Reading matters

'The Road Home' by Rose Tremain

  Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 365 pages; 2008.

Rose Tremain is one of those British authors who has been on the periphery of my reading existence for about 10 years. She's been hard at work crafting novels -- 11 at last count -- and the odd short story collection, but I have only ever read Music and Silence, which won best novel in the 1999 Whitbread Awards. In fact, I adored that book so much, it may partially explain why I've shied away from reading anything else by Tremain: I've been scared that nothing else could live up to the beauty of my first experience reading her work.

I have had her 1992 novel Sacred Country in my reading queue for a year or so, but then she won this year's Orange Prize with The Road Home and I wondered whether it was time to give her another shot. A half-price promotion at Waterstone's was the final push I needed, and so, that was how I found myself last weekend opening this book and falling in love with it.

The story is essentially about an immigrant from an unspecified Eastern European country (I imagine it is Poland and wondered why Tremain had refused to just come out and say this), who arrives in London determined to make enough money to support his elderly mother and young daughter back home.

Lev is in his early 40s and still grieving over the death of his wife, 36-year-old Marina, from leukemia, so there's a sense of melancholia about him. But he is also prepared to work hard and knows to get anywhere in life he must put aside his personal troubles and just get on with it.

Naively believing that it is possible to survive in London for £20 a week, he initially struggles to get settled, sleeping rough and making a measly fiver here and there by delivering leaflets for a kebab shop. But his luck turns when he scores a job washing dishes at a restaurant run by a famous chef (the fictional GK Ashe who has a  touch of the Gordon Ramsay's about him).

With a little help from Lydia, a fellow compatriot whom he befriended on the long bus journey to London, he finds himself a room to rent in a house owned by the genial Christy Slane, a recently separated Irish plumber. Together Lev and Christy strike up a wonderful friendship, based partly on shared grief and the fact they both have young daughters of around the same age.

When Lev finds himself falling in love with Sophie, a colleague, it seems as if his new English life is finally complete, but it's really just the beginning of a complex, often bumpy, occasionally funny and constantly challenging journey...

'First Love' by Ivan Turgenev

Fiction - paperback; Penguin Classics; 102 pages; 2007. (Translated from the Russian by Isaiah Berlin.)

First Love is Russian writer Ivan Turgenev’s most famous novella. First published in 1860, it has been beautifully repackaged and republished as part of Penguin’s Great Love series.

At just over 100 pages, this is a book that can quickly be read in one sitting (I achieved it via two 20-minute train journeys), although its brevity should not be mistaken for shallowness. First Love is exactly what the title suggests: a man looks back on his first love. “I was sixteen at the time,” he writes. “It happened in the summer of 1833.”

'Bad Debts' by Peter Temple

Fiction - paperback; Quercus; 336 pages; 2007. 

When I started reading Peter Temple's much acclaimed The Broken Shore last summer I became so enamoured with his writing style that before I'd even reached the half-way mark I rushed out and bought Bad Debts. I could sense it was going to be the start of a beautiful romance. Unfortunately, life got in the way -- along with a few dozen other books that beckoned me -- and it took me eight months to eventually get around to reading Bad Debts. The wait, I think, was worth it.

This book is not dissimilar to The Broken Shore in that it features a damaged protagonist with a slightly dodgy past and a penchant for spirited women. But that's probably where the similarities end.

The main difference is the writing style. Bad Debts, which was written almost ten years before The Broken Shore, certainly feels less polished, the language is tougher, the dialogue more choppy. And in the best tradition of hardboiled noir, the main character, washed-up lawyer Jack Irish, treads a very fine line between enforcing the law and breaking it. You're never quite sure whether you should admire him or despise him.

'Hearts and Minds' by Rosy Thornton

Fiction - hardcover; Headline Review; 352 pages; 2007. REVIEW COPY.

The last time I read a campus novel was probably Donna Tartt's The Secret History way back in 1993. I'd forgotten about the closed world of the university campus, in which students seem perpetually at loggerheads with the academic staff. Once-upon-a-time that was my world too, but I escaped it by the seat of my pants, swapping the cash-strapped lifestyle of a post-graduate student for the cash-strapped lifestyle of the rookie reporter. A dozen years later and I'm an editor instead of an academic, but it could quite easily have been the other way around.

Reading Rosy Thornton's latest book, Hearts and Minds, which is set in the all-female St Radegund's College, Cambridge, was an unexpected reminder of my distant past.  And in a funny, crazy, karmic-type of way, it seemed fitting to find that one of the main characters -- James Rycarte -- is a BBC executive who swaps journalism for academia.

I wasn't sure what to make of this novel when I began reading it a fortnight ago. It seemed to take forever to set up the plot, which revolves around Rycarte, the college's first ever male Head of House, quarrelling with the fellowship about a large cash donation that could be used for much-needed building repairs as well as setting up scholarships for up to 10 students in perpetuity. His one champion, the career-minded senior tutor, Martha Pearce, has her own battles to fight -- a rent strike by students, coupled with domestic problems involving a clinically depressed teenage daughter and a layabout husband -- to devote all her energies to Rycarte's aims.

But once I got into the rhythm of the writing and came to know the diverse and quirky range of characters, I fell in love with the story, the setting and the little subplots. I decided, about 100 pages in, that this was a book to savour and so I treated myself to a few chapters a night rather than race through it and miss out on the subtleties of Thornton's lovely rich writing style.

Despite the somewhat "girlie" cover, this is not chick-lit, nor, as the title may suggest, is it a cheesy romantic novel. In fact, I'd argue that this is mature fiction for mature readers, male and female alike. At its most basic level Hearts and Minds explores the complicated balancing acts that people perform every day -- Rycarte, looking after the college's best interests without compromising its integrity; Pearce, juggling her academic career with a troubled home life -- but adds a delicious layer of extra interest by setting it in a cloistered world where tradition does not mix with modernity.

This is a great, rainy day novel brimming with intelligent, often witty, prose, the perfect kind of story to luxuriate in while the rest of the world goes about its busy ways. I very much enjoyed it.

'Venetian Stories' by Jane Turner Rylands

Fiction - paperback; Anchor Books; 304 pages; 2004.

I am not a great fan of the short story, but I made an exception for this collection, because of its setting. It's no secret that I have a soft spot for Venice, so, when I found Jane Turner Rylands' Venetian Stories in a local charity shop I snapped it up, took it home and then spent the next six months reading it very, very slowly.

All the stories -- there are 12 in total and each is about 20 pages long -- are set in the watery city. They are told from the perspective of the residents, whether new or old, Italian or foreign, rich or poor. Some are even interlinked, but this is done in such a subtle manner that it's not immediately obvious and, to be honest, I wouldn't have even picked this up if it wasn't for the blurb telling me this was the case.

In fact, subtle is the key word here, as the entire collection seems to lack any great impact. There's no "wow" factor in these stories, but they are pleasing and effortless to read, if slightly fey in places. They supposedly provide an insight into real Venetian lives, but I have my doubts because many of the people portrayed here are downright snobs, corrupt or stupid.

There's also a decidedly American feel to everything, which is no great surprise given the author is an expat American. But what concerned me most was the condescending prose style adopted by Turner Rylands; there's no greater turn off than being talked down to, as if I could not possibly be as well travelled or as well connected  as the author.

In my humble opinion, Venetian Stories is not a great collection and has done nothing to make me reassess my usual distaste for the short story, but if you love Venice and consider yourself an armchair traveller (rather than a real traveller) you just might enjoy it.

'Under Enemy Colors' by S. Thomas Russell

Fiction - hardcover; Putnam Publishing Group; 368 pages; 2007. REVIEW COPY.

Although I'm not an expert on the naval genre, many of my favourite novels -- Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger, Joseph O'Connor's Star of the Sea and Matthew Kneale's English Passengers -- have been seafaring adventures, so I had rather high expectations for S. Thomas Russell's Under Enemy Colors. I'm pleased to say I was not disappointed.

Set on board a newly-built British frigate, the Themis, during the French Revolution, it tells the story of two very different men working for the King's Navy.

The ship's captain, Josiah Hart, is a notorious coward and an incompetent, bumbling, tyrannical leader, but the Admiralty has turned a blind eye to his failings because he is very well connected through Mrs Hart's family.

Charles Saunders Hayden, a seafaring man of impeccable ability, is his (reluctant) first lieutenant who has been secretly engaged to inform on Hart's exploits. Hayden, who feels the role is beneath him, has only accepted the job because his parentage -- his father is British, his mother French -- has often been used to (wrongly) call his loyalty into question, and to refuse it would only jeopardise his career in the Navy.

During the ship's adventure-filled voyage into French waters, Hayden finds himself increasingly stuck between duty and honour, between a tyrannical leader, who thinks nothing of belittling him in public, and a disaffected crew with leanings towards violence and possible mutiny...

'The Broken Shore' by Peter Temple

Fiction - paperback; Quercus; 400 pages; 2007.

Crime novels set in modern day Australia are few and far between. In fact, I've never read one before. But then I heard lots of good things, mainly from British critics, about Peter Temple's The Broken Shore and knew it was a book I had to track down.

I picked up a cheap copy from Waterstone's earlier in the year and read it over the course of a dismal weekend in June. The book was absolutely enthralling in a way I could not put my finger on. And because I couldn't quite work out what it was about the book that I loved so much I couldn't muster the creative energy to write a review. I then gave the book to my father, who was about to embark on a long haul trip back to Australia, and kept telling myself I'd write about it ... soon.

Well, two months later I'm finally composing this review-of-sorts. Since my reading of The Broken Shore, it has been awarded  the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (formerly the CWA Gold Dagger for Fiction) for 2007. Temple, who was born in South Africa, is the first Australian to win the award.

'Digging to America' by Anne Tyler

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 336  pages; 2007.

What is it to be an American? And to what lengths will people go to fit in even when they come from far flung places? Is it possible to remain a foreigner even after you have lived in a new country for more than 30 years?

These questions -- and more -- are explored in Anne Tyler's brilliant Digging to America, her 17th novel, which has been critically acclaimed on  both sides of the Atlantic and was recently shortlisted for this year's Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction.

In typical Tyler fashion Digging to America revolves around a range of relatively ordinary characters in Baltimore dealing with extraordinary circumstances.

Two couples, both of whom are unable to have children, decide to adopt Korean babies. When they meet by chance at the airport on the day of their daughters' arrival neither couple could be more different. Bitsy and Brad Donaldson are all-American -- loud, brash and unselfconscious about turning Jin-Ho's arrival into some kind of over-the-top celebration -- while Ziba and Sami Yazdan, two American-Iranians, are quiet, shy and restrained as they wait for Sooki -- later dubbed Susan because it "was a comfortable sound for Iranians to pronounce" -- to be "delivered" into their arms.

'The Blackwater Lightship' by Colm Toibin

Fiction - paperback; Picador; 272  pages; 2000.

This quiet, understated novel, the fourth by Irish writer Colm Tóibín, was short-listed for the 1999 Booker Prize and the 2001 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. And with good reason. It is a beautiful heartfelt book about three generations of women, estranged for years, who must join forces to look after one of their own who has a serious life-threatening illness.

Helen, the central character, is a 30-something school teacher married with two young boys, who has managed to carve out a comfortable existence in Dublin. But despite her career success and ordered life, she hides a guilty secret: as a college student she had a falling out with her mother, Lily, and has not talked to her since. In fact Lily was not invited to Helen's wedding and she has never met her grandsons.

'A Long Shadow' by Charles Todd

  Fiction - paperback; Harper; 354  pages; 2006.

A Long Shadow is one of nine mystery novels featuring Inspector Ian Rutledge written by an American-based mother-and-son writing team.

Rutledge, who works for Scotland Yard, survived the trenches of the Great War but the horrors of the battlefield still plague him and he is haunted by the ghost of a soldier friend who did not return.

In this evocative novel set in London and rural England in 1919, Rutledge is being stalked by someone who keeps leaving brass cartridge casings for him to find, an eerie reminder of his former life on the battlefield.

At the same time, he is sent to a small Northamptonshire village to investigate an attack on a local constable, shot in the back with a bow-and-arrow in Frith Wood which is said to be haunted by Saxon ghosts.

But all is not what it seems and before long Rutledge is embroiled in another mystery involving the disappearance of a teenage girl, who is believed to be buried in the woods, several years before.

Are these incidences -- the casings, the constable's attempted murder, the girl's disappearance -- all linked and, if so, by what?