Sebastian Barry - A Thousand Moons

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Outstandingly good

This is outstandingly good. I thought Days Without End was brilliant; A Thousand Moons is even better, I think.

Told in the first person by Winona, the Lakota Native American girl we met in Days Without End, it is the story of the immediately post-Civil War events in West Tennessee where they have settled on Lige Magan’s farm. Barry conjures the atmosphere of the time as pre-war attitudes to race and slavery begin to re-assert themselves and continues to create fine, believable characters and an enthralling story.

What makes this really special, though, is Winona’s narrative voice. It is a wonderful mix of the lyrical and poetic which she has gained from her education and reading with the slightly rough, idiosyncratic dialect of Tennessee at that time. I found it riveting, both in what she says and how she says it.

This is definitely one of my books of the year so far and one of the best things I have read for some considerable time. Very warmly recommended.

(My thanks to Faber & Faber for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Cara Hunter - Close To Home

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good read with a silly ending

I thought this was a decent police procedural, right up until the last few pages when it became absurd.

The central character is DI Adam Fawley, who is quite likeable but unremarkable apart from the obligatory Personal Trauma in his past, which I could well have done without.  It added nothing to the book and just seemed like a cheap add-on.  He leads the search for a missing child, which was rather well done.  Cara Hunter writes well and can tell a good story.  There were some implausibilities but nothing too unbelievable; we get a series of interesting revelations rather than Amazing Twists and I found it a good involving story.

It’s a shame about the ending, but it’s a good read and I will be happy to try another in this series.  3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Jennifer Stone - Cherry Slice

Rating: 2/5

Review
Not really for me

I’m afraid I didn’t get on with Cherry Slice. It’s well enough written but I found it slow, rather derivative and not as funny as it tries to be.

Cherry Hinton was a local journalist but after a humiliating public failure on a TV reality show while working undercover is now working in her parents’ cake shop in a small Essex town. She is asked to look into the apparently cut-and-dried murder of a contestant on another reality show which was filmed on live TV.

It’s a cosy murder mystery used as a vehicle for satirising modern mores: behaviour on Twitter, gutter journalism, cheap and tawdry “reality” TV shows and so on. Although it was mildly amusing in parts, it didn’t really work for me; the satire wasn’t very new, very little actually happened for quite a long time and the humour didn’t really amuse. For example, a lot of people (including the title character), are given manes which are adaptations or puns on place names like Jacob Stow, Leon Solent, Jodrell Banks (oh, come on!) and so on, which I just found annoying, I’m afraid.

I’m sorry to say that I gave up in the end. Several other reviewers have enjoyed this, but I’m afraid it wasn’t for me.

(Mt thanks to Farrago for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Robert Webb - Come Again

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A great read

I loved Come Again. It was witty, very insightful and an extremely enjoyable read.

The plot is well explained in the publisher’s blurb: Kate’s husband Luke died nine months ago of a brain tumour which had been growing undetected since before the met in their teens. Now in her forties, she is sunk in grief, self-blame and depression and on the verge of suicide...which sounds unbearably grim, but Robert Webb manages to convey it with a light, readable, almost humorous touch while giving it real weight compassion and thoughtfulness.

Kate then suddenly wakes up with her middle-aged memories and consciousness in an eighteen year old body on her first morning at university, with an opportunity to fix Luke so they can have a long, long life together. However, this turns out to be anything but a Groundhog Day re-run, and Webb shows really sharp insight into how different young people whom you loved might seem once you are middle-aged. The last section is properly exciting and the whole thing sparkles with genuine humour and real emotion throughout.

It’s terrifically well done. Robert Webb writes extremely well, with excellent characterisation and really good dialogue. He knows how to say serious things in a witty way and never strays into sentimentality even though I found parts of this very affecting. He’s very sharp on contemporary mores, too; I liked this little exchange with the boss of an Online Reputation Management company:

“They’ll never believe you.”

“I’ve seen the evidence.”

“Evidence isn’t what it used to be.”

In short, I think Come Again is a great read which has some real, thoughtful content. Very warmly recommended.

Anne Glenconner - Lady In Waiting

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very good

Lady In Waiting is well written, amusing in places and very sad in others and provides an excellent insight into the aristocratic world.

Lady Anne Glenconner is the eldest daughter of the Earl Of Essex and this is her account of her life, beginning with her childhood in Holkham, Norfolk, where she was friends with Princesses Elizabeth (now Queen) and Margaret. We get an involving and readable account of her life growing up there and away at school, her marriage to a phenomenally rich man who behaved like a badly spoilt six-year-old throughout his life, her life as a Lady In Waiting to Princess Margaret and some of the monumental tragedies which befell her family.

I found one of the most interesting aspects of the book was the way in which that small, rather closed stratum of society works. Her husband’s behaviour was often outrageous, but stiff upper lips were expected and she remarks “Apart from his infidelity and his temper we got on so well…”. (Apart from!) She also says “Almost every single couple I could think of was interlaced with other people’s husbands and wives.” She recounts the sheer heartbreak and misery of both her and her children as they were sent away to boarding school, but no-one seems to think that this might mean that it’s not a very good idea. And when difficulties arise it is just taken for granted that someone will provide a house or get the military to intervene to help and so on. This is not a world I recognise, and I found it fascinating.

The most compelling parts of the book are the most tragic as she recounts the dreadful things which happened to her family, all of which is genuinely affecting.

This isn’t my normal sort of reading, but I enjoyed it. It is perhaps a little overlong and there’s some rather spectacular name-dropping which can get a little much, but it’s a very good read.

Adam Rutherford - How To Argue With A Racist

Rating: 4/5

Review:
very good

I found How To Argue With A Racist interesting, well written and thoughtful. Adam Rutherford is a good writer and a very good scientist which makes for a winning combination here.

Rutherford sets out to combat some of the myths, misinterpretations and downright lies which racists believe, and he does it well. His arguments are insightful and very well informed, and he is honest about the ambiguities and subtleties of drawing conclusions from genetic data. This in itself is a powerful argument against crude racist generalisations, which almost always use selective or distorted “evidence” in their support – if they use any evidence at all.

And there’s the problem with the book’s title, of course. Arguing with racists is seldom productive because bigotry isn’t interested in fact, evidence or nuance. Bigotry, by its very nature, has made its mind up and almost never listens to anything which doesn’t support its point of view.

Nonetheless, it’s a very good book which taught me a lot about the state of our current knowledge and should help rationality in discussions about race and will further the overall cause of educating people about race and its meaning. It’s an interesting, sometimes entertaining read which, unusually, addresses a very serious subject without being over-solemn about it. Recommended.