rooms for clues. What she discovers isn't pleasant -- and before the story ends she must confront everything from gypsies to prostitutes in a bid to find her husband's killer.

'The Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl' by Shauna Reid

  Non-fiction - paperback; Corgi; 400 pages; 2008.

"I've got the biggest knickers in Australia."

So begins Shauna Reid's refreshingly candid, often humorous and hugely inspirational The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl, which charts her seven-year battle with the bulge.

Shauna's story, which first appeared in blog form, is an entertaining read reminiscent of Bridget Jones Diary. It is not a typical diet book. There are no recipes, no quick-and-easy solutions to fighting the flab. Instead it's an enthralling novel-like narrative that follows Shauna's ups and downs as she struggles to lose 12-and-a-half stone.

She battles depression, curbs her secret food binges and learns to love the gym. Along the way she finds the courage to backpack to the other side of the world and nabs herself a Scottish husband in the process.

I loved this book and kept turning the pages well into the early hours of the morning. It's enormously moving in places, but any sense of self-pity is tempered by a self-deprecating sense of humour which had me laughing out loud more than once.

The beauty of this book is that it shows how it is possible to achieve anything if you set your mind to it.  Shauna's steely determination to succeed and years of hard work paid off handsomely in the end. For that reason alone The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl should be required reading for anyone wanting to change any aspect of their life who lacks the courage to do so. It's already made me want to cut my caffeine intake and ride my bicycle more often!

'Between Two Rivers' by Nicholas Rinaldi

Fiction - paperback; Harper Perennial; 464  pages; 2005.

Between Two Rivers is one of those rare novels that takes a simple premise -- the lives of the residents in a tower block in downtown Manhattan -- and turns it into something truly special, in prose that is, by turn, elegant and shocking, eerie and mesmerising.

We meet a cast of eccentric characters -- cancer-ridden industrialist Harry Falcon, retired Luftwaffe pilot Karl Vogel, housemaid Yesenia, Iraqi spice merchant Muhta Saad and his son Abdul (who is studying to become a mortician), actress Angela Crespi, eccentric animal-lover and widower Nora Abernooth and plastic surgeon Theo Tattafruge -- and intertwines their stories in a series of beautifully written vignettes. These are linked via alternate chapters told from the point of view of the building's Romanian concierge, the ever watchful Farro Fescu.

'The Butterfly Man' by Heather Rose

Fiction - paperback; University of Queensland Press; 315  pages; 2006.

Some of the best novels take a real life story and turn it into entertaining fiction. Jake Arnott's The Firm particularly springs to mind.

In The Butterfly Man, Heather Rose takes the real life case of Lord Lucan, who disappeared on the night of November 7, 1974 following the brutal murder of the nanny looking after his three children, and poses the question, what if?

She has Lord Lucan reinvent himself as Henry Kennedy, a Scottish man, who emigrates to Australia. Here, he lives a quiet life in a house he built himself on a forest-covered mountain in Hobart, Tasmania. Together with his lover, Lili, a TV presenter, who has secrets of her own to keep, he is far from the gambling upper-class Englishman he once was.

But when Henry is diagnosed with a brain tumour, his illness has an uncanny way of making him say things he does not mean to say. And so he must do all he can to prevent himself from inadvertently confessing the sins of the past as his illness takes a hold.

'All Quiet on the Western Front' by Erich Maria Remarque

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 224  pages; 1996. (Translated by Brian Murdoch.)

Described as the classic anti-war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front is a devastatingly emotional read about German soldiers fighting in the Great War.

Told through the eyes of 19-year-old soldier Paul Baumer, it details his experiences fighting in the Flanders' trenches.

'Voyage in the Dark' by Jean Rhys

Fiction - paperback; Penguin Books; 176 pages; 2000.

This is a beautiful, melancholy story about one young woman's voyage from innocence to hard-bitten experience.

Written in 1934, it is, in many respects, before its time, depicting a world in which women are the playthings of men.

Anna Morgan, 18, is a lost ingenue, adrift in a foreign land, exiled from her native West Indies after the death of her father. She has a job as a chorus girl and travels through the dark, dismal towns of Edwardian England, where "everything was always so exactly alike", residing in cold, dank boarding houses, reminiscing about her homeland, where the "light is gold and when you shut your eyes you see fire-colour".

'The Plot Against America' by Philip Roth

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 391 pages; 2005.

Let's cut to the chase. This book has a lot to say. It deals with big themes. But it lacks punch. I had to make myself read it in a couple of hits for fear I'd never pick it up again - and I haven't had to do that with a book for a long time.

Essentially Roth has created a fascinating and wholly believable history that never was: an America that sided with the Nazis during the Second World War. He makes the renowned aviation hero Charles A. Lindbergh the thirty-third president (he defeats Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election), who implements a systematic program to destabilise the Jewish enclaves within the major cities, such as New York. Riots and mayhem ensue, but this doesn't properly happen until the last chapter of the book. Instead, the reader must plough their way through a relatively boring family history, seeing it through the eyes of a young boy, a character who just so happens to be named Philip Roth.

'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' by JK Rowling

Fiction - paperback; Bloomsbury; 636 pages; 2001.

The fourth instalment of the Harry Potter series is by turns exciting, dramatic, hilarious and frightening. Most of all it is magical.

Once again JK Rowling has written an incredibly entertaining story. The narrative is driven by a cleverly-layered plot line and lively writing which takes the reader from the ordinariness of muggle (human) life to the excitement of the Quidditch World Cup, the spellbinding world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the mysterious dangers of the Triwizard Cup.

A thoroughly entertaining romp for both children and adults alike. But watch out for the frightening ending.