Category Archives: book reviews

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Runaways’

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Today’s poem to read in your bath is from Red Tree, the debut poetry collection by Yorkshire poet Daniela Nunnari.

[photo: valleypressuk.com ]

[photo: valleypressuk.com ]

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘Runaways’

Run away with me.

We’ll drive down roads
With old stone walls.
We’ll close our eyes
By waterfalls,
And listen.

You’ll how me how to skim a stone
And how to pick the perfect one.
I’ll catch the icy river ripples,
Frozen like February, in my phone.’

So evocative of new love, the exhilaration and freedom of getting away from it all. The countryside and nature feature in examination of the fantasy/reality elements of a daily relationship.

My other favourites in this edition? ‘Optrex’, ‘Buoy’ and ‘There’s Something in the Trees’.

For more about Daniela Nunnari and publisher Valley Press, click here.

red tree by daniela nunnari 24-7-15

 

‘Red Tree’ by Daniela Nunnari [UK: Valley Press] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Cloughton Wyke I’ by John Wedgwood Clarke
‘Alone’ by Dea Parkin
‘Sometimes and After’ by Hilda Doolittle

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Daniela Nunnari’s RUNAWAYS http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1HI Today’s #poem to read in the bath: chosen by @SandraDanby

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#BookReview ‘Curtain Call’ by Anthony Quinn #historical #1930s

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The 1930s come alive in Curtain Call by journalist Anthony Quinn, I stepped into his world and felt as if I was there. An effortless read, I was plunged into the worlds of Stephen Wyley, artist; Nina Land, actress; the gloriously-named Madeline Farewell, hostess; Jimmy Erskine, theatre critic; and Tom Tunner, Erskine’s assistant. Anthony Quinn The setting is a time of looming war, royal crisis, blackshirts and strict homosexuality laws. It is not an easy novel to categorize: there are murders, but it is not a detective novel; we see the world of art and theatre and prostitution, but it is not a novel about art etc. Packed with period detail, with not one detail too many, this is written with a light hand and a clever plot. It starts with a romantic assignation and chance encounter in a hotel with a murderer, known in the newspapers as the Tiepin Killer. This meeting of only seconds, brings together the key characters and kickstarts the murder plotline.
Curtain Call is the predecessor, not prequel, to Quinn’s novel Freya.

Click the titles to read my review of other novels by Anthony Quinn:
FREYA
HALF OF THE HUMAN RACE
MOLLY & THE CAPTAIN
OUR FRIENDS IN BERLIN
THE RESCUE MAN
THE STREETS

If you like this, try:-
‘The Light Years’ by Elizabeth Jane Howard
‘At Mrs Lippincote’s’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘The Heat of the Day’ by Elizabeth Bowen

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview CURTAIN CALL by Anthony Quinn http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Xu via @Sandra Danby

First Edition: Watership Down

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It is a book which begun as a tale told by a father to his two daughters. Surely everyone has read Watership Down by Richard Adams.

Watership Down

[photo: Wikipedia]

The story
In Southern England lives at Sandleford Warren, a community of rabbits. They live in their natural environment but anthropomorphized so they have their own voices, culture, language, proverbs and mythology. This is a book which rewards re-reading. Fiver, the runt of the litter, is also a seer. When he forsees the destruction of their warren, Fiver and and his brother Hazel try to convince the other rabbits to flee with them. Unsuccessful, they set out on their own with 11 other rabbits to search for a new home. Hazel, previously an unimportant member of the warren, finds himself leader of the group. Fiver has visions about a safe place to settle, and so they find Watership Down. But still, they are not safe.

First UK edition Watership DownThe first UK edition was published in November 1972 by Rex Collings. At the time, Collings famously wrote to an associate, “I’ve just taken on a novel about rabbits, one of them with extra-sensory perception. Do you think I’m mad?”

The book took Adams two years to write and went on to win two children’s fiction awards for Adams – the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, one of only six authors to do the double.

The film Watership DownIn 1978 there was an animated film, well-known for two things: Hazel, voiced by John Hurt, and Art Garfunkel’s hit single Bright Eyes. Watch the trailer here.

The current UK edition
The current UK edition, published by Puffin Books in 2014, features illustrations by David Parkins. This [below] is the original 1973 Puffin paperback edition. Watership DownOther books by Richard Adams
Tales from Watership Down – the sequel, published 25 years later.

The Plague Dogs [1977] – about two dogs which escape animal testing. The first edition features location maps  by Alfred Wainwright, fellwalker and author.

Shardik [1974] – Kelderek is a young hunter who pursues a bear believing it to be Shardik, the giant bear god. Hunter and bear are unwillingly drawn into the politics of the Beklan Empire. Shardik, the height of two men, has curved claws longer than a man’s head.

Watership Down

 

‘Watership Down’ by Richard Adams [UK: Puffin] Buy here

If you like old books, check out these:-
‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen
‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ by John Fowles
‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
First Edition: WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams #oldbooks via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Y4

#BookReview ‘Last Light’ by Alex Scarrow #thriller #dystopian #adventure

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I’m sure that you, like me, watch end-of-the-world scenarios in films and wonder ’what would I do?’ That’s the thought I had reading Last Light by Alex Scarrow. Oil consultant Andy Sutherland writes an investigate report for a client about what would happen if the world’s oil suppliers were cut off. Ten years later, the trigger points he identified start to happen. Alex Scarrow Within hours, society breaks down. Andy is in Iraq, his wife Jenny has packed her stuff ready to move out of the family home and has gone to Manchester for a job interview. Their daughter Leona is at university in Norwich and son Jacob at private school. They could not be more widely spread. The instinct of the, newly separated, parents, is to get back to their children. The children long for the security of their parents. While in the background, the unknown group causing the chaos has sent Ash to find Leona.
The pages of this turn so rapidly you could read it in one sitting on a long haul flight. Excellent stuff. It’s clear that Scarrow is fascinated by the ‘Peak Oil’ scenario at the centre of the story, and it shows on every page. As each of the Sutherland family learns the hard way not to trust anyone, we wonder if they [and society in general] can possibly survive.

And here’s my review of the sequel, AFTERLIGHT #LASTLIGHT2.

If you like this, try:-
‘In Ark’ by Lisa Devaney
‘The Last of Us’ by Rob Ewing
‘The Ship’ by Antonia Honeywell

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview LAST LIGHT by Alex Scarrow via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Pn

#BookReview ‘The Marriage Certificate’ by Stephen Molyneux #genealogy #mystery

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The Marriage Certificate by Stephen Molyneux is a mystery story combining family secrets with turn of the century British history: the Boer War, the Great War, the merchant navy, the changing role of women and attitudes to illegitimacy. Stephen MolyneuxIt is the story of two couples – the bride and groom, Louisa and John, best man Frank and bridesmaid Rose – at a wedding on January 15, 1900; their lives, loves, dangers and tragedies. Running alongside is a modern-day strand. In 2011, amateur genealogist Peter Sefton finds the marriage certificate of Louisa and John’s wedding in an antiques shop and his curiosity is piqued. As he researches the names on the certificate, we also see their lives unfolding in a rapidly-changing world as the 19th century turns into the 20th. The men leave home to fight, while the women stay at home. War brings a change of life, but social mores remain Victorian.
Meanwhile, an elderly man dies alone in London. Without relatives, Harry Williams is listed on the Bona Vacantia list of unclaimed estates. In 2011, a professional heir hunting company starts to research Williams’ life in the hope of finding distant relatives and earn a share of the money. How will Highborn Research’s investigation coincide with Peter’s? Is there a connection to Laura and John? And who will inherit Harry Williams’ money?
This is not a thrilling page-turner with rapid action on every page, instead it is a slow-burning story rooted in historical detail which, for me, came alive in the final 100 pages. Perhaps this is due to the writing style, which can be a little formal and repetitive, and the author’s tendency to include tiny details. I did wonder whether the storyline was based on real people, the genealogical detail is fascinating and it is clear the author knows the research procedure, its twists and turns. I read this over one weekend, and found myself sitting up late to read to the end. Incidentally, the last page leaves the story hanging – but don’t be tempted to look!
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

If you like this, try:-
‘The Blood Detective’ by Dan Waddell
‘Hiding the Past’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin
‘In the Blood’ by Steve Robinson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE by Stephen Molyneux via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1YO

#BookReview ‘At Mrs Lippincote’s’ by Elizabeth Taylor #historical

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Oh the delight at discovering a new author. I can’t remember where I stumbled across Elizabeth Taylor, but she seems to be the “novelist’s novelist” with fans ranging from Valerie Martin and Kingsley Amis to Sarah Waters, Jilly Cooper and Elizabeth Jane Howard. At Mrs Lippincote’s is Taylor’s debut novel, first published in 1945. Elizabeth TaylorIt is a minutely observed account of a family in wartime, following the story of Roddy who, posted away from London, rents a house from a widow, Mrs Lippincote. The landlady remains ever-present in the house through her family photographs on the mantelpiece and her possessions in the cupboards. Julia’s life has a transitory feel, she is where she is because of her husband and war, war which is ever-present on every page, and she is curious about the life of the Lippincote family. This is not a war novel about bombs and sirens, it is the snapshot of a normal family living in abnormal times.
The Davenants live at Mrs Lippincote’s with their sickly, seven-year-old book-obsessed son Oliver, and Roddy’s cousin Eleanor. Eleanor, in love with her cousin, finds new friends via a fellow schoolteacher. Julia becomes close to the Wing Commander, Roddy’s boss, while Oliver makes friends with the boss’s daughter Felicity. The latter is an expert at identifying the type of military aircraft flying overhead, a revelation for Oliver who is in the process of re-living the life of Alan Breck Stewart in RL Stevenson’s Kidnapped. His love of books is shared with his mother who constantly refers her real life situation to that of the Brontes and their fictional characters.
Roddy in turn is exasperated by his wife. ‘When he had married Julia, he had thought her woefully ignorant of the world; had looked forward, indeed, to assisting her development. But she had been grown up all the time; or, at least, she had not changed. The root of the trouble was not ignorance at all, but the refusal to accept. ‘If only she would!’ he thought now, staring at her; ‘If only she would accept.’ At a time when women are, for the second time in decades, assuming the jobs of men during wartime, Julia is trapped in a domestic life determined for her by her husband and his boss.
There are 11 Elizabeth Taylor novels waiting to be read, plus numerous short stories, and this makes me happy.

Read my reviews of other books by Elizabeth Taylor:-
A VIEW OF THE HARBOUR
A WREATH OF ROSES
ANGEL
IN A SUMMER SEASON
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

If you like this, try:-
‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters
‘The Light Years’ by Elizabeth Jane Howard #1CAZALET
‘Life After Life’ by Kate Atkinson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview AT MRS LIPPINCOTE’S by Elizabeth Taylor via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Pf

#BookReview ‘A Hero in France’ by Alan Furst #thriller #WW2

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France 1941, British bombers fly every night to Germany, many aircraft don’t make it back home. The aircrew parachuting into Occupied France must somehow find their way home in order to fight again. A Hero in France by Alan Furst is a story of that individual battle within the wider war, seen from different sides by two ordinary men. This is the beginning of the French Resistance. Alan FurstThe man known as Mathieu – we don’t know his real name or identity until the very end of the book, this is the name by which he is known to his Resistance cell – escorts airmen along the north-south escape lines into Vichy France and onwards to Spain. Old clothes are sourced at jumble sales, innocent-looking shops serve as message drops, and a schoolgirl delivers messages by bicycle. In the beginning it was successful and relatively simple, but now the German command in Paris realizes there is a big problem. Word is getting around about the Resistance and people want to join, but how does Mathieu know who is genuine and who is a German spy?
In Hamburg, Otto Broehm, senior inspector of the police department, is transferred to the Kommandantur in Paris to stop the flow of downed airmen being returned to the UK by French people, working together in coordinated groups.
This is a huge subject and a story much-told, but by focussing on a few personalities and what happens to them, Alan Furst writes an engaging story which I read over a weekend. It is a low-key study of personalities, rather than a page-turning thriller.

Read my review of MIDNIGHT IN EUROPE, also by Alan Furst.

If you like this, try:-
‘Inflicted’ by Ria Frances
‘After the Bombing’ by Clare Morrall
‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A HERO IN FRANCE by Alan Furst http://wp.me/p5gEM4-21g via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Mothering Sunday’ by Graham Swift #historical

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The title of Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift refers to the day on which the story takes place, rather to any essay about motherhood. It is March 30, 1924, Mothering Sunday, when servants are given the day off to visit their mothers. A young woman, an orphan and servant, meets a young man from a neighbouring house, who is betrothed to another woman. It is to be their last assignation before his marriage. Graham SwiftThis is a slim book, a novella, beautifully-written. I wasn’t sure at the beginning, I found the first page and the reference to Fandango the racehorse a little odd. But once I got past that, I read it in one sitting on an airplane.
It is a story about telling stories. This story is told by a novelist in her nineties who is used to be interviewed and asked repetitively about her life as a writer: when did she become a writer? The answer lies on Mothering Sunday in 1924. This is a treatise about the class system of the time, about sex and sensuality, about rebellion and about bucking the system. Jane – the housemaid and novelist – is a keen reader and with the permission of her master, she borrows books from his library. She prefers boys’ stories, adventure tales, and then she stumbles on Joseph Conrad and is smitten. Her reading sets her apart from her master, and her lover Paul. The Mothering Sunday on which the events happen takes place at a time of great transition between the wars, as the role of women was widening. Books give Jane a route out of her servile world, away from sex with the master’s son without hope of subsequent marriage, to a job as an assistant in a bookshop.
We only see the story from Jane’s point of view, Young Jane and Old Jane. Is she telling the truth, embroidering the story for fictional effect, layering on the emotions of the tragedy that occurs that sunny March afternoon?
A masterpiece, again by Swift. It stayed with me and will be re-read.
An aside, this hardback edition has the most wonderful cover design: a detail from Reclining Nude [red nude] 1917-18 by Modigliani. It will look well on my bookshelves for years to come.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Here’s my review of Swift’s HERE WE ARE.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty’ by Sebastian Barry
‘My Name is Lucy Barton’ by Elizabeth Strout
‘Lean Fall Stand’ by Jon McGregor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MOTHERING SUNDAY by Graham Swift via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1XD

#BookReview ‘Foxlowe’ by Eleanor Wasserberg @e_wasserberg #contemporary

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‘It’s hard to resist the pull of the shoal.’ Foxlowe is a strange, sinister book by Eleanor Wasserberg about the group dynamic of adults who should know better, experienced and observed by children who learn from this parenting and either accept or rebel. If they rebel, they have the Bad inside them. Eleanor WasserbergThis is not an easy read, not so much because of the story but I found the writing style obscure. The narrator is Green, a girl who grows up as part of the Family, a cult, living in a house called Foxlowe on a deserted moor. They share everything, their way of life is steeped in the land and ley lines. They have everything they will ever need at Foxlowe, there is no need to become a Leaver. Green knows no other life, has nothing with which to compare it.
For the first 15% [I read on Kindle] I struggled with a lack of clarity, an avalanche of seemingly unconnected facts. For example, ‘The Scattering is something we learned from the Time of Crisis. Remember that the Bad had come inside the walls.’ Characters have before and after names, which added to my confusion. It seemed like an alternative world, given the double sunset at Summer Solstice, and I couldn’t help comparing it with the opening technique of dystopian novels which got me straight away. The first page of The Hunger Games, for example, which starts with an intensely personal moment which lets you into the strange world in which it is set.
Once I reached 20% of Foxlowe, I was skipping the vague bits and the lack of dialogue punctuation – a pet hate of mine – and so turned the pages quicker. It is the story of a commune, the Family, where the outside world is excluded by means of myth, abuse and scare stories. Gradually I pieced the facts together. Despite my original confusion, it is not an alternative world; they have a car and drive to the supermarket. Some are painters or craftsmen who earn money, others grow vegetables and raise animals. This then is a conscious decision on the part of the adults to be there. The children are either born there, or more sinister, appear to be stolen from outside. This is the story of Green, a girl of undefined age, and that of Blue, who arrives at Foxlowe as a babe in arms. The arrival of Blue, and a man called Kai who remembers Foxlowe in earlier times, changes everything.
There are three parts, the second told by the adult Jess/Green, sandwiched between two Green childhood sections. The third part and Epilogue are truly dark and disturbing, with the sense of inherited abuse.

If you like this, try:-
‘Crow Blue’ by Adriana Lisboa
‘A History of Loneliness’ by John Boyne
‘The Quarry’ by Iain Banks

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview FOXLOWE by @e_wasserberg http://wp.me/p5gEM4-212 via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Elegy of a Common Soldier’

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We are all used to the ‘War Poets’ of the Great War, but perhaps not so aware of poets writing about the Second World War. Dennis B Wilson’s Elegy of a Common Soldier was written at a time between the trenches in Normandy and being in hospital in Swansea in 1944 and conjures up the horrible detail of war juxtaposed with nature and what was once normal. Quite arresting.

[photo: dennisbwilsonpoetry.com]

[photo: dennisbwilsonpoetry.com]

I was unaware of his work until I read an article in The Sunday Times Magazine about Mr Wilson’s reunion with a branch of the family he didn’t know existed: his father, novelist Alexander Wilson, had actually been married to four woman at the same time, producing numerous children. So in his late eighties, Dennis B Wilson discovered new relatives, including actress Ruth Wilson. She says of the poet: ‘As a wounded soldier in the Second World War, he bore witness to so many things, including the D-Day landings, all of which he wrote about in his poetry. I feel I have kindred spirits in my new-found family, I certainly do with Dennis. It may have taken this long to find each other, but I’m so pleased we have.’

If you have an online subscription to The Times, you can read the full article here.

[photo: dennisbwilsonpoetry.com]

[photo: dennisbwilsonpoetry.com]

‘Elegy of a Common Soldier’
The cold, unsheltered nights in dismal rain;
Exhausted men, who long for sleep in in vain;
Confusion, noise and smoke, foul-reeking mud,
And countless shattered bodies, oozing blood;
The pain before the final choking breath;
The vile decay, the sickly smell of death,
Which does not come triumphant or in rest
But suddenly, unheralded, or dress’d
In guise of hedgerow, tree or growing wheat,
Or lurks amid the flow’rs beneath your feet.

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

For more information about Dennis B Wilson’s poetry, click here for his website.

elegy of a common soldier and other poems by dennis b wilson 26-10-15

 

‘Elegy of a Common Soldier and Other Poems’ by Dennis B Wilson [UK: Kultura] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Sometimes and After’ by Hilda Doolittle
‘Winter Song’ by Wilfred Owen
‘Name’ by Carol Ann Duffy

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Elegy of a Common Soldier’ by Dennis B Wilson http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Ps via @SandraDanby

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