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Book Reviews

• The Barbarian Nurseries by Héctor Tobar - review January 27, 2012
  A novel about American racial tensionsSet in contemporary southern California, Héctor Tobar's second novel energetically explores America's hidden seam of racial discord; here modest incidents can develop into controversy in a matter of hours. The story opens quietly, with a detailed portrait of the suburban Torres-Thompson family in decline. Scott […]
• The Pleasures of Men by Kate Williams – review January 27, 2012
  A gothic novel pastiche fails to convinceThe 19th-century Parisian dramatist Victorien Sardou once advised that the secret of a good plot was to "torture the heroine". It's an artistic model that first-time novelist Kate Williams seems to relish. The Pleasures of Men introduces us to an orphan kept in the dubious care of a suspiciously gothic […]
• The Death of Mao by James Palmer – review January 27, 2012
  Disaster and intrigue in China after the cultural revolutionOn 12 May 2008, a devastating earthquake ripped apart Wenchuan county in Sichuan province, southwest China. Military and civilian rescuers arrived swiftly at the scene, saving countless lives. Although more than 68,000 people died, the number of fatalities could have been much higher.An indication o […]
• Et cetera: Steven Poole's non-fiction choice - reviews January 27, 2012
  The Existentialist's Guide to Death, the Universe and Nothingness, The Ajax Dilemma and ChickenThe Existentialist's Guide to Death, the Universe and Nothingness, by Gary Cox (Continuum, £14.99)As what lack have you defined yourself lately? Here the author of How to Be an Existentialist delivers a crunchier, more technical reading of the views of Sa […]
• Trampling Out the Vintage by Frank Bardacke – review January 27, 2012
  The life and times of a charismatic labour leaderIt wasn't just British trade unions that seemed to have a death wish in the late 70s and early 80s. The brightest and bravest of the American unions, United Farm Workers, whose struggle against inhuman conditions in Californian farms inspired a generation, tore itself to pieces. At its 1981 conference, so […]
• Cities of the Classical World by Colin McEvedy January 27, 2012
  A study of great cities of the past has morals for todayWhat makes a city? A simple mass of people, a great temple, a hub of learning, trade or transport? Colin McEvedy's idiosyncratic book, a survey of 120 "centres of ancient civilisation", doesn't ask the question, but unwittingly suggests some answers. In doing so, it tells us almost a […]
• Sue Arnold's audiobook choice - review January 27, 2012
  The Forgotten Legion by Ben Kane, Vespasian by Robert Fabbri and Lives of the Twelve Caesars by SuetoniusThe Forgotten Legion, by Ben Kane, read by Michael Praed (17½hrs unabridged, BBC, £24.50)In 53BC an army of 35,000 Roman legionaries led by Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome and a member of the first ruling triumvirate, was routed by 10,000 […]
• A Boy and a Bear in a Boat by Dave Shelton - review January 27, 2012
  A fine marine adventureTo an adult reader, the title A Boy and a Bear in a Boat instantly brings to mind Yann Martel's Life of Pi, with its boy in a boat with a tiger, and Moacyr Scliar's Max and the Cats, with a Jewish refugee in a boat with a jaguar. (What is it with a single male cast adrift with a wild animal?) One of the big differences in Dav […]
• Homesick for the Earth by Jules Supervielle - review January 27, 2012
  A taste of the strangeness of experienceIf Jules Supervielle (1884-1960) is known to an English readership, it is probably for one poem, "Rain and the Tyrants", which exists in a beautiful translation by David Gascoyne (reprinted in the Guardian in 2002). Moniza Alvi has not included this with her versions of 42 of Supervielle's poems, wisely […]
• The Third Reich by Roberto Bolaño January 27, 2012
  Roberto Bolaño's novels investigate the spell cast over the living by the deadRoberto Bolaño has been dead since 2003, but he remains the planet's most prolific novelist. Every six months, it seems, we are gifted a fresh masterpiece, or near miss, by the Chilean wizard, who, after a well-spent youth (drugs, global wandering, political struggle), fi […]
• Summer by Tom Darling – review January 27, 2012
  A remote farm is the setting for this fable of two orphans"No cars, no buses, no sirens; not even the distant hum of a passing plane." Orphaned brother and sister Billy and Grace find themselves exiled to a silent world, on a farm with a taciturn grandfather neither can remember. Tom Darling's thoughtful second novel leads the reader into a te […]
• Mountains of the Moon by IJ Kay – review January 27, 2012
  This is a bold, uplifting debut about a desperate lifeMountains of the Moon tells the story of a woman in her 30s, recently released from prison, who finds herself a job filling doughnuts. But IJ Kay's extraordinary debut also tells the story of Lulu, aged seven, escaping the abuse of her mother's home for "Africa", a nearby wasteland, pr […]
• First fiction roundup – reviews January 27, 2012
  Diving Belles by Lucy Wood, American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar, The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals by Wendy Jones and The Passenger by Peter WildDiving Belles, by Lucy Wood (Bloomsbury, £14.99)Set on the Cornish coast and wrapped in local mythology, Wood's finely wrought collection has touches of a benign Angela Ca […]
• Poerty: in brief January 27, 2012
  The Rivered Earth by Vikram Seth and The Salt Book of Younger PoetsThe Rivered Earth, by Vikram Seth (Hamish Hamilton, £14.99)Gathering together four libretti written by Seth and set to music by Alec Roth, this haunting book opens with an evocative account of the chances and decisions that brought each to fruition. The first libretto, "Songs in Time of […]
• Dotter of Her Father's Eyes by Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot – review January 27, 2012
  Scenes from the author's own life add poignancy to this account of James Joyce's troubled daughterThe story of James Joyce's daughter, Lucia, who longed to be a dancer, but spent the last 30 years of her life in a Northampton mental institution, has always fascinated me. To be blunt: did her father's refusal to countenance her chosen care […]