nb magazine / Spring 2015

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

WE CELEBRATE:

TAKING FLIGHT

WE WELCOME:

Kipling’s 150th Birthday

Isabel Ashdown

10 Glittering Debuts nudge-book.com

newbooks for readers and reading groups

RADAR ALERT

Tommy Wieringa OUR SEARCH BEGINS:

LAST BOOK EVER?

Anne Tyler

Matt Haig BIG INTERVIEW

ISSUE 84 SPRING 2015 £5

Our nb recommended

reads FREE to you this issue … *

*P&P charge applies

THE HUMANS IS OUR:

Book of the Year Winner

VIEW HERE from

groups is the opportunity to hear other’s opinions in order to challenge our own perceptions and even change our minds.

Around the time you’re reading authoritative competitor. this piece, the winner of yet Instead, he claims their academy Healthy. That’s healthy. Which is why I come back to the another bookish prize will be offers a more reliable process. original concept of the nb Book announced – The Folio Prize.

Over 200 writers, critics and of the Year. It’s what our readers When I started writing this editors from around the world enjoyed reading that year. editorial, back before Christmas nominate three books each, Doesn’t matter when it was (I need a long run up) there had from which 5 judges choose a published. Doesn’t matter what been some testosterone-fuelled definitive winner. nationality or gender the author press coverage suggesting the My point here isn’t the is. Doesn’t matter how much Folio was looking to out Man process, it’s the assertion that, money the publisher has to chip Booker the Man Booker. See ‘The academy is how diving or in to ‘support’. It’s what our how eloquent and articulate all gymnastics are judged in the readers enjoyed reading most. this makes us.

Olympics – by people who Right, I feel better having got Now in its second year, the know what they are on about.’

Folio has some catching up to There, right there – did you see that off my chest, and, if you haven’t guessed already, you can do – the Man Booker started it? They know better than us. find our winner on page 16. back in 1968 (making our 14 Well, perhaps – about writing. years look a little lacklustre).

But about reading? Isn’t that The Folio Society puts up £40k an altogether flatter field? As for the winner, as opposed to individual readers, aren’t we all the Man Booker’s £50k (the uniquely qualified to decide most we’ve managed previously what we think is good, bad or is a photo-opportunity where indifferent – according to our PUBLISHER the pictures came out fuzzy). own standards and But it’s true, the Man Booker is requirements? I’m not legion for being the daddy but, quibbling about the world of whisper it, with a tendency to book prizes, heaven knows I use worthiness and, occasional them myself to make my dullness. choices.

Andrew Kidd, one of the coAnd, of course, what I love founders of the Folio, has about reading groups is there is carefully avoided criticising its no right or wrong opinion. well-established and What we get out of reading

And the winner is...

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newbooks FROM US TO YOU Features GUY PRINGLE

Publisher, nudge and newbooks ALASTAIR GILES

Managing Director, AMS Digital Publishing BERT WRIGHT

Nudge List Editor MELANIE MITCHELL

Publisher Liaison DANIELLE BOWERS

Project Production Manager CATHERINE TURNER

Business Development Manager To find out what the team is currently reading, turn to page 6.

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www.nudge-book.com nb Magazine 1 Vicarage Lane Stubbington, Hampshire PO14 2JU Telephone 01329 311419

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THE VIEW FROM HERE Your publisher has a rant

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WHAT WE'RE READING Catch up with our current faves and how to keep track of us in between issues

10 IN SITU Sue Hardiman introduces us to Bristol's literary connections 12 WHEN I MET Sheila A Grant and Ian Rankin cope magnificently 14 THAT THING I DO Patsy Wallace is a Humanist funeral celebrant!

16 nb BOOK OF THE YEAR Our readers make their decision 42 BEST BOOKS ABOUT...

SCOTLAND Dorothy Anderson shares her favourites

Every effort has been made to trace ownership of copyright material, but in a few cases this has proved impossible.

Should any question arise about the use of any material, do please let us know.

QUIRKY Q & A – BELINDA BAUER spills the beans

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WHERE I WRITE – ANNE O'BRIEN has a view of the Black Mountains

13 BOOKSHOPS WE LIKE Rosamund de la Hey walks us through Main Street Trading Company 15 JESSIE BURTON’S The Miniaturist - a runaway bestseller 22 TALES FROM THE WORLD OF SELF PUBLISHING

by Esther Harris 48 ISABEL ASHDOWN They Say, We Say: Flight 52 KAREN MAITLAND on the background and inspiration for The Vanishing Witch

43 HAS MANDY READ? We find another book she hasn't

56 THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE Some non-fiction for you to consider

44 WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT The Humans

57 ANNE TYLER on her favourite of all her books

66 RUDYARD KIPLING Philipa Coughlan and Mary Hamer take a second look

60 AND OTHER STORIES a new kid on the block

74 THE COSTA AWARDS 2014 Jade Craddock leads our overview 79 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY We start our search here 85 THE DIRECTORY Eight pages of reviews by readers like you

All raw materials used in the production of this magazine are harvested from sustainable managed forests.

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61 MYRIAD celebrate their first 10 years 62 HAZEL GAYNOR on the ‘real’ Eliza Doolittle 70 PATRICK GALE Has Patrick written a western?

78 STUART PREBBLE Quirky Q and A - Stuart ‘fesses up to Levi 501s

94 nb READERS DAY 2015 Our first announcement

95 WRITER PICTURES: Our picture desk friends

96 BLOG SPOT Lindsay Healy’s The Little Reader Library

98 LAIRD HUNT My 5 Favourites: Laird Hunt on gender bending novels

CONTENTS

debuts 24 WHAT SHE LEFT

by TR Richmond 25 THE WELL

by Catherine Chanter 26 THE LONGEST FIGHT

by Emily Bullock

big interviews RECOMMENDED Matt Haig READS 18

answers our Book of the Year voters’ questions

27 THE DEATH’S HEAD CHESS CLUB

by John Donoghue

39 THESE ARE THE NAMES

by Tommy Wieringa

45 THE HUMANS

by Matt Haig

28 ESPERANZA STREET

by Niyati Keni 29 TREGIAN’S GROUND

by Anne Cuneo

53 THE VANISHING WITCH

by Karen Maitland

30 LAST NIGHT AT THE BLUE ANGEL

by Rebecca Rotert 31 WASP OR, A VERY SWEET POWER

by Ian Garbutt 32 LIE OF THE LAND

by Michael F Russell 33 THE ART OF WAITING

by Christopher Jory

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Tommy Wieringa

our new BIG discovery

We take a look at the latest clutch of bright young things.

Unknowns they may be now, but one day soon…

58 DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT/ A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD

by Anne Tyler

63 A MEMORY OF VIOLETS

by Hazel Gaynor

71 A PLACE CALLED WINTER

by Patrick Gale

Debuts page 24

CONTENTS

ISSUE 84 SPRING 2015

IN OUR OPINION

We are endeavouring to put more – and longer versions – of what we’re reading onto nudge-book.com Just click on the magnifying glass, top right and search with One to Watch Out For.

ALASTAIR GILES I read Do No Harm by Henry Marsh over Christmas (shortlisted for the Costa Biography prize), it was by far my recommended book of the year. I hold all the non-fiction over for holidays as I read fiction all year for work and I was richly rewarded this festive break. It's a memoir of a brain surgeon and I don't think a book like it has ever been written before. Painful, earnest, elegant, honest and full of

had heard of Neanderthals but thought they were just a step back from Homo sapiens in the evolutionary process – cave men with small brains. Not so – Neanderthals are actually a different species of Human and probably had larger brains than us. I was fascinated so when I saw Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari... Compelling! Theories on why we are the only Human species around at the moment, what our ancestors ate for breakfast, how tribes of humans worked together. The list is endless and it really makes you

What we’re reading profound meaning about man's inability to play god – when to operate and when, perhaps, not to. I'm squeamish and I winced a few times, but I've been eloquently educated and entertained in equal measure.

DANIELLE BOWERS Some time back a TV programme about the other types of Human walking around the Earth in its history caught my imagination. Maybe I did not pay enough attention at school but I had no idea. I 6

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think about why we behave the way we do today. Images such as the 'Hands Cave' in Argentina, created by humans thousands of years ago, were truly mindblowing. It is not often I cannot put down a non-fiction title, but it is the case with beautifully written Sapiens.

CATH TURNER Everything about Ava Lavender (nb83 Recommended Read) made me want to read it.

The cover, the name of the lead character, the quote ‘Love

IN OUR OPINION

makes us such fools’ and I had to give Magical Realism a try!

16-year old Ava is born with the wings of a bird but that’s all that separates her from being a ‘normal’ girl, her heart is human, her desire to fit in with her peers is ‘normal’ so why has there been such sorrow for the Roux women she aspires to be like?

Her mother, her grandmother, her great-grandmother – all heartbroken at some point. Is this Ava’s destiny? Desperate to fit in she ventures out to find people aren’t as nice as she had hoped. Leslye Walton’s story is beautifully written, building indepth pictures in your mind.

Magical but not fantastical, it’s not a book about a heartwarming love story, It’s about love and sorrow, the sadness, the tragedy. I loved it – from the cover to the last word, Leslye Walton really has written a great debut.

lover finds his reputation at stake when he unwittingly contributes to a Fascist fundraiser and eminent theatre critic Jimmy Erskine becomes increasingly reckless in his attempts to satisfy his sexual predilections. Meanwhile The Tie-Pin Killer is on the loose and out for vengeance, casting a silent shadow over them all.

Ostensibly a murder mystery, this filmic novel is also an entertaining romp through the seedier side of 1930s London, simultaneously exploring the political and sexual prejudices of the time. I liked the surprising depth to the characters and the evocative period detail. Enjoyable.

There is wide research too, as when he discusses the negative effects of technology in medicine and aviation. Required reading, especially for breathless net-heads.

GUY PRINGLE In The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald (pub June 2015) Sara – from Sweden – travels to Broken Wheel, Iowa to meet a pen friend who shares her love of books. The long and the short is Sara starts a bookshop – so far, so idyllic, we share her dream. However, there is a healthy dose of realism involved, BERT “If she was honest, she had never WRIGHT been able to watch You’ve Got In the digital Mail without secretly thinking debate, that Fox & Sons latte and book Nicholas Carr’s emporium was more attractive The Glass than Meg Ryan’s claustrophobic Cage: Where Automation Is little shop.” Hear, hear! Obviously, MEL Taking Us is an oasis of good books and authors are flung about MITCHELL sense and scepticism. His with gay abandon (yes, there’s gay In Curtain Call previous book, The Shallows: erotica for the local gay couple,

by Anthony What the Internet Is Doing to too) and you have probably read Quinn, stage Our Brains, was a 2011 Pulitzer more of them than I have. actress Nina Prize finalist and this book is However, it warmed my heart Land inadvertently thwarts every bit as good. What irks when The Little World of Don notorious serial murderer The Carr most is the unquestioning Camillo merited a mention. (If Tie-Pin Killer during an assumption that the Internet has you haven’t, you should.) Both assignation with her married conferred on humanity an reading groups disagreed with me lover, acclaimed society unimpeachably wondrous good; about The Unlikely Pilgrimage of portraitist Stephen Wyley. Life “the real sentimental fallacy is Harold Fry and for the life of me I becomes complicated as she the assumption that the new still don’t understand why that attempts to help the police track thing is always better than the book did so well. But if you him down without giving away old thing; that’s the view of a enjoyed Harold then you should her secret – but she’s not the only child, naïve and pliable.” But make a reservation for Broken one with something to hide. Her Carr is not all elegant rhetoric.

Wheel now. nb magazine & www.nudge-book.com

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Quirky Q+A

Photo: Johnny Ring

Belinda Bauer, author of new crime novel The Shut Eye spills the beans.

CATS OR DOGS? Dogs. Always dogs. Dogs are like the most wonderful, loving, entertaining children, except they actually do what you ask them to, and cost about two quid a week to raise.

I’d never be MEAN to a cat, but it’s hard to really love something that’s only nice to you when you’re holding a tin opener.

CINEMA OR THEATRE? Cinema. I don’t just prefer it to theatre; I actively HATE theatre. I hate the fake delivery, the wobbly scenery and the constant threat of someone forgetting their lines. I like to know that what I’m going to see is at least technically competent, even if it turns out to star Nicolas Cage.

KIT KAT OR MARS BAR? Kit Kat, for its sheer versatility.

You can dunk it in tea, suck milk through it like a straw, save a finger for later, share it absolutely fairly without PAPER CLIPS OR STAPLES? bloodshed, and sometimes – This is a tough one. I have more SOMETIMES – you get a bar respect for paper clips because where one finger is just solid they’re so cleverly designed and chocolate and no wafer, and it would be a great thing to find then it feels less like a chocolate in your pocket if you were ever bar and more like some kind of shipwrecked. But I always use Wonka-esque prize. staples because I have a stapler shaped like a shark, and it amuses me to use it.

So… staples.

STARTER OR DESSERT? Is this a trick question? Dessert of course! I never eat starters because three courses is too much food and never in a million years would I miss dessert. But it can’t be cheese because that’s not real dessert.

Or sorbet.

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ROCK OR CLASSICAL? Rock. I know I should be growing out of it but I can’t. I appreciate classical music, but it just doesn’t stir me the way that really great rock does. I like to dance to rock and write to rock.

It inspires me in every way – its energy, its raw passion, its sharp, cynical lyrics. My greatest influence in writing is not other novelists – it’s the work of people like Elvis Costello, Pink Floyd and David Bowie. I guess – as Roger Daltrey sang – ‘I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth’…

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The Shut Eye is published in hardback, price £14.99 by Bantam Press and is out now.

I

write my historical novels in a little sloping-ceilinged room, once a bedroom, that is now my office in a cottage that can claim some historical age in its beams and plasterwork. I am very much a 'close the door and allow no one to enter while I am writing' sort of writer. My office contains all I need; PC, books, documents, the internet and a pin board. I write alone. I don't discuss or exchange ideas with anyone. The novel is mine from first line to the last – until I release it from my control and send it off to agent and editor. Then, emerg-

rural Herefordshire, to the Malvern Hills in one direction and the Black Mountains of Wales in the other, with orchards and soaring buzzards in between. If the weather tempts me out, I have my own garden, sheltered and private, in which I can sit and write and plot. I'm sure my characters enjoy it too.

Even better, around me spreads the Welsh Marches. The 'black and white' villages of Weobley and Pembridge with their half timbered houses have changed little since medieval times. Hereford Cathedral is a

Inspiration? For Anne O’Brien it’s all around her.

View of the Black Mountains

Where I write... ing from my self-imposed exile, when my writing becomes public property, I have to face the music. It is a scenario that suits me.

Between books my office benefits from a good spring clean and looks impossibly neat.

When I am writing it is closer to a war zone. At this moment, in the middle of a novel of Joanna of Navarre, it is a disgrace, but strangely I know where everything is. To tidy up while writing would be a disaster.

So is writing a solitary, isolated occupation for me? I would not say so. My windows give me views of the best of

gem, reminding me that medieval man was not as insular as we might believe. There I can study the medieval world of the Mappa Mundi, the chained library with all its precious volumes, and the tomb of the miracle worker Saint Thomas Cantelupe.

If I need reminding of the power of local warlords, where better than Ludlow and Wigmore Castles? There’s the battlefield at Mortimer's Cross and the plaque in Hereford High Street where the ill fated Owen Tudor was executed.

Here it is, within a half hour's drive from my cottage.

The King’s Sister by Anne O’Brien is published by Mira, price £7.99 pbk and is available now.

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IN SITU–BRISTOL

Sue Hardiman shares the literary landmarks of her home city

O

riginally settled along the Rivers Avon and Frome, Bristol itself was founded by the Anglo-Saxons and soon grew to be England’s second city and port and developed worldwide connections. A Norman castle dominated the city throughout the medieval period until demolished on the orders of Oliver Cromwell. Bristol also played a key part in the discovery of the Americas. John Cabot set sail for Newfoundland in 1497 and a replica of his ship, The Matthew, can

Bristol’s development: we have a new shopping quarter named Cabot Circus and a complete regeneration of the Harbourside and Docks area.

Modern Bristol has been at the forefront of arts and culture for many years. It is famous for its graffiti displays (especially those by Banksy) and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre.

Furthermore, it is also home to Aardman Animations, creators of Wallace and Gromit and Morph. The city is also well known for its festivals, particularly the Balloon Fiesta which takes place every summer.

In Situ – Bristol

Statue of Chatterton – Millennium Square

Do you have an In Situ to share with our readers? Email guy.pringle@newbooksmag.com with your suggestion.

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frequently be seen in Bristol Harbourside.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s legacy includes the outstanding Clifton Suspension Bridge which spans the Avon Gorge, the ground breaking ship the SS Great Britain and the Great Western Railway with its iconic Temple Meads Station.

During World War Two, Bristol suffered greatly during a series of bombing raids. The Castle Park area was particularly badly hit and many of Bristol’s landmark buildings were destroyed. After some particularly unsympathetic post-war planning, the last ten years have seen a renaissance in

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AS A SETTING...

So how has Bristol been connected to books and literature over the years?

Bristol’s iconic inn near the harbour, The Llandoger Trow is alleged to have been the place where Daniel Defoe and former castaway Alexander Selkirk met.

This meeting inspired the classic novel Robinson Crusoe. If that weren’t accolade enough for an inn, it was also later claimed that the inn was immortalised by Robert Louis Stevenson as the Admiral Benbow in Treasure Island.

Bristol’s own spa, Hotwells, was located on the banks of the Avon and had a number of

IN SITU–BRISTOL

museum – ‘M Shed’. Bestselling author Lesley Pearse included descriptions of Bristol during the nineteenth century in her 2006 novel Hope. In particular, she examined the effects of the cholera epidemic in the poorer parts of the city, which mirrored the reality faced by Bristol’s citizens in 1832.

The Man Booker Prize was awarded to Julian Barnes in 2011 for his novel The Sense of Bristol Harbourside an Ending. Aspects of the novel are set in Bristol where the famous literary visitors. These Dickens was a visitor in the narrator, Tony, attends the included Tobias Smollett (who mid-nineteenth century and University whilst his friend mentioned Hotwells frequently gave readings at the imposing Adrian heads to Cambridge. in The Expedition of Humphry Victoria Rooms. Bristol is They both have a relationship Clinker), Mary Wollstonecraft mentioned in Chapter 38 of with a girl Tony meets whilst in and Fanny Burney (who The Pickwick Papers, where Mr. the city. recorded life at the Wells in her Winkle finds himself lost in the The first winner of the novel Evalina). In addition, the “manifold windings and Orange Prize for Fiction, Helen Pneumatic Institute (created by twistings” of Bristol’s streets and Dunmore lives and works in Thomas Beddoes for the express declares the city to be “a shade Bristol. A Spell of Winter purpose of discovering a cure more dirty than any place he scooped the prize in 1995 but for consumption using scientific had ever seen”.

Helen has had further success means) located in Dowry The founder of Penguin with The Siege and The Square was an unlikely setting Books, Sir Allen Lane was born Greatcoat in the twenty first for a gathering of Romantic in Bristol in 1902 and attended century. Indeed, The Lie was poets. However, Bristol born the Grammar school. A Blue one of newbooks shortlisted Robert Southey and Samuel Plaque in the Cotham area of titles for its Book of the Year Taylor Coleridge were frequent the city records his award but was pipped at the visitors and were supposed to achievements and the Penguin post. Another author resident have sampled the effects of Archive is now housed in in the city is Jane Shemilt whose nitrous oxide or ‘laughing gas’ Bristol University. recent novel Daughter – a as prepared by up and coming Recommended Read in nb83 – MORE RECENTLY... chemist Humphrey Davy. is set partly in Bristol and Bristol was also the birthplace Bristol’s connection to the slave examines the loss a family trade was explored by Phillipa of Thomas Chatterton better suffers when the daughter known as the ‘Marvellous Boy’ Gregory in her novel A disappears.

Respectable Trade. Currently, who was renowned for his So, if you ever get a chance to counterfeit medieval poetry and Bristol has a permanent display explore Bristol in person or via exploring its association with went on to become a ‘poster the pages of a book, please do, it the trade in its local history boy’ for the Romantic age. is well worth a visit!

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I

When I met Sheila A Grant is a longstanding stalwart of the Ayr Writers’ Club and was looking forward to meeting their guest when calamity struck.

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t was late on a Monday night in 1998, I was vice president of Ayr Writers’ Club and looking forward to meeting Ian Rankin who was due to visit the club on the Wednesday evening.

The telephone rang. Dreadful news. May, the president, had suffered an aneurism and was unconscious in intensive care.

Having made the arrangements for the meeting she was the only person who knew the details.

Did Ian know where meetings were held? Was he coming in time for a meal? Was he driving or coming by public transport?

To say I panicked is an understatement. I knew Ian lived in Edinburgh but not where. No surprise that he was ex-directory. I spent hours phoning round everyone I knew connected with writing until – bingo! – I found one lady prepared to give me the necessary phone number, but only after intense interrogation to ascertain that my needs were urgent.

Once I made contact Ian could not have been more understanding, advising me to chill and not worry about arrangements. He would be at the club at the appointed time.

Despite a few books already published Ian was just beginning to be recognised as an excellent writer of thrillers but I had never read one. I quickly purchased Black and Blue, speed reading it in time for the Wednesday evening. I

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hope that my introduction sounded as if I was very familiar with his work. But if I wasn’t there were many there that evening who were. Some were visitors to the club attracted by the high profile speaker. They were obviously fans and boy did they know their Rebus.

Questions on procedure, on how Ian saw his characters progress and on the craft of writing were fired at this ever patient writer who was happy to answer, often with humorous anecdotes on how he reached the point of success. He was friendly, relaxed, and very informal in his stressed jeans and t-shirt.

Since then Ian has become probably Scotland’s best known writer of thrillers. I have met him on other occasions and he remains the same friendly and modest down to earth guy that he was seventeen years ago. It was an honour to have welcomed him to the club and an evening I will always treasure.

Ian says he has signed so many books that the unsigned ones will be the most valuable But there won’t be any with the inscription ‘To Sheila who stepped into the breach’.

Do you have a When I Met to share with our readers? Email guy.pringle@newbooksmag.com with your suggestion.

I

joined Bloomsbury’s in 1994, and was lucky enough to move to children’s marketing & publicity just as we bought the first Harry Potter. We had a curious kind of license to break all the usual rules and try new ways of marketing children’s books – not just a launch date, but a launch time – 3.45pm, hire a steam train, paint it red, tour it round the UK… It was a terrific education, and perhaps gave me the mindset that led to the seemingly crazy decision to leave my dream job for the great unknown…

Vivian Bannerman, Catherine Rayner, Viv French & Rosamund de la Hey

destination, customers needed reasons to visit – and linger.

Happily my husband, Bill, had retrained as a chef so we had the X-factor – a café. We added gifts and an antiques concession and in 2012 opened a Deli &

regular book group meetings and our popular children’s audio book dens (The Book Burrows), this builds the sense of community around the shop, which is really what we are about.

Bookshops we like!

I moved with my family to Scotland in 2003 and Bloomsbury generously allowed me to commute for three years, but it couldn’t last forever. In order to create a better work/life balance (little did I know!), what else would you do in 2008 but open a bookshop?

Were we mad? Had we not heard of the internet, ebooks, supermarkets? Our bank manager wasn’t the only one raising an eyebrow – perhaps we hadn’t spotted it was a village with a very low population density, albeit in an area of outstanding natural beauty?

In order to become a

Home shop (winning Deli of the Year in 2014).

It turns out that people will travel for good coffee, delicious cake and the touch of actual physical books. And as Mainstreet Trading Company, rather than Mainstreet Books & Café we avoided limiting ourselves. The Mainstreet ‘Hare’ morphs into books, café, deli, home, art etc.

But it’s no good just sitting behind your till – you need to engage with your audience so author events are a big part of what we do: Andy McNab and Michael Morpurgo to Kate Humble and Jeremy Paxman are just some. Along with our

Rosamund de la Hey gives the lowdown on The Mainstreet Trading Company in the Scottish Borders

A – much – fuller article by Rosamund can be found on nudge-book.com For more see: www.mainstreetbooks.co.uk

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W

That Thing I Do In our occasional series about things our subscribers do when they’re not reading we welcome Patsy Wallace of Taunton – a Humanist funeral celebrant.

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hen I tell people I work as a Humanist funeral celebrant it usually provokes one of two reactions. Either – what on earth is that? Or – doesn’t dealing with death and bereavement make you really miserable?

You might be asking a third question – why should this be of interest to readers of nb?

So let’s deal with the questions in order. I write and conduct bespoke funerals for people who have chosen to live without religious beliefs, meeting bereaved families to help them plan a funeral ceremony that is true to the person they have lost. The ceremonies are deeply personal – each is different and contains music, readings and words that reflect some aspect of the person whose life we are remembering. And whilst most ceremonies take place in a crematorium, I have also conducted funerals and memorials in woodlands, pubs, marquees, village halls and fields!

And so to the second question. Actually, I love my work. And being in contact with death and bereavement doesn’t make me miserable. In fact it is a constant reminder that life is to be treasured and lived to the full. Of course, death is a time of great sadness for those who have been bereaved but families get enormous comfort from

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planning a ceremony that really honours the life and character of the person they have lost. It is hugely rewarding to be a part of that process and to be trusted to speak about that person on their behalf.

Which brings me to the final question, why might nb readers be interested in all this? The answer is simple. I am lucky enough to spend my time hearing and telling stories.

Families share their memories with me – often poignant but sometimes downright hilarious – and then I stitch them together into a tribute that I hope really encapsulates the person’s life and character.

I’ve learnt about so many amazing people – the Belgian ski champion who became an international industrialist, the single mother who worked in a record shop and studied by candlelight to finance her degree, the teenager abandoned by her parents who married her childhood sweetheart and built a new life, the woman frustrated by her lack of education who turned to violence.

This year I’ve trained to become a Humanist wedding celebrant. A different set of stories but each one utterly unique and completely captivating. Tomorrow I am going to talk to a couple who plan to get married under a tree.

I’m sure there’s a story in that…

T

he Miniaturist has been on quite a journey: Book of the Year 2014, and New Writer of the Year, at the National Book Awards. Then Waterstones Book of the Year and topping the paperback charts, at time of writing, for four weeks in a row. Fans will be thrilled to hear of plans for a TV adaptation by the same people behind the TV version of Wolf Hall, no less. So, how does it feel? Jessie explains...

“When I was very little I wanted to be a vet. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be an

family and group of friends who have always held up a glowing yet measured portrait of me, reflecting back a constant message that I had a right to try and achieve whatever I wanted. Not everyone hears that message down the years; have a go, try your luck! Some people face profound adversity, and have no choice but to make that message themselves. Their decision to do this is far more admirable than anything I have achieved this year. We play our part, of course, we dreamers who work hard – but who first handed us the script? Who

Jessie Burton’s

actress. And yet. This is no sob story, as by now you know. It has been my right, my privilege and my luck to write this novel.

I am lucky that I could entertain thoughts of being a vet or an actress at all. In fact, I am privileged from all corners – I am white, straight and cis, so have never experienced racial, sexuality or gender-based discrimination or abuse. I am educated to the hilt, at the state’s expense. Yep, I have had my fair share of street harassment and male condescension, but within my inner life I am in health, financially capable, and from a

suggested that we take the lead?

Who keeps us going when we want to quit? Yes, you work hard, but what the hell else is there to do, when no one is going to do it for you? And alas, working at something does not mean you will be rewarded in the way you thought you would be. But this does not mean that when you do find reward, you should think it was only because of your hard work. You also got lucky. The world is enormous and brimming with misfortune. We should not be ashamed of luck. We should try and pass it on. I intend to do so in 2015.”

Photo: Alexander James

T H E M I N I AT UR I S T

For more see www.jessieburton.co.uk The Miniaturist was reviewed in nb83 and in full on nudge-book.com

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BOOK OF THE YEAR

nb Book of the Year For the fourteenth time, Guy Pringle unveils the winner and runners up of our annual Book of the Year vote – a salutary list of what you should be reading in 2015, assuming you haven’t already.

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o begin at the beginning, the last minute rush to publish nb83 meant we missed our usual request to you, our readers, to choose the runners and riders. Instead, we cut a corner and selected the shortlist in house – and we got it slightly wrong.

More than one correspondent queried the non-appearance of Ms Tartt’s The Goldfinch, and while I may carp that it’s at least 50 and perhaps 100 pages too long, I still wish I had a pal like Boris. But, as they say in all the best circles, the judges decision is final and since you were good enough to post your thoughts when polling we can genuinely give you a flavour of why these books deserve your attention.

In reverse order...

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10: APPLE TREE YARD Louise Doughty ‘I picked this because it was a bit different to the norm and really did keep you guessing till the end.

Couldn't put it down. Loved it.’

Lynn Latham, Ross on Wye 9: WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES Karen Joy Fowler ‘A twist that no one could possibly see coming and a unique, approachable voice makes this book stand out above so many others.’

Laura Jones, Edinburgh

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8: THE LIE Helen Dunmore ‘Out of all of the fiction titles published this year on World War One, Dunmore's The Lie sensitively tells the story of the survivors of the Great War and how life as a survivor with only the memories of comrades and battle is harsher than you may think. Daniel Branwell is a character who lingers long in the memory and Dunmore captures the post-WW1 years with accuracy and emotional depth. A must read!’

Laura Taylor, London

BOOK OF THE YEAR

7: THE ONE PLUS ONE Jojo Moyes Catherine Maceluch in Coventry is obviously a long-standing fan: ‘Another excellent book by Jojo Moyes.’

didn't want to put down.

Despite the subject matter, this is not a depressing read. It humanises a condition that is often "monstered" into something to be afraid of, and is by turns poignant, scary, darkly humorous, warm, funny and hopeful.’

Jackie Potter, London

6: AMERICANAH Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ‘A beautiful book that explores real human emotion... I took a chance on this book and I can honestly say it is one of the most beautifully honest and humorous books I've ever read.

Buy it, read it and revel in every word .’

Chris Mather, York

4: AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED Khaled Hosseini ‘Hosseini skilfully creates a complex set of stories ranging across different countries and runs several threads alongside each other, but there is also such a simple heart to his approach. He uses his personal knowledge and experiences and for me this validates the characters and the actions which otherwise could seem farfetched. I could not put it down, but didn't want it to end.

It will become a classic .’

Pamela Harvey, Romsey

5: THE SHOCK OF THE FALL Nathan Filer ‘This is a beautifully accessible and moving (but definitely NOT mawkish) story about mental illness, grief, guilt, love and family. I read it in a day, stealing moments to sneak in a chapter here, a paragraph there.

It was one of those books I

3: I AM PILGRIM Terry Hayes ‘This book had me gripped from start to finish. The plot could be a real one. I walked past an AA

man on the street reading this stood in the street – I wasn't surprised, it's that good!’

Kate Porter, Torquay 2: THE THING ABOUT DECEMBER Donal Ryan (Ed: Ryan’s Spinning Heart was an nb Recommended Read and personally I think this follow up may be even better.) ‘A lonely man on the edge of society trying to make sense of the world around him. Humour, sadness, bewilderment and plenty of self doubt, a great read. I would say it is a deeply moving book which deserves a wide readership.’

Cathy Grieve, Dublin WHICH MEANS THE WINNER IS ...

1: THE HUMANS Matt Haig And to celebrate, over the page we have an interview with Matt, answering questions supplied by some of those who were good enough to vote for his book.

And for those who haven’t read The Humans, there’s also an extract with copies to give away (See page 44)

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THE BIG INTERVIEW

Matt Haig D When Matt Haig’s The Humans scooped the voting for the nb/nudge Book of the Year we went back to some of the voters and asked them what they’d like to ask Matt, who kindly replied...

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oes Matt believe there are aliens out there?

Lynn Latham, Ross on Wye I think, on balance, it would be even more remarkable if there weren’t aliens out there and that we were all alone. But now they have found evidence of former seas on Mars - our nearest planet – and scientists believe life was ‘probable’ on our nearest neighbour, then surely there must be life somewhere else.

The interesting thing is; why haven’t they come here? Or have they and we’ve not realised? It’s fascinating, but not in a geeky way. It’s fascinating in that it makes us look at ourselves differently. As a species.

And makes us feel closer. I think if we were all astronomers we’d all get a little more perspective.

Does it sound silly to ask if Matt often feels like an alien in his own skin? And perhaps the question the alien wants to answer in the book: What does Matt think it means to be human? Or does Matt think

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this book explains what he thinks it means to be human?

Michael Woodley, Didsbury, Manchester I have always felt like an outsider. I don’t know why. I mean, I’m a privileged white middle class male and so I certainly shouldn’t feel like an outsider, but I do. Depression certainly makes you feel like an alien, and I suffered very badly with depression in my twenties.

I think the positive thing about depression is that it makes you look at yourself and people from a distance, and sometimes you can see things clearer that way. I think the book is basically me trying to find [as many] great things about being alive as a human being as I could muster. It’s my advert for living, basically.

I'd love to know if Matt had any idea of the impact that The Humans would have on so many lives when he was writing it? It is the most extraordinary book, and seems to be able to speak to people from all walks of life.

I've read most of Matt's books

‘Winning anything is an honour, obviously, but doubly so when it is an award like this voted for by readers themselves. When I wrote The Humans I had absolutely no idea how people would respond, so I am overjoyed, frankly, and would love to thank the nb readers...’

THE BIG INTERVIEW

“

and I particularly loved The Radleys – looking at a dysfunctional family, and how they create their own 'normal' was fascinating. I know Matt hates The Possession of Mr Cave, but I still enjoyed that too, it was a brilliant look at life from the perspective of an emotional cripple. I wonder how much of Matt's own experiences were in this book?

Nicki Davies, Gloucestershire I enjoyed writing The Humans.

I had a good feeling about it, yes, but that was all it was. I still

To appreciate life, and to explore ourselves as much as possible.

Books help with that.

saying it’s bad. I just can’t look at it!

If Matt was the alien in The Humans would he also 'have given up the universe for a life on the sofa’?

Pauline Gerard, Hawarden, N Wales If I could have factored in ‘no back pain’ into the equation.

Actually, mortality is scary, but I think immortality would be terrifying too. I think, the trick is, to live deep, where possible.

To appreciate life, and to explore ourselves as much as possible. Books help with that.

Is The Humans purely a sci fi novel or is it a story with a deeper meaning?

Sarah Davis, Greenwich, London It is technically a science fiction novel but I don’t see it like that.

In fact, science fiction people don’t like it. I suppose it is science fiction in the way The Time-Traveller’s Wife is science didn’t expect it to resonate the fiction. I have no interest in way it did. It’s honestly not aliens for their own sake. It was really about sales (though that is just a very useful way of looking nice). The best thing ever is at love and life and all the when you get personal reasons to be human. responses from readers who have read it. As for The There are a lot of maths Possession of Mr Cave, I can’t equations in the book and as someone who knows nothing really look at that novel, but I about maths are they real think that has more to do with how I felt when I wrote it. I was equations and is maths something you have an 27 and in my second major bout of depression, and I think interest in?

Sarah Davis, Greenwich, it shows in the book. Some London people like it. And I’m not

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Hahaha! Well, okay, this is the point I have to confess. I am not a maths genius. Unless an A at GCSE counts, which it doesn’t!

That said, I sincerely find maths a lot more interesting than they are [taught] at school. I had help from a couple of people who knew about maths, but as to the long equation, well, it is plausible looking, and no-one could prove it is wrong, but nor is it right. If it was right then I have just solved the most complicated mathematical conundrum there is. Which would win me a Nobel prize or something! So probably not.

depression, years ago. It would have been a very different novel if I had written it then though. I needed to be a bit older, a bit wiser, a bit saner and a bit happier.

The 'Advice For Humans' at the back of the book - could that have been a whole book in itself ?

Alison Paul, Ealing, London Well, it took nearly as long to write as the rest of the book, even though it is only six or seven pages. It gave me a headache! I wrote it directly to my suicidal 24 year old self, saying, wait, hang on in there, this is how you can have a good life. Maybe one day I’ll turn it into a whole book. It’s an idea.

What goes through your head now when you think about The Humans following its huge success?

Liz of www.lizlovesbooks.com, Bicester, Oxfordshire To be honest, it really doesn’t feel much different. I suppose, knowing it was well liked, slightly ramps up the pressure on the next one, but it is a small price to pay. Mainly I just try and remind myself of the decade-long road to get to this point, and the nine books that had gone before, and I try always to appreciate it. It’s lovely. And I’ve made a lot of friends online, on Twitter and Facebook, among people who have read it. It’s great!.

How much did your experience of depression inform your narrative perspective in The Humans of writing from an alien's point of view?

Anne Rice-Jones, Blackwood, South Wales Massively. Indeed, I first had the idea when I was in a state of

When did you discover the poet Emily Dickinson?

Sonya Wendell, Truro A bit too late. I wish I had discovered her younger, she would have helped me a lot. I didn’t properly get into her until my early thirties. I love her. She is my favourite poet.

Such depth but yet so easy to read.

And next?

REASONS TO STAY ALIVE After five novels and awardwinning children’s books, Matt has turned to non fiction to address an issue close to his heart.

Aged 24, Matt Haig's world caved in. He could see no way to go on living. This is the true story of how he came through crisis, triumphed over an illness that almost destroyed him and learned to live again.

Matt’s perspective: "I wrote this book because the oldest clichés remain the truest.

Time heals. The bottom of the valley never provides the clearest view. The tunnel does have light at the end of it, even if we haven't been able to see it... Words, just sometimes, really can set you free. I want life. I want to read it and write it and feel it and live it. I want, for as much of the time as possible in this blink-of-aneye existence we have, to feel all that can be felt.”

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig is a £9.99 hardback published by Canongate and is available now.

Tales from the world of

self-publ i s hin g Esther Harris works within the book industry but acknowledges that the tide may be turning in favour of the outsider in the struggle to be published. She presents a handful of examples worth checking out.

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER The world of traditional publishing finally put a tentative yet supportive arm around the shoulder of DIY authors earlier this year, when a national newspaper launched a new monthly prize to “support and showcase” self published writers. At last...

The Guardian has teamed up with publisher Legend Times to “recognize the fantastic quality of writing” being produced by independent authors. Self -published books like the PEN prize winning A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Vava, and stories such as Wool by Hugh Howey and Rain Fall by Barry Eisler that have had readers raving and Hollywood producers calling, have made even the most hardened of hacks realise that they can’t continue to ignore what the public has known for years. The Guardian Books Editor Claire Armitstead admitted: “We know there’s gold out in them thar hills.”

WHAT’S AN OLD WRITER TO DO? FIGHT BACK! Spare a thought for the DIY authors who have an even 22

tougher sell – they are self published and OLD! How dare they… Historical novelist Richard Masefield turned 70 this year and the once established Heinemann and Pan author found himself cast out in the wilderness when it came to re-starting his career in the noughties. “Too old”, “Not enough books left in you”, “Not relevant” were some of the kinder comments he received.

The author of The White Cross took to The Huffington Post to write about his experiences and is fighting back for the oldies.

He self-published this year with the help of Clare Christian and Red Door Publishing. Richard said: “So, here I am, in the world of DIY. No generous advances, no marketing department. My book will have to work quite hard to earn its keep. But it's out there.”

WROTE THE BOOK, HEARD THE SONG, SAW THE PICTURE… Non-fiction DIY author Karen Williams is another example.

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The life coach is publishing her third title - Your Book Is The Hook To A Successful Business – early this year. The caring coach looked at the bold, brash, ranty business titles on the shelves and felt despair – they just weren’t her. She decided she would buck the trend and hired an illustrator, Emma Paxton, to create a hand drawn character that would link arms with readers and take them on a supported journey through growing their business. Emma’s illustrations and Karen’s softer approach really catch the eye in a crowded market. The take home message of all this?

Think outside of the book!

Esther Harris is a publicist (www.bookedpr.com) and tweets @writer29

debuts

We take a look at the latest clutch of bright young things. Unknowns they may be now but one day soon...

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What She Left Speculation pours into the vacuum. Theories and rumours circulate. Suddenly everyone knows Alice. But how much of what we read or hear can we believe?

In What She Left, I wanted to put the reader at the heart of the investigation, giving them the opportunity to lead their own enquiry, to make up their TR Richmond – own minds.

Male? Female?

They’ll be joining Professor Cooke, an anthropology It’s a mystery, lecturer at Alice’s old university, and so is What who is collating information about her as a tribute. He’s She Left nearing the end of an very time we post on unremarkable career, wrestling Facebook, buy a book on with his own mortality and has Amazon, press send on an his own connection with the email, walk under a dead girl and her family. But security camera, write a blog fiction thrives on varying post, use a credit card or fire off perspectives, so who better to a text or tweet, we leave a involve in the search for truth footprint. It becomes part of than an unreliable narrator? our legacy.

‘Old Cookie’ reassembles I’m fascinated by how true Alice’s story through the trail and transparent a picture this she’s left in print and online, paints of us so, to explore this navigating a labyrinth of via fiction, I needed a victim. misunderstandings, lies and Enter 25-year-old Alice secrets (many his own) on his Salmon, whose body is quest to compile a book about discovered in a river after a this complex and contradictory night out with friends goes woman. He draws together tragically wrong. Sadly, an allarticles, diary entries, letters, too-familiar scenario and, in the social media material, blog absence of facts, what happens? posts, forum entries, police

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interview transcripts and emails.

For me, at times, the process felt more akin to doing a huge jigsaw puzzle than writing a book. But I was determined to not only pass comment on the way we receive news and information these days, but also actually structure the story in that way. How a novel is built should, after all, evolve in tandem with changes in language and communication.

There’s only one rule – that readers find the story compelling.

I hope readers enjoy sifting through the ‘evidence’, reassembling Alice through a series of glimpses, being privy to a portion of what she left, as they establish the details of her life and, ultimately, the facts surrounding her death.

I use the word ‘fact’ but, of course, this is fiction. Just as what purports to be fact is, actually, so often fiction…

TR Richmond What She Left by TR Richmond is published by Michael Joseph as a £12.99 hbk and is available 23rd April.

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The Well

For Catherine Chanter parenting is a double edged sword

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ost novels have something to say about parenting; if they are about people, it is inevitable. The Well is no exception. In the past, offstage, there are the shadowy figures of parents missing, divorced or dead who through nature and nurture have sculpted the characters; in the present, a Gordian knot of biological, step and inter-generational relationships which are typical of the complexities of contemporary family life. I kept returning to the proverb, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ and the novel also questions how one generation ensures the

inheritance of the next.

Over many years, I have worked with families where things are not going smoothly, but amidst the agony of children being taken into care, of teenagers running away from home, there is nearly always love. 99% of the time, there is love. 1% of the time, there is hatred. As an author, I am interested in the 1%. Even the love is not straight forward. Unconditional love is a big ask. And in our attempts to build the best possible world for our children, are we merely trying to live the lives we would have wished for ourselves?

When Ruth and her husband Mark escape to the country and buy The Well, they are dreaming of a new beginning, whilst knowing their home will always need to be big enough for their daughter Angie, a drug addict, and her son, Lucien. But the truth is there is never an entirely fresh start to parenting because the good and the damage of the past are part of the present and the future. However far our families travel, we take ourselves with us.

Maybe being a grandparent is different. Is it a precious opportunity to get it right second time round? Or maybe it is impossible, trying to bring

up the grandchildren as best you can, whilst adhering to the beliefs and values of a different generation. Increasingly, I find myself supporting these grandparents who walk the tightrope between joy at the task and fear of the responsibility.

Ruth comes to experience both emotions. The wonder of being able to give Lucien a taste of paradise is pierced by the most bitter pain of all: the tragedy for Ruth is that it is whilst under her care that her grandson is murdered.

It is not only because she is a convicted prisoner and a celebrity sinner that Ruth needs to find the truth of what happened at The Well; it is also because she is a mother and a grandmother.

The Well by Catherine Chanter is published by Canongate as a £12.99 hbk & ebook and is available 5th March.

I kept returning to the proverb ‘it takes a village to raise a child’

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The Longest Fight

Emily Bullock tackles a traditionally male pursuit

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n the austerity of post-war London, Jack Munday is a boxing manager in search of a break. Jack's family, his semi-invalid sister, his bullying father and struggling mother, are all part of the life he wants to escape. Jack finally believes his fortunes have changed when he signs a young fighter, Frank.

Love, in the form of a new girl, Georgie, and money all come his way. Jack wants to be a winner but he has too many secrets to keep them buried for long.

The novel was inspired by my grandfather and his London childhood. Jimmy Bullock, the Tooting Tiger, started boxing as a boy, fought on air bases during the war, and after the 26

war he became a builder by day, a fighter by night. Living in South London myself, I initially believed the research into the area would be simple to pursue.

But I realised that the bomb damaged heart and slum terraces that shaped Jack's life had long since disappeared: from maps, paintings and eye witness accounts I had to piece together a vanished landscape.

Such a process of investigation also came to shape the novel in other ways; my desire to move away from my actual family history led me to foreground female characters in the story and a protagonist who gains self-awareness.

More unexpectedly there also emerged a deeper consideration of my personal connection to the sport, invoked by other people’s questioning of my choice – ‘Why boxing?’ I soon realised that this single question actually contained two separate questions: ‘Why boxing as a subject matter?’ and ‘Why have you (a woman) chosen this?’

The issue of gender seemed initially to me to be an unhelpful distinction. I have always been aware of the sport within my family and had never considered it to be anything but approachable. Although it now

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seems inevitable that I would choose to write about boxing, it was in fact a topic I avoided for many years. Such fascination with boxing, what it takes to fight for money and prestige, has been well documented. But as a woman from a boxing family I felt I had something new to offer, the impact of the sport on family dynamics and the role of women in the lives of these fighters. The Longest Fight is a fictional story but it is seeded with family tales, myths, lies and poignant truths.

The Longest Fight by Emily Bullock is published by Myriad Editions as a £8.99 pbk and is available now.

In the Directory>>

”A novel about boxing is one of the last books I’d pick up, so it was with a bit of a sigh... A wonderful first novel – just read and enjoy.”

And in full on nudge-book.com>>

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The Death’s Head Chess Club rumour and what he finds will haunt him to his death...

Chess in the Concentration Camp

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he hugely anticipated novel that explores the impossibilities of forgiveness and friendship between a Nazi and a Jew. SS Obersturmführer Paul Meissner arrives in Auschwitz from the Russian front. After being badly wounded he is fit only for administrative duty and his first and most pressing task is to improve flagging camp morale. He sets up a chess club which thrives, as the officers and enlisted men are allowed to gamble on the results of the games. However, when Meissner learns from a chance remark that chess is also played by the prisoners he hears of a Jewish watchmaker who is 'unbeatable'. Meissner sets out to discover the truth behind this

the likes of Hustek almost makes me want to pity him. At least the Kommandant agreed that we EXTRACT now have to go ahead with the From the journal of further games – though he is still Hauptsturmführer Paul not happy about it. I told him Meissner. Sunday, 11th June that if he finds what I have done 1944. It seems I have made is so objectionable, he could something of a miscalculation. arrange to have me transferred.

Sturmbannführer Bär is quite He said that with Aktion Höss furious with me. He is adamant running at full tilt there was no that I should have consulted him question of a transfer. It seems I before pitting a Jew against a am indispensable, at least for member of the SS. He wanted now. Even so, I will write to the Watchmaker shot out of Peter Sommer to see if there is hand for having the temerity to any chance of my old regiment win. He was not mollified when taking me back. It seems likely I explained that I had put the they’ll soon be in the thick of the Jew in a position where he could fighting in France – if they’re not afford to lose. Nor was he not already. Goebbels vowed the impressed when I tried to enemy would be pushed back convince him that the game was into the sea within a week, but essential because of an idea that there’s precious little sign of that has sprung up among the Jews in happening. The Führer the camp that one of their promised Germany would never number is unbeatable. An idea have to fight on two fronts cannot be defeated by shooting again, and now we are fighting bullets at it, I said. on three. Is this defeatist talk? If Hauptscharführer Frommhagen I knew what was good for me I was the weakest of the finalists in would destroy this journal, but the camp championship, and the there is something that stops me Watchmaker had trouble beating from doing that. him. It seems likely that if he is The Death’s Head Chess Club by John pitted against our stronger Donoghue is a £12.99 hbk and ebook players he will meet his match, published by Atlantic Books and is now and the ‘unbeatable’ Jew will available. soon be forgotten. The thought of the Jew pitting his wits against

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Esperanza Street fame, but to catalyse an authentic inner transformation in order to become whole. In my experience, real heroism often goes unsung.

I trained and still practice as a doctor. Medicine and fictionwriting are uneasy bed-fellows.

Both require attention and commitment. It’s hard to juggle them but I never want to let go Niyati Keni on of either. That said, hand on her inspiration heart, I have sometimes wished y first novel is about the I wasn’t a writer; life would be destruction of a simpler, financially more secure community by and so on. But I find it impossible developers in 1980s not to write. The act of writing small-town Philippines. feels authentic (that word Narrated by Joseph, a 15 year again) and the despair builds if old houseboy, the book’s inner I leave it too long. I’ve just core is about the moral journey started work on my second that he takes to manhood. It’s novel and feel a palpable sense about fairness, or lack of it, and of relief at having done so. It’s a freedom, or lack of it. Joseph, story that has inhabited my already constrained by his social head for about eight years and circumstances, is ultimately now it needs to come out. trapped by his own integrity.

The most enjoyable aspect of The book also questions our writing for me is creating a society’s notions about heroism. certain texture with words, and Culturally, I think we often this is also the characteristic of conflate heroism with visibility. prose that gives me the most The heroes of popular culture pleasure as a reader. I remember are sports stars, models, actors, the texture of a book long after celebrities, but there’s something I’ve forgotten the details of inauthentic about this. In the plot. mythology, the purpose of the I never planned to set a novel in hero’s journey is not the the Philippines. I’m not Filipino. acquisition of wealth, power or But the country has fascinated

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me ever since I first visited it as part of a long, solo backpacking adventure round Asia in my twenties. It’s such an amalgam of oriental and western cultural elements. It felt familiar and foreign at the same time. That slight dissonance resonated strongly with me - born and brought up in England but of Indian origin and never completely at home in either culture. I sometimes wonder if that sense of dislocation is what drives me to write. Home, for me, is not a place; home is writing and my daughter.

Esperanza Street by Niyati Keni is published by And Other Stories as a £10 Paperback Original and a £5 ebook and is available now.

In the Directory>>

”Esperanza Street has a dreamy, “Sunday afternoon” feel about it and would make a good long weekend or holiday read.”

And in full on nudge-book.com>>

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Tregian’s Ground and on the other, the rule of the German and Dutch princes and, in England, the rule of the Kings (Henry VIII and Edward VI) and then Queen Elizabeth (the Protestants).

In England, the brief reign of Catholic Queen Mary I and her Spanish husband clinched it: the people did not want to be forced into a religion and, at Anne Cuneo least in the cities, they wanted sheds light on primarily to be English. On all Frances Tregian sides, questions started arising: yes, I am a Catholic, a regian’s Ground is mainly Protestant, a Jew, but I am a about the birth of the loyal subject – can I not be free individual conscience and to practise the religion I believe of tolerance, although in? many have read and enjoyed my Francis Tregian finds himself at book for its adventures alone. the centre of this debate. He is Until late in the eighteenth forced by his father to be century (not before the French Catholic, but his Queen is and American Revolutions), the Protestant. religion of the king was Francis Tregian’s way out is automatically the religion of his music, and his choices show subjects. It was a sacred that musically he is neither principle for all rulers: cuius Catholic nor Protestant. He regio eius religio. Religion was a collects music from anybody key aspect of politics. When in (although there is not one piece the early sixteenth century from Spain), and it is difficult Christianity was split into to suggest that his choices were Catholicism and Protestantism, inspired by religion. Rather, he life became difficult for the was moved to collect the best subjects, as very soon the two and newest music he could find. religions became synonyms for I gathered all the historical facts the rule of Spain (the about Tregian that I could find.

Catholics) on the one hand, However, instead of writing a

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historical essay, I decided to make use of his story and its ‘message’ to write a novel in the vein of one of my literary idols: Alexandre Dumas.

I put Francis Tregian in a real historical setting: all the events I describe happened – but was Francis there? It is always possible, never certain. Yet through all these adventures, his decision that his religion is his own remains central. That, and his desire for the sovereign to believe that, although a Catholic, he is still a faithful English subject.

Tregian’s Ground by Anne Cuneo is published by And Other Stories as a £10 pbk and ebook. It is available 7th April.

In the Directory>>

”Life in Tudor England is almost palpable in Cuneo’s authentic and wellresearched novel.”

And in full on nudge-book.com>>

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Last Night at the Blue Angel

When inspiration struck for Rebecca Rotert

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ast Night at the Blue Angel began for me after an evening shift at my local community college writing centre where I was working almost exclusively with refugees and immigrants.

Driving home one night, a paragraph appeared in my head, perfectly intact, so I pulled over and scrawled it on a scrap of paper. The next morning I woke very early to write (I was working on a different book at the time) and re-read the paragraph. It began, “My mother is a singer. I live in her dark margin...” and would later become the first paragraph of chapter one. It felt like this character (Sophia) was daring me to bring her to life, so I told her, “I’ll give you twenty pages.”

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I was suspicious, at first, because I’d never had any interest in child narrators. But as I began to write Sophia, I quickly saw that this was not so much a story about a plucky child as it was a story about the unique way in which children bear witness to the world of adults.

The creation of Sophia was informed, in part, by the experience so many children have of feeling invisible to the adults around them, and how this position is both terrifying–the fear of not being seen–and exhilarating because it allows them access to their parents’ whole selves–fraught, complicated, and conflicted as they are.

As the story developed, I decided to set the bulk of the narrative in Chicago. Naomi [Sophia’s mother] is from Kansas, and for many aspiring musicians and artists in the Midwest, Chicago is the nearest metropolis.

As for the choice of making Naomi a singer, it is a world I know well. I love the world of the stage, but the idea that would become a crucial question for Naomi’s character was born several years ago during a conversation with a fellow singer. She told me that

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once she fell in love her insatiable need to perform abated. It was clear that the love of a crowd, for her, stood in for actual human intimacy and though the crowd love was always available, it never quite satisfied her. I was interested in pitting the performer’s relationship with the crowd against the actual relationships in her life, and that became a central conflict of the book.

Last Night at the Blue Angel by Rebecca Rotert is published by William Morrow Paperbacks as a £8.99 pbk and is available 21st May.

As I began to write Sophia, I quickly saw that this was not so much a story about a plucky child as it was a story about the unique way in which children bear witness to the world of adults

debuts

Wasp Or, A Very Sweet Power undercurrents and issues affecting the House are brought to a head by the arrival of Wasp.

DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE CHARACTER IN THE BOOK? My favourite character is ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nightingale. On the surface she Ian Garbutt has worked in is the stereotype of the glacial journalism and publishing. He beauty envied by women and ABOUT THE BOOK was awarded a Scottish Arts desired by men. In reality she’s a For a gentleman seeking more Council New Writer’s Bursary drug addict and unmarried prestigious company amidst the and attended Napier University, mother with as many personal bawdy houses of an eighteenth- in Edinburgh, where he demons to fight as anyone else century city, the House of obtained a Master of Arts with in the House.

Masques provides the perfect Distinction in Creative sexual thrill. The girls are highly Writing. He has published two Wasp Or, A Very Sweet Power by Ian educated and socially trained, Garbutt is published by Polygon as a historical novels for Piatkus and are prized status symbols £12.99 hbk and is available 19th under the pseudonym of for politicians, bankers and March.

Melanie Gifford. Ian lives in royalty alike. Into this world Auchterarder. comes Bethany Harris, a A gripping disgraced governess who has WHAT WAS YOUR been rescued from a madhouse INSPIRATION TO WRITE page-turner that and transformed into the THIS STORY? exposes the Masque named Wasp. She soon I read a book on 18th century discovers that her companions courtesans and was surprised by dark, seedy are the condemned, the exiled the degree of social power they and the abandoned: everyone wielded. I was also fascinated by underbelly of in the House has a troubled the closed world of the Japanese eighteenthpast. Soon, dark secrets and geisha. Combining the two century society. unbridled ambition lead to a resulted in the House of crisis that threatens to destroy Masques. I also wanted to create the House of Masques forever. an ensemble piece where the major characters are all, to a greater or lesser degree, in need of redemption. The many

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debuts

Lie of the Land

ABOUT THE BOOK For investigative journalist Carl Shewan, the Scottish coastal village of Inverlair is a picturesque cage. Imprisoned in this remote refuge by a technological catastrophe for which he feels partly responsible, Carl struggles to adapt to impending fatherhood and to a harsh new existence in an ancient landscape, until a childless gamekeeper offers him an alternative to guilt and alienation.

Set in the near future, Lie of the Land examines the claustrophobia of small-town life and questions how far the state will go to preserve an orderly society, one in which ubiquitous surveillance has reduced human life to a virtual experience.

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WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO BECOME A WRITER? No single event or experience, just a feeling that it was something I could do and wanted to do. However, over the last few years it dawned on me that becoming a published ABOUT THE AUTHOR writer would take a huge Michael F. Russell grew up on amount of hard work. There’s the Isle of Barra before leaving no short-cut; you have to learn to study Social Sciences at the the craft, and that means being University of Glasgow, followed not very good for a long time. I am still learning the craft and by a postgraduate diploma in will continue to learn.

Journalism Studies at the University of Strathclyde. He is Lie of the Land by Michael F. Russell is deputy editor at the West published by Polygon as a ÂŁ12.99 hbk Highland Free Press and writes and is available June 2015. occasionally for the Sunday Herald. His writing has appeared in Gutter, Northwords Set in a postNow and Fractured West. He lives on Skye with his partner apocalyptic and two children.

WHAT WAS YOUR INSPIRATION TO WRITE THIS STORY? I have always had a fascination for Armageddon, whether in literature or film. I wanted to devise one myself, based on human technology rather than something more conventional, and haphazard, such as an asteroid strike or plague.

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Scotland, Lie of the Land is an engrossing thriller and a brilliant dissection of the psyche of the outsider.

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The Art of Waiting on with it. I decided my story would capture this quote, and the last four words would be its title.

I had just started reading again about the Second World War, previously a childhood interest.

They were all human stories, of lives occasionally lit by moments of joy against the bleak backdrop of the steppe.

MY INSPIRATION Around this time I met my wife, “Life means love. We are here a Russian living in Rome (right for love. Only love is real, and opposite the Pantheon), and I everything is real thanks to love. went there to live with and soon We are nomads wandering marry her. We honeymooned in through illusionary space. How Venice, and I fell in love with to make it real? Only by dethe place as soon as we stepped stroying limits that separate us off the train. from others. No violence, no at- Venice seeped right into me, so tempts at escape can help, only I knew I had my settings – love. Too often love is more Venice and Russia – and the painful than joyful. The intimeframe – the 1940s. But The stances of love are much shorter Art of Waiting really has been a than the periods during which waiting game – started in 2000, we wait for love to emerge. The much rewriting, published in meaning of living is mastering 2015. the art of waiting.”

While it wasn’t my intention Georgi Litichevsky, when I set out, I do hope that Ukrainian artist those who read it will learn something about a relatively litThis quote, from The Meaning tle known aspect of the Second of Life, a book of people saying World War – the fate of the what life to them was really all thousands of Italians who never about struck a chord. I had almade it home, and what life ways known I wanted to write a might have been like afterwards book one day, and, in my early for some of them who did. thirties, I realised I’d better get

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Christopher Jory was born in 1968 in Newcastle upon-Tyne.

He spent his early childhood in Barbados, Venezuela and finally Oxfordshire. He did a degree in English Literature and Philosophy at Leicester University and then worked for the British Council and other organisations in Italy, Spain, Crete, Brazil and Venezuela. He is currently a publisher at Cambridge University Press.

His first book, Lost in the Flames (Matador, 2011), was a moving account of RAF Bomber Command airmen and their families.

The Art of Waiting by Christopher Jory is published by Polygon as a £12.99 hbk and is available April 2015.

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THE BIG INTERVIEW

Tommy Wieringa Reading group friends Lydia Revett and Guy Pringle want you to add the name Wieringa to your reading list.

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know I am fortunate in having the pick of the proofs that come through here and when you find a gem, a real gem, you can begin to doubt your own judgement. So I passed These Are The Names on to my reading group friend, Lydia Revett, who was willing to give it a try. And she loved it, too. Enough that we met for an hour or so in a coffee shop to come up with some questions to put to Tommy Wieringa on your behalf.

GP: I have an antipathy to novels which adopt parallel narratives but Lydia and I agreed you brought the two story strands together magnificently. How planned was this?

I agree, there is a problem with parallel narratives. Michel Houellebecq’s Possibility of an Island is a good example. A great 34

novel, but the parallel structure irritates me. However, I understand his choice, as I understand mine. The story dictates that it must be so. In order to tell a complex story as clearly and transparently as possible, one might need to use alternate storylines. You might have noticed that every chapter has the same length of more or less 2000 words – I did that to give the book a pounding rhythm and to overcome the problem of the parallel narrative: if the reader favours this or that storyline, he doesn’t have to turn the pages impatiently; because of the steady rhythm he knows when to expect his favourite storyline.

LR: We love Pontus Beg! How easy was it to create someone with strong principles and yet such understandable human foibles? The moment when he cracks and beats up the lorry

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driver is very unsettling when we think we have the measure of the man.

I loved writing about Pontus Beg. He became very dear to me, this 53-year-old police commissioner in a sleepy provincial town somewhere in Eastern Europe who discovers that he may be Jewish. He suddenly remembers a Yiddish love song his mother used to sing to him and this triggers his memory like a Proustian madeleine. The man is a bachelor. He tries to maintain some degree of order in his flat.

He eats dinner every night, does the dishes and never drinks more than four glasses of vodka, because he is afraid of sliding into the abyss. He is all alone in the world. His longing for love, for comfort and community, is growing ever stronger. When this is presented to him more or less on a plate by the recovered childhood memories, he jumps at

�Now, Tommy has delivered a novel that is built to find a far bigger audience in English� Philip Gwyn Jones, Editor-at-Large, Scribe UK

THE BIG INTERVIEW

Meet Lydia Revett: “As a member of two book groups, there’s nothing better than thrashing out a book’s strengths and weaknesses. A second reading of a book is often really worthwhile, if time allows – offering much more depth to a book, not just as a refresher (my memory is somewhat fallible!). It is rare to leave a bookclub meeting not liking a book more than when I arrived. Once introduced to an author or subject, I tend to read further than the book for discussion. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road touched me very deeply – the love between father and son, contrasted with the harshness of survival, written in beautifully poetic language. In contrast, Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London is different, ‘moreish' and very amusing.

Recent top reads? Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.It’s even more satisfying to complement a book with a play or film – Capote/In Cold Blood,The Testament of Mary

by Colm Toibin (Fiona Shaw was magnificent!) and Philomena by Martin Sixsmith are brilliant examples of this.”

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the chance. Pontus Beg is not even all that religious, but he embraces his Jewish identity because it offers him a past and a future. He had been like the refugees on the steppe, who represent the other storyline, struggling through life. But with the discovery of his roots a new perspective unfolds. It’s quite special when that warm light of being chosen envelops you, when you can see yourself as part of something much bigger, something that existed before you came along and will continue after you’re gone. It explains the shiver of bliss going through him.

LR/GP: You will probably be aware that some readers are drawing comparisons with Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road. But this isn’t nuclear aftermath and you have gone further and created a cast of characters who are each in their own way riveting.

About McCarthy’s The Road first: The comparison is superficial. After having read a few of his books, I have some doubt about its quality. I don’t want to sound snobbish, but the repeated appearance of guns, blood and horror-like scenes puts me off a bit. I liked the comparison with Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians better.

Especially the first half of that novel – which I consider to be one of the best things I’ve read in years. I only read it after a critic mentioned the similarities between it and These Are the

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Names, and was delighted by them.

As for the refugees in the book, I’m interested in the theme of migration, which has shaped us from our earliest history, from our first steps. We started off on foot and we keep moving for reasons of scarcity, from summer pasture to winter shelter. I find that deeply fascinating.

LR: Immigration and human trafficking seem to be unsolvable problems of our time. We wondered whether moving from Aruba to Holland was akin to being an immigrant ?

Having grown up in the Dutch Antilles, where the motherland was an alien and faraway place, I’ve always been interested in the fate of newcomers. I know from my own experience how they are frowned upon (or sometimes considered exotic and cool!). But no matter how long they stay or what they do, they’ll always be outsiders. As for me, coming from the Netherlands I was an outsider on Aruba, and then, living in the Dutch province, again I was considered a stranger because I grew up on that barren rock in the Caribbean Sea. Being an outsider is somewhat of a birthmark, which I sometimes hated but most of the time benefited from. I think it’s because of this background that I have a sensitive ear for the stories of newcomers, their strength and the ability to endure. Endurance is essential for the migrant; the will to sacrifice anything to

THE BIG INTERVIEW

achieve what you want. And indeed, the survival instinct and humanitarian principles don’t necessarily go well together, as you well know.

What’s more: my greatgrandfather’s entire family, that’s to say all of his brothers and sisters except himself, left for the US in the nineteenth century.

They were part of all the arrows on the big maps I used to marvel at in school, the ones pointing to the promised land. All those migrants fled pogroms and feudalism, destitution, lice and alcoholism. That’s true for my family. They fled the poverty of the day labourer’s dead-end existence in a small riverside village in the province of Groningen. Today we’d call them fortune-seekers. But wanting to seek your fortune no longer gives you the right to stay. The EU border agency Frontex tries to keep unwanted visitors out with the help of satellites and infra-red cameras. But they keep coming.

You could compare it to the migration of wild animals in the savannah. At some point they start moving. They have to cross the river. And there the alligators are lying in wait for them; they know all the crossing places. At first the wild animals are hesitant, but then the first one sets off and the rest follows. They will lose a few, but as a species they’ll make it across and survive.

obviously we will not reveal.

Apparently this was from a real life scenario?

Then I’ll reveal it myself, for I don’t care much about plot. In order to do so, I have to tell you something about the beginning of this book, its initial inspiration.

The best stories are found listening to people or reading the newspaper. I found inspiration for These Are The Names in an article in The Volkskrant newspaper, many years ago. It was about a group of refugees who wandered around the steppes for weeks without food or water. The refugees reported that they had crossed a border somewhere before being released on the steppe. Someone had given them directions: ‘That’s where you need to go.’ And so they walked and walked and walked but never got anywhere. When they finally reached the town, it emerged that they had never crossed a border, they were still in Ukraine. Dodgy human traffickers had built a fictitious border crossing, complete with dogs and barriers and everything, and taken them across because it was easier that way. It struck me as so evil and yet so ingenious at the same time.

Do you know what subsequently happened to those people?

I have no knowledge about the current fate of the refugees that came out of the Ukrainian steppe after their hellish journey. It must LR: Early on the migrants cross have been about twelve, thirteen a border, however there is a twist years ago when I read the in the story at this point, which newspaper article about them.

What struck me in the article was that they carried a dead body with them, a group member who had died along the way. Why, I wondered, would they spend their precious energy and strength on such a deed? They could have buried it, but decided to fold it in clothes and jackets and carried the heavy load with them. Mysterious indeed. That’s how the story started. It struck me as a great premise for a book, which I had to unwrap.

GP: Were the religious themes in your mind when you started to write or did they develop as you went along?

It’s the key motive of the novel, the story took form from a religious theme. In this novel I wanted to show man in all his gradations between angel and beast. I wanted to understand how he’s capable of killing whilst looking up at the heavens in his misery. I wanted to understand his need for a golden calf and how his fear and disgust get their focal point in a stranger. And, finally, how from this bloodshed a new form of spiritual life evolves, centered around the scapegoat he killed. In the end, I suppose, These Are The Names is about the individual becoming part of a larger entity, about the bloody and glorious process of I becoming an Us. LR: Are you religious yourself ?

I wish, but not at all. However, writing the novel enlarged my understanding of people who are.

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THE BIG INTERVIEW

have our hero. His counterpart in the group of renegades is a boy of 13. Learning fast how to at least act like an adult, boy (we only learn his name late on) is careful to display a brave face in case some of his more violent colleagues seize on a weakness.

The lesson of what will happen if he doesn’t is apparent when the GUY PRINGLE ON WHY Tall Man succumbs to drought YOU SHOULD READ and hunger and is THIS BOOK disencumbranced of his shoes I’m not a fan of parallel and clothes before his blood has narratives; too often it seems a stopped circulating, let lazy way of injecting a sense of alone cooled. tension, excitement, energy into a Two incarnations of religion book. But in These Are The claim centre stage: among the Names Tommy Wieringa pulls fugitives an Ethiopian - a black off the feat of involving the reader man in an otherwise entirely in both strands as he draws them white group - wears a cross and inextricably together. Initially acts in a truly Christian way only you’re thinking, I’ve read this, this to become an emblematic is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road figurehead for an entirely all over again. A small group have different religious flight. crossed a border and are looking Meanwhile, Pontus discovers a for a promised land. There must Jewish heritage and sees salvation have been a nuclear disaster and for himself. these are the survivors?

These Are The Names unfolds But no, civilization lives on – gently and apparently slowly but although it feels like the wheels looking back things change are coming off – in Michailopol, inexorably. The characterization somewhere out on the Russian is superb but not at the expense of (?) steppe. There Police Chief the plot. And as a group read, Pontus Beg wearily carries out his there are issues aplenty – religion, duties, only too aware of the obviously; personal violence; iniquities conducted in the name illegal immigrants; the position of of the law. However, he is the police in modern society. sufficiently self-knowing to include his own faults in the Guy Pringle reckoning of a life not entirely Personal read..................................★★★★★ Group read ......................................★★★★★ well-spent. Weld that to a sideways sense of humour, some incongruous relationships plus a beautiful turn of phrase and we 38

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My Hopes For Tommy Wieringa I first came across the name Tommy Wieringa when Dutch publishing friends whose judgement I trusted alerted me to the sensational impact that a booming rugby player had made with his debut novel in Holland. That book, Joe Speedboat, went on to be the best-selling debut novel ever in Dutch, and I acquired World English-Language Rights for Portobello, the new publishing house I had recently cofounded. I found a US publishing partner in Grove Atlantic, and we tried to convince the world that this bittersweet, scabrously funny, very moving tale of a Jules-etJim-style coming-of-age love triangle which turned darker and sharper as it went on was as good as an early John Irving novel (which it was). The world, or the English-speaking part of it at least, chose not to listen. We tried again with his even darker, even sharper second novel, Little Caesar, and that was even more of a struggle, although it did find favour with the judges of the IMPAC Award, who shortlisted it. Now, Tommy has delivered a novel that is built to find a far bigger audience in English, and I was so happy to be able to bring him across to my new home at Scribe UK – These Are The Names is an odyssey, or two odysseys to be precise, one into one man’s soul, the other that of a ragged band straining to cross the unforgiving steppe, and it has at its heart the two puzzles of belonging and migration.

Philip Gwyn Jones, Editor-at-Large, Scribe UK

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ontus Beg had not become the old man he’d imagined.

Something was missing — a great deal, in fact. As a boy, he had for a time been in the habit of walking around his father’s yard with a pair of safety glasses on the bridge of his nose, his hands clasped behind his back — that was how he imagined the life of an old man to be. Sometimes he used a branch for a walking stick. More than anything else, he had wanted to be old. Slow and deliberate, a captain calmly braving the storm. To die a wise man.

When the glasses started leaving welts on both sides of his nose, he put them back beside the grinder in the shed and began waiting patiently for old age to come, instead of running out to meet it.

He had only started feeling like an old man after he developed a cold foot. He was fifty-three, still too young to really be considered old, but he could see the writing on the wall. A nerve had become pinched in his lower back. Ever since, then, his left foot had gone cold. Standing on the bathroom floor in the morning, he could see that his feet were different colours. The right one was ruddy — the way it should be — but the left one was pale and cold. When he pressed his fingers against it, he felt almost nothing. It was as though the foot belonged to someone else. The dying starts from the feet up, Beg thought.

That was how it would be, the way to the end: he and his body, growing apart gradually.

The name is the guest of the thing itself, an old Chinese philosopher had said, and that, more and more, was the way he, Pontus Beg, found himself in relation to his body — he was the guest, and it was the thing itself. And the thing itself was now busy shaking off its guest.

The days grow shorter; life turns in upon itself. Thunderstorms at night linger for a long time over the steppes. Beg stands at the window and watches. There is a flash in the distance, and a web of glowing fissures in the vault of heaven. He stands on the linoleum, one foot warm and one foot cold, and thinks he needs to pour himself a bit of something in order to get to sleep.

The older he gets, the more sleep becomes an unreliable friend.

His apartment is at the edge of town. There had once been plans for the city to expand eastward: half-hearted preparations had even been

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made, but nothing came of it. His window still looks out on a proliferation of little sheds and kitchen gardens and the endless space of the steppe beyond. Maybe it’s a sign of stagnation, but, as far as he’s concerned, things can stay this way; he likes the view.

In the kitchen, he takes the bottle of Kubanskaya from the freezer and pours himself a shot. He is not a heavy drinker; he practises restraint, unlike almost everyone else east of the Carpathians.

Then he moves back to the window and looks, with thoughts indistinct, into the chute of the night.

He hears his housekeeper coughing in the bedroom. Once a month he lays claim to her for a night, although the phrase doesn’t accurately reflect their relationship. It would be more like it to say that, once a month, she lets herself be claimed for a night. She determines which night that will be, always sometime shortly before her period. The manual to her reproductive system remains misty territory to him — something he’d rather not think about. When his day arrives, he hears about it.

Her fertile days, the housekeeper reserves for her fiancée, a truck driver ten years her junior. He pilots tractor trailers full of commodities from the People’s Republic to the capital, from whence a flood of trash inundates the country’s stores. Zita waits patiently for the day when he will propose to her.

No matter how hard she tries, though, she simply doesn’t get pregnant; if this keeps up, she’ll be childless forever. She spends a lot of time on her knees at the Benedictine chapel. Amid golden icons and plastic flowers, she prays fervently for a child. In the confessional, the priest listens to the people’s secrets; when he comes down the stairs in his black habit, his hand carves out the sign of the cross above her head, and he blesses her and the genuflecting farmwomen in their colourful kerchiefs. She feels the cross burning on her forehead; that night, the seed will blossom forth.

Dangling from the little chain around her neck, beside the golden cross, are the emblems of those saints to whom one can turn for fecundity.

Women, Pontus Beg reflects, are the pack animals of faith, carrying the world’s sanctity on their backs.

He has never been able to talk Zita into turning a blind eye and

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granting him one of those fertile nights. For he is sure that it is the truck driver who is remiss, not her. It’s the truck; so much sitting isn’t good for a man. It strangles your balls.

A child? Is he trying to say that he wants a child?

‘Don’t kid yourself, Pontus,’ Zita says.

He’s not serious, she thinks. And if he is, he shouldn’t be.

Beg is more appreciative of the services she performs in bed than those she renders with both feet on the floor. She is not a particularly good housekeeper. She doesn’t actually clean the house; she picks up after him. A jar of soft soap lasts her a year. They are long past the point where he can say anything about it. Habit has locked their relationship into place; nothing can change it anymore. As it is, so shall it remain.

She picks up after him, and he keeps his mouth shut.

When Zita stays over, he drinks more than usual. They sit at the table, smoking and talking. She becomes completely absorbed in the anecdotes he tells her. She laughs and shudders — she is a responsive audience. Some of the stories he has told her three or four times already, over the years, but she enjoys hearing him talk about the policeman’s life. At the table with Zita, alcohol doesn’t make him melancholy: on the contrary, it makes him cheerful and roguish. He looks forward to his evenings with her — they are the high point of his existence.

Then they go to bed. The light goes out.

When she is at his place, he often lies awake. He wonders whether perhaps he’s been alone too long, whether it’s impossible to get used to having another body beside him.

We have copies to give away FREE. See page 50 to claim yours.

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bes t bo o ks abou t. . .

scotland Ex-pat Dorothy Anderson hasn’t forgotten her heritage – here’s a flavour of some lesser-known personal favourites.

A SCOTS QUAIR Lewis Grassic Gibbon This wonderful trilogy takes its heroine, Chris Guthrie from the Great War to the hungry Thirties.

The evocation of a place and time is heart–rending and uplifting by turns. Chris has a hard life, losing a husband in the War, marrying a minister and moving from the country to the town. Through the story of one woman, we learn the story of a people for whom the land will always be important.

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THE LAND OF THE LEAL James Barke First read as a teenager, this struggle of working class Scots at the turn of the century has enthralled me ever since. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have read it. The Ramsay family had a tough time keeping their heads above water both financially and morally and James Barke, in telling their story, shines a light on many hard working families in turn of the century Scotland.

THE GOWK STORM Nancy Brysson Morrison As I never tire of telling people, April Fool ‘s Day in Scotland is known as Huntigowk – a gowk is a fool. There is often short, sudden snowfall around the beginning of April and this of course, is the Gowk storm. This

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novel tells of three sisters living in the Manse in the rigid patriarchal Scotland of one hundred years ago. There is anguish and misfortune here when Emmy falls in love with her best friend’s fiancé – a haunting tale.

WAX FRUIT Guy McCrone Another trilogy, set in Victorian Glasgow where the Moorhouse family have moved from Ayrshire. Arthur the businessman, David the playboy, Bel the social climber and Phoebe the great beauty embody this energetic and vibrant time of growth and success in a cosmopolitan city. Their hopes, and fears, triumphs, successes and failures make for a great read.

You choose the theme, you choose the books.

Then email guy.pringle@newbooksmag.com What are you waiting for?

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ometimes I simply can’t understand how certain books have escaped me for so long. So how grateful I am to Sylvie Tye for introducing me to the very powerful and moving Address Unknown by Kressmann Taylor.

It’s a very short book indeed, and can easily be read in half an hour or so. It should in fact be titled Addressee Unknown, as that is a more accurate translation from the German.

Be that as it may, the story was published in Story magazine in the US in 1938. The editors thought it “too strong to appear under the name of a woman” so author Kathrine Kressmann Taylor dropped the Kathrine and thereafter wrote under the name Kressmann Taylor. It consists of a series of letters written between friends, Martin and Max, German art dealers in the States. When he hears about all the good things that are happening in Germany under the leadership of Hitler, gentile Martin decides to go home, leaving Jewish Max to keep the business going in America. Between 1932 and 1934 the two exchange letters.

At first Martin’s to Max are full of cheerful news and reflect his enthusiasm for the new regime.

But gradually the tenor of the letters changes as he becomes more and more influenced by Nazi ideology. And that’s all I can say without giving away what happens next, and for full impact you really need to read

the letters for yourself, and experience the growing horror and suspense as the story unfolds.

Considering that Taylor was writing before the worst excesses of the Nazi regime had occurred, it’s a remarkably prescient book and one that demonstrates her grasp of the political situation in Germany.

Having just come back from Berlin (at the time of writing) and having visited Wannsee where the infamous Wannsee Conference took place and the details of the Final Solution were thrashed out, I found reading the book particularly chilling. Yes, it’s a book of its time and place, but it’s also a book for our time as well, as it shows how quickly and easily an otherwise good person can come under the sway of demagogic views and be so corrupted by them.

Read it – that’s all I can urge.

There are various versions available for free online, and most libraries will have a copy.

Or buy a copy that you can share with friends. It was a wake-up call for the world at the time and a wake-up call for us today. Hearts and minds can be perverted all too easily. The New York Times Book Review called it “the most effective indictment of Nazism to appear in fiction.” I’d go along with that.

Has Mandy Read…

An oversight corrected for Mandy, possibly – probably – our best read reader.

Want to issue a challenge to Mandy? Send your suggestions to guy.pringle@newbooksmag.com

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om rec m ded en

Here are just some of the many glowing endorsements for the nb Book of the Year

glad I read it. Thank you Matt Haig. Lucille Bozzetto, Gradignan This is a remarkable book: funny, wise, profound and very, very moving. I've bought seven copies so far, and want to make sure all my friends read it. Lifeaffirming and brilliant - well done, Matt Haig. Alison Cawley, Taunton My favourite book of all time!

An inspiring and imaginative novel with a heartwarming and wonderful ending! Lauren Ridsdale, Leeds

A deceptively light and humorous read, this SF fable pokes affectionate fun at the human race and imparts a good deal of wisdom in the process.

While the premise may not be the most original, Matt Haig develops it through the warmth and depth of his characterisation of Andrew Martin/alien as he begins to understand and ultimately fall in love with humanity. The phrase 'lifeaffirming' is rather overused but it's hard to think of a better one to describe this book; whatever our faults, frailties and failings, we are something pretty special.

Lesley Martin, Cambridge

The Humans After a devastating family tragedy, I read to escape reality...

The Humans was the book that guided me back. Karen Cole, Shaftesbury A beautiful book that defines what being a human is really about. The Humans stays with the reader even after finishing the book. Both sad and funny I think [it] will become a modern classic. Sarah Davis, London The Humans was really well written and helped me as I suffer from anxiety; it was really beautiful and made me laugh A LOT. I wanted to highlight almost every sentence. I'm so

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Everything about this book is sensational Amy Hughes, Preston

Loved the alien perspective on humanity. Katy Noyes, Chesterfield

No book has ever spoken about the human condition with more humour and honesty than Matt Haig’s The Humans. Paul Kelly, Doncaster

Deeply moving and compassionate and exceptionally funny all at the same time.

Victoria Randall, Bath

An absolutely perfect observation of human culture, done in such a beautiful surreal way. This is the only book I can honestly say has changed my life. Max Barrick, Portsmouth Brilliant and clever. A fantastic witty and funny read. Michaela Mcnamara, Birmingham

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The Humans – Matt Haig

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The man I was not

S

o, what is this?

You ready?

Okay. Inhale. I will tell you.

This book, this actual book, is set right here, on Earth. It is about the meaning of life and nothing at all. It is about what it takes to kill somebody, and save them. It is about love and dead poets and wholenut peanut butter. It’s about matter and anti-matter, everything and nothing, hope and hate. It’s about a forty-one-year-old female historian called Isobel and her fifteen-year-old son called Gulliver and the cleverest mathematician in the world. It is, in short, about how to become a human.

But let me state the obvious. I was not one. That first night, in the cold and the dark and the wind, I was nowhere near. Before I read Cosmopolitan, in the garage, I had never even seen this written language. I realise that this could be your first time too. To give you an idea of the way people here consume stories, I have put this book together as a human would. The words I use are human words, typed in a human font, laid out consecutively in the human style. With your almost instantaneous ability to translate even the most exotic and primitive linguistic forms, I trust comprehension should not be a problem.

Now, to reiterate, I was not Professor Andrew Martin. I was like you.

Professor Andrew Martin was merely a role. A disguise. Someone I needed to be in order to complete a task. A task that had begun with his abduction, and death. (I am conscious this is setting a grim tone, so I will resolve not to mention death again for at least the rest of this page.)

The point is that I was not a forty-three-year-old mathematician – husband, father – who taught at Cambridge University and who had devoted the last eight years of his life to solving a mathematical problem that had so far proved unsolvable.

Prior to arriving on Earth I did not have mid-brown hair that fell in a natural side-parting. Equally, I did not have an opinion on The Planets

by Holtz or Talking Heads’ second album, as I did not agree with the concept of music. Or I shouldn’t have, anyway. And how could I believe that Australian wine was automatically inferior to wine sourced from other regions on the planet when I had never drunk anything but

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liquid nitrogen?

Belonging as I did to a post-marital species, it goes without saying that I hadn’t been a neglectful husband with an eye for one of my students any more than I had been a man who walked his English Springer Spaniel – a category of hairy domestic deity otherwise known as a ‘dog’ – as an excuse to leave the house. Nor had I written books on mathematics, or insisted that my publishers use an author photograph that was now nearing its fifteenth anniversary.

No, I wasn’t that man.

I had no feeling for that man whatsoever. And yet he had been real, as real as you and I, a real mammalian life form, a diploid, eukaryotic primate who, five minutes before midnight, had been sitting at his desk, staring at his computer screen and drinking black coffee (don’t worry, I shall explain coffee and my misadventures with it a little later).

A life form who may or may not have jumped out of his chair as the breakthrough came, as his mind arrived at a place no human mind had ever reached before, the very edge of knowledge.

And at some point shortly after his breakthrough he had been taken by the hosts. My employers. I had even met him, for the very briefest of moments. Enough for the – wholly incomplete – reading to be made. It was complete physically, just not mentally. You see, you can clone human brains but not what is stored inside them, not much of it anyway, so I had to learn a lot of things for myself. I was a forty-threeyear-old newborn on planet Earth. It would become annoying to me, later on, that I had never met him properly, as meeting him properly would have been extremely useful. He could have told me about Maggie, for one thing. (Oh, how I wish he had told me about Maggie!)

However, any knowledge I gained was not going to alter the simple fact that I had to halt progress. That is what I was there for. To destroy evidence of the breakthrough Professor Andrew Martin had made.

Evidence that lived not only in computers but in living human beings.

Now, where should we start?

I suppose there is only one place. We should start with when I was hit by the car.

Detached nouns and other early trials for the language-learner Yes, like I said, we should start with when I was hit by the car.

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We have to, really. Because for quite a while before that there was nothing. There was nothing and nothing and nothing and— Something.

Me, standing there, on the ‘road’.

Once there, I had several immediate reactions. First, what was with the weather? I was not really used to weather you had to think about.

But this was England, a part of Earth where thinking about the weather was the chief human activity. And for good reason. Second, where was the computer? There was meant to be a computer. Not that I actually knew what Professor Martin’s computer would look like. Maybe it looked like a road. Third, what was that noise? A kind of muted roaring. And fourth: it was night. Being something of a homebird, I was not really accustomed to night. And even if I had been, this wasn’t just any night. It was the kind of night I had never known. This was night to the power of night to the power of night. This was night cubed. A sky full of uncompromising darkness, with no stars and no moon. Where were the suns? Were there even suns? The cold suggested there might not have been. The cold was a shock. The cold hurt my lungs, and the harsh wind beating against my skin caused me to shake. I wondered if humans ever went outside. They must have been insane if they did.

Inhaling was difficult, at first. And this was a concern. After all, inhaling really was one of the most important requirements of being a human. But I eventually got the knack.

And then another worry. I was not where I was meant to be, that was increasingly clear. I was meant to be where he had been. I was meant to be in an office, but this wasn’t an office. I knew that, even then. Not unless it was an office that contained an entire sky, complete with those dark, congregating clouds and that unseen moon.

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T H E Y S A Y, W E S A Y

Myriad present their new reading group friendly title Flight by Isabel Ashdown

THEY SAY Since she burst onto the literary scene in 2009 with her awardwinning debut, Glasshopper, Isabel Ashdown has rapidly established herself as one of the most perceptive and engaging authors writing today, with a gift for getting to the heart of complex relationships and a keen eye for the drama of everyday life. Her novels are firm book group favourites, featuring characters the reader really cares about and plenty of complex issues to discuss. Her second novel, Hurry Up and Wait, delved deep into the treacherous world of adolescent

and disappears. Twenty years later, her husband and daughter have found happiness, but their world is thrown into turmoil when Wren’s hiding place is discovered, and the shocking truth behind her disappearance finally begins to unfold.

Ashdown brilliantly explores the repercussions of Wren’s decision – for all of her loved ones and across the decades – while at the same time delving deep into the past she shared with her husband, Rob, and best friend, Laura. Flight is as much a story of friendship as it is of marriage and motherhood, exploring with compassion and

They Say, We Say friendships, and the heat and intensity infusing her third novel, Summer of ’76, provided the perfect setting for a simmering tale of a family under pressure in a community gripped by scandal.

In her latest novel, Flight, she breaks new ground with a devastating story about the impact the choices we make have on those we love, and least want to hurt. The novel begins with the unthinkable: a woman, watching the first ever lottery draw, realises that she has the winning ticket. But she doesn’t tell her husband; instead, she quietly packs her bags, kisses her newborn daughter goodbye, 48

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insight questions of truth, blame, and sacrifice. It’s a heartbreaking and deeply felt novel – once read never forgotten.

Readers may recall that Hurry Up and Wait and Summer of ’76 were a Double Exposure feature in nb76, back in July 2013.

Flight by Isabel Ashdown is published by Myriad as a £7.99 pbk and is available 7th May.

T H E Y S A Y, W E S A Y

WE SAY I am a great fan of Isabel Ashdown’s novels, so the chance to review an advance copy of her latest novel in pdf form on the day I fractured my elbow – providing me with more time while I struggled to hold a book – was a definite example of a silver lining.

And I wasn’t disappointed...

Ashdown portrays the intensity of adolescent and young adult relationships superbly and is cannily accurate on both the minutiae and complexity of family life, particularly in the secrecy and turbulence which underlies even apparently happy marriages.

All three [characters] are sympathetically portrayed and I certainly did not have a favourite... how many of us have friends whom we love dearly but who can drive us to distraction? As the past, which haunts all the characters, is gradually revealed, the book develops real depth and complexity and I was totally captivated. And for those who haven’t come across her, I recommend Isabel Ashdown’s earlier novels.

Ann Smout, Isle of Wight Personal read..................................★★★★★ Group read ......................................★★★★★

I loved this book! A compelling story of three friends, which is well written, and a compulsive read that I couldn’t put down – always a sign of a good book... I loved the way the narrative of

this novel flowed. This book has definitely made me want to explore the other works by this author. I like her flowing, descriptive writing, which has great clarity and meaning.

This would be a great group read – sparking conversations about the morality of the situation – abandoning baby and husband and whether Wren was right to keep all the National Lottery winnings to herself. Equally it is a great individual read.

Jane Pepler, Wantage Personal read..................................★★★★★ Group read ......................................★★★★★

Laura you gain insight into what people are prepared to both escape from and give up when creating a family. Overall I enjoyed the book, very well written, though I worked out some of the surprises it was still a carefully planned and written novel.

Gwen Percival, Beverley Personal read......................................★★★★ Group read ......................................★★★★★

This is my first Isabel Ashdown, but it won't be my last. Very readable and enjoyable, with key themes of motherhood, friendship and abandonment, I

Cannily accurate on both the minutiae and complexity of family life Flight concentrates on the friendship of Robert, Laura and Wren, long time friends and a trio that were never apart even though the trio’s relationship changed and altered over the years until the night of the first lottery draw when Wren chose to alter everyone's life forever.

The next twenty years are seen from each main character’s point of view, showing personal memories and feelings over one person’s actions and the trouble with secret-keeping continues to haunt Wren's life until everything comes to a head. From slightly hapless Rob, to steadfast

liked the characters and Ashdown’s understanding and depth. Towards the end something I believed was obvious within the story surprised me with a clever twist... I'm always impressed when an author can achieve this. An excellent read – groups would find much to discuss in Wren's actions.

Nicola Smith, Sheffield Personal read......................................★★★★ Group read ..........................................★★★★

Longer versions of these reviews can be found on www.nudge-book.com

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om rec m ded en

Karen Maitland on the background and inspiration for The Vanishing Witch

woman executed.

Second inspiration came when I saw the London riots in 2011. The reasons usually given are inequality and the economic situation. The same happened in 1381 when ordinary people took to the streets in an orgy of destruction, sparked by unfair taxes and corruption of government ministers. It was a summer of heat and madness, when rioters believed that they would be stopped. But the authorities reacted too late and people went on to commit crimes they’d never normally dreamed of doing. One of the

and no one is stopping me.’ In 2011, they blamed the spread of the riots to other cities on social media. There was no internet in 1381, yet the riots spread.

The final element which inspired the novel was Lincoln, an ancient Roman and medieval city, said to be one of the most haunted in England, where the living and the dead jostle together down every medieval street and alleyway. It is a city where the ghosts seem determined that their story will be heard, too.

The Vanishing Witch Inspiration for this novel was born from three ideas which came to me years apart, but suddenly locked together. The first was the trial records of Alice Kyteler, a wealthy woman, who in 1324 was accused of witchcraft. Her own sons claimed she had murdered three husbands and was attempting to murder a fourth. She vanished before the trial and I always wondered whether she was guilty or her sons were acting out of spite and greed, trying to get an innocent 52

elements I wanted to explore is whether society and individuals can ever escape their history or are the seeds of destruction already planted in the new order?

Most adults develop some kind of moral restraint or fear of the consequences, which limits their actions. Children often don’t have these inner restraints, making them far more ruthless and dangerous. But in both 1381 and 2011, adults suddenly reverted to children. What began with genuine grievances, quickly deteriorated into a powerful child-like sense of ‘I kill and destroy because I can

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We have copies to give away free. See page 50 to claim yours.

The Vanishing Witch by Karen Maitland is published by Headline Review as a £7.99 pbk and is available 12th March. Also from Karen in March, The Ravenshead, published in tpbk and ebook price £12.99.

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hile I lived I was never one of those who could see ghosts. I thought those who claimed they did were either moon-touched or liars. But when you’re dead, my darlings, you find yourself amazed at what you didn’t see when you were alive. I exist now in a strange half-light. I see the trees and cottages, byres and windmills, but not as they once were to me. They’re pale, with only hints of colour, like unripe fruit. They’re new to this world. But I see other cottages too, those that had crumbled to dust long before I was born. They’re still there, crowded into the villages, snuggled tight between the hills, old and ripe, rich with hues of yellow and brown, red clay and white limewash. They’re brighter, but less solid than the new ones, like reflections in the still waters of a lake, seeming so vibrant, yet the first breeze will riffle them into nothing.

And so it is with people. The living are there, not yet ripe enough to fall from the bough of life into death. But they are not the only ones who pass along the streets and alleys or roam the forests and moors.

There are others, like me, who have left life, but cannot enter death.

Some stay where they lived, repeating a walk or a task, believing that if only they could complete it they might depart. They never will. Others wander the highways looking for a cave, a track or a door that will lead from this world to the one beyond, full of such wonders as they have only dreamed of.

Many, the saddest of all, try to rejoin the living. Sweethearts run in vain after their lovers, begging them to turn and look at them. Children scrabble nightly at the doors of cottages, crying for a mother, any mother, to take them in and love them. Babies lurk down wells or lie under sods, waiting their chance to creep inside a living woman’s womb and be born again as her child.

And me? I cannot depart, not yet. I was wrenched out of life before my time, hurled into death without warning, so I must tarry until I have seen my tale to its proper conclusion for there is someone I watch and someone I watch over. I will not leave them until I’ve brought their stories to an end.

Robert of Bassingham gazed at the eleven other members of the Common Council, slouching in their chairs, and sighed. It had been a

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long afternoon. The old guildhall chamber was built across the main thoroughfare of Lincoln city, and the bellows of pedlars, the rumble of carts and ox wagons, the chatter of people clacking over the stones in wooden pattens meant that the small windows of the chamber had to be kept shut, if the aged members were to hear the man next to them.

As a consequence, the air was stale with the sour breath of old men and the lingering odour of the mutton olives, goat chops and pork meatballs on which the councillors had been grazing. It being a warm day, they’d been compelled to wash down these morsels with flagons of costly hippocras, a spiced wine, which had already worked its soporific magic on several. Three of the sleepers had carefully positioned a hand over their eyes so that they could pretend to be concentrating, while a fourth was lolling with his mouth open, snoring and farting almost as loudly as the hound at his feet.

Robert was inordinately fond of hippocras but had deliberately refrained from imbibing, knowing he, too, would doze off. He was painfully conscious of the heavy responsibilities he had now assumed as the newly elected master of the Guild of Merchants, the most powerful guild in Lincolnshire and still the wealthiest, even though it was not as prosperous as once it had been.

Robert was a cloth merchant of the city of Lincoln, well respected – at least, by those who measure a man’s worth by the size of his purse and influence. He made a good living selling wool and the red and green cloth for which Lincoln was justly famed. Having only recently been appointed to serve on the Common Council he was one of its younger members, still in his early fifties.

He had acquired his wealth painstakingly over the years, for though he was a numbskull in matters of love, he was shrewd in business. He’d bought a stretch of the land on the bank of the river Witham from a widow after her husband’s death, having persuaded her it was worth little, which you could argue was the truth: the ground was too marshy even for sheep to thrive on it. But a Lincoln merchant must have boats to send his goods to the great port at Boston and boatmen must have somewhere to live close to the river: Robert had built a few cottages on the wasteland and earned a good sum renting them to those who carried his cargoes. If ‘earn’ is the right word for money that a man demands from others but never collects in person. And, believe me,

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there were many men in England that year who had cause to resent all such landlords . . .

Robert banged his pewter beaker of small ale on the long table. The slumbering members jerked upright, glowering at him. Had not the newcomer the common courtesy to let a man sleep in peace?

‘I say again,’ Robert announced, ‘we must petition King Richard to give us leave to raise an additional tax in Lincoln to rebuild the guildhall.’ He gestured to the ominous cracks in the stone wall, which were almost wide enough to insert a finger in. ‘If another wagon should crash into the pillar below, it will bring us all tumbling down into the street.’

‘But the townspeople will never stand for it,’ Hugh de Garwell protested. ‘Thanks to John of Gaunt whispering in the young King’s ear, the commonality have already been bled dry to raise money for these pointless wars in France and Scotland.’

Several council members glanced uneasily at one another. It was hard to determine how far you could criticise the boy-king in public without being accused of treason, and while King Richard might yet forgive much, his uncle, John of Gaunt, had spies everywhere and was known to deal ruthlessly with any man who so much as muttered a complaint in his sleep. And since Gaunt was constable of Lincoln Castle, no one in that chamber could be certain that one of his fellow council members was not in that devil’s pay.

Robert regarded Hugh sourly. They were, for the most part, good friends, but it irritated him that Hugh seemed convinced a city could be run on pennies and pig-swill. He heaved himself from the chair and paced to the small window, trying to ease the cramp in his legs, as he stared down at the crowds milling below.

‘See there! Three carts trying to barge through the arch at the same time and none of them willing to give way to another. The people may not want to pay, but if this building collapses on top of them, dozens will be crushed in the rubble. Then they’ll be demanding to know why we didn’t do something sooner.’

We have copies to give away FREE. See page 50 to claim yours.

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T

he Wainwright Prize seeks to reward the best writing on the general outdoors, nature and UK-based travel writing and is sponsored

by Thwaites Brewery, who produce the bestselling ‘Wainwright Ale’. The prize will be awarded to the work which best reflects Wainwright’s core values of Great British writing & culture and a celebration of the outdoors. Awarded in association with The National Trust, the shortlist will be announced 26th March and the prize is awarded 22nd April.

The Wainwright Prize 2015 LONGLIST: Britannia Obscura: Mapping Hidden Britain by Joanne Parker (Vintage, Penguin Random House) Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet by Mark Cocker (Vintage, Penguin Random House) Counting Sheep by Philip Walling (Profile) H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (Vintage, Penguin Random House)

56

Meadowland by John LewisStempel (Transworld Publishers)

The Moor by William Atkins (Faber & Faber)

On Silbury Hill by Adam Thorpe (Little Toller Books)

The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs by Tristan Gooley (Hodder & Stoughton)

Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place by Philip Marsden (Granta Publications)

Walking Home by Clare Balding (Penguin Books)

Running Free: A Runner’s Journey Back to Nature by Richard Askwith (Vintage/Yellow Jersey, Penguin Random House) The Ash Tree by Oliver Rackham (Little Toller Books)

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More information about the longlist is on nudge-book.com or visit the awards website: www.wainwrightprize.com

Photo: Michael Lionstar

DOUBLE EXPOSURE

Anne Tyler on ‘My favourite of all my books’.

it was solely mine, and it had a window over the street that let the sounds of the neighborhood come through while I was at work. So I wasn’t happy about letting Uncle-Twice-Removed have my writing room for himself. I was confined to a cramped space between the foot of our bed and the bathroom, writing in longhand on a sixinch-wide surface to the right of my typewriter (this was in the days before computers), after which I typed up what I had written and then retreated to our bed to read it over and correct it.

for an extended period of time, during which all their secret flaws and virtues come to light.

Actually, the daughter did say that, but she was referring to marriage. However, it’s even truer about families in general, because families are much harder to escape than marriages.

At least with marriage, you can get a divorce. It’s only in certain extreme situations that people divorce their families.

But that’s what makes families such perfect material for a novelist. You put these people together and they can’t

Anne Tyler “

Part of the time that I was writing Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, an in-law from Iran was sleeping on the daybed in my writing room. We did have a guest room, but he felt that was too far away from the family. So I wrote in the bedroom I shared with my husband, on a little metal stenographer’s desk that I’d wheeled in from my writing room after I’d been evicted. My writing room was not very big, and certainly not very fancy. I think it was meant to be a baby’s room. But I loved it, and

Family! I thought. And, A plague on the whole institution!

Also, at this particular stage in my life our older daughter had turned into a teenager, and our younger daughter wasn’t far behind her.

So there I was, writing a book about a family, and feeling trapped by family.

As the daughter in that book might have said, families are like disaster movies. They’re like those situations where some catastrophe – a shipwreck or an earthquake – throws the participants into close quarters

escape; they’re forced to grate along somehow, trying their pathetic best, working it out.

And the novelist gets to study how they do it – or how they don’t.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is my favourite of all my books. I’m sorry to tell you that, because it was only my ninth. I have written nineteen.

Ideally, my nineteenth should be my favourite; we all hope to get better and better at our work. But while my later books may be more polished, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

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DOUBLE EXPOSURE

remains, somehow, the truest. It turns out that the trajectory of an entire life’s writing may not be a steadily rising incline, as I had always imagined, but an up-anddown road punctuated somewhere near the middle by a book that comes along just when the writer has finally assembled the tools to say what matters most to her. And having said that, what more can she say? Oh, she can certainly tell other stories and examine other issues.

But she’ll never again write quite so much from the heart.

I have to admit that I’ve forgotten how the book got its start. I do know that at the time, my husband was rising very early every morning to go to work, and therefore our clock radio was coming on at an ungodly hour. It was the exact hour that Norman Vincent Peale was delivering his daily ‘sermonette,’ followed by a hymn. And one morning, the hymn was ‘In the Sweet Bye and Bye.’ When the words ‘We will meet on that beautiful shore’ filtered into my sleep, I dreamed that my two daughters, many years younger, were meeting us in front of our rented beach cottage in their little tutu bathing suits on the first day of a long-ago beach vacation. I woke up with tears in my eyes, thinking, ‘That is my picture of heaven.’ So there you have the initial scene with Pearl Tull on her deathbed.

But where did the rest of it come from? I remember putting 58

a son at Pearl’s bedside – just any old son, no one distinct yet – and arbitrarily assigning him the profession of restaurant owner. And then I surely must have drawn on my whimsical notion – a ‘what-if ?’ of many years’ standing – involving a restaurant whose aim was to give diners what a home meal was supposed to provide but seldom did. The rest of it, though: who dictated it to me?

Because that was what it felt like: someone telling me a story that I obediently wrote down.

None of it had the slightest basis in reality, even though it’s true that my mother wouldn’t speak to me for months after the book was published. But then, my mother thought she was the mother in every book I ever wrote, never with the slightest justification. The fact is that the characters in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant were entirely imaginary. They arrived out of nowhere. And yet they felt familiar, even though I swear I’d never known a one of them.

Poor Pearl Tull, narrowspirited but all too easy to empathise with; tortured Cody, brittle Jenny, and dear Ezra.

They’ve stayed on, to my surprise. More than once, characters in my later novels have gone out for a bite to eat; I’m the only one who knows that they’ve gone to the Homesick Restaurant. And in my most recent book, it seems the restaurant is now managed

by Ezra’s nephew Luke, but I

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will confide that Ezra is still the owner, still very much alive, still trudging along the same as ever.

I always choose to end my novels at the moment when I know for certain where the characters will be from then on.

That’s why I haven’t felt the need to write a sequel to Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. I know exactly where Ezra is, and there are no more stories to tell about him. But I never would have predicted that where he is, it turns out, is with me. I’m trapped again! Trapped by family, and in this case, not even my own.”

Anne Tyler Baltimore, Maryland 2013

We have copies to give away FREE of both Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant and A Spool of Blue Thread, her 20th novel. On the facing page we are especially pleased to bring you an extract from the latter.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is published by Vintage price £8.99 and A Spool of Blue Thread is published

by Chatto & Windus price £18.99. Both are available now.

A Spool Of Blue Thread – Anne Tyler

L

ate one july evening in 1994, Red and Abby Whitshank had a phone call from their son Denny. They were getting ready for bed at the time. Abby was standing at the bureau in her slip, drawing hairpins one by one from her scattery sand- colored topknot. Red, a dark, gaunt man in striped pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt, had just sat down on the edge of the bed to take his socks off; so when the phone rang on the nightstand beside him, he was the one who answered. “Whitshank residence,” he said.

And then, “Well, hey there.”

Abby turned from the mirror, both arms still raised to her head.

“What’s that,” he said, without a question mark.

“Huh?” he said. “Oh, what the hell, Denny!”

Abby dropped her arms.

“Hello?” he said. “Wait. Hello? Hello?”

He was silent for a moment, and then he replaced the receiver.

“What?” Abby asked him.

“Says he’s gay.”

“What?”

“Said he needed to tell me something: he’s gay.”

“And you hung up on him!”

“No, Abby. He hung up on me. All I said was ‘What the hell,’ and he hung up on me. Click! Just like that.”

“Oh, Red, how could you?” Abby wailed. She spun away to reach for her bathrobe— a no- color chenille that had once been pink. She wrapped it around her and tied the sash tightly. “What possessed you to say that?” she asked him.

“I didn’t mean anything by it! Somebody springs something on you, you’re going to say ‘What the hell,’ right?”

Abby grabbed a handful of the hair that pouffed over her forehead.“ All I meant was,” Red said, “ ‘What the hell next, Denny? What are you going to think up next to worry us with?’ And he knew I meant that. Believe me, he knew. But now he can make this all my fault, my narrow- mindedness or fuddy- duddiness or whatever he wants to call it. He was glad I said that to him. You could tell by how fast he hung up on me; he’d been just hoping all along that I would say the wrong thing.”

We have copies to give away FREE. See page 50 to claim yours.

And Other Stories are using new technology to revisit an old way of selling books. Publisher Stefan Tobler let us in on the secret.

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hat do you publish?

We publish mainly fiction, including many translations, but now also have poetry and literary non-fiction in our catalogue. It's all about fresh, exciting writing for us. Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award; his second novel Quesadillas is just as funny and imaginative and is currently on the IMPAC Dublin Prize longlist; his third comes out in 2016. Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home was Man Booker Prize shortlisted in

of world-class, brilliant books weren't available in translation for an English audience, and wanted to help get these books the readership they deserved. I soon realised that many of the best writers in English also struggle to find a publishing house for no good reason.

What’s your ‘new’ way of selling books? Back in 2010 we appealed for book subscribers just like an eighteenth-century publisher would have done, we believe we were the first contemporary UK publisher to harness grassroots support from

New Kid on the Block 2012; the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award shortlisted her story collection Black Vodka in 2013 and we've just published a lovely foiled red-and-gold hardback of her poetry: the love affair between a well-travelled angel with thighs like Tina Turner's and a homely accountant – told in An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell.

For more on And Other Stories go to www.andotherstories.org And see pages 28-29 for more on two of their latest discoveries.

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individuals – ie crowdfunding – as a major part of our model.

We did it because we wanted to publish books we knew might cost a lot initially, including translations. Subscribers' support allows for risk-taking in publishing as each subscription book has guaranteed sales. Book lovers can subscribe to two, four or six upcoming titles each year and receive them before they hit the shops. Yet involvement can go further. People are When did you set up, and warmly invited to join in by what’s the story behind you? helping to find the best titles to Before setting up And Other publish via And Other Stories’ Stories, I was a literary translator reading groups. The groups are from German and Portuguese a chance for people to suggest into English. I had become books they really love which frustrated that a huge number could be published in English.

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righton-based Myriad is known for its editorial excellence, ability to spot and nurture talent, and launch the careers of notable and award-winning authors, such as Jonathan Kemp, Sue Eckstein and Tyler Keevil.

Myriad’s bestsellers include Darryl Cunningham, Kate Evans, Lesley Thomson and, most notably, Elizabeth Haynes, whose debut novel, Into the Darkest Corner, has sold 750,000+ copies.

As part of their mission to support and encourage new

2016 award.

Unlike most publishers, Myriad has an ‘open-door’ policy encouraging new writers to submit manuscripts directly on which they offer constructive feedback and advice on getting published.

Myriad also collaborates with universities, colleges and other arts organisations to initiate creative projects such as their flash fictions app, ‘Quick Fictions’, which was listed in The Sunday Times’ Top 500 Apps. Three years ago Myriad partnered with the University of Sussex to launch First Fictions, a bi-annual festival

ambition and delusion, The Opportunity. In addition, there is award-winning author Jonathan Kemp's eagerly awaited second novel, Ghosting, in March – (reviewed in the Directory). This is followed by Sally O’Reilly's highlyacclaimed historical novel, Dark Aemilia, released in paperback to coincide with Shakespeare’s birthday in April.

Not forgetting Isabel Ashdown’s fourth novel, Flight –See They Say, We Say page 48-49.

Myriad – 10 years writers, Myriad’s First Drafts Competition has an impressive track record of identifying home-grown talent at an early stage, including Lisa Cutts whose two crime novels, Never Forget and Remember, Remember, have been optioned for a major TV deal.

A First Graphic Novel Competition has followed with publication of the inaugural winning entry, The Black Project by Gareth Brookes, as well as two runners up Naming Monsters by Hannah Eaton and The Bad Doctor by Ian Williams. Now biennial, this competition will soon be inviting submissions for its

designed to showcase new literary works and innovations, and to create an opportunity for audiences to engage with household names as well as new authors.

Myriad describes its growing list as ‘bold, eclectic and full of character’ and this is spot on: coming up this year are five exciting fiction debuts (The Longest Fight by Emily Bullock (see p.26), Hush by Sara Marshall-Ball, The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock, How You See Me by S.E.Craythorne and Belonging by Umi Sinha), a searing graphic memoir, Becoming Unbecoming by Una, and Will Volley’s debut story of

Celebrating 10 years of publishing with 10 breathtakingly original new books.

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The ‘real’ Eliza Doolittle is brought to life

by Hazel Gaynor

young girls and women a home at his ‘crippleage’ where he taught them how to make artificial flowers and took them off the streets.

Through further reading, I discovered Henry Mayhew’s, London Labour & The London Poor. Discovering these lost voices from the past was a novelist’s dream, but it was Mayhew’s interview with two orphaned watercress sellers that especially resonated. I knew immediately that I had found my story and that I wanted to combine the idea of two orphaned sisters with the work

between the girls and women in the homes they shared. For many, it was the first time they had experienced any sort of family life, and from this, I developed the novel’s central theme of family relationships - particularly the relationship between sisters.

One of my favourite aspects of writing is in bringing historical settings to life and creating memorable characters. I loved developing my principal cast: the young flower-seller sisters, Florrie and Rosie; Marguerite Ingram, who enjoys a life of privilege, and Tilly Harper, the young woman who arrives in London to work

A Memory of Violets I’d loved Pygmalion and My Fair Lady since playing the role of Eliza Doolittle in the school musical. I wanted to understand more about the real Elizas – the young women who sold flowers and watercress on the streets of Victorian and Edwardian-era London.

During my research, I was surprised to learn that many of the youngest flower sellers were orphaned, blind or physically disabled in some way. I also discovered the work of Victorian philanthropist, John Groom, who gave many of these 62

of John Groom and his Flower Homes.

Of particular help to me was time spent at the London Metropolitan Archives, where I gathered a vast amount of information about Groom’s Flower Homes in London and his ‘Flower Village’ orphanage in Clacton. From newspaper reports, photographs, business ledgers, personal letters and other fascinating items from the period, I developed a real sense of these young girls and women and what it meant to them to have been given an opportunity to improve their circumstances in life. I also got a real sense of the family bond that existed

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at the Flower Homes and who ultimately connects all the threads of the story as it reaches its emotional conclusion.

We have copies to give away free. See page 50 to claim yours.

A Memory of Violets by Hazel Gaynor is published by William Morrow Paperbacks as a £7.99 pbk and ebook and is available 12th March.

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lad to be left on her own again, Tilly quickly changed into one of her cotton dresses, stepping out of the skirt she’d spent all day in, which, by now, was as wrinkled as a winter apple. She placed the silk freesias among the roses and violets in the vase on the windowsill and returned to her task of folding her undergarments and straightening the blankets, welcoming the familiarity of a simple, domestic task and the distraction it provided from alarming encounters in wardrobes.

As she bent down to grab the rest of the blankets from Buttons’s hiding place, her eye was drawn to a slim wooden box nestling in the corner at the very back of the wardrobe. She presumed it must have been beneath the blankets before Buttons disturbed them. Maybe Buttons had left it there. Intrigued to see what it was, Tilly grabbed an edge and pulled it out, bringing a shower of dust with it.

She turned the box around in her hands, running her fingertips over the smooth surface of the wood. There was nothing particularly remarkable about it: just a simple dark brown box, the width of her lap, with a thin, lavender-coloured silk ribbon tied in a neat bow across the lid. The ribbon personalized the box, suggesting that someone had cared about its contents. Tilly stood for a moment, wondering what to do. Maybe she should be put it back? Forget about it. What if the box did belong to Buttons and she reappeared at any moment to claim it?

The last thing Tilly wanted on the first day of her new job was to be accused of being a snoop. And yet, what harm would she be doing by taking just a quick peek inside?

Carrying the box over to the writing table, she settled herself at the chair. Taking a quick glance back toward the door, she listened for the sound of footsteps on the stairs. All was quiet. Reassured that nobody was coming, she carefully untied the ribbon. It fell aside easily, like a deep breath, gratefully exhaled. She lifted the lid, the perfume of violets intensifying around her as she did.

Inside the box was a small leather-bound notebook, its tan cover creased and worn with age. There was also a wooden clothes peg, a black button, a doll made of rags, and a postcard bearing a faded photograph of a group of young girls clustered around a display of flowers. The label at the bottom read, SHAW’S HOMES FOR WATERCRESS AND FLOWER GIRLS, 1883. Tilly lifted each item

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out of the box, wondering who they had belonged to. On the back of the postcard someone had written, “December 1884. You will find her.

I know you will. Happy Christmas. Lily B. x” At the bottom of the box was a delicate lace handkerchief, stained and spoiled a little with age.

Lifting it up to the light of the window, she saw the faint outline of shamrocks stitched into one corner. Her thoughts flashed back to the train. To Mrs. Ingram.

Walking over to the bed, Tilly spread the dusty items across the counterpane. It was a strange assortment of things. Why would somebody keep a peg—and a single button? But she was most interested in the leather-bound notebook. Opening it carefully, she read the inscription on the inside cover.

For Little Sister.

All flowers are beautiful, but some are more beautiful than others.

I will never stop looking for you.

Flora Flynn Tilly carefully turned the fragile faded pages, intrigued by the neat handwriting. The paper smelled musty and crackled as she turned more pages, the same, careful writing filling each one. As she turned a page toward the middle of the book, something fell into her lap. A flower. A pale yellow primrose, dry as an autumn leaf and paper-thin.

She thought of her flower press at home, of all the beautiful wildflowers she had carefully placed between the layers of blotting paper: buttercups, harebells, bell heather, wild daffodils, summer snowflakes, bluebells, foxgloves, and marsh orchids.

She remembered collecting them, each and every one.

Turning the notebook upside down, she shook it gently, sending several more flowers tumbling from their hiding places between the pages: purple hyacinth, pink carnations, primroses, and pansies, each fluttering gracefully into her lap, like butterflies released from a display case.

She picked up each flower, running her fingers lightly over its delicate form. She held a primrose toward the window, rubbing the stem between her thumb and forefinger so that it twisted back and forth,

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catching the light. It was almost translucent. She gazed at the skeletal structure of the leaf, every vein and cell of the petals. It was such a beautiful, fragile little thing. Looking back through the book, she saw that on each page from which a flower had fallen was the faintest of imprints; a shadow of the flower’s image left permanently on the paper.

Like a distant echo, the images spoke to her, whispering secrets of a forgotten past. Whose hand had placed the flowers here? Who had written these pages and pages of words?

As the surroundings of her new home faded into the background, Tilly settled herself against the pillow, turned back to the first page of the book, and started to read.

Flower Village. Clacton. June 18, 1880.

I been going to school these past years and learning my writing, Rosie, so as I can tell you what I been doing. Mother says my words is coming on grand. Mother is what we call the nice lady what looks after us here at the orphanage. It’s by the sea. I watch the pleasure boats come up from London and think of us watching them leave Westminster Pier that day. That were four year ago, Rosie, and never a day passes that I don’t think of you. I imagine you in the streets around Covent Garden, selling your cresses and violets. “Buy a flower off a poor girl? Oh, please, miss. Do buy a flower.”

I remember how ye’d sniff the sweet air of the flower markets, breathing it in like it was bringing ye back to life. And I’d tell you about all the different colours, what with you not being able to see them for yourself: the red and white roses, the pink peonies, the cream and lavender tulips, the purple stocks and hyacinths, and the reels and reels of shiny satin ribbon in every colour of the rainbow.

Don’t think I could bear to see it now, what with you not being beside me. I ask Mr. Shaw about you when I see him. He says they keep looking all around the markets and such, but that nobody sees a little girl with hair like flames. But she must be there, I tell him, she must.

But ye never are, Rosie Flynn. Ye never are.

We have copies to give away FREE. See page 50 to claim yours.

R U DYA R D

K IP L I N G

1865 – 1936

R U D YA R D K I P L I N G In the 150 years since Kipling’s birth his reputation has soared... and suffered. nb feels a reassessment of the man and his work is timely.

THE EARLY YEARS Kipling used to say that he was born ‘between the palms and the sea’. The location was certainly exotic: the Indian servants sacrificed a goat to speed up the baby’s delivery, while the Towers of Silence, where Bombay’s Parsees laid out their dead for the vultures, wasn’t far away. When a child’s hand was picked up in the garden little Ruddy was discouraged from asking questions.

Otherwise it was a garden of delights, where an old white ox trod slowly around the well, raising water for the household.

The most important member of that household for the little boy was Ayah, rather than the parents he saw only for a limited time each day.

That vivid world of love and trust was snatched away before he was six, when he was taken with his little sister Alice, known as Trix, to Southsea, Portsmouth and left in the power of a foster-mother who tormented and humiliated him.

The boy who survived six years of such treatment was not at all sure about finding love, when it 66

came to women.

Longing for intimacy, trustful, only later determined on sex, his erotic career proved a series of ricochets. Infatuated with an older girl, Flo Garrard, he declared himself engaged at sixteen. India, where he returned to work at the Civil and Military Gazette, brought the freedom to visit prostitutes but that wasn’t enough. ‘Usual philander in [Shalimar] Gardens’, he wrote glumly.

He developed a close friendship with the married Edmonia Hill. Sliding cautiously sideways, he became engaged to her sister. When that broke off he revived his passion for Flo Garrard. Settled back in London and grown close to Carrie Balestier, the

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sister of his close friend, Wolcottt, he rushed off to India.

Once there tragedy struck.

Carrie’s brother died suddenly. ’Come back to me’ she telegraphed Lahore. Profound instinct and unique opportunity combined. On reaching England he procured a special licence. A week later he married Carrie Balestier. By the end of that year he was writing The Jungle Book.

Mary Hamer has contributed to television and radio programmes, such as In Search of Cleopatra, Women’s Hour and Night Waves.

Kipling and Trix is her fifth book and first novel, published by Aurora Metro in paperback, price £9.99.

See also mary-hamer.com

RUDYARD

KIP LING

Not only is Philipa Coughlan a regular reviewer for nb but she is also a Volunteer House Guide at Bateman's, Kipling’s Sussex home, now managed by the National Trust.

‘Give me the child until he is seven and I'll give you the man,' is often quoted from words by St. Francis Xavier. Rudyard Kipling himself begins his short but unfinished autobiography Something of Myself with an adaptation of the very same phrase – a view now widely accepted. With 2015 marking many literary anniversaries, it is good to see the once demonised patriot of Empire and often neglected writer Kipling now being more widely discussed as one of the great storytellers of our age.

He may have been a writer of world renown but his life had more than its share of tragedies.

His first born daughter, six year old Josephine, died of pneumonia in New York whilst on a family visit to America.

Photo: National Trust

OUR REPORTER ON SITE

Bateman’s across the lily pond

This was a place that was to become synonymous with tragedy despite (or perhaps due to) it being his wife Carrie’s family home. Rudyard himself was too ill to even attend young Josephine's funeral or hear of his daughter's death until three weeks later. The light of his life, and inspiration for The Jungle Book and the later Just So Stories had been extinguished.

Josephine's name was never again mentioned by Kipling.

Many consider much of Rudyard's life to have been spent in India, but both he and Carrie spent much of their lives travelling. The few early marital years in Brattleboro' Vermont were to end unhappily, but gave Rudyard a start on his creativity and fame, and the birth of his first two children which brought him much happiness.

Trips to South Africa saw Rudyard forging ahead with politics and associations with

those like Cecil Rhodes and the effects of the Boer War, where his involvement would colour later accusations of ill advised patriotism. Yet Kipling as the man and writer, was never in awe of patronage or fame for its own sake preferring to spend time with the soldiers in the field and to only accept one award in his lifetime for his writing alone - the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.

Eventually with the birth of their third child John, whilst Rudyard and Carrie were living near their beloved Auntie Georgie and Uncle Ned in Rottingdean, the couple set out to find a new permanent 'family' home in Sussex. In 1902 finally securing Bateman's, nestled in the Dudwell Valley near Burwash, Rudyard claimed he had 'finally discovered England' and a final, more settled phase for him begins when they move in. Rudyard

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R U DYA R D

K IP L I N G

made use of the Nobel cash prize to design and develop the garden at Bateman's with a rose garden and pond, where he took delight in taking visitors for trips on a boat and hoping they would be entered in the guest book as F.I.P. (fell in pond!).

When visiting Bateman's, visitors are invited to ring the front door bell in the stone porch which even has Rudyard and his family’s initials etched into the stonework. An ornate metal pull handle was brought from The Grange in Fulham, the home of Aunt Georgie and Uncle Ned (actually PreRaphaelite artist, Sir Edward Burne-Jones). It became a symbol of escape and identity for a child that felt abandoned but could not tell of his emotional turmoil. Ringing that bell had meant escape from cruelty and to be somehow loved and wanted as himself, his hope being that 'any children calling at his home would have as wonderful a time as he had done in [The Grange].'

Carrie was only to live a further three years, after Kipling's death at 70 in January 1936. On her death Bateman's and its contents passed to the care of the National Trust.

Today visitors can still see where the original furniture and possessions from the Kipling family were placed in the rooms of the 1634 property - almost untouched from the times when they were still in residence.

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Many readers aware of Kipling's life will know all too well of the tragic death at only 18 years of his son John, at the Battle of Loos during his first foray into the mud and trenches of the First World War. This centenary is being commemorated at Bateman's with a moving exhibition which includes for the first time the display of John's medals and excerpts from letters between John and Rudyard (Daddo) including the sad last words from son to father on the eve of his death.

As someone steeped in the world of Kipling, we asked Philipa to read and review Mary Hamer’s book.

Usually, our reviews are – deliberately – short and to the point; we don’t want you to feel that having read the review, you don’t now need to read the book! However, Philipa has brought her lively mind and deep knowledge to Kipling and Trix and has given us a superb assessment of both the novel and Kipling’s real life.

We have only been able to bring you a taste of Philipa’s erudition here but would urge you to visit the full piece on nudge-book.com.

You really will feel enlightened.

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OUR HERITAGE

We look after historic houses, gardens, mills, coastline, forests, farmland, moorland, islands, castles, nature reserves, villages... and pubs.

As a mission statement this is quite a claim, but of course that is exactly what the National Trust does on our behalf. And in our modern times it leads with further attractions to encourage visitors to return – so, at Bateman’s this season there’s • The phonograph playing Kipling's verse set to music • The pet's graveyard • The newsreel of Kipling on the iPad in the study • A 1930's radio playing extracts of Kipling's unusual life • Our busy beehives • The alphabet necklace from the Just So Story • The wonderfully scented herb border and • Poet's Corner - take time to read a poem or two sitting by the river And if you do go, say Hi to Philipa!

RUDYARD

KIP LING

Photo: National Trust

MY BOY JACK Kipling was never able to write directly about the loss of his son, John. My Boy Jack is about a sailor – but still a thinly disguised poem about regret and mourning.

My Boy Jack (1916) ‘Have you news of my boy Jack?'

Not this tide.

'When d'you think that he'll come back?'

Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

'Has any one else had word of him?'

Not this tide.

For what is sunk will hardly swim, Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

'Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?'

None this tide, Nor any tide, Except he did not shame his kind Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more, This tide, And every tide; Because he was the son you bore, And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

Nestled deep in the Sussex countryside, Bateman’s was Kipling’s home for 34 years

THE QUESTION Philipa suggested this as a personal favourite of Kipling’s work.

The Question(1916) Brethren, how shall it fare with me When the war is laid aside, If it be proven that I am he For whom a world has died?

If it be proven that all my good, And the greater good I will make, Were purchased me by a multitude Who suffered for my sake?

That I was delivered by mere mankind Vowed to one sacrifice, And not, as I hold them, battle-blind, But dying with open eyes?

That they did not ask me to draw the sword

When they stood to endure their lot That they only looked to me for a word, And I answered I knew them not?

If it be found, when the battle clears, Their death has set me free, Then how shall I live with myself through the years Which they have bought for me?

Brethren, how must it fare with me, Or how am I justified, If it be proven that I am he For whom mankind has died If it be proven that I am he Who, being questioned, denied?

For further information see: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/batemans www.kiplingsociety.co.uk

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Long-standing friend of nb, Patrick Gale introduces us to his soon to be bestseller!

And why, when he returned, as a prematurely old man, was my granny apparently so anxious to send him back to Canada to die?

In a precious cargo of letters and papers I inherited, I found a little exercise book in which my grandmother had begun to write her memoirs and immediately my interest was quickened further. For a start, the family he and his brother married into was so colourful, not least because one of his sisters-in-law went on the stage as a Gaiety Girl. And then his wife was in love with another man, who her older brothers forbade her from

by things I stumbled on in the course of my research.

A Place Called Winter is a departure for me, being historical and being told entirely from one man’s viewpoint but I hope it will also be comfortingly familiar to readers of my other work in its portrayal of the daisy-chain of striking female characters who help Harry along his road to greater understanding. It was startling to be shown the beautiful finished cover which, in some ways, proclaims the book a Western. It is a Western, complete with terrifying villain and a hero forced to rely upon

A Place called Winter My mother’s grandfather, Harry Cane, was one of hundreds of young Englishmen who took up the extraordinary opportunity offered in the first decade of the last century to claim 160 acres of free land in the Canadian prairies in exchange for fencing it, living on it and bringing it into cultivation. [I was] fascinated that Harry left behind a wife and young daughter in order to pursue it, and did not return to see that daughter until the early fifties. Why did he go?

Why did he leave them behind?

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marrying. And finally there was the unmistakable air of an issue fudged when my grandmother fleetingly described Harry leaving the country. There was a cloud of disapproval hanging over him, of that particularly fascinating kind where details are too distasteful to be put into words.

So what I set out to write was a version of Harry’s story which respected the known facts, keeping real names, and houses and dates. In the process, inevitably, the novel moved further and further away from reality as I not only projected myself back into Harry’s leisuresoft skin but became distracted

newbooks nb magazine magazine & www.nudge-book.com

his own resources in a wide open landscapes, but it’s also a bittersweet, passionate love story and I hope there’s enough of either in there to satisfy readers of either genre.

We have copies to give away free. See page 50 to claim yours.

A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale is published by Tinder Press as a £16.99 hbk and is available 26th March.

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he attendants came for him as a pair, as always. Some of them were kind and meant well. Some were frightened and, like first timers at a steer-branding, hid their fear in swearing and brutality. But this pair was of the most unsettling kind, the sort that ignored him. They were talking to one another as they came for him and continued to talk to one another as they fastened the muff on his wrists and led him along the corridor to the treatment room.

He was the first in that day, so the echoing room, where even ordinary speech was magnified to a shout, was quiet except for the sound of filling baths. There were eight baths in a row, only three feet apart. From a distance they looked like ordinary baths. Close to, they were revealed as having a kind of hammock slung in the water.

“I don’t need the hammock,’ he told them, “Or the muff. If you want me to climb into a bath and lie there, I’ll do it. I don’t need the hammock. Please?”

Ignoring him, the attendants broke off from their mumbled conversation. One unbuttoned Harry’s pajama jacket. The other undid the cord on his pajama trousers so that they dropped to the floor.

“This is to calm you,” one said, as though reading out an official notice. “You’ve been excitable and this is to calm you down.” He tweaked Harry’s jacket off his shoulders. “In you get.”

“I’d much rather have an ordinary bath. Please, not the belts.”

In a practised movement, one of them seized his ankles while the other took his shoulders and they tipped him and lowered him into the nearest bath so that he was held in the hot water by the hammock. The temperature was high but not unpleasant. It was the loss of control that was unpleasant. One attendant held Harry’s wrists in place near his waist while the other tugged a thick leather belt across the chest. Then they secured his legs with a second belt. They then tugged up a thick tarpaulin cover, like a sort of tent, to enclose the bath entirely. There was an opening in this which they brought up around his shoulders and secured about his neck with little straps so that as little steam as possible would escape. He was now held, immobile, in the flow of hot water with only his head on view.

“Please,” he said. “Don’t leave me.”

The attendants wandered away, still talking. They passed two more

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attendants bringing in someone else who was shouting that they were trying to murder him. When the new man was undressed, he pissed on the attendant crouching in front of him and the ensuing fuss gave him the opportunity to run away. There were curses and yells from the corridor and whistles were blown, then came the muffled sounds of someone being kicked and sat upon.

The man’s silence, when they brought him back in and secured him in the bath immediately next to Harry’s, was worse than any shouting.

And when they left him alone in the running water, he twisted his head so as to stare at Harry, which was more disturbing yet. Harry gazed through the clouds of steam at the taps and the sea green tiles, and tried to pretend he wasn’t really there.

“I know you,” the man said, quietly but insistently. “I know you I know you I—“ He woke with a convulsion and sensed his own shout had roused him.

He wasn’t in the dormitory. The dormitory had so many bedsteads crammed into it that some, including Harry’s, were in the middle of the room. The bedstead here was iron and painted white, but there the resemblance ended. He was in a small, wood-lined room, painted a calm, sky blue and with thick, white curtains across the little window. It was simply furnished. There was a rag rug beside the bed and a bedside table with a lamp and matches on it. His boots were on the floor and his coat on a hook above them. A suit that wasn’t his hung on a hanger on the next peg along. On a plain, wooden chair was a neat stack of underwear, shirts and socks he knew were not his either.

Wide awake now, he found water on the washstand in a jug and washed. He stared at his face in the little spotted mirror hanging there.

A gaunt stranger stared back at him. He did not remember growing a beard but, of course, where he had come from, there were no razors and no looking glasses either: nothing to wound or inflame.

Dressing in the spotlessly clean clothes, which fitted him so well he might have been measured for them as he slept, he made an effort to be calm. Breathe, he told himself. Remember to breathe. And he remembered another man’s voice telling him that very thing and had to sit abruptly on the little bed to compose himself, so acute and ambivalent was the memory stirred.

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Venturing out into dazzling morning light, he would have thought he had woken in a kind of heaven, were it not for the lingering sense that Hell was flickering just out of sight, whichever way he turned his gaze.

He knew he had been in Hell. He had livid marks on his wrists and ankles where restraints had cut and bruised his flesh and, when he moved his back, it still ached from blows and kicks that had rained upon it.

Earlier than that, before Hell, his memories were more damaged still.

These memories lay in rooms he couldn’t enter. In the quiet moments of lucidity between baths, he had approached them close enough to sense they were wrapped in a grief so powerful that even to put his hand on the doorknobs would fry his skin.

He was in a river valley with lush grass, cropped by sheep and a couple of languid cows, running down to a broad, brown river on whose powerful current he had already seen several fallen trees sail past from left to right. Great ranges of blue iced mountains lay to either side, their lower slopes thickly forested. A church bell rang somewhere off to the left. The beauty of it, the intensity of the colours and the relative silence overwhelmed him for a moment and he sat on a little bench to recover.

He was not insane, although he felt sure the experience of being treated as though he were would soon have deprived him of his wits had it continued much longer. He looked up, attention snagged by a buzzard’s cry. I know a hawk from a handsaw, he thought. It was an asylum, not a prison, where he had been, but he had been deprived of liberty and, so far as he knew, without trial.

The attendants had come for him as usual, after breakfast, and he had assumed that the endless, soul-eroding process of pacifying him by water treatments was to continue. He marginally preferred the cold wrap to the continuous bath, if only because it was administered in a smaller room where he had precious peace and quiet, provided he didn’t begin to shout out in a panic. If anything, though, it was even more constraining than the bath, involving as it did being tightly wrapped in a sheet dipped in cold water, around which were wound two more sheets, a rubber mat and then a blanket, before he was left secured to a wire bed frame, sometimes for three hours, quietly dripping first with water, then with sweat.

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THE COSTA AWARDS

The Costa Awards 2014 After her success at predicting the outcome of the Man Booker Prize in nb83, Jade Craddock took a run at the Costa for us. Having tackled 16 of the 20 shortlisted tiles – but not the Biography selection – we present Jade's verdicts, section by section with reviews of the category winners.

NOVEL OF THE YEAR Unarguably, it’s a daunting task for judges to narrow down a year’s worth of novel-writing into a shortlist of four titles. But the implication is that these are the best four novels of the literary year, the crème de la crème, the best of the best. Such a choice is inevitably subjective, but personally I found this category somewhat disappointing. Of course it’s down to taste and choice, and all of these books have amassed critical renown, but perhaps optimistically I was expecting a full house of five-, maybe four-, star reads and to really have to pick the novels apart to find a winner. Whilst I’m sure other readers will indeed judge these books differently and will experience what I’d hoped to, the shortlist didn’t compel me.

Of the four novels, it was 74

there were two standout offerings in Emma Healy’s Elizabeth is Missing and Carys Bray’s A Song for Issy Bradley.

Whilst Simon Wroe’s novel was full of wit and energy and will, I See nb83 for Jade’s review. think, find a legion of fans, and FIRST NOVEL Mary Costello joins an With four completely different impressive cast of Irish writers, and original novels, the shortlist Elizabeth and Issy had wider for the Costa debut novel award appeal and both strong underscores the fresh, exciting emotional and narrative and eclectic new voices that are distinction. Whilst there is little continuing to emerge in the to choose between these two literary scene. And as with the great debuts, for me, the scope best debuts, these novels all and richness of Bray’s story share that sense of seasoned edges Healy out. talent, no hint of trepidation or Sue Goult of Loughborough lack of refinement in sight, had this to say about the leaving you wondering where these writers have been all along category winner, Elizabeth is and astonished that they’ve not Missing: This is an exceptional first novel. Maud is deep in the been doing this all their lives. throes of dementia, but still Despite the evident skill and quality on show, not all of these maintains a certain element of herself. She was friendly with books connected with me and Monique Roffey and Ali Smith that were my personal favourites, and my [category] winner would be Ali Smith.

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THE COSTA AWARDS

Elizabeth when they both worked in a charity shop, and she is now convinced Elizabeth is missing. Her daughter, her carers, and the police all believe otherwise, but there is no convincing Maud.

She keeps writing herself notes saying "Elizabeth is missing" and then sometimes goes to the shops or the police station but cannot remember why she has gone there at all. The police now ring her daughter to come and fetch her.

Within Maud's damaged mind lies the answer to a seventy year old mystery, when her sister disappeared.

Everyone else seems to have forgotten about this except Maud. At the start of the book it goes backwards and forwards in time to the early 1940s and the present day confusing until you get used to it. It is a harrowing, very touching and very memorable book, which stays in your mind a long time after you have finished it. I look forward to her next book.

Personal read..................................★★★★★ Group read ......................................★★★★★

POETRY Poetry often suffers from a poor image and reputation, and not necessarily without reason is it seen to be a difficult, restrictive,

esoteric medium. So one of the highlights of the Costa shortlist is actually the accessibility of the verse in the chosen collections. That’s not to say that the poetry isn’t without its challenges, but rather that the selection offers a much more approachable verse than the inclusion of other titles would have allowed. Also admirable is the range of the voices, in a shortlist in which place features heavily we travel from ancient Greece to Jamaica via the Welsh Valleys and a step back in time to the troubles in Northern Ireland. Whilst all collections had their strengths, there was a clear winner for me in Kei Miller’s The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion – a vivid, passionate, palpable assertion of Jamaican history, its language and its people.

However, the winner was in fact My Family And Other Superheroes by Jonathan Edwards.

A debut collection, Jonathan Edwards’ niftily named My Family and Other Superheroes is a warm and vibrant addition to British poetry. Steeped evidently in family life in Wales, it is an homage to both of these influences. Split into four

sections it covers a gamut of forms, themes and people, from the heartfelt odes to family in the first section through verses about the people and places in Wales, relationships in the third section and finally a plethora of characters drawn from everyday life in the final section. It’s a strong collection with some great individual poems, most notably for me Building my Grandfather, The Bloke in the Coffee Shop and Flamingos.

And there’s a joyful eclecticism to the collection from the humorous to the reflective to the downright quirky that suggests everyone will find something in here to their tastes. But perhaps the most notable element of this collection is, as its title implies, the poet’s decision to make superheroes of us all.

From his family members, to neighbours in a street, a freewheeling nun, the girls at the make-up counter, even the hippos at the zoo, Edwards’ poems attest to the fact that just as everyone has a story everyone, too, has a poem. In focusing on the ordinary and relatable, he challenges the idea of what is deserving of poetic treatment and what poetry can and should be about.

Jade Craddock, Redditch.

Personal read......................................★★★★ Group read ..............................................★★★

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THE COSTA AWARDS

CHILDREN’S Children’s fiction, perhaps even more so than adult fiction, is a diverse and many-bodied beast.

So what exactly will be covered in a shortlist of children’s fiction is fairly open-ended. As an adult reading the Costa children’s shortlist, there’s some trepidation as to whether you’ll see the merits in any of the books or whether you’ll be completely non-plussed. And I must admit I wasn’t expecting a full house and was pleasantly surprised by all of the novels and delighted by each in a way.

To some extent I think I was erroneously expecting a sort of soft, twee, halcyon storytelling where innocence and caution are very much intact. Instead I was struck by a list that was much more powerful, authentic, hard-hitting, dark and grown-up. These aren’t the innocent tales of childhood past, but testimony of childhood present, in which children and teens are subjected much more to the realities of adult life. Even the novels set in the past don’t have a particularly nostalgic or innocent feel; today’s audience is, for better or worse, a much less sheltered and prim one.

There is a certain darkness then that connects all of the novels on the shortlist, as well as brave and accomplished storytelling.

For younger readers (11+), Five Children on the Western Front is perhaps the most suitable of the selections, although not 76

without its own moments of distress. Listen to the Moon will work better for slightly older readers (13+), whilst the subject matter of Running Girl makes it more appropriate for mid-teens (15+). Although there’s nothing to preclude younger readers from The Ghosts of Heaven, its narrative maturity and ambition as well as its literary approach make it ideal for older teens and adults.

In this way each book is a winner within these subgroupings, but overall for sheer quality, bravery in its scope and purpose, The Ghosts of Heaven is my deserved winner.

The winner was actually Five Children On The Western Front.

Five Children On The Western Front brings back to life the characters of one of England’s most-loved children’s authors – Edith Nesbit – in this sequel to Five Children and It – a story funnily enough about five children – Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane and baby brother Hilary, more commonly known as The Lamb – and an ancient sand-fairy who dishes out wishes to the children that last until sunset.

Saunders moves the story on several years and introduces a

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younger sibling, Edie. But the wider context of the First World War is the dominant change in the novel, especially as eldest children Cyril and Anthea are implicated in the war from the very start, with Robert’s involvement shortly following.

There were some lovely characters in here and it was refreshing to be thrust back in time to this most momentous of periods, on the cusp between the innocence and charm of the age and a harsher future. It is a world now that seems so far removed from ours and the last time at which the magic and possibility of this story seems possible. Indeed, by the end of the novel the world is forever altered. Whilst the children’s comings of age were poignant and significant, as too was the representation of war and its effects on the siblings, the novel lacked some plotting and at times was too didactic.

But children I’m sure will love the Psammead – as, too, for that matter will grown-ups! – although the glimpses of war are quite harrowing. Having never read the original Nesbit text I can’t compare this sequel but for new readers the novel works as a stand-alone book and is easy to find one’s way in. Without the First World War background this novel would have been unexceptional, as it is that saves it.

Jade Craddock, Redditch Personal read .........................................★★★ Group read..................................................★★

BIOGRAPHY Which brings us to the Biography category. Not unreasonably, Jade declined to tackle these titles as the genre is not one of her favourites.

Which is doubly unfortunate, both because the category winner, H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, went on to win the Costa outright and because Mandy Jenkinson of Cheltenham wasn’t a fan.

I’m definitely in the minority with this one. It has received almost universal acclaim, rave reviews and won the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. But I found it tedious and I just couldn’t engage with it at all.

An amalgam of nature writing, memoir and literary history, the impetus came from Helen Macdonald’s extreme grief at the sudden death of her father, to whom she was very close. In a strange sort of identification, she bought and trained a goshawk, Mabel. Mabel became her companion in mourning and the bird’s rage and violence seemed to reflect Macdonald’s own rage at her loss. She’s had a lifelong obsession with birds of prey, and this is her second book about them, the first being a cultural history. Certainly there

is a lot of interesting information in this book, and I enjoyed her reflections on TH White and his own experience with a goshawk. He had a very combative relationship with his bird and his battles with it reflected his battle with his own demons and it’s clear that Macdonald sees nature as a mirror of a person’s own emotions. The writing is powerful and often poetic, and there’s little to actually dislike about the book. But it just isn’t one I could relate to, nor could I relate to her extreme grief or her relationship with the bird, and thus I remained unmoved.

Personal read .............................................★★ Group read ......................................★★★★★

Some of our reviewers were good enough to share their opinions on Costa shortlist titles they had read - enough copy to fill 20 pages!

Inevitably, we have insufficient space to print them here but alphabetical thanks to Maddy Broome, Lindsay Healy, Mandy Jenkinson, Phil Ramage and Nicola Smith and of course Jade for her 16 reviews – all of which you will find on nudge-book.com

Shortlist NOVEL The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee House of Ashes by Monique Roffey How to be both by Ali Smith Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín FIRST NOVEL A Song for Issy Bradley by Carys Bray Academy Street by Mary Costello Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey Chop Chop by Simon Wroe BIOGRAPHY Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life by John Campbell The Iceberg: A Memoir by Marion Coutts H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald – WINNER Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh POETRY The Whole and Rain-domed Universe by Colette Bryce My Family and Other Superheroes by Jonathan Edwards A Double Sorrow: Troilus and Criseyde by Lavinia Greenlaw The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion by Kei Miller CHILDREN’S Running Girl by Simon Mason Listen to the Moon by Michael Morpurgo Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick

Quirky Q+A Stuart Prebble author of The Insect Farm answers our Quirky Q&A

In the Directory>> "The passion and mounting tension, as the plot developed, felt at times almost unbearable, as the author’s descriptions of obsession, jealousy and suspicion were gut-wrenchingly convincing."

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RADIO 4, 3, 2, OR 1 Yes to all, and in that order. I regard BBC Radio 4 quite literally as the best thing about Britain after the NHS. Any institution which can schedule In Our Time week after week – a programme designed exclusively to make us all feel stupid – can only be British.

Radio 3 can give you a wonderful surprise every time you switch it on, and the only downside is that it increases my iTunes bill because I want to hear more of almost anything I hear. Radio 2 feels as though it has grown old at exactly the same speed that I have, and has the soundtrack to my life as its playlist. And I listen to Radio 1 just now and then in order to surprise the kids in the office by knowing who Ed Sheeran is.

AMERICA OR AUSTRALIA That’s a fun question and I think I’m going to say America.

Australia is such a very long way away and, though it’s great when you get there, it’s very much like you think it’s going to be. You feel you know Sydney Harbour because you’ve seen it so many times on the TV. America on the other hand is full of surprises, because it is so many very different countries under one roof.

RELIGION OR POLITICS One of the many regular occurrences that drives me to want to drill out my own brains, is when a religious leader says

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something worth saying about poverty or homelessness or any other social issue, and some idiot MP gets on the radio saying that the church should stay out of politics. What are they talking about? Religion and politics are indivisible, and if you don’t understand anything about religion in the modern world, how on earth are you going to begin to understand anything about politics? Sooner or later the poor, the meek, and the peacemakers might not have to wait for heaven to get their just rewards, but not if the average politician gets their way.

DENIM OR LINEN I’m genuinely embarrassed to have to admit this, but I started wearing Levi 501s as a teenager, and have bought and worn about 100 pairs between that day and this. It’s true that in those days they were waist-size 30 and now they are 36, but other than that, nothing else has changed. On regular days I wear blue, on smart days I wear black, and I don’t even own any other pairs of trousers. Sad, but true.

The Insect Farm

by Stuart Prebble is published by Alma in tpk price £12.99 and is available now.

Although we are only fifteen years into the new century we thought it was a good time to take stock.

Nudge and nb publisher, Guy Pringle, speculates on just how well this century is engaging with us readers.

reviewers to throw some petrol on the bonfire of our vanities and see if their nominations reached Fahrenheit 451. Stand back came the cry and away we went like Mary Poppins up a banister. However, this was never meant to be an exclusive club – the joy of being in a reading group is that everybody’s opinion is equal. So we invite you to share your great expectations and save us from hard times.

We have already started running a selection of opinions on nudge but make no mistake,

infiltrating reading groups in Liverpool. And finally, there’s a book on ‘the geopolitical machinations of nation states’.

No wait, Roseann loved it and makes a fantastic case for you reading it, too.

We have begun at the beginning and would like to compile a definitive list by the end of this year. Where the jacket has changed since publication we have led with what we think of as the iconic cover but also included what it now looks like.

Interested to know if you share our thoughts?

The Best Books of the 21st Century (So Far!)

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know it’s only just turned 2015 but for some of our readers it’s half a lifetime since the Millennium. So it seemed a good time to take stock of the best books published since January 1st, 2000. But who would be the source of such perspicacity and erudition? Who could we trust to guide our thoughts and curate such an initiative? Well, our readers of course! Who else has the depth of back catalogue and the intelligence not just to sift wheat from chaff but be our catchers in the rye and take a view on this brave new world.

Initially, we asked our 80

this is not meant to be some pofaced, academic dry-as-dust homage but more a chance to share each other’s enthusiasms (and perhaps disagree with some that just didn’t work for you?).

In the selection we have the space to include here, there is an indicative mix – a cross-over with a jacket depicting death complete with scythe – so, yes, you can guess that one already but can you name the author? A Canadian who writes ‘speculative’ not science fiction and is not a feminist writer by her own standards. A YA novel that is slowly but steadily

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Got a stand out book published since January 1st, 2000? Then send around 400 words to guy.pringle@newbooksmag.com All of these reviews – often longer versions – are now on nudge-book.com together with The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Disappeared Out Of The Window since we didn't have sufficient space here.

The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood pragmatic Iris and unworldly Laura, two sisters from a once prosperous industrial family in a small town near Toronto.

Growing up in the thirties, motherless and virtually fatherless, they are easy prey for the Griffen siblings: he a politically ambitious plutocrat, she a poisonous socialite. Add the catalyst of charismatic he best book of the union activist-on-the-run Alex century so far? Surely it Thomas and it’s a volatile mix. has to be something by But like Russian matryoshka Margaret Atwood, an dolls, one story nests within author with a brain the size of another. So in addition to a her native Canada? Not one of family saga, there are excerpts her later, ecological works from a melancholy romance, perhaps (I find the ‘The Blind Assassin by Laura MaddAddam trilogy too Chase’. The star-crossed lovers, expository), but one from her meeting in dingy rooms, rich ‘middle period’: The improvise another narrative: a Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace, sci-fi/fantasy story of a young The Blind Assassin…? blind boy on the planet Zycron Fortunately, the choice is made sent to assassinate a sacrificial easier for me as only the last was victim, with whom he falls in published in the present love instead. The whole is century (September 2000). framed by Iris’s own story as, So, I’ve been given an excuse, if lonely and regretful, she one were needed, for reading contemplates her pact with the this compelling, multi-layered devil in a series of flashbacks novel for the umpteenth time. and only over time reveals what With every fresh read, I spot she has omitted to tell us earlier. something new: a hint or a clue Along the way, clippings from that wasn’t there before; a turn the local press provide a of phrase to savour. superficial running On the surface, The Blind commentary on events. Extracts Assassin is the story of from fan mail, and even

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washroom graffiti, show the Sylvia Plath-like homage paid to ‘The Blind Assassin’, published

by Iris after Laura’s death.

If I’ve made this sound overly complicated, it’s not. The novel is a rich read, with the kaleidoscopic transition between the different forms made seamless by the strength of the writing.

Read it first for the story, despite the plot spoiler opening: “Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.” Read it next for the clues you missed first time around. Then read it for the language, which hits the spot every time (an artist’s defiantly quirky outfit is described as “a raised fist”).

Finally, read it again and this time ask yourself: “Who is the blind assassin?”

Margaret Cain, Berkshire

Published by Virago.

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The Book Thief Markus Zusak

My hopes for “The Book Thief” 1. That everyone reads this book.

2. That I don’t ever end up watching the film.

Please excuse the bold type above. It’s a little device which is used so effectively by Markus Zusak in his 2007 publication The Book Thief. This original, thrilling novel is one of my alltime favourites and with each re-read I am blown away as to how superb it actually is.

Excellent use of descriptive writing makes reading this a multisensory experience.

Zusak’s narrator is none other than Death himself whose function is to gather up the souls of the departed. Kept very busy by World War II, he finds time to pick up an abandoned book written by a young girl he has had his eye on for some 82

time. This is the writings of Liesl, the Book Thief. Death, as one would imagine, is not a perfect narrator. He playfully toys with us, gives hints, makes lists and asides and reveals events before he should, but there is no doubt that he is captivated by Liesl and the residents of Himmel Street in the German town of Molching. He is not the only one. There are few characters in fiction I care for more than Liesl, her neighbourhood friend Rudy, and her foster parents, the accordion playing Hans Huberman and his wardrobe-shaped, pottymouthed wife, Rosa.

Death narrates a tale which is full of memorable incidents which come to define the characters; Rudy’s obsession with Olympic athlete Jesse Owens which is taken a little too far; Hans’ acts of recklessly selfless kindness and for Liesl; the theft of books. Anyone who has a love for books should read this novel as it is undoubtedly the best book about books.

Liesl’s first theft occurs in tragic circumstances in an icy cold cemetery, a useless acquisition for the illiterate nine year old but that inappropriate volume becomes her lifeline and when she learns to read from it her

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need for further reading matter grows. There are a number of books within this book. Zusak gives us the chance to experience a wealth of other titles, some stolen by Liesl and some produced for her by other characters. There is no greater testament to the power reading and words can have on our lives and for that alone Zusak should be celebrated. On a previous reread I noted in my Book Journal that I hoped they would never make a film of it. It could only dilute the power of the book.

At the start of last year the film I didn’t want to see made opened to a muted response and mixed reviews. I do not want to see it. I don’t like that there will be people out there who will say, “I’ve seen the film, I don’t need to read it.” You do. If you loved the film I’m sure the experience of the book will be even better, if you didn’t like the film just try and wipe it from your mind and give the book a chance. Hopefully it will find a permanent place on your shelves.

Phil Ramage, Shanklin, Isle of Wight Published by Black Swan.

On nudge-book.com Phil has listed other books of films he can’t bear to watch!

Birds without Wings Louis de Bernières way that is not patronising to the reader. In fact the way that de Bernières concentrates on individual stories within this narrative distracts you from the great history of the novel. The narrative of Philothei from her birth, through her childhood, her friendship and love of Ibrahim, her wait for him to return from war and then her he main reason that Birds final choice is woven without Wings is my Best throughout the book. This Book of the 21st Century personal story has greater is Louis de Bernières’ implications for the story. telling of the story of the A central concern is religion Ottoman Empire. The novel and the use/abuse of its lessons. begins in 1900 in a small town Philothei and Ibrahim are one called Eskibahçe, on Turkey’s pair of characters that are south-west coast and spans doomed to be split apart due to World War I and the Turkish the difference in their religion. war of independence that ended At the beginning of the novel in 1923. The ability to convey religion in Eskibahçe is a minor this history alongside a detail in the character’s lives. beautiful narrative is de Religious customs are referred Bernières’ greatest skill. to quite flippantly as His story telling moved me: interchangeable. But, by the scenes of anguish brought me to end, religion has been used to tears, imagery from the front justify the killing of thousands, lines put me off my lunch and as the war is declared Holy, and one character’s humility countless more have been increased my enjoyment of displaced. being at home with a book. I Another reason Birds without am always happy when a book Wings claims its place in this list teaches me about a history, is for the imagery, the poetic culture and conflict of which I motifs and the mythological am otherwise ignorant. Birds scenery that de Bernières without Wings does this in a deploys. I asked myself several

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times while reading: why has such a poetic title been used for a book that in parts is horrific and gruelling? But through all the death, the political and personal atrocities the reader is constantly brought back to the sun setting over the pine covered mountains of the idyllic city where small acts of kindness are displayed. “Then, after all that, the years go by, the mountains are levelled, the valleys rise, the rivers are blocked by sand and the cliffs fall into the sea.” And so de Bernières reminds the reader that human action is as inevitable as the forces of nature, both are relative and can be circular.

Roseann Campbell, London

Published by Vintage.

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If You Find Me Emily Murdoch bewilderment! They can find nothing bad to say about it and others have just been in awe of what an amazing book it is.

Virtually every member of my book club has been out and bought a personal copy so that they can keep it forever and read it over and over again.

Admittedly, the paperback We close our first version has a less than desirable cover, and – working in a selection with a library, as I do – I see everyday how the cover often ‘sells’ a YA novel that book. However, as I often say to has slipped my customers – 'you shouldn't under our radar. judge a book by its cover' – and that has never been more true Published less in this case.

So, about the book and why I than a year think everyone should read it ago, Claire is straight away: Carey and her sister Jenessa are found in the championing Hundred Acre Woods eight this book to all years after Carey was taken there by her Mama. Returned and sundry. to Carey’s father who she his is a hidden gem believed had beaten her Mama, whenever I mention it to the story of what really anybody they claim to have happened in the woods slowly never heard of it. So I unfolds. decided that for the book club I This is a beautifully written run I would sneak it in and the book which captivates you from feedback that I have had has the first word. As a reader you been immense. I have had empathise with the characters, people who criticise and find and flow through the varying fault with every book that they emotions with them. The book read coming back to me in keeps you guessing until the

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end, where you want the mystery of what happened in the woods to become clear but at the same time you don’t want to ever know because you know it will be truly harrowing.

There are so many themes to discuss within your book club – trust, love, survival, family and abandonment just to begin.

This really is a true gem of a book and everyone will take something away from it. If You Find Me completely encapsulates why I love reading and why it is a truly exceptional experience.

I have made it my mission to make as many people as possible read this book and so far I have not heard a single bad word said about it. I simply cannot wait for Emily Murdoch's next book – she has a lot to live up to.

Claire Ellis, Liverpool

Published by Orion Children's Books.

directory The reviewers have their say

reviews first novel – just read and enjoy.

Joanne Baird, Edinburgh Personal read ................★★★★ Group read .....................★★★★ See what the author has to say on page 26 and read an extract on nudge-book.com

THE LONGEST FIGHT Emily Bullock Myriad

A novel about boxing is probably one of the last books I’d be likely to pick up, so it was with a bit of a sigh that I began this book.

However, this isn’t a book about boxing. Yes, it does feature heavily - it’s about a boxing promoter and his newest prodigy – but this novel is about so much more than fighting in the ring. It’s about the struggle faced by those living in post war London. It’s a book about family. It’s a book with an intriguing beginning as we meet Jack, dubbed The Silent Killer by tabloid newspapers, in a prison cell about to face hanging for murder. It’s a book defined by the memorable characters Emily Bullock has created: Jack, Frank, Pearl and Georgie to name but a few.

Jack Munday was a boxer in his younger days and he has been shaped by the battles he has faced in life: his bullying father, fights in the boxing ring, the seedy underworld of London, the tragic death of the first woman he loved, making sense of the life he is left with. It’s a book about his relationship with his daughter who he will do anything for. It’s a book which ultimately is about the sacrifices Jack makes for others. A really wonderful

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the book is advertised as battle stories, it is also a love story between a Duke and a very low born girl, and continues throughout. Very heart-warming and riveting.

I found the character list at the beginning of the book very helpful, and wonder if a family tree-style diagram might also be possible?

Obviously Churchill has done a great deal of research which he has managed to incorporate into the story as an excellent mix of fact and fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and am keen to read any further instalments in this history. An excellent book group discussion book.

Marjorie Coles, Witney

DEVIL – THE LEOPARDS OF NORMANDY David Churchill Headline

This is a long book with many difficult names and complicated relationships, BUT it is completely fascinating and spell binding. I did not expect to be so enthralled by the history of wars between England and France. David Churchill writes almost in the present day style so often it seemed as if the trials were happening now. He was able to keep my interest in a subject which has not interested me previously.

Some of this was due to his style of explaining small details in daily life such as the food and clothing and living conditions. The explanations of the horrible styles of attacking and killing enemies were also very illuminating about life for all classes of people. The story also brought into focus the great differences between men and women. Although

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TREGIAN’S GROUND Anne Cuneo And Other Stories

King Henry VIII fused politics and religion in his dogged quest for a male heir but the echoes of his infamous divorce were heard well into the 16th and 17th centuries. Anne Cuneo’s historical novel is based upon the true, but lesserknown story of Catholic musician Francis Tregian, creator of the Fitzwilliam Virginal book. Francis was born into a noble Cornish family and nursed his musical talent while his family became deeply embroiled with England’s religious conflict.

Dispossessed after his father is caught harbouring a Catholic priest, for Francis the rest of his life was never the same again. Life in Tudor England is almost palpable in Cuneo’s authentic and wellresearched novel. Cuneo’s Francis charms Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I, King Henri IV of France, giving an insight into the political tensions of the time and lending a tender, intimate side to formidable historical figures. At times, Francis manages to lead a quiet musician’s life, opening a window into the vivid but bitterly toilsome lives of Tudor ‘commoners’. Swordfight drama, desperate gallops across Europe and a few well-paced hooks pull the reader through what would otherwise be a dense novel.

Tregian’s Ground was originally written in French and some aspects of the plot seem to have been lost in translation. Towards the end of his life Francis complains words cannot express multiple voices as his music can. The songs and poems Cuneo weaves through her tale are delightful but the narrative is sometimes monotonous. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is successfully intertwined with Francis’ relationship with his father as an adult, it is a shame the narrative is neglected earlier in the book. Also Francis’ adventures are borderline farcical. He is an exceptionally talented swordsman, merchant, musician, teacher, scribe, performer and instrumentbuilder while his career spans several countries, a faked death and multiple revolutions. How multitalented can one man be

reviews before he explodes?

Jenna Hutber, Winchester See what the author has to say on page 29.

marriage to a nice boy approved by the family and she read books to find out what she did want. As she gets older she read not just for the heroines she wanted to be but for the heroes she wanted to be with - well, what woman hasn't dreamt of meeting Mr Darcy? There are also insights into the lives of the authors which I found fascinating. This is an entertaining, intelligent read - the perfect choice for all women who grew up loving books.

Berwyn Peet, Carmarthenshire

HOW TO BE A HEROINE Samantha Ellis

Personal read ............★★★★★ Group read .................★★★★★

Vintage

The author tells the story of her life through fictional heroines and does so in a very charming and readable way. For any woman who loved reading when young, this is a delightful, nostalgic journey through those favourite childhood books.

What makes this particularly interesting is that Samantha finds that her view of these heroines has changed when she revisits them. Were Ann of Green Gables and Jo March really so goody-goody before? Do you prefer Jane Eyre or Cathy Earnshaw? Is Lizzy Bennet really as free as she seemed? Perhaps we take from these heroines what we need from them at that particular time in our own lives when we discover them? There is a wide choice of books discussed - Gone With the Wind, The Bell Jar, Lace, Wuthering Heights are just a few - and with each book we get the relevant section of the author's life.

This too is interesting as she is an Iraqi Jew who grew up knowing she didn't want the traditional happy ending of

paced, and with a cast of (mostly) believable and empathetic characters. The atmosphere of Berlin just after the war is brilliantly evoked, with some wonderfully descriptive passages. Kasper Meier himself is a compelling character who becomes more and more engaging as his adventure continues. It’s a novel that repays concentration as the plot is fairly complicated, but the rewards of a close reading are considerable. Not a reader of thrillers normally, this one captured my imagination from the start, and kept me gripped until the last page.

Mandy Jenkinson, Cheltenham Personal read ............★★★★★ Group read .................★★★★★

THE SPRING OF KASPER MEIER Ben Fergusson Abacus

THE SPRING OF KASPER MEIER Ben Fergusson Abacus

In the war-ravaged Berlin of 1946, amongst the ruins, the hunger, the lawlessness and corruption, Kasper Meier ekes out a living by trading on the black market. One day a young woman comes to his door asking for his help in tracking down a British serviceman. What follows is an intricately plotted thriller and a gripping and haunting tale, a bleak story of survival and compassion in the worst of circumstances. This is an unusual and original novel, very well-written, cleverly

It is 1946 and Berlin is a city in ruins; its population desperate. Severe shortages mean that anything and everything can be traded – goods, information, even people. Fifty year old Kasper Meier lives with his frail, elderly father and survives by trading on the black market.

One day he is approached by nineteen year old Eva who wants him to track down a British pilot. Although he is initially reluctant, he finally agrees to do so because she knows things about him which enable her to hold the threat of exposure over him.

Gradually he is drawn into a shadowy world of danger, lies and deception and yet, in spite of this, his feelings towards Eva become increasingly fond and protective. I found this an

engaging and gripping story.

Although it started off rather slowly, I quickly found myself becoming increasingly tense, almost fearful, as the complicated plot unfolded, and as escalating violence threatened all that Kasper held dear. The author’s descriptions of a ruined, anarchic city evoked a very powerful sense of time and place – I felt I could almost smell the city and its people.

All of the vividly portrayed characters felt both credible and unforgettable as the author captured their desperation and the erosion of normal compassion.

Surrounded by gratuitous acts of violence it was little wonder that even the children became feral, as exemplified by Hans and Lena, twelve year old twins whose omnipresence exerted a powerful sense of menace, an ever-present threat of violence towards people they targeted. Yet, although brimming with violence, the story was not without examples of selflessness, humanity and a tenuous belief in the possibility of a better future. This remarkable debut novel would make an ideal book for reading groups as there are so many themes which are thought-provoking and challenging. I hope that the author is hard at work on his next book!.

Linda Hepworth, Garrigill, Cumbria Personal read ................★★★★ Group read .....................★★★★

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reviews

THE ADVENTURES OF THE BUSTS OF EVA PERÓN Carlos Gamerro And Other Stories

Pub. Date: 24th Mar, 2015 The Adventures of the Busts of Eva Peron is set in 1970’s Argentina in the middle of the “dirty war” which was a seven-year campaign by the Argentine government against suspected dissidents and subversives. Magnate Fausto Tamerlain is kidnapped by an undercover group, in response to his company’s request for him to be freed, their ransom demand is that a bust of Eva Peron is put up on every floor of his offices – 92 to be exact. Ernesto Marrone is the man who is charged with sourcing these busts and getting them on display.

Marrone fancies himself as a bourgeois manager and learns leadership skills from How to Win Friends and Influence People and Don Quixote. The factory he chooses to source the busts from goes into meltdown.

The staff go on strike, the managers are held up in their offices and in come the Police and the Army to try and control any riot that may happen.

This is an interesting book with some quite gripping writing making you turn the pages and picture exactly what is happening. However, to understand and

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appreciate its full import, the reader needs to have an understanding of what was happening in Argentina during the 1970’s. I am not sure it would be suitable for a book club, unless there is at least one person in it who can explain to the others what is going on. Although there is enough in the book to make it readable, there are sections that are quite tedious to trawl through when you are reading it blank.

Emma-Dawn Farr, Great Barford Personal read ....................★★★ Group read.............................★★

BLOOD BROTHERS Ernst Haffner Harvill Secker

Recently rediscovered and translated for the first time into English, Ernst Haffner’s Blood Brothers is a stark and unflinching portrait of a group of young runaways and juvenile delinquents who band together in order to survive the harsh life on the streets in the 1930s. Set in working-class Berlin amongst the seamy underbelly of the city, it follows the fortunes of these young men as they face hunger, gang warfare, homelessness, petty crime and prostitution. What helps them survive is the loyalty that grows between them and the support they give each other in their

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hardscrabble existence.

The gritty realism of the novel gives it a documentary feel at times, with precise descriptions of the conditions the young men live in, the soup kitchens and doss houses they visit, and the geographical accuracy of their travels around Berlin.

But it’s also a moving and often touching account of their personal lives and by the end the reader has developed a relationship with each and every one of them. Interestingly enough, for a book set in the ‘30s there is no mention of the political situation or of the Nazis, but instead it focusses on the sociological aspect of working class down and out life. Hardly anything is known about the author. He was a journalist and social worker, which accounts for the authentic feel of the book – he obviously knew first-hand what he was writing about – and this, his only novel, was published to great acclaim in 1932. It then fell foul of the new regime and was burnt at the infamous book burning in 1933 and was banned. After that Haffner vanishes from the public record.

It cannot perhaps be claimed that the novel is great literature, but it has an immediacy that is very engaging and as a portrait of a time and place it is very effective indeed. It also has a timeless quality to it, as the lives of the Blood Brothers have been, and indeed still are, replicated in cities all over the world. An enjoyable and worthwhile read, which I heartily recommend.

Mandy Jenkinson, Cheltenham Personal read ................★★★★ Group read .....................★★★★

THE GIRL IN THE RED COAT Kate Hamer Faber

This is a fantastic debut novel and follows the story of mother and daughter Beth and Carmel. Beth, struggling to come to terms with recently becoming single, takes time out to take her eight year old daughter Carmel to a storytelling festival at which Carmel disappears and simply vanishes from Beth’s life. As the book continues the reader realises that Carmel is still alive but worlds away from her mother. Beth and Carmel take turns to narrate the story and over several years, their story unfolds.

Beth has to find it within herself to move on with her life, living with the guilt of losing her daughter. Carmel is always linked to her mother no matter how far away she is, despite what she is told by her abductor.

The book is well written, drawing the reader into the lives of the two, strong female characters. The voice of Carmel is evocative of the child in Emma Donoghue’s book Room. She is a strong female character, similar to her mother who finds the strength to live with her loss.

I enjoyed the switches between characters in each chapter, seeing their stories unfold as time moved on.

I look forward to reading

reviews further books by this exciting new writer.

Jane Pepler, Wantage Personal read ............★★★★★ Group read .................★★★★★

the phrases Jakob remembers his parents saying. The book is well written with some beautiful descriptive passages but I feel the publisher's comparison with Schindler's Ark is not quite justified. Overall I did enjoy it and there would be many areas of interesting discussion for a book group.

Alison Wearden, Hatfield Heath Personal read ....................★★★ Group read .....................★★★★

JAKOB’S COLOURS Lindsay Hawdon Hodder & Stoughton

Pub. Date: 9th April, 2015 Jakob is a boy with a father of Roma gypsy and Yenish descent and a mother of English and Polish descent.

The book follows their journeys through Europe, beginning in England in 1929 and culminating in their attempted flight from the Nazis. Throughout the novel, storytelling and colours are vitally important as the characters attempt to cope with the chaotic and terrifying events around them. I found the constant jumping between 'This Day', 'Before' and 'Long Before' quite irritating at times and wondered why the plot couldn't just unfold chronologically, perhaps it wasn't strong enough? The penultimate 'This Day' reveals why the device is necessary to some extent, but I would have preferred some of the 'Long Before' sections to be continuous.

The information contained in the Background section at the end would be more useful at the beginning, as would some translation of

looking for her brother? Why did he leave in the first instance? Who are all the mysterious men who help her and why do they do it?

I suggest reading the translator’s notes before you start reading though, as I was thrown by the use of the word ‘versed’ which really jarred with me as it was used in the wrong context. It’s a deliberate use of the word by the translator though and understanding that before I started to read would have really helped. The length of the book is right for the story and demonstrates the skill of the writer in drawing a fuller picture with fewer words. I’ve got more from it through discussing it, reviewing it and re-reading it as I picked up more of the subtleties.

Nicky Hallam, Sheffield Personal read ................★★★★ Group read .................★★★★★

SIGNS PRECEDING THE END OF THE WORLD Yuri Herrera

Mandy Jenkinson, Cheltenham Personal read ................★★★★ Group read.........................★★★

ETTA AND OTTO AND RUSSELL AND JAMES Emma Hooper

And Other Stories

It looks pretty insubstantial but don’t judge a book by its cover (or in this case its size), there is much more to this than meets the eye. The story can simply be summed up by saying that a girl crosses the Mexican border to look for her brother. The skill in this book lies in the way that the rest of the story is hinted at instead of described. You end up understanding a lot more about the characters than what is actually said about them. This would make a brilliant read for a book group discussion as I think so much could be read into it and there are so many issues it raises which could be discussed. Is she right to go

day she just packs up and leaves to walk the vast distance across Canada to achieve her dream, leaving her husband Otto grieving at home and causing the man who still loves her, Russell, to set out to follow her.

With dreamlike and evocative prose, and without a wasted word, Etta’s pilgrimage is well-paced and the slow reveal of what happened to them all in the past is expertly handled.

There’s a bit of magic realism thrown into the mix as well, which adds to the dreamlike atmosphere of much of the book. It’s a sad and haunting novel, but one firmly rooted in its place and time, unusual and original (although inevitably drawing comparisons with Rachel Joyce’s Harold Fry) and it lingers long after finishing the last page.

Fig Tree

ETTA AND OTTO AND RUSSELL AND JAMES Emma Hooper Fig Tree

I found this a charming and moving story, which seamlessly weaves together past and present and offers the reader the life story of three main characters who love and lose but in the end survive. As she nears the end of her life Etta decides she wants to see the sea and one

Etta’s greatest unfulfilled wish, living in the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan, is to see the sea. At the age of 82 she gets up very early one morning takes a rifle, some chocolate, and her best boots and begins the 2000 mile walk to the sea. I began to understand very early on that this book was not based on realism. An 82 year old woman, quite clearly, cannot walk 2000 miles alone and so there had to be some other premise on which to base the book. My take is that it is based on the memories of Otto and Etta

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reviews and their long life together along with their neighbour, Russell, who has been in love with Etta for years. The parts which take place in the past worked, in my opinion, much better than the present day, because these are based on fact and are merely reiterations of what happened. The complications of the book arise when, for example, at one point Etta starts to describe her experiences in Europe during World War II to a reporter allegedly tagging along with her on her long trek. However, Etta has never been to war. Her memories are actually Otto’s memories. Etta also shares Otto’s dreams. Whilst Etta is walking, Otto stays at home making papier maché animals. Why papier maché animals? The ending is not clear it being left to the reader to reach their own interpretation, which is very annoying. I would have been happy to accept some of the make believe element of the book if a satisfactory explanation and conclusion had been reached. However, I was left very confused. The story appears to be a jumbled collection of ideas, which don’t come together very well. There have been numerous books recently based on older individuals going walkabouts and doing crazy things and this combined with a WWII theme, did not quite work.

In its favour the book is moving in parts and the characters are likeable if a bit strange. In conclusion, if you like quirky, hard to believe books then this is definitely one for you. If, like me, you like a good story with a conclusive ending then would advise you pass on this one.

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Dorothy Flaxman, Bude Personal read ....................★★★ Group read.........................★★★

NEVERHOME Laird Hunt Chatto & Windus

In the American Civil War, Unionist soldier Ash Thompson, known as ‘Gallant Ash’, has become a legend in his own lifetime.

Tough, fearless, even brutal when he has to be, Ash seems a born fighter. But Ash has a secret. ‘He’ is a woman. Constance, rather than her husband Bartholomew, was the one to leave their Indiana farm and go to war to defend the Republic: “I was strong and he was not”. Among the many books on the American Civil War, none that I can recall focuses on the women who fought – in disguise, as both Union and Confederate armies forbade the enlistment of women.

[Ed: You might check out The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton

by Jane Smiley, a personal favourite.]

So while the book overall has echoes of Charles Fraser’s Cold Mountain, with its broken and bruised soldier wending his way home, Neverhome gives a strikingly original perspective. As Constance crosses the shattered

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landscape, we learn her backstory, the chilling reason why she chose ‘Ash’ as a pseudonym, and her buried motives for going to war: “I just wanted to fight”, she says at first; “I just wanted to go away for a while”, she admits later. The story is told in Constance’s own voice, and the down-home, folksy timbre could have become monotonous from another pen. But this author avoids the usual perils of having a sole narrator by interspersing Constance’s story with the stories of others encountered on the way: the cultured professor miscast as a colonel; the black female soldier escaping slavery; the family welcoming home their disfigured son. And, in fact, Constance’s rustic style throws the savagery of war into sharp relief, the unflinching, measured tones making the sudden violence seem all the more startling.

The reader needs to engage in some willing suspension of disbelief at Constance’s ability to switch gender identity at the drop of a hat (or a pair of trousers), but this caveat aside, it’s a fascinating slant on history. I am looking forward to reading Neverhome again at a more leisurely pace to savour the language and largerthan-life characters and to exploring Laird Hunt’s other novels.

Margaret Cain, Berkshire Personal read ....................★★★ Group read .....................★★★★ See My Five Favourites on page 98.

THE ROOM Jonas Karlsson Hogarth

When Bjorn goes to work at the Authority he has high hopes, but these are dashed as he finds it increasingly difficult to fit in. This book has glimpses of office politics and observations of fellow colleagues which will resonate with some of our own workplaces. Bjorn discovers a secret room - but does it really exist? It is certainly real for Bjorn and whether real or a metaphor, when he visits the room he feels able to do the best work he has ever done; it is as though the room provides him with clarity and confidence. When his colleagues deny its existence, confused at first, Bjorn tries to prove them wrong, but this only makes matters worse. A book which should have book groups discussing office politics in abundance as well as belief in ones own coping mechanisms.

However, as an individual read I found the book unsatisfying in that although easy to read, I wanted to go deeper into the issues and arguments which were alluded to.

Jayne Townsend, Holmfirth Personal read........................★★ Group read.........................★★★

reviews really enjoyed this book which certainly made me think about how life takes you in directions you never imagined. I was so impressed I have even bought Jonathan Kemp's first book London Triptych. A very satisfying personal read and should give reading groups plenty to discuss.

Val James, Upminster

GHOSTING Jonathan Kemp Myriad

Pub. Date: 12th Mar, 2015 Woman of a certain age hankers for handsome young man of her youth! There's more to it than that but it certainly got me thinking. In spite of the title this is not a ghost story. Grace went out to get a morning paper and sees her late husband Pete.

She hasn't thought about him in years but still has passionate dreams of him.

Her daughter is dead, her son has married and moved away and she lives with her second husband, the safe and dependable Gordon, on a narrow boat. Some time ago she had a breakdown and when she sees "Pete" she is afraid that she is going to fall apart again so she sets about finding the man who has stirred up these forgotten feelings in her. Grace tells her story in flashbacks of her youth, courtship, marriage and the sudden death of Pete interspersed with her search for his double, Luke, who is closer to hand than she imagined. She becomes friendly with Luke and his friend Linden who open up a new world to Grace of photographic and performance art and unintentionally cause Grace to assess her life and future.

I found this quite a quick read considering it is a subject of some substance. I

Personal read ............★★★★★ Group read .....................★★★★

ESPERANZA STREET Niyati Keni And Other Stories

Skimming through the first few pages of a book is always like meeting a potential new friend for the first time, trying to gauge if we’re compatible, can I trust you? Niyati Keni’s Joseph sidles up to you like an old friend and although he doesn’t make a physical appearance until page 13, you already feel like you know him. Esperanza Street is a coming-of-age story set in a1960s Philippines seaside town that centres around a poor jetty boy’s struggle to maintain his integrity in a convoluted social class system.

The landscape Keni paints for Joseph is exquisite. She captures the Spanish influence upon the Philippines with reminiscent sounds and smells that took

me back to Colombia, another post-colonial country where I spent last Spring. Esperanza Street starts out with a strong narrative too, as Joseph describes how he became a stubborn and cheeky, young houseboy to a well off widow, Aunt Mary. Even during the period of mourning after a close relative’s death, young Joseph keeps the story alive with comical observations and a dry sense of humour.

However Keni is unable to sustain the confident narrative and after Joseph reaches puberty, the story’s rhythm falls as flat as Joseph’s jokes. The story lacks pace and the plot moves along slowly. Young Joseph is distinctive and likable but as he grows up, performing the same menial duties as when he was a boy, he becomes the object of other people’s lives rather than the subject of his own.

He pales in contrast with Aunt Mary’s bold, resolute character. At times it is uncomfortable to ‘watch’ him dither as other characters act decisively in the face of social and economic upheaval.

Esperanza Street has a dreamy, “Sunday afternoon” feel about it and would make a good long weekend or holiday read. But the longwinded pace make parts of the book an endurance test and it wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped.

Joseph’s defining, selfsacrificing decision that brings the tale to a close didn’t seem worth the payoff and left me feeling empty. It is a gorgeous portrait of this beach town and the lives of its people but busy readers may struggle to finish the book.

Jenna Hutber, Winchester Personal read ....................★★★ See page 28 for the author's inspiration.

BURIAL RITES Hannah Kent Picador

This is the true story of Agnes Magnusdottir, who was found guilty of the murder of a man in Northern Iceland in 1828.

But was she guilty? Was it murder? These questions form the basis of Hannah Kent’s fascinating first novel.

To me, the description of time and place was spot-on; the almost unbearable cold of an Icelandic winter was so well evoked that it made me feel chilly throughout much of the book! If people died in the winter months, they could not be buried until the ground thawed out in the summer. The relentless, grinding poverty of country folk in the early 19th century also made a lasting impression on me. A couple of sections are included at the end in which the author discusses the writing of her novel and answers questions – just make sure you read these after you’ve read the book and not before (spoiler alert). We found plenty to discuss at our reading group but I felt this was equally rewarding as a personal read.

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reviews Maxine Forshaw, Henley on Thames Personal read ............★★★★★ Group read .....................★★★★

uncovers some information which implicates some of the important and influential people of the time, but in doing so, she finds herself and her cousin, in danger.

It is a gripping thriller which I recommend particularly for anyone with an interest in Barcelona and the politics of Spain in the 1950s or for anyone who wants to escape for a while into a world of intrigue.

Jan Jeffery, Vale of Glamorgan Personal read ................★★★★ Group read.........................★★★

THE WHISPERING CITY Sara Moliner Abacus

Originally published in Spanish in 2013, this book is written by two women, both University lecturers, the name Sara Moliner being a pseudonym. The city of the title is Barcelona and the book is set in the 1950s, during General Franco’s fascist government. It is a crime mystery right from the first line, “There she lay, Mariona . . . dead” indicates one possible murder and there are a couple of others on the way. It is, however, a complicated plot and in the first 50 pages we are introduced to no fewer than twenty-three characters and for non-Spanish speakers, the unfamiliar names and roles could be confusing. (I found it helpful to write a list of the main characters and their roles.) The novel reflects the historical period and the secrecy, conspiracy and corruption of the time.

There are bullying policemen, an efficient young female journalist, drug taking accusations, violence and a hint of a love affair. The journalist

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story is from when he is thirteen going on fourteen and Jude’s from when she’s sixteen. Highs, lows, romance, twists and turns, tragedy and a touch of comedy unfold through their individual viewpoints and it kept me intrigued all the way through, so much so I couldn’t put it down.

I would urge people to read it as it’s one of those books that stays with you and I will certainly be reading Jandy Nelson’s first novel The Sky Is Everywhere as, if this book is anything to go by, she’s an extremely talented writer.

I feel I should mention the book contains underage drinking, smoking, drug use and sex, both heterosexual and gay, so might not necessarily be ideal for all thirteen/fourteen year olds, though I’d have no hesitation with the young adults I know. I think it would make for great discussion in a book group.

Vee Freir, Scottish Borders

I’LL GIVE YOU THE SUN Jandy Nelson

Personal read ............★★★★★ Group read .................★★★★★

Walker

Pub. Date: 2nd April, 2015 I loved this novel and that’s quite something as it’s a YA genre, which I don’t usually rave about, but this was different. So different in fact that I reckon it’s the best read I’ve had in a long time.

Jandy Nelson manages to create an absorbing story not just of brother/sister love, jealousy and rivalry, but of relationships in all their permutations written in a unique style that I found very moving and totally engaging. The story is of artistic twins, Noah and Jude, told alternately from each of their perspectives but three years apart. Noah’s

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THE INSECT FARM Stuart Prebble Alma

Pub. Date: 15th Mar, 2015 Having a single-minded obsession is a personality trait shared by brothers Roger and Jonathan. For Roger, the elder by six years but whose

mental development means that he could never live independently, it is his insect farm. This was started during childhood as an ant farm housed in his parents’ garden shed, but over the years it was developed, with scientific precision, into an elaborate and comprehensive study of insects of all shapes and sizes.

For Jonathan it is with Harriet, whom he met when he was seventeen and was immediately smitten by.

Jonathan and Harriet, inseparable by now, go off to university together but, before he can graduate, his parents die in mysterious circumstances and, keeping a promise he made to them to care for Roger, he has to abandon his studies and provide a home for himself and his brother. Although he and Harriet marry, contact is restricted because she continues with her studies.

Fearful of losing her, his imagination readily fuels his jealousy. A further death then causes shock-waves which reverberate through the following decades, causing both brothers to keep secrets to protect each other. This is a very powerful, well-plotted story of love, devotion, loyalty, obsession, jealousy, ambivalence and the acceptance of difference. It is also a convincing psychological exploration of how well one can ever fully know another person. The passion and mounting tension, as the plot developed, felt at times almost unbearable, as the author’s descriptions of obsession, jealousy and suspicion were gutwrenchingly convincing.

Although I had already guessed the main part of the ending of the story, this did nothing to detract from my

reviews involvement in the plot – and the final sentence demonstrated that nothing can ever be taken for granted! I think this would be an excellent book for reading groups because of the number of themes which lend themselves to discussion and debate. It is certainly a story which will haunt me for a long time to come.

Linda Hepworth, Garrigill, Cumbria Personal read ................★★★★ Group read .................★★★★★ See Quirky Q&A on page 78.

although her career seemed to dwindle after that we learn exactly what happened through her memories.

This is partly historical, we learn a lot about the inequality between male and female athletes almost a hundred years ago, and part mystery, why did Aggie stop competing? The style was easy to read and reminded me of Maggie O’Farrell, beautifully descriptive but never over the top. Aggie is not really a likeable character but I did care about her and felt a real sense of injustice for several of the situations she found herself in. I think this will prove to be a popular debut novel and will be recommending it to my friends.

Fiona Atley, Erith Personal read ............★★★★★ Group read .................★★★★★

GIRL RUNNER Carrie Snyder Two Roads

This is a really lovely story, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It tells of Aggie Smart, now aged 104 and living in a care home. One day she is taken from the home by two young people she doesn’t know and returned to her childhood home.

Aggie is far from a sweet little old lady, and shows she’s feisty and just as stubborn as she’s always been. There is lots of switching times which can be a bit confusing, but I think this is a deliberate attempt to show us Aggie’s confused mind. As a young woman Aggie had won a Gold Olympic medal for Canada and

MOD Richard Weight Vintage

An impeccably written, thoughtful, provocative, at time shocking, yet most compelling book describing the uprising of modernism in Britain, from the 1940s onwards.

Being born in the 1960s, I had little understanding of what a "mod" represented; thinking only of the clashes between mods and rockers

and their fights over clothing styles and music. Yet this book allows the unsophisticated mind an opportunity to really get to grips with the huge changes happening in teen culture following the Second World War. The book is brilliantly researched and insightful, sensitive yet gritty, and really gets to the roots of social change and the impact on the identity of the nation's youth in the post-World War II era. Yet it was not a transitory movement which "came and went" with the current fashions of the day; modernism evolved from the great political change of the time, alongside the huge growth in social media, in its portrayal of fashion, music, class differences, ethnicity, nationality, gender and feminism to name but a few.

Likely to be of particular interest to those interested in history, sociology and politics, and a splendid read for older teenagers through to octogenarians (and beyond!) who lived through the modernism movement, whether they embraced it or not. I wished I had read this book when studying for my degree in social science!

However, this is definitely a book a reading group would devour - there is so much material which I feel would spark endless debate, not only over the simple pros and cons of being a "mod" or a "rocker", but also about incredible social change, as well as developing musical and fashion styles, in the post–World War II era.

Elaine Holland, Long Eaton, Notts Personal read ................★★★★ Group read .................★★★★★

Lack of space restricts us so apologies to our reviewers but the following can be found on nudge-book.com Trouble Man by Tom Benn, Vintage. Meg Latham, Thame The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir who got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe by Romain Puertolas, Harvill Secker Daphne Poupart, Winchester My Bloody Valentine by Alastair Gunn, Penguin Lynda Price, Sheffield We Used To Be Kings by Stewart Foster, Vintage Jade Craddock, Redditch Lives In Writing by David Lodge, Vintage Reg Seward, Leiston War At The Edge Of The World by Ian Ross, Head of Zeus.

Ann Branigan, Chesterfield Dissident Gardens by Jonathan Lethem, Vintage Sheila A. Grant, Ayr & Mandy Jenkinson, Cheltenham Did She Kill Him? by Kate Colquhoun, Abacus Gwen Percival, Beverley If I Should Die by Matthew Frank, Penguin. Dorothy Anderson, Newmarket Goodhouse by Peyton Marshall, Doubleday Maddy Broome, Co Durham Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Year of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami, Harvill Secker. Maddy Broome, Co Durham Lila by Marilynne Robinson, Virago. Maddy Broome, Co Durham Mary Poppins by PL Travers, HarperCollins Children¹s Books. Emma-Dawn Farr, Great Barford The Boy That Never Was by Karen Perry, Penguin Fiona Atley, Erith The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble, Canongate Sue Smith, Worcester

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2015 nb Readers’ Day Saturday 3rd October St Peter’s Parish Rooms, Winchester We’ve got a venue – same as last year – we’ve got our fab caterer and we’ve got a date.

All we need now are – our speakers and you!

Further news will appear via Facebook/Twitter and on nudge-book.com but if you’re willing to take a chance then you can benefit from our EARLY BIRD offer – see page 51.

S

ince 2004 we have been involved in the photographing, collection, representation and distribution of literary portraiture.

Not bad for the best company you've never heard of.

In the early days of digital archives I was a picture editor with The Scotsman and Graham Jepson was a freelance photographer in London. We recognised a gap in the market: writers and publishers were sending black & white prints for a full colour daily supplement. We still have the print which inspired our

With contributing photographers all around the UK and beyond, new portraits are regularly submitted from editorial commissions, individual events and festivals.

We know – personally - that writers can be both exciting and awkward to photograph. James Ellroy, for instance, was in a very belligerent mood when he posed for this great portrait by Robert Perry, while a very relaxing Borders Book Festival in Melrose helped put newsreader Jon Snow in the mood for selfies! A personal highlight of my own would be meeting the Scots poet Edwin

James Ellroy by Robert Perry

Writer Pictures incorporation: a b&w headshot of English actor and writer David Ashton which we quickly replaced with a full colour set

by Graham.

Graham has since emigrated to Australia but the WP team have grown the collection to over 300,000 portraits of famous – and not so famous – figures. With many classic portraits in the library we have a firm idea of what works and what doesn't and while we're secretly pleased that the ‘hands on the chin’ literary pose seems to have finally had its day you may still find a few examples at writerpictures.com. Who are we to judge the fashions of the past?

Morgan near the end of his life (and not just because our set of portraits made the front pages of The Guardian and The Times when he sadly passed away).

Anyone who is a published writer is worthy of inclusion in our library so if that’s you, you can join the ranks of the glitterati!

One of these is Alex – but which?

For several years now, Writer Pictures has been our picture desk. Owner, Alex Hewitt, takes up the story.

To find out more contact info@writerpictures.com www.writerpictures.com

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BLOG SPOT

blog spot

The Little Reader Library Come with us for a whistle-stop tour of Lindsay Healy's Blog ucked Truralaway in

some classics, romance and young adult/children's fiction titles. And if that weren’t Cambridge- enough there’s some poetry and shire, non-fiction. She also enjoys Lindsay listening to audio books and is Healy’s coming around to ebooks slowly. philosophy will ring a familiar ONE OF LINDSAY’S bell, “I've enjoyed reading and loved books as far back as I can REVIEWS THE BOOK remember. I always have a book OF YOU in my bag when I go anywhere, Claire in case there is time for a few Kendal snatched moments. For me Clarissa is reading is a pleasure, a comfort being stalked and an escape, and I love the

by Rafe. He way that each book speaks to appears all the each reader in a slightly time, different way. wherever she is, at her home, in “I've been lucky enough to the park, his menacing, have a little room in our house unwanted presence is there. No for my books, now kept on matter how clearly she tells him some special bookshelves, to leave her alone, or ignores thanks to my husband and my him, he does not stop, father-in-law. I have amassed a determined she will give in to huge collection and a 'to be him. She avoids him as much as read' mountain!”

Lindsay’s interests stretch far possible, and when she is called for jury duty, it’s a relief to be in and wide including literary the courtroom away from Rafe. fiction, crime/thrillers, She gets to know some of the translated fiction, historical, 96

nb magazine & www.nudge-book.com

other jurors, including one who is kind and friendly, taking her mind off Rafe. Listening to the evidence in court, it starts to compare to her situation. She collects together evidence of how Rafe has threatened her.

The main narrative recounts Clarissa's experiences as recorded in her notebook, using the second-person; a style used really effectively here, conveying with immediacy her fear of Rafe’s frightening and manipulative threats. Clarissa is an increasingly frightened victim and fear and isolation is palpable. This is a strong debut novel, a compelling, haunting page-turner; tense psychological suspense that made my heart beat faster and my pulse race. I almost didn't dare read on at times, yet I was hooked and didn't want to put it down until the dramatic finish.

The Book of You was a Recommended Read in nb81.

BLOG SPOT

AUTHOR INTERVIEWS BLOGGER! Usually authors are looking for opportunities to be interviewed in order to reach more potential readers for their work. So in a refreshing twist, welcome, please, an extract from author Claire King’s interview with Lindsay, part of a series with seven bloggers whom she obviously rates.

“I got to know Lindsay via Twitter and really enjoy reading her reviews.”

When I was younger I read lots of classics and loved the Brontes and Hardy, and then as a student I read lots of German and some French literature. Now I tend to read more new books, in varied genres, a cracking crime novel one week, an historical novel the next. A good book is one that has characters who fascinate me, an intriguing storyline, beautiful use of language, or speaks to me personally.

So many (of the bloggers I’ve Why do you blog about books? interviewed) have cited Jane How many books do you read Eyre as an all time favourite per month on average and has book. What is it about this blogging about them changed book that has stayed with you? the way you read?

I started writing reviews of books a few years ago, including for newbooks magazine. Then I began to read a couple of book blogs and one day decided to try it myself. I blog because I love books and I enjoy writing about them, and I’d like to write my own book one day.

The quantity I read varies a lot; some months I’ve read 12, others only 3 or 4; it depends on the books themselves, and my mood. I wish I could read I think it’s a captivating story faster but I can’t, otherwise I miss things and have to re-read. that has a bit of everything; love, desire, friendship, Blogging has meant I’ve read loneliness, poverty, sadness, many new authors and books I tragedy, wit, such vivid, might never have come across memorable characters, all set otherwise. against the superb backdrop of the wild and rugged Yorkshire What would you say is your taste in books? What makes a moors landscape. I have visited Haworth many times, walking book good for you?

the steep cobbled streets, exploring the Parsonage; it’s exciting to think such talented authors lived there. It’s a book I very much look forward to re-reading.

A good book is one that has characters who fascinate me, an intriguing storyline, beautiful use of language, or speaks to me personally Thanks to Claire King for permission to republish part of her interview with Lindsay: www.claire-king.com To find Lindsay’s blog go to www.thelittlereaderlibrary.blogspot.co.uk

and if you have a blog you think our readers would like to know of then email info@newbooksmag.com.

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Five GenderBending Novels The heroine of Laird Hunt’s new novel has to dress and live as a man, so it’s hardly surprising Laird (male) has chosen as his favourites...

REVOLUTIONARY BY ALEX MYERS The action-packed, fictionalized account of the American Revolutionary War soldier, Deborah Sampson, who enlisted and fought for the rebels as Robert Shurtliff. An important and overlooked figure in American history brought vividly to life by debutauthor Myers TIPPING THE VELVET BY SARAH WATERS Written with Waters’ inimitable talent for bringing the underinvestigated in English history into striking light, Tipping the Velvet is about, among many other things, friendship and love and cross-dressing in 19th century London.

THE GOOD LORD BIRD

BY JAMES MCBRIDE This winner of the National Book Award in 2013 chronicles the adventures of Henry, known as “Little Onion”. This finely drawn character is early on mistaken for — and continues to live over the course of this novel that dramatizes the build up to John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry — as a girl.

ORLANDO BY VIRGINIA WOOLF Woolf ’s great fictional biography of the eponymous favorite of Elizabeth I who switches gender (male to female) halfway through the book and whose life extends all the way down to the 20th century. So not only do genders get bent in this classic, but life is Neverhome by Laird Hunt is published by Chatto & Windus also mightily prolonged.

ANCILLARY JUSTICE BY ANN LECKIE We never learn, over the course of this fabulous recent work of science fiction, what our narrator’s gender is: we only know that that he or she was once the consciousness of an

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entire starship! Leckie further and wonderfully baffles expectation by firmly but unostentatiously shifting the default pronoun from “he” to “she” in her novel. The denizens of this fine work are female until proven otherwise.

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