If Cormac McCarthy suddenly developed a sense of humour, or the Coen Brothers decided to adapt Cervantes’ Don Quixote, The Sisters Brothers is what you might get. Eli Sisters is an unhappy man. He’s unhappy with his new horse, Tub. He’s unhappy about his lack of a wife. But mostly, he’s unhappy with his line of work. With his brother Charlie, he is one half of the notorious Sisters Brothers. At the height of the great Californian Gold Rush, the brothers have been tasked with the assassination of a particular prospector, the wonderfully named Hermann Kermit Warm. Along the way the bickering brothers meet a carousel of strange characters and odd situations, all of which lead Eli to question his sorry lot in life. - Christopher |
You may be disappointed if you thought Malcolm Fox, Rankin’s latest protagonist, is a duplicate of Inspector Rebus. Sure he’s middle-aged and grumpy, but he’s teetotal and enjoys his work: he is ‘The Complaints’, policing the police with Internal Affairs. But like Rebus, ‘Foxy’ works a case to the end, which is just as well, since two have simultaneously landed in his lap. A colleague’s credit card details have been logged on a [ahem] questionable website and his sister’s good-for-nothing boyfriend has been found murdered. It wouldn’t be Rankin if the two weren’t linked now would it?
- James
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First things first. This book is big. Very big. 701 pages to be precise, and that’s not even including the 200-odd pages of career stats. Yet the fact that you are even reading this synopsis suggests an interest in Formula One. So, introducing
the 1976 F1 Champion…. This thoroughly researched biography – chronicling everything from Hunt’s humble (albeit well financed) beginnings as a Mini Touring Car driver, through to his truculent days at the commentary box microphone – promises not to disappoint. Even if you are not an F1 fan, you may still be interested in reading about Hunt’s all too prolific addiction to alcohol, cannabis and ‘enjoyment’. If that’s not enough, he once decked a fellow driver on live television…
- James
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This is a fictionalised account of the final days of communism in Romania. McGuiness tells the story of an English Professor who has found himself teaching at a Bucharest university in late 1989. He arrives into a totalitarian communist state led by the brainless Nicolae Ceaucescu and his sinister ‘Securitate’. In 100 days time the Ceaucescus will be dead and Romanians will be caught up in a bloody revolution. This novel tells the story of the months leading up to that day. Having been to Romania several times I found so much I could identify with in this novel about the people and their wit, warmth and cynicism! - Andrew |
Precocious eight-year-olds who don’t sound like eight-year-olds at all are annoying. And yet here is Oscar, who is exactly that, and you just fall love with him. His search for his father becomes more heart-rending with every revealed twist, until it finally breaks you. In a good way. Foer plays with both narrative and layout conventions and it makes the book one of those you want to hand on down to not only your nearest and dearest, but random strangers. Seldom have I been so engaged and invested in a character’s fate. Oscar’s story and his relationships with those around him are invariably touching and it all stays with you for a long time afterwards. - Julia |
I have a very short attention span for anything that isn't crime fiction but this may have changed my reading habits. Hattie is the matriarch of a large family. Each chapter is told from the perspective of one character, beginning with Hattie and then following the lives of her childrenand a grandchild from the 1920s to the present day. It is not a novel in the traditional sense, more like a collection of short stories where you catch a small glimpse of each life. It is a beautiful, melancholy and very self assured debut. My only criticism would be that it leaves you wishing you knew more about each character as the time spent with each is very short and they are all equally intriguing. - Rebecca |
The zombie apocalypse has finally happened; this is its chronicle, comprised of first person accounts from survivors both military and civilian. The only thing requiring suspension of disbelief is not even the existence of zombies, but merely the possibility! What makes this book so utterly fantastic and truly spine-chilling is the matter-of-fact tone of its presentation, leaving you wondering at times why you don’t remember some of the events described. You’ll want to read Brooks’ spookily earnest, frighteningly practical Zombie Survival Guide next, and invest in a machete and some self-defence lessons. - Julia |
Joe Kavalier, having escaped the Nazi occupation of Prague via Lithuania and Japan (with a little escapade with a Golem thrown in) finally gets some rest in New York. His bed fellow is his cousin, Sam Clay: a failed comic artist, but gifted with imagination and a brash charm. Together, the boys write their own superhero, The Escapist! They make their names and their fortunes, but Joe is conflicted. What good can the Escapist do against the prospect of a real war? How can he help his family back in Prague? Chabon’s playful, heartbreaking tale won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I really felt for the boys, and their rogues’ gallery of supporting characters. I actually lost sleep to lamplight readings, just as I did aged ten, with the exploits of Batman and Spiderman spread in front of me. - Christopher |
You’d think helping a clearly distressed, injured girl out of a cold night, there’d be better thanks than suddenly becoming invisible to your colleagues and losing your flat to some more people who can’t seem to see you. Unfortunately for Richard, this girl is Door, from London Below, and on the run from some truly fantastical characters. So in order to get his life back, he will have to work on some serious suspension of disbelief. Unlike the reader, because Neil Gaiman’s softly quirky and yet darkly edgy voice makes all of it sound like everyday occurrences to us. Of course there’s a Floating Market in Harrods! You’ll never take the tube quite the same way again. - Julia
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Donald Barthelme; David Gates Donald Barthelme was one of the most innovative and experimental short-story writers of his period, but he also understood people in a way few writers ever do. Stories like 'A Shower of Gold' and 'The Balloon' are very surreal and unusual, but they’re also beautiful statements about how hard it is to live in a world that is often confusing and absurd. He’s not for everyone, but for those who are on his wavelength he’s one of the best writers of the 20th century.
- Adam
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You’ve tried them all, right? Wrong! No time like the present…
- James
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The Corrections tells the story of the Lambert family, the mother of which is desperate to gather her adult children together for one last Christmas before their father succumbs to Parkinson’s. Each chapter focuses on one character, and they’re some of the most interesting, complex characters that I’ve ever read, especially the eldest child Gary, who refuses to admit to his wife and himself that he’s suffering from depression, and their mother Enid, who in her seventies is only just realising she’s wasted her life. The novel is very sad, but it’s so well written that it never becomes melodramatic – it’s a story about what it’s like for ordinary people to live in our times, and it captures the main concerns of our age perfectly.
- Adam
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A brilliant cross between Harry Potter, Narnia and Brideshead Revisited, Lev Grossman’s The Magicians is one of the most brilliant fantasy novels I’ve read in years. The story may sound familiar – boy discovers magic exists and enrols in a magical college – but the characters are so complex and vivid and the world they inhabit is so rigorously and intricately realised that it feels like you’re reading something wholly original. A must-read for anyone who’s ever wished magic was real.- Adam
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This is perfect comfort reading. Charlotte is a really lovable character and throughout the book you follower her through all her trials and tribulations, learning valuable lessons along the way.
- Jo
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He calls himself Snowman. He lives in a tree on a beach, wrapped in an old sheet. The Children of Crake come to him, singing his name…“Oh Snowman! Oh Snowman! What have we found?” They are his responsibility. He was once called Jimmy, and he is in all likelihood the last human being on Earth. In Snowman, Atwood has created a great tragi-comic narrator, a jealous lover left alone at the end of the world, with only his failing sanity for company. Through his memories, we learn how this world came to be. He tells us of strangely altered animals, of nature dangerously contained, and of the mysterious Oryx, whom Jimmy loves and despises in equal measure. - Christopher |
When Tod T Friendly dies, his consciousness escapes his body and begins to re-live his life backwards. He begins life as a doctor in American suburbia, mangling his patients before sending them home fixed, ending relationships before falling in love, and watching his deceased friends and relatives being dug out of the ground are brought (back) to life. As he progresses further backwards, however, a sinister past and his true identity are uncovered: as a doctor in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War, Friendly was involved in the genocide at Auschwitz. But is this the way his backwards-moving consciousness will re-live it? - Josh |