books
BAILEYS, BLOCKBUSTERS AND BEACH READS by Emma Jones
Book review
It’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 lauded book on the shelves must be Ali Smith’s How to be Both (Penguin). earlier in the summer 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’s been called “experimental,” “magical” and some say “confusing” with 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 saying “there are universal themes about grief, loss, exploration of gender, but also contemporary issues like technol- ogy, surveillance, pornography. It is very, very accessible on the one hand, but also great art.”
the most anticipated book this summer – apart from Harper Lee’s go tell a Watchman - may well be The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker (MacLehose Press). It’s arrived in the uK (from switzerland) on the crest of a wave bear- ing a string of european Literary prizes and having been translated into no less than 32 languages. It might not be a literary heavy- weight but it’s a page turning creepy thriller nonetheless which centres on a murder in- vestigation in New Hampshire which is opened 33 years after the grisly event.
Intriguingly
it’s the story of a writer solving the crime whilst penning his new bestseller and soon truth
and fiction begin to intertwine. As summer reads go it has all the essentials of a beach blockbuster with many twists and turns to keep you hanging on – think twin peaks meets Atonement with even the faint whiff of Jessica Fletcher!
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 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 wonder- ful 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 - in this instance 2 very different youngsters - 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. •
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