Colin Watson - Whatever's Been Going On At Mumblesby?

Rating: 4/5

Review:
The enjoyable final instalment

This is the last of Colin Watson’s Flaxborough mysteries and, in spite of its rather clumsy title, it’s another very good one.

The death of prominent Flaxborough solicitor “Rich Dick” Loughbury reveals some odd transactions involving art works and curious behaviour by some other local notables, which cast doubt on the suicide of a local woman some time before. Needless to say, Inspector Purbright investigates in his typically polite but doggedly perceptive way, with Miss Lucilla Teatime making a very welcome appearance.

As always, the chief pleasure of the book is Watson’s wit and his nicely barbed observations on things like pretentious restaurants and other local foibles. It’s perhaps not one of his very best; the plot is decent but borrows some key ideas from Dorothy L. Sayers’s Busman’s Honeymoon and the sharpness of the observation isn’t quite what it sometimes has been, but it’s still a very enjoyable read. I’m very sorry to have come to the end of this series – it has been a delightful find for me and I can recommend all of them very warmly.

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

Patrick O'Brian - The Letter Of Marque

Rating: 5/5

Review:
The twelfth in a brilliant series

This is now my third time reading through this brilliant series and I am reminded again how beautifully written and how wonderfully, addictively enjoyable they are.

In The Letter Of Marque, Jack’s fortunes are a low ebb, but he commands the Surprise as a privateer or “letter of marque” as events develop which may bring about his reinstatement. Stephen, meanwhile, sets about repairing his marriage to Diana while succumbing to his laudanum addiction. It’s an excellent mixture of naval action and developments ashore, with O’Brian’s study of an addictive personality especially well done, I think.

Patrick O'Brian is steeped in the period of the early 19th Century and his knowledge of the language, manners, politics, social mores and naval matters of the time is deep and wide. Combined with a magnificent gift for both prose and storytelling, it makes something very special indeed. The books are so perfectly paced, with some calmer, quieter but still engrossing passages and some quite thrilling action sequences. O'Brian's handling of language is masterly, with the dialogue being especially brilliant, but also things like the way his sentences become shorter and more staccato in the action passages, making them heart-poundingly exciting. There are also laugh-out-loud moments and an overall sense of sheer involvement and pleasure in reading.

I cannot recommend these books too highly. They are that rare thing; fine literature which are also books which I can't wait to read more of. Wonderful stuff.

Patrick O'Brian - The Reverse Of The Medal

Rating: 5/5

Review:
The eleventh in a brilliant series

This is now my third time reading through this brilliant series and I am reminded again how beautifully written and how wonderfully, addictively enjoyable they are.

The Reverse Of The Medal is a little different from the others in the series in that, apart from a brief initial passage, it is almost wholly set ashore as treacherous forces move against Jack, whose lack of guile allows him to be landed in very serious trouble. It is rather a downbeat book for the most part, but it is fascinating nonetheless and also leavened with the usual flashes of humour and a moment in Jack’s very darkest hour which, even third time around, I found very touching indeed.

Patrick O'Brian is steeped in the period of the early 19th Century and his knowledge of the language, manners, politics, social mores and naval matters of the time is deep and wide. Combined with a magnificent gift for both prose and storytelling, it makes something very special indeed. The books are so perfectly paced, with some calmer, quieter but still engrossing passages and some quite thrilling action sequences. O'Brian's handling of language is masterly, with the dialogue being especially brilliant, but also things like the way his sentences become shorter and more staccato in the action passages, making them heart-poundingly exciting. There are also laugh-out-loud moments and an overall sense of sheer involvement and pleasure in reading.

I cannot recommend these books too highly. They are that rare thing; fine literature which are also books which I can't wait to read more of. Wonderful stuff.

Patrick O'Brian - The Far Side Of The World

Rating: 5/5

Review:
The tenth in a brilliant series

This is now my third time reading through this brilliant series and I am reminded again how beautifully written and how wonderfully, addictively enjoyable they are.
In The Far Side Of The World, Jack and Stephen are sent to the Pacific to tackle an American frigate which is badly disrupting trade and whaling. It’s full of incident, a wonderful description of the frightful hardship of rounding the Horn, Steven’s intelligence and scientific work and so on and as Jack comments, “I do not think I have known a commission which was so full of weather.” It’s a cracking instalment.

Patrick O'Brian is steeped in the period of the early 19th Century and his knowledge of the language, manners, politics, social mores and naval matters of the time is deep and wide. Combined with a magnificent gift for both prose and storytelling, it makes something very special indeed. The books are so perfectly paced, with some calmer, quieter but still engrossing passages and some quite thrilling action sequences. O'Brian's handling of language is masterly, with the dialogue being especially brilliant, but also things like the way his sentences become shorter and more staccato in the action passages, making them heart-poundingly exciting. There are also laugh-out-loud moments and an overall sense of sheer involvement and pleasure in reading.
I cannot recommend these books too highly. They are that rare thing; fine literature which are also books which I can't wait to read more of. Wonderful stuff.

Otessa Moshfegh - My Year Of Rest And Relaxation

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Excellent

I thought My Year Of Rest And Relaxation was excellent. I didn’t expect to like it at all and only tried it on the recommendation of a friend, but it turned out to be thoughtful, insightful, very readable and oddly compelling.

The book, set in 2000 and 2001, is narrated by a twenty-something, rich, beautiful New Yorker with no remaining family who can’t engage with anything and decides to try to “reset” her life by being doped-out and preferably asleep for a year, with the help of a wacky, pill-happy psychiatrist. It sounds grim , frankly, but it is so well done that Otessa Moshfegh pulls it off brilliantly and against all my expectations I found it involving, gripping and rather profound. It is very well structured, too, as it heads toward a very striking ending.

It’s a book about what it means to be alive and about the importance of truth and sincerity in a world of self-serving people and the trivialising of deep human experience. Moshfegh sends neat and very well-aimed barbs at the self-obsessed and self-serving of all kinds, and the fatuous superficiality of the world of self-help and pop psychology, for example. It’s all done with a brilliant light touch; never laboured and expressed with a brilliant elegance. The book is packed with unemphasised but profound, insightful phrases like “watching her take what was deep and real and painful and ruin it by expressing it with such trite precision...”, for example, said of a friend who gads from one diet and life-plan to the next in search of “her goals.” There’s also some unvarnished humour, as when the narrator almost accidentally arrives at the funeral of her Jewish friend’s mother: ‘“Is this the sitting thing? You sit for ten days?” I asked, handing her the bouquet of flowers. “Shiva is seven days. But no. My family isn’t religious or anything. They just like to sit around and eat a lot.”’

I would urge you to give this a try even if the description doesn’t sound very appealing. I thought I’d hate it, but it was among the best books I’ve read this year and I can recommend it very warmly.

(My thanks to Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Patrick O'Brian - Treason's Harbour

Rating: 5/5

Review:
The ninth in a brilliant series

This is now my third time reading through this brilliant series and I am reminded again how beautifully written and how wonderfully, addictively enjoyable they are.

Treason’s Harbour is intimately concerned with intelligence affairs as it becomes clear that there is a traitor within the Service in the Mediterranean. Jack and Stephen are again dispatched to the Eastern Med, this time to deal with the situation in a small state on the Red Sea, with the usual intimate, sometimes very exciting account of naval life, Steven’s intelligence work and, of course, his explorations of natural history.

Patrick O'Brian is steeped in the period of the early 19th Century and his knowledge of the language, manners, politics, social mores and naval matters of the time is deep and wide. Combined with a magnificent gift for both prose and storytelling, it makes something very special indeed. The books are so perfectly paced, with some calmer, quieter but still engrossing passages and some quite thrilling action sequences. O'Brian's handling of language is masterly, with the dialogue being especially brilliant, but also things like the way his sentences become shorter and more staccato in the action passages, making them heart-poundingly exciting. There are also laugh-out-loud moments and an overall sense of sheer involvement and pleasure in reading.

I cannot recommend these books too highly. They are that rare thing; fine literature which are also books which I can't wait to read more of. Wonderful stuff.

Spencer Wise - The Emperor Of Shoes

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Not for me

I’m afraid I didn’t get on very well with The Emperor of Shoes. I should have done, really – it’s well written and has a noble aim, but it completely failed to engage me.

Set in China in 2015, Alex is made to take over from his father as controller of the shoe factory he owns. The father is an uncaring, ruthless employer who exploits his workforce and treats them badly, while Alex has a conscience and has also fallen for a beautiful worker in the factory, who is also a fearless campaigner… I’m afraid it just felt like a very corny set-up. This is a serious work of fiction and very well written, but I really was constantly reminded of the Mill-Owner’s Son Falls For Factory Girl cliché. The romance didn’t convince me, I didn’t get much sense of place in China, the message seemed rather heavy-handedly presented and the Jewish Guilt stuff didn’t do a lot for me either.

I’m sorry to be critical of a well-written book with a fine purpose and one which many people have plainly found very good, but I’m afraid I had to struggle to keep going and I can’t recommend it.