Book Reviews: 22 November
OUT NOW
THE MITFORD GIRLS’ GUIDE TO LIFE by Lyndsy Spence (The History Press, £12.99; offer price, £11.69)If, when faced with life’s dilemmas, you often ask yourself ‘What would Debo do?’, this is the book you’ve been waiting for. If not, the introduction will give you a crash course on the legendary sisters, who sparkled with glamour and wit in their books, their letters and their lives.
A veritable treasure of vintage Mitfordiana, with the six sisters represented in chapters on keeping up appearances, looking the part, how to behave at home and abroad and the trivialities of life. With anecdotes and advice on everything from Christmas to couture, housekeeping to hair, spiced up with a dash of Mitford-speak. An excellent read.
Juanita Coulson
THE DISCOURTESY OF DEATH by William Brodrick (Little, Brown, £19.99; offer price, £15.99)Brodrick is among the greatest contemporary crime writers, and his novels cannot be dismissed as mere ‘thrillers’. Thought-provoking and philosophical, they never hinge on a gory slaying, but on ethical dilemmas that are central to our changing moral landscape.
Father Anselm, a lawyer turned monk, is the perfect conduit for Brodrick’s refl ections. Anselm’s prior receives a letter saying that the death of a woman with terminal cancer was, in fact, murder. Although generally disapproving of Anselm’s investigative adventures, the prior urges him to take the case, touching as it does on the ethically and legally murky world of assisted suicide. Brodrick doesn’t take sides: while Anselm is the hero, his opinions are never thrust upon the reader.
This sophisticated novel not only solves a puzzle, it explores the shadowlands that have developed alongside medical science and our drift from a faithcentric society.
Definitely my crime book of the year.
VC
BOOK OF THE WEEK
Home-grown Crime A VERY BRITISH MURDER by Lucy Worsley (BBC Books, £20; offer price, £15.95)
Lucy Worsley traces our national obsession with crime, from the large turnout at hangings through the Golden Age of crime fiction to the present day.
Along the way we visit such notorious characters as Maria Manning, the model for the maid Hortense in Dickens’s Bleak House, and Red Barn murder victim Maria Marten, recently resurrected in Nicola Upson’s The Death Of Lucy Kyte. Inspector Field and Inspector Whicher also make an appearance.
With 17th- and 18th-century readers getting their crime fix through ballad and broadsheet, it was not until the 19th century, with the development of the Gothic novel into something more believable and closer to home, that crime fiction took the form we recognise today.
A Very British Murder is a fascinating account of how the genre most borrowed from public libraries came into being. Along this journey we encounter male resistance to the female authors, who, after all, became known as ‘the Queens of Crime’: the likes of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. ‘This is the type that is guaranteed to knock the keenest mind for a loop. Only a halfwit could guess it,’ said Raymond Chandler of Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express.
Lucy Worsley has put up a magnificent case for all us halfwits who so enjoy a fundamentally British kind of murder. Victoria Clark
COFFEE TABLE BOOK
NINA CAMPBELL INTERIORS by Nina Campbell, with photography by Simon Brown (CICO Books, £30; offer price, £24)
Nina Campbell is the grande dame of interior design and a worldwide furniture and fabrics brand. This is her sixth book and by far the most lavishly produced. Campbell’s previous books, such as Decorating Secrets, are practical guides, covering different areas of the house.
This book, however, features Simon Brown’s photographs of fabulous homes she has decorated for her money-no-object clients in America, Britain and China. Readers with a more modest budget can swoon and dream – or see how her own-brand wallpaper and fabrics look in situ. A fascinating snoop at how wealthy Anglophiles like to live.
Hugh St Clair
PAPERBACKS
A CAPTAIN’S DUTY by Richard Phillips, with Stephan Talty (Transworld Publishers, Bantam, £6.99; offer price, £6.64)The harrowing story of Captain Phillips’s 2009 ordeal at the hands of armed Somali pirates is now the subject of a Hollywood blockbuster, starring Tom Hanks. In last week’s issue, we spoke exclusively to his wife Andrea about how she coped with the drama, but this is the story, as told by the man himself.
And it has punch and pace a-plenty, taking you on a gripping journey from his home in the suburbs of Vermont, to the interior of the rolling, sweltering lifeboat in which he was held hostage by four increasingly frantic pirates.
If there is a criticism, it is that the prose is occasionally a little too macho, a little too hyperbolic – but this is a must-read for thriller fans, made all the more vivid because it’s true.
Matt Warren
DON’T BRING ME NO ROCKING CHAIR: POEMS ON AGEING edited by John Halliday (Bloodaxe, £9.95; offer price, £9.45)
In our youth-obsessed culture, there is something exquisitely subversive about a book that celebrates old age.
Poems from the Renaissance to the present day are organised in themed sections, exploring the effects of ageing on the mind, body, spirit and human relationships – not necessarily always decline, but also a fruitful maturing.
As with all anthologies, its delight lies in revisiting old favourites and discovering poems one might not have come across otherwise.
JC
THE LOVE OF A LIFETIME by Mary Fitzgerald (Random House, £5.99; offer price, £5.99)
Elizabeth Nugent falls in love with Richard Wilde when she arrives to live on his family’s Shropshire farm and they become inseparable. But when the Second World War begins, Richard is posted to Burma, leaving Elizabeth to deal with an horrendous secret that could destroy his family. Their love remains strong throughout the war, but can it endure the secrets that must eventually be revealed? A captivating love story.
Natasha Howe
POMFRET TOWERS by Angela Thirkell (Virago Modern Classic, £8.99; offer price, £8.54)
A perfect balance of satirical observation and chocolate-box charm, set in a house party in Trollope’s Barsetshire.
Who will win the heart of waif-like Alice Barton and who will the future Earl of Pomfret choose as his wife?
With several misunderstandings, a few injuries and some broken hearts, Thirkell’s novel is one of the cosiest and funniest reads this winter.
Helena Gumley- Mason
ALSO ON THE SHELF
FIFTY SHADES OF FEMINISM edited by Lisa Appignanesi, Rachel Holmes and Susie Orbach (Virago, £14.99; offer price, £12.99) Conceived in response to EL James’s Fifty Shades Of Grey, these 50 snapshots of modern-day feminism by some of today’s most inspirational women are variously angry, exuberant, sad and galvanising: in other words, anything but monochrome. Essential reading.
Stephanie Cross
3 GREAT BOOKS: ABOUT DYSTOPIA
THE HANDMAID’S TALE by Margaret Atwood BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
1984by George Orwell
AUDIO BOOK OF THE WEEK
TAKING THE FALL by AP McCoy, read by Daniel Weyman (Orion, £18.99; offer price, £17.09)The champion jockey, who rode his 4,000th winner this month, follows in the footsteps of Dick Francis with this cracking debut thriller set in the racing world. It’s fast-paced and unbeatable, like the man himself.
JC
LADIES OF LETTERS
These biographies of women writers will delight their fans and earn them new ones
MADELEINE: A LIFE OF MADELEINE ST JOHN by Helen Trinca (Text Publishing, £12.99; offer price, £11.69) The vibrant and witty prose of Australian novelist Madeleine St John belies a sombre and troubled soul according to this new biography, which delves into the writer’s fragile psyche. Detailing her mother’s tragic death and fractious family relationships, the book champions St John’s spirit – she overcame great adversity to become a successful writer. ‘I was a flâneuse until I took up writing at the eleventh hour,’ she mused when her critically acclaimed first novel, The Women In Black, was published in her early 50s.
She was shortlisted for a Booker prize and this insightful study pays homage to a gifted, but underrated author.
Elizabeth Fitzherbert
COLETTE’S FRANCE: HER LIFE AND LOVES by Jane Gilmour (Hardie Grant Books, £20; offer price, £17)Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954) is one of France’s leading literary figures. This lavishly illustrated biography brings to life the country where she lived, loved and worked – from the Burgundy of her childhood to Britanny, Provence and belle époque Paris. The author of classic novels such as Gigi was as much famed for her writing as for her scandal-riddled life.
Gilmour’s passion and knowledge of her subject shine through in her writing and she has sourced many rarely seen photos of Colette. A hugely interesting read for Colette’s fans, it is bound to attract a new following among those who first encounter this remarkable woman on its pages.
Melonie Clarke