Book Reviews
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Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Scholastic £7.99
Katniss isn’t your regular heroine, she is difficult, unsociable and uncharismatic. Set in a dystopian world, she lives for her younger sister and the stolen moments with her friend Gale when she can hunt in the forest. Her greatest skill is her ability with a bow and arrow. To protect her younger sister from being forced to fight to the death on a reality television show for the entertainment of the Capitol city, Katniss volunteers to take her place. Thrown into an arena where she must kill or be killed by twenty three other children, it is a battle of the wits to remain appealing to an audience of blood thirsty, fashion obsessed socialites. With the help of Peeta, a boy from her hometown, can they fight off the competition and both survive when there can be only one winner?
Full of action and violence, love and friendship, Katniss’s struggle to survive will have you hooked. I read the first book expecting to be lightly entertained at best. I had read the trilogy within three days! (Teen fiction)
AK
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The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright Johnathan Cape 2011 £17.99
Anne Enright’s latest novel charts the story of an affair, the intensity of desire and destruction it creates (“who would have thought love could be so expensive?” wonders Gina Moynihan), set in the Irish boom years, in the Dublin world of dotcom winners, designer clothes and second homes by the beach.
Like the Man Booker winner The Gathering, The Forgotten Waltz examines complexities of marital and family relationships. Early on, Gina Moynihan describes her lover Seán as ‘my downfall, my destiny’, her looping narrative both glancing backwards and teasingly suggestive of the future. Like the slow unravelling of marriages in the book, the Irish boom turns to bust, until they could hear “the creaking sound of money withering out of the walls and floors.”
Anne Enright’s signature tone, mildly mocking and wry , gilds the book, describing ‘Indeed, a couple of women had the confused look that Botox gives you, like you might be having an emotion, but you couldn’t remember which one!’ Chapters are playfully named after love songs, ‘Stop! In the name of love’ and ‘Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye’. This gives a somewhat lighter touch to the book than The Gathering, but still makes for an engaging read.
Jo Brudenell
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Edge of Nowhere by John Smelcer Anderson Press Ltd 2010 £5.99
Seth’s mother has died and he seeks consolation in junk food, video games and music. Living on the Alaskan coast, he also has to go out with his father fishing. During the night in a violent storm he and his dog are swept overboard.
The story follows boy and dog as they try to get home, coping with the sea, weather, lack of food and bears; Periodically it cuts to his father, who refuses to give up hope of his son’s return. As Seth and his dog make their way from island to island over a period of months, the reader is aware of how he is changing. He not only looses weight, but he draws on knowledge and legends that he had previously thought irrelevant to modern life.
This story, for older children and young adults, is based on true events. It gives you great insight into the lives and culture of native Alaskans. Ray Mears would be disappointed by Seth’s fire lighting attempts, but it is a really gripping survival and coming-of-age story.
VC
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Guernica by Dave Boling Picador 2009 £7.99
With a strap-line ‘an epic story of love, family and war’ Boling writes a powerful novel embedded in the tragic history of a town whose name is familiar to most.
Told through generations of the Ansotegui family from 1893 – 1940, Boling provides rich story-telling; the Spanish Civil Guard, the Luftwaffe’s infamous Red Baron, the French Resistance, Picasso in Paris, the British support of the orphans of Guernica and the Basque people’s humbling resilience.
Rooted securely in extensive research and personal family history, this absorbing read will definately not disappoint!
KC
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Tiny Campsites by Dixe Wills Punk Publishing Ltd 2010 £10.95
If night-life is owls and badgers, and entertainment is birdsong and walking to the local pub; if you don’t want discos, bars and serried ranks of caravans, this is the camp-site book for you.
On wet winter evenings, it is a great book to browse through and dream about your next camping trip. So pack your tent and mallet and ‘head for the hills’…
VC
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The New York Times Bestseller
A wonderfully written and cleverly constructed novel ‘loosely inspired by the life of an American first lady, her husband, his parents, and certain prominent members of his administration’. Readers will recognise Laura, George Junior and Senior, as well as Barbara Bush through the story that Alice Blackwell narrates via the four key home addresses of her life.
As a character she charms, frustrates and even shocks; a tragic event at the age of seventeen shapes a longing that she carries throughout the book. Sittenfeld’s in-depth research reveals an ambitious writer whose incisive style demonstrates great awareness of the human condition. This will make a great summer read and I can guarantee that by the end you’ll be intrigued to compare fact with fiction!
KC
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THE SUSPICIONS of Mr WHICHER or THE MURDER AT ROAD HILL HOUSE
by Kate Summerscale Bloomsbury Publishing £7.99
Winner of the 2008 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction
The story of the sensational murder in 1860 of the three-year old son of Samuel and Mary Kent in the village of Road – now Rode – half way between Bath and Frome. Circumstantial evidence showed that the murder must have been committed by either a member of the family or one of their servants. Kate Summerscale weaves the story of the plodding local investigation, the later bringing-in of ace Scotland Yard detective, Jack Whicher, and the classics of detective fiction from Wilkie Collins’ Moonstone to Agatha Christie’s country house murders. The book is beautifully written and constructed, with many whodunit-like twists right to the final chapter. This book was Hunting Raven’s best-selling title since its publication in 2008.
JBS
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