BOOK REVIEW Book Review
BAILEYS, BLOCKBUSTERS AND BEACH READS
I
t’s a bumper time for books at the moment and there are lots on the shelves so plenty to choose from for that perfect holiday read.
The most anticipated book of the season and possibly even this year has to be Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman, the sequel to the classic To Kill A Mocking Bird. Remarkably this book was originally written in the 1950s and submitted to Lee’s publishers before her Pulitzer Prize winning classic. The story features many of the same characters but is set 20 years on in 50s America. It really is a case of ‘watch this space.’ Publication by William Heinemann is due mid July but knowing the power of Lee’s first
and only other published book it’s almost certain to fly off the shelves and be on everyone’s ‘to read’ list this summer. The most lauded book on the shelves must be Ali
Smith’s How to be Both (Penguin). earlier this month it won the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction. It also won the Costa Novel Award and made it to the 2014 Booker Prize short List.
All the literary pundits are singing its
praises and though I’m a little daunted and even skeptical of multi-prize winning books I’m intrigued by this one.
It
has two stories that can be read in either order: one of a modern teenage girl coming of age and the other of a cross-dressing Italian Renaissance artist.
It’s difficult to
ignore a writer who is compared to Virginia Woolf and James Joyce and the chair of the Baileys Prize Judges, shami Chakrabarti, sums it up, “There are universal themes about grief, loss, exploration of gender, but also contemporary issues like technology, surveillance, pornography. It is very, very accessible on the one hand, but also great art.”
And the most likely book you’ll see on the beach?...Well I put my money on Victoria Hislop’s The Sunrise just published in paperback by Headline Review. Hislop is undeniably a great storyteller with this latest novel set in the Mediterranean sun in 1970s Cyprus. It has all the essential qualities of a good holiday read with a story of family, friendship, loyalty and betrayal involving Greek and Turkish Cypriot families. Hislop has an
by Emma Jones
ability to wrap a fascinating and moving story with accurate historical detail, this time enlightening her readers with a story around the success and subsequent invasion and abandonment of Famagusta in Cyprus. And the book I’m loving at the moment…is from another Pulitzer Prize winning author, Anthony Doerr - All the Light We Cannot See (Fourth Estate). It is a wonderful and some say “epic” bit of historical fiction set in World War Two, which keeps me wanting to read more. Once again the story focuses on the lives of 2 different people - one a blind young French girl and the other a young German orphan boy with a passion for radios. This page-turner has been heralded as a “masterpiece” which is both delicate and moving with two enchanting main characters and the author’s ability to bring a scene to life in one paragraph is staggering. Definitely worth popping this one in the suitcase. And finally don’t forget The Ways with Words
Literature Festival at Dartington from 3 – 13 July. It’s a great event with something for everyone – a true melting pot and mix of lively debate and discussion with politicians (eg. Alan Johnson), political commentators, comedians (eg Dom Joly), entertainers, poets (eg simon Armitage), business people (eg Mary Portas), celebrities (eg Judy Finnegan) as well as the literary heavyweights such as Ben Okri, Deborah Moggach, salley Vickers and Penelope Lively.
www.wayswithwords.co.uk
New books for adults and children from our community co-operative
Open all year but times vary seasonally
12 Higher Street (opposite The Cherub Inn) 01803 839571
info@dartmouthcommunitybookshop.co.uk www.dartmouthcommunitybookshop.co.uk
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