Author: philshanklin

Book reviewer with background in education and libraries. Currently writing for book magazines and websites.

From The City, From The Plough – Alexander Baron (1948)

On By philshanklinIn Tales from the past, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Anyone who wishes to commemorate in some way the 80 year anniversary of the D-Day Landings on 6th June may like to consider reading this book as a way of marking tribute.  This author was one I selected as a pick from Christopher Fowler’s “Book Of Forgotten Authors” (2017) and he took part as a member of the Pioneer Corps in this campaign writing this fictional account soon after the end of the war in late night shifts following on from his job at a theatre company.  When published in 1948 it was popular and met with strong critical acclaim but has faded from view over the years.  I read a 2019 edition published by the Imperial War Museum.

Considering battle-grounds it’s the First World War which gets the greater focus in fiction.  The futility, the use of humans as bait, the courage, the fear and the mud, blood and blisters were equally as present 30 years later.  The second half of the book offers a realistic, visceral record from one who experienced it.  Reading this, it is amazing that anyone survived.

A significant chunk of the novel is about waiting, the preparations, the awareness that something big was going to happen but nobody seemed sure when.  We focus on the fictional Fifth Battalion of The Wessex Regiment.  It’s an ensemble piece with scenes which flit through the ranks capturing the activities and feelings of the men from raw recruit Alfie Bradley, who finds love at a dance; Tom Smith whose real love is farm work and who helps out on one after a full day’s training; Charlie Venables, so popular with the men that he can flout regulations and Colonel Pothecary whose concern for his son joining the Navy filters over to his attitudes towards the soldiers.  It is a very visual approach, the change of focus occurs frequently and it is no wonder that the author later focused on screenplays for film and television.

This was the first of a trilogy of war novels.  Alexander Baron (1917-99) later wrote London-based fiction, one of which, “King Dido”, Christopher Fowler describes as “one of the greatest and least read novels about London ever written”.  So that’s one to seek out.

This debut novel is gritty, written from the heart with the latter battle sections based on the Fifth Battalion Wiltshire Regiment (thinly disguised here) and their encounter at Mont Pincon alongside the author’s own experiences with which he must have lived with every day of his life after that but was able to use these for an unflinchingly realistic and unsentimental account.  Certainly worth reading.

From The City, From The Plough was first published in 1948.  I read the 2019 Imperial War Museum publication.

Cinema Love – Jiaming Tang (John Murray 2024)

On By philshanklinIn New Books, UncategorizedLeave a comment

This is a title I highlighted at the start of the year.  It was certainly a debut novel which grabbed my attention from its pre-publication description.

The first thing that really impresses is the quality of the writing.  The author describes himself as a queer immigrant who lives in New York and the cross-cultural elements and LGBTQ+ sensibility is evident.  Central to the novel is a location- The Workers’ Cinema in Mawei City in post-Socialist China at some point in the 1980s.  This is a down at heel venue frequented by (often married) men in order to pick up other men whilst a small selection of (often war) films play continuously which nobody (with the exception of the Projectionist) is interested in.  The novel features characters who frequented the cinema, worked at it or were affected by the behaviour of the men searching for love in the darkness.

This shadowy world is beautifully conjured up by the author who would surely have been too young to recall such venues (I did keep having the image of the Scala in King’s Cross from around the same time period creeping into my mind).

Some of the key characters from this section move to New York and struggle to adapt with poverty amongst apparent plenty, unemployment and exploitation, racism and green card marriages to deal with but over the decades the Workers’ Cinema still maintains a hold over these characters as guilt, ghosts, lust and loss permeate their daily lives. 

Things do shift around a bit time-wise and there was the odd moment when I wasn’t sure when things were happening but we very clearly move towards a section set during the Pandemic and afterwards.  There’s a short piece of first-person narrative but it’s predominantly third-person and increasingly features two women, Yan Hua and Bao Mei who briefly encountered one another at the cinema.

Writing is strong, plot-wise I felt it tailed off just slightly towards the end when I wasn’t sure about some of the older character’s motivations and it felt we were slightly being taken around in the same circles but this is an impressive debut with the author thoroughly impressing on this occasion and showing much potential for the future.

Cinema Love will be published in the UK by John Murray Press on 9th May 2024.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Yellowface- Rebecca F. Kuang (2023)

On By philshanklinIn New Books, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I knew I’d missed out on something big with this book when I chose it as one of my “What I Should Have Read In 2023” picks.  From its publication at the end of May last year this book seemed to be everywhere- helped by a provocative title and cover and with an author with an excellent reputation from her previous four books offering us something very different.  Almost a year on I’ve got round to reading it (just in time for the paperback publication on 9th May).  It topped best-seller lists, Foyles had as their Novel Of The Year and it was an Amazon Book Of The Year.  Big expectations for this then, but to be honest I wasn’t sure what I was going to make of it.

I loved it!  It’s a satirical swipe at social media and the publishing industry.  I’d always fancied a job in publishing, I’m not so sure after this.  It’s a well-paced thriller and at times a chilling horror story and cautionary tale.  There’s dark humour and quite a few moments when I wanted to shrivel up in discomfort.  It’s both a very clever work and very commercial and that explains the accolades.

June Heyward, a published author whose writing career is in the doldrums lives under the shadow of the more successful Athena Liu, a Chinese-American author whose success June can only look on with envy.  After a night out together Athena dies and June takes a manuscript Athena has been working on.  This tale of literary theft becomes increasingly problematic both for the thief and the issues it raises.

Plot-wise I’m saying no more.  Character-wise Rebecca Kuang has created a first-person narrator whose actions can be outrageous and egregious but who continually provokes a range of emotions from the reader from delight in her misfortune to almost willing her to get away with it, from unease to disbelief at the lengths she will go to maintain her writing career.

It’s a brave book as you feel that he author is setting herself up to be shot down by detractors and negative reviews focus on June as well as the controversial issues aired here, even pitching this to her publishers would have been a courageous move.  Luckily Harper Collins got behind it and have been rewarded with strong sales.  I’m not surprised to see a mixed spread of Amazon reviews between 3 and 5 star and GoodReads has it averaged out to 3.79 from nearly 450,000 ratings but I was behind this all the way.

Yellowface was published in the UK in hardback by Borough Press and imprint of Harper Collins in 2023.  The paperback is out on 9th May 2024.

Dead Man’s Rock – Arthur Quiller-Couch (1887)

On By philshanklinIn Tales from the past, ThrillersLeave a comment

What makes a book a classic?  Is it to do with age?  With its popularity when it was published?  Its staying power?  Its literary worth?  Probably a combination of these and many other factors.  As far as I am concerned I have just read a novel which deserves classic status yet when I went on to GoodReads to give my five star rating I discovered there were no other reviews or ratings.  Am I the only person out there to have read this?  It’s a little gem!

You may have heard of the name of Sir Arthur Quiller Couch (1863-1944).  He was the editor of the Oxford Book Of English Verse (1939) that seemed to be on everyone’s bookshelves at one point.  I’ve always had a copy.  The name conjured up for me an austere Victorian literary figure.  I never knew he was such a prolific writer with over 20 novels, loads of short stories, poetry and non-fiction works many of which were published under the pseudonym Q.  I recently purchased a Delphi Classic e-book edition which has all of these and this is the first novel from the Cornish resident published in 1887 when he was 24. 

Cornwall is often featured in his fiction and here the rugged coastline gives us Dead Man’s Rock, not far from The Lizard.  A perfect setting for an adventure tale and this is what we have here as three generations of the Trenoweth family become obsessed with treasure, especially a large ruby.  The grandfather indicated he had found it and hid it and left a will with cryptic instructions for his son to seek it only if in dire circumstances, he sets off to recover it and the search is once again picked up by his son, main character and narrator Jasper.

Jasper is eight years old when we first meet him and is so sophisticated in word and deed that it is later on recognised that the reader may struggle with plausibility and the narrator needs to intervene and explain it away.  “How will it be asked could any boy barely eight years of age conceive the thoughts and entertain the emotions there attributed to Jasper Trenoweth?”

But, park that to one side as the narrator urges and we get early on a clifftop scene reminiscent of the opening of “Great Expectations” (1861) with Pip and the convict, one of the most chilling encounters in classic fiction and to push the connection further, there’s later on a superbly cold female character, this novel’s equivalent of Miss Havisham.

The first half is pure adventure with travel, journals and events which felt more gripping and involving than “Treasure Island” (1882) which was published just five years earlier and was an obvious influence but there’s more to it than this as the second half develops and introduces characters, has a love story element and gets very dark indeed.  All the way through there is the sense of a plot moving forward without the padding there was in works drawn out to fit serialisation, something which even “Great Expectations” is guilty of.  In the opening sentences the narrator informs us he is going to impart “a plain tale, plainly told” and whereas he keeps the second part of the bargain, the first not at all as this is far too extraordinary a tale to be called plain.  Now, there are a lot of coincidences, but this is very common in works of this vintage, look at Thomas Hardy, but I was still able to buy into the implausible as I was enjoying what I was being given so much.

I really think this book deserves a larger audience.  A sensitive adaptation which conveys the swashbuckling adventure, the romance, melodrama and undeniable penny dreadful elements could reclaim this work.  I loved it.  If subsequent works are as good I think I’m going to be shouting Arthur Quiller-Couch’s name off rooftops to get him rediscovered.  It is certainly an under-rated classic up there with the best adventure tales and so readable.

You can buy his complete works from Delphi Classics currently available on Amazon for the paltry sum of £1.99.  Even if you only read his first novel (although skip the horrendously plot-spoiling introduction until afterwards) you will have a real bargain.

Dead Man’s Rock was originally published in 1887.

Real Americans – Rachel Khong (Hutchinson Heinemann 2024)

On By philshanklinIn New BooksLeave a comment

Here’s a contemporary contender for the title of The Great American Novel, a rich three generation family saga which tackles some big issues in a highly readable, straightforward way.

Malaysian-born California resident Rachel Khong gained much critical acclaim for her debut “Goodbye Vitamin” (2017) and her reputation can only be further enhanced with this.

In a mix of first and third-person narratives and featuring sections spanning from 1966 to 2030 we settle down with Lucy, aged 22, American born of Chinese heritage in 1999 working as an unpaid intern for an online travel magazine.  An office party had me anxious for her, recalling “Jaded” by Ela Lee (2024) but here it’s the place Lucy meets Matthew, the nephew of her boss.

There’s a lot of wealth in this novel although perhaps the more appropriate term is fortune, in the sense of both money and good luck and in the sense that some are just born fortunate.  This sense of privilege does not extend to Lucy’s parents who started afresh from Communist China.  There’s a lot on appearance and as the novel moves towards a not too distant future the work on genetics which lies behind much of the money takes a darker turn as gene therapy shifts towards polygenic screening- the creation of the most healthiest and most intelligent.

But more to the forefront is a detailed family piece showing the choices open to each of the three generations of the Chen family and the decisions made from these choices.  Each feel they have some ability to briefly disrupt time in a world where time is running away from us all.  The reason for this comes from an almost mystical encounter between Lucy’s mother and a lotus flower seed.

As suggested by the title it all feels very American but it is an America enriched by the cultural experiences of those not born in the country working alongside traditional white privilege with the edge of how fiddling around with DNA might affect all our futures.  It works well as both family drama, a record of how we came to be and posits a scientific view of what might await us in our futures.  Reassuringly, Rachel Khong leaves us with a feeling of hope and a belief in the value of family.

Real Americans  is published by Hutchinson Heinemann in the UK on April 30th 2024.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Whale Fall – Elizabeth O’Connor (Picador 2024)

On By philshanklinIn New Books, UncategorizedLeave a comment

A whale washed up on the beach provided the focus for two impressive debut novels I’ve read from the last couple of years, “The Whalebone Theatre” by Joanna Quinn and “The Whale Tattoo” by Jon Ransom (both 2022).  I feel such an event works well in fiction as it evokes such a sense of the out of the ordinary for the community, a sobering experience of just what the sea contains.  There’s the sadness and futility of the huge creature left to rot, excitement for children who witness this process and it often serves as an omen that things are about to change.

Another debut and another whale appearing on the beach of a sparsely populated island off the Welsh coast in 1938.  In its wake come two English researchers, a man and a woman working on a book about life on the island.  They employ 18 year old resident Manon as a translator, as a number there, including Manon’s younger sister, speak only Welsh.  There’s a sense from the mainland that things are building towards war but it is everyday survival which the islanders focus on.

This is a quiet, short novel of 178 pages which is well written and maintains the interest.  There’s a timelessness to it and the fictional location is inspired by a number of islands off the British/Irish coasts where populations and local traditions dwindled.  It impresses with its strongly created main character and the pull of the island for her.  Not that much happens but it is rich in atmosphere.  The Observer highlighted it as one of the most anticipated debuts for 2024 which has already been a strong year for first fiction.  I wonder if something so quietly assured and calm, and not to be taken as a criticism, slight, will stand out amongst much showier debuts.

Whale Fall will be published by Picador on 25th April.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

This Is Why You Dream- Rahul Jandial (Cornerstone 2024)

On By philshanklinIn Real LifeLeave a comment

From the author of “Life On A Knife’s Edge – Life Lessons From A Brain Surgeon” comes this very readable, yet very thorough (judging by the extensive bibliography at the back) study on dreams.  The author states that before starting this work he thought dreams represented very much a niche area of medicine with their interpretation, especially, having the distinct aroma of pop psychology, akin to horoscopes, but recent discoveries he has made on the operating table and the research carried out for this book has convinced him otherwise.  A specialist in paediatric brain surgery he certainly knows what he’s talking about and even though the complexities of brain functions will inevitably stump the general reader he makes everything as clear as he possibly can in explaining dreams and their purpose, significance, importance and meanings. 

There are sections on nightmares, erotic dreams, inspirations for creativity and impact on health and well-being.  There’s quite a chunk on lucid dreaming (where the sleeper is aware they are dreaming and can potentially exercise some control over their dreams) and what all this might mean for us in the future as some bewildering technology is under development.

If you, like me, are interested in dreams then you are going to want to read this book.  To get you going here are some little snippets I found myself highlighting.

  • We spend about two hours a night dreaming and not just during REM sleep as was once thought.
  • When dreaming the brain’s Executive Network shuts down (which controls logic, reason and reality testing) and another part, termed here the Imagination Network becomes dominant leading to those scenarios the waking brain would never fathom.
  • What we dream about is far more universal than you would expect.  Surveys carried out fifty years apart in four different countries show people’s dreams to be remarkably similar (predominantly school/exam dreams and being chased).
  • Dreams do actually follow rules: When objects transform into other objects it is generally something similar.  It’s hard to read in a dream (that is why I can never finish calling the school register in my recurring teacher dream).  Use of TVs, computers and social media turn up rarely.  Hands generally look strange as do watch and clock faces.
  • Up to the age of 7 or 8 children are rarely active participants in their own dreams, it’s mainly animals from stories and cartoons.  When nightmares kick in (and they need to for developmental reasons) children will experience them 5 times more than adults.
  • Exam Dreams?  In tests students did 20% better than those who didn’t dream about them, even though the dreamer may have had the humiliating experience of turning up late, or naked, or forgetting to revise.

Towards the end the author concludes that the understanding of dreams can only enrich our lives and help us to cope with events and emotions.  And, as a bonus, you never know you might discover something along the lines of the Periodic Table, DNA, or the sewing machine all of which benefitted from dreamers.

I think I’m going for a lie down now……

This Is Why You Dream is published by Cornerstone Press, part of the Penguin Random House Group in the UK on 18th April 2024.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Earth- John Boyne (Doubleday 2024)

On By philshanklinIn New Books, UncategorizedLeave a comment

This is the second part of Irish author John Boyne’s “The Elements” Quartet.  The first part “Water” made it into my Top 10 Books of 2023 and had me tearing up the rule book as it certainly shifted my feelings about short novels/novellas as it was a near-perfect example of the form, contained very nicely within its 176 pages.  It’s done well commercially for the author in hardback which is a testament to his commercial power as faced with a table of new hardback books in a shop I’d be tempted to go with something thicker to get more for my money, but wherever I see it displayed it shines out at me and is obviously being chosen by many readers.

But could he do it again?  There’s a bit of a niggling inside me to consider it a 5* book before even starting it as I’ve awarded this author the top rating 6 times from the 9 books of his I’ve read.  He’s already at the top of my 5* rating league but even as I’m writing this I’m not 100% positive of which way I’m going to go.

We’ve met main character Evan Keogh before.  In “Water” he is the teenage boy on the unspecified island off the West Coast of Ireland who is very talented at football but would prefer to be an artist.  Here we find him in London, a Champions League footballer embroiled in a scandal and facing criminal proceedings.  His entry into professional football is unusual and he doesn’t fit into that world.  We switch, in this first-person narrative, between his present and past.  A major theme of the novel is consent, a topic which has already seen me giving 5* to Ela Lee’s “Jaded” (2024) this year and a book I can never get out of my mind is Kia Abdullah’s legal thriller “Truth Be Told” (2020) yet here John Boyne certainly offers fresh perspectives.

I couldn’t put this down, which you might think is not saying a great deal as it is only 176 pages (the same length as “Water”) but, on reflection, I don’t think it is as perfectly formed as its predecessor, which felt so complete.  Here, I found myself yearning for another 200 or so pages so that scenes which felt a little skimmed over could really breathe and that would have made this something really extraordinary.  I have to balance that feeling with the fact that the author has certainly left me wanting more- which shifts him back up into my five star criteria.

My only niggle concerns something I mentioned in my review of “Water” where I felt that the crafting of it “belies one of my issues with novellas in that despite their brevity they can feel drawn out”.  Here, there’s a character who comes back into Evan’s life in a scene which didn’t blend in so well and felt like a hint of padding within its limited pages.  Maybe this character had a significance I didn’t pick up on or may reappear in one of the later works.

And what of the element itself?  Earth is perhaps harder to pin down than water which was everywhere in the island setting of its novel but here it is used very well as the pull of Ireland, the home soil, its physical presence on the football pitch, the smothering sensation Evan experiences at times, as in being buried alive and in its grubbiness which dominates the whole piece, as it is a slightly queasy read throughout.

It may not be as well crafted as “Water” but, boy, is it compelling and offers a high-quality reading experience.  Is it up there with the very best of John Boyne’s five star works?  No, but “The Heart’s Invisible Furies” is one of my favourite novels ever so it’s probably not going to be, but it does compare with the other novels I’ve awarded 5* to this year and the answer become suddenly clear to me.

Half-way through The Elements Quartet and I don’t know whether the intention is to publish the four in one volume at some point.  If it is, what a work this would potentially be! But, however mouth- watering a prospect this would be I wouldn’t suggest holding out.  If I was John Boyne I’d be tempted to write a really long last instalment to stop that happening!  You do need to read these now.  The third volume “Fire” will be out towards the end of the year.

Earth is published by Doubleday on 18th April.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

The Night In Question- Susan Fletcher (Bantam 2024)

On By philshanklinIn Murder They Wrote..., New BooksLeave a comment

Cosy crime is a genre I dip my toe into occasionally.  I’ve not read the biggest hitter in this area, Richard Osman, but I would hazard a guess that this very healthy market is being aimed at with this, UK author Susan Fletcher’s ninth novel.  This Whitbread First novel award-winning author who made a big impact with her debut “Eve Green” back in 2004 should have good commercial success with this, especially when it arrives in paperback.

The setting is Babbington Hall Residential Home and Assisted Living and main character 87 year old Florrie is negotiating life in her wheelchair access apartment as a recent arrival after having to have part of her leg amputated.  She looks back on a life full of adventures and forward to more in her new home.  Throughout her life she lived with a dark secret, which no-one now living knows about.  Can she finally get to grips with this in what is likely to be her last place of residence?

Florrie is a sparky character with a strength and determination not apparent from her outer appearance and finds herself in the centre of things when a tragedy occurs at Babbington Hall.  She, alongside retired teacher Stanhope Jones start sleuthing to investigate events.  There’s a good set of characters including a couple of gossipy sisters-in-law, a Polish Goth carer, Magda, and an unconventional vicar all with their part to play.  I’m always a little resistant to being pulled into the fictional worlds in this type of crime novel but it did happen and the combination of potential crime at the Home alongside Florrie’s reviewing of her life up to that point is well balanced and works effectively.  Information is discovered at just the right pace to allow the characters, especially Florrie, who is very much the star of the piece to shine through.  I’d imagine this is different in tone and style to the type of novels the author has published before but she should certainly win converts to her writing.

The Night In Question is published in hardback by Bantam, an imprint of Transworld/Penguin Books on 18th April.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

The Amendments – Niamh Mulvey (Picador 2024)

On By philshanklinIn New BooksLeave a comment

This is a debut novel from an Irish writer who made award shortlists for her story collection “Hearts And Bones”.  This is the 9th debut novel I’ve read so far this year and the standard is high, but this is one of the best.

It is a tale of three women, main character Nell, her mother, Dolores and Martina, who is one of the mentors of a religious group Nell falls into in her teens.  Nell joins La Obra de los Hogarenos (the Work of the Homemakers), an offshoot of the Catholic Church, a movement against what was seen as increasing secularisation and in favour of home life and fostering an international brotherhood of like-minded souls.  Not quite a cult, but a group which does influence Nell with its views around the time that discussions in Ireland on increasing pro-choice rights were being discussed.

Dolores had been involved in a previous consideration of these issues with the Eighth Amendment of 1983 when she had been a member of a women’s group.  Time moves backwards and forwards for these women throughout the narrative as more of their lives are gradually revealed to us and each other.

The catalyst for this is counselling sessions for Nell, about to become a parent with her pregnant partner Adrienne and facing this future with fear and a reluctance which needs sorting.

I was really involved with the women and their lives as they move back and forth from Ireland.  Time away seems to enable them to find themselves and help clarify feelings, Dolores in London and Nell in Spain but are they able to continue with that growth when they return home?  The religious aspect I found fascinating and the theme of choice- for the characters in their own lives and from the restrictions of the legislation brings the novel together very nicely.  This is certainly a high-quality read and it’s great to discover yet another first-rate Irish author with huge potential.

The Amendments is published on 18th April by Picador.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.