Reading matters

'A Time to Tell' by Maria Savva

  Fiction - paperback; Pen Press Publishers; 308 pages; 2006. Review copy.

I haven't read a rollicking good family-saga-cum-romance for a very long time, so I was pleased to pick up Maria Savva's second novel, A Time to Tell, for a leisurely Saturday afternoon read this past weekend. It turned out to be perfect fare for someone currently suffering from a chest infection, and I ploughed through it in one sitting.

The novel charts the course of Cara Hughes' life over a 50-year period from the early 1950s to the beginning of the 21st century. From her first doomed love affair and a failed suicide attempt, to marriage and motherhood, the book actually opens at the end of Cara's life as a 60-something widowed invalid living with the only relation that will have her -- a granddaughter caught up in an abusive marriage. Unusually, the story does not follow a reverse chronological order as you would expect from such a starting point, but jumps backwards and forwards in time, a style that reflects Cara's memories as and when they occur to her.

Through this disjointed third-person narrative we slowly learn more about Cara's long life: her joys and sorrows, her trials and tribulations, and the very many secrets she has kept hidden from her family, including the fact that the father of her first-born was not the man she married but the one for which, some 50 years later, she still harbours strong affection.

'Eden' by Tim Smit

Non-fiction - paperback; Corgi; 286 pages; 2002.

The Eden Project is a series of man-made biomes built in a disused clay pit in Cornwall, England. One of the British Government's much-lauded Millennium Projects, it opened to critical acclaim in 2001 and has been on my list of places to visit for many years.

Designed to educate the public about plants and our dependence on them, it features the world's biggest conservatories, the first of which emulates a tropical environment, the second a warm temperate Mediterranean environment. Both biomes are made out of "bubbles" -- sturdy plastic, air-filled hexagons -- which interlock to form a series of gigantic greenhouses that are home to thousands of plants from across the world.

I visited the complex last month and was so in awe of its scale and beauty that I purchased this book, by the project's founder, in the souvenir shop because I was keen to learn more about the project's inception and difficult birth.

'Aiding and Abetting' by Muriel Spark

Fiction - paperback; Penguin; 212 pages; 2000. 

Truth is often stranger than fiction, and no more so than in the case of Lord Lucan, an English aristocrat, who has been missing since the night of November 7, 1974. On this night the nanny looking after Lucan's three children was brutally murdered and his wife suffered severe head wounds in the attack. Lucan, who had a gambling problem and had racked up considerable debts, was suspected of the crime. Wanted on charges of murder and attempted murder, he was never brought to court, and despite being declared officially dead in 1999, numerous "sightings" of him still occur around the world.

The late Muriel Spark, one of Britain's most acclaimed and prolific writers, takes this real life story, one that has fascinated generations of Brits, and turns it on its head. She has Lucan still alive, on the run from the law but supported by a closeted network of aristocratic friends. When he presents himself for treatment at the consulting rooms of a Paris-based psychiatrist, Dr Hildegard Wolf is immediately intrigued -- and not just because of Lucan's mysterious past. It turns out she is already treating another man, who also claims to be Lord Lucan. And so she must try to unravel which Lucan -- if any -- is the real seventh Earl, and then she must determine what threat each poses to her new life, far from the one in which she was a fake stigmatic defrauding people of money for her own gain.

What follows is a fun, high-tension, hilarious romp that spans Paris, London and the Highlands of Scotland as Lucan and Dr Wolf both go on the run. Without wishing to give too much of the remaining plot away, I can safely say the ending is a satisfyingly wicked one.

Aiding and Abetting is, quite simply, a delight from start to finish. Its pared down, elegant prose and fast-moving storyline makes it a deliciously quick read. But because it strays into areas of morality and crime there's enough substance to give real food for thought. It might appear to be a rather simple novel but don't let that trick you into thinking it doesn't deal with rather complex issues...

'Dracula' by Bram Stoker

Fiction - paperback; Wordsworth Classics; 352 pages; 2003.

The horror genre isn't my normal genre of choice. I spent my teenage years working my way through Stephen King's (then existing) back catalogue, dabbled with some Dean R Koontz and a little James Herbert, before giving Anne Rice a shot. I read Interview with a Vampire, The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned and that's about the sum total of my exposure to horror/vampire fiction.

But Dracula was always one of those books I intended to read at some point, if only because I wanted to understand how one nineteenth century novel could have such an influence on the popularity of vampires in modern day literature and films. I put it off for years and years, but during a visit to Whitby, on the north east coast of England earlier this year, I finally decided it was time to read the book. I had been to Whitby before, but this time around its connection with Dracula seemed to resonate more, perhaps because I'd seen a BBC TV production and recognised the Abbey and the Yorkshire coastline on the screen. (In truth, during my first visit in 1998, I was more interested in the "Australian connection" -- Whitby is where Captain James Cook embarked on his famous Pacific voyages.)

Whitby is, of course, the fishing village where Bram Stoker sets some parts of the novel -- where one of the main characters, Lucy, meets Dracula for the first time, in fact. But it's also the place where Stoker began taking notes for the book while on holiday in 1890. It is a beautiful village nestled by the River Esk -- and Stoker's description, told through the eyes of Mina Murray, remains unchanged more than a century later:

'The Litvinenko File: The True Story of a Death Foretold' by Martin Sixsmith

Non-fiction - hardcover; MacMillan; 320 pages; 2007.

Anyone who was living in London in November 2006 will know that the hot topic of conversation -- in the pubs, at work, on the news and in the papers -- was the poisoning of Alexander "Sasha" Litvinenko.

Mr Litvinenko, a former member of the KGB and its successor the FSB, was granted political asylum (with his wife and child) in the UK in 2000. An outspoken critic of the Russian Government, he fell ill on November 1, 2006 and died three weeks later. Doctors could not say what caused his death, but it later emerged he had been poisoned by radioactive material known as polonium-210.

This book by the BBC's former Moscow correspondent, Martin Sixsmith, explores Litvinenko's murder and looks at who might gain the most from his death. During the course of his research Sixsmith discovered that Litvinenko had made many enemies. "What I found out about Litvinenko's past," he writes, "both astounded me and threw up so many potential reasons for his murder that I ended my research more surprised he survived as long as he did than that he eventually fell victim to the assassins who sought him out in London."

'Don't I Know You?' by Karen Shepard

Fiction - paperback; Harper Perennial; 230 pages; 2006.

This fascinating murder mystery, which is set in New York in the 1970s, opens with a 12-year-old boy, Stephen, coming home to his Upper Westside apartment to find his mother dead on the floor. Gina has been raped and stabbed multiple times. The TV is still on and all the windows are open.

Outside, it was getting darker. Inside too. He was crying.
Her black hair was still in its ponytail. It was spread out like she was jumping. She was making a face that he didn't like to look at. He thought about touching her, but didn't.
Down the hall, a quiet thud and two creaks.
His feet and hands tingled. Get out, he thought. He stood; his knees cracked, and he headed toward the front door. The sound of something heavy being lifted and put down again. He was still crying. He started down the hall. He couldn't believe he was doing it.
There was blood. Streaky patches of it. And then it stopped. His foot hit something that rolled. Glass beads. He recognised them from the necklace she liked to wear.
Her bedroom door was open a little. Shadows moved behind it.
He ran the last few feet. His head felt like he'd been holding his breath too long. 'Hey,' he called. 'Hey'.
One leg was disappearing out the window onto the fire escape. Jeans. A white sock. Adidas sneaker. White with green stripes.

'Detour' by James Siegel

Fiction - paperback; Time Warner Books; 406  pages; 2005.   

First things first. If you read this book you need to check your brain at the door. Detour is not highbrow literature. Instead it's a fast-paced plot-driven romp that reads like a movie screenplay. It's well written in the sense that it's effortless to read. But if you're expecting something that will rock your world or make you see things in a different light or have you reassessing your life, then give this one a wide berth. It's enjoyable and entertaining. No more, no less.

Like Siegel's previous effort, Derailed (which was turned into a movie starring Jennifer Aniston), Detour is about ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. In this case, a young New York couple, Joanna and Paul, travel to Colombia to adopt a baby as part of a fast-track scheme set up by their lawyer. Of course Colombia is a dangerous country -- a point which Siegel labours again and again throughout this long novel -- and there's a menace around every corner. Not surprisingly, the couple and their new adorable baby girl, Joelle, are kidnapped by left-wing militia -- and then things really heat up.

Paul enters into a deal to secure their release: he must travel to New York as a drug mule with 30 condoms of cocaine inside him. He has 18 hours to deliver them to an address in Queens and once the drugs are safely handed over, Joanna and Joelle will be free to return to the USA. If he doesn't hand them over, he will never see his wife and daughter again...

Of course -- you guessed it -- things don't go according to plan, but to say any more would spoil the plot...

'The Blank Wall' by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Fiction - paperback; Persephone; 231 pages; 2003.

This book should come with a warning: make sure you have an entire afternoon free to read this, because you won't be able to put it down. Honestly.

The Blank Wall, no. 42 in Persephone's book list and first published by Simon & Schuster in 1947, is a nail biting thriller set in the United States during the Second World War. I read it in a matter of hours and felt myself holding my breath much of the way through it, as I was never certain what was going to happen next. It is, as the Observer called it, a "classic of suspense fiction".

Lucia is a 38-year-old housewife and mother. Her husband, a Navy man, is away at war in Europe, and she is left to run the household, comprising her elderly father, 17-year-old Bee and a 15 year-old David, with help from her faithful maid, Sibyl.

The family has recently moved to a new house by a lake and are still settling in to the neighbourhood, when Lucia discovers that Bee is going out with a "quite sinister-looking character" more than twice her age. This throws Lucia into a kind of spin: she makes a special trip to New York to warn off the boyfriend and then, one morning, finds him dead in the motorboat moored behind the family's boathouse. She immediately suspects her father has murdered him and then embarks on a not very well thought out plan to cover up the crime...

'The Post-Birthday World' by Lionel Shriver

Fiction - paperback; Harper Collins; 600  pages; 2007.

In Lionel Shriver's astonishingly profound novel We Need to Talk About Kevin, the American-born London-based author explored the notion of nature versus nurture. It divided readers across the world and became the quintessential book group book, if only because its content stimulated so much discussion. If a student went on a killing spree, was the mother to blame? Or had he simply been born evil?

In her long-awaited follow-up, The Post-Birthday World, Shriver treads less controversial ground but doesn't shy away from exploring a theme that is likely to generate a similar amount of discussion: is life pre-ordained or do we need to take responsibility for our actions? Is sex or companionship more important in a relationship? And is there such a thing as a perfect partner?

In this accomplished and incredibly well plotted novel we meet Irina McGovern, a children's book illustrator, who is an expat American living in South London. Every July 6 Irina and her long-term partner, Lawrence, meet an acquaintance, Ramsey Acton, who is a rich and famous snooker player, to celebrate his birthday. It is a once-a-year rendezvous that Irina usually tries to wriggle out of. The one year that Lawrence can't make it due to a business trip, Irina is left to entertain Ramsey on her own. It is on this particular evening that Irina's comfortable, if occasionally dull life, cleaves in two.

And this is where Shriver has fun exploring the what ifs. What if Irina kisses Ramsey on this night? And what if she decides to resist temptation?

The Post-Birthday World charts Irina's life using a parallel universe structure, one in which she chooses to run off with the wild and impetuous Ramsey and the other in which she stays with her dependable, intellectual partner Lawrence. These two worlds are so diametrically opposed -- the seedy on-the-road life of the professional snooker player and the closeted, safe and cerebral existence of an academic -- that Irina's decision in anything but a light one. Does she settle for Lawrence's seeming unwillingness to experiment in bed (he won't even kiss her) or does she seek the sexual thrills that Ramsey offers? Does she maintain the cosy homelife she shares with Lawrence -- who won't marry her --  or does she embark on a steamy affair that may ultimately end in wedlock?

'Body Surfing' by Anita Shreve

Fiction - hardcover; Little, Brown; 304  pages; 2007. REVIEW COPY.

When this advanced readers' copy of Anita Shreve's soon-to-be-published Body Surfing thudded through my mail box (courtesy of a blog friend and not the publisher) I was -- to be perfectly frank -- just a little excited. Long-time readers of this blog will know that I am a Shreve fan. Not only does this American author produce quality fiction, she's not afraid to experiment and go off in different directions without losing the very essence of what makes her a great writer: she knows how to spin an entertaining, often emotional, yarn without sacrificing plot or character.

Body Surfing is a welcome return to form after the disappointment of her previous novel, A Wedding in December, in which the pacing was thrown off kilter by two narratives that did not particularly compliment one another.

But in this latest addition to Shreve's ever-expanding body of work (this is her 13th novel) the author has ditched her preference for dual narratives and stuck to one simple, and very solid, storyline.