Book Recommendations -- MouthoftheMersey

.
I'd like to offer four book recommendations to the discerning readership here.

1. The Borribles Trilogy - I've read these once to myself and once to my elder boy and no praise is too high. After a slightly laboured first fifty pages, the trilogy expands into the best evocation of urban life I can recall reading. It is everything The Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books aren't, with the wikipedia article providing an excellent introduction.

2. The Damned United - believe the hype. A dizzying re-animation of the Brian Cloughs now enshrined in English folklore. But it's the writing that really makes this book stand out from the pack - a worrying, disorienting voice that gets into your head and stays there long after you turn the last page. In some respects it is like Gordon Burn's Happy Like Murderers, the sordid subject matter of which does not detract from the literary achievement.

3. The Indian Mutiny by Saul David. - I loved this wonderfully evocative history of what Indians call the First War of Independence. Its politics is worn lightly, playing second fiddle to unwrapping the ties that bound the British to the Indians and why they snapped where and when they did. I came to it through my favourite Flashman novel - Flashman in the Great Game. Now if you're prepared to leave a little of your political correctness to one side and embrace humanity in all its faults, the Flashman novels are a delight - but they won't be to all tastes.

4. Peanuts - Hard to believe that something so simple and so popular can be so rewarding. I've read this collection aloud to both my kids and had them read back in return and we pick up stuff in libraries from time to time. There's real anguish and poignancy in the strips and, in Snoopy, an extraordinary character on whom Charles Schulz projected so many hopes and fears.


All will be available for er... peanuts second-hand from Amazon, or you could support your local book shop.
.

Book Recommendations -- Zephirine

.
For fashionistas, readers of celeb magazines, or any woman who tries on more than three different outfits before going out: The Meaning of Sunglasses by Hadley Freeman. A light read for Boxing Day afternoon, offering some common-sense (and even reassurance) under a mask of chirpy cynicism. Particularly good on the pervasive influence of Kate Moss and how the fashion-magazine agenda is driven by advertisers and not by what anybody might actually want to wear.

For fans of The Wire and other gritty US TV dramas about mean streets, drugs and badass good-looking black guys: Homicide: a Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon. Describing a year Simon (a former journalist) spent with the Baltimore murder squad in the 1980s, this riveting non-fiction book began it all, forming the basis for the ground-breaking TV series Homicide: Life on the Streets and later The Wire. Simon isn’t a simple whodunit man – his declared theme is the death of the American city, and what happens in Baltimore has relevance for the wider world.

For literary types, historical novel readers, and some people you wouldn’t expect: Patrick O’Brian’s series of books about Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, respectively a naval officer and a ship’s doctor during the Napoleonic wars. O’Brian researched these books obsessively and you will either love the total-immersion-in-the-period style or it will leave you cold. The film Master and Commander was based on two of the books, and was a pretty good adaptation but didn’t quite convey O’Brian’s brilliant characterisations. I think the best one to start with is The Reverse of the Medal, which is actually half-way through the series; there are 20 books in the series, so get someone hooked on these and your Christmas present problems are solved for a while.

For European travellers who worry about their carbon footprint: The Man in Seat 61 by former station manager and lifelong railway fan Mark Smith. At last, a book version of the hugely popular website which tells you how to get everywhere by rail. For the Trans-Siberian railway or how to get from London to Australia without flying, you’ll still need to use the website, but for trips within Europe that make the journey part of the holiday, this is a hugely useful book.

For people who dream of getting away from it all: Extra Virgin and its sequels by Annie Hawes, about her impulsive purchase of a shack in Liguria and learning to live there. Unlike the tedious Peter Mayle, Hawes didn’t have money and doesn’t patronise the locals. She’s down-to-earth, normal and very funny and these books are great easy reads for holiday times, perhaps better in winter while you long for the sun! There’s a new one about North Africa, but I haven’t read it yet.

Seriously..

..however busy you are, make time to read the extract from Doris Lessing's Nobel acceptance speech at http://books.guardian.co.uk/nobelprize/story/0,,2224068,00.html.
Just read it.

In the spirit of feeding the hunger, I've decided that from time to time I'll put a space on the site for book recommendations. Not just to say 'my favourite book is', or to review the latest books out, there are lots of other places to do that, but to draw attention to a book other people might have missed, and which you think is really worth reading.

I'm going to start off by recommending THE FARM by Richard Benson. I vaguely heard about this when it came out a couple of years ago, but only just got round to reading it, and I think it's really good. Benson is a journalist, and he uses a plain unaffected style to describe the events around the sale of his family's farm and the end of a way of life for his parents and brother. It is about the current state of farming in this country, but it's more about being a son (and a Yorkshireman). It's moving and funny, and - because of the indomitable characters - not quite as heartbreaking as you're afraid it's going to be, which can only be a good thing.

More recommendations please...?


Zeph