http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/?service=Rss http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/commonwealth-by-michael-hardt-amp--antonio-negribrfirst-as-tragedy-then-as-farce-by-slavoj-zizek-1823817.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/commonwealth-by-michael-hardt-amp--antonio-negribrfirst-as-tragedy-then-as-farce-by-slavoj-zizek-1823817.html ]]> <p> One of history's most discredited ideologies is having a comeback - not as a political force but as a commodity in the marketplace. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/bad-money-by-louise-patten-1823819.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/bad-money-by-louise-patten-1823819.html <p> The financial world, for all its scandals, crashes and intrigues, has produced remarkably few good novels. Dickens and Zola in their different ways wrote about crashes, and there was of course Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/poison-shadow-and-farewell-your-face-tomorrow-part-3-by-javier-mar237as-trans-margaret-jull-costa-1823821.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/poison-shadow-and-farewell-your-face-tomorrow-part-3-by-javier-mar237as-trans-margaret-jull-costa-1823821.html <p> Jack Deza, the narrator of Javier Marías's 1500-page trilogy, Your Face Tomorrow, is an acute observer who reflects on other people's behaviour, rather as a novelist hopes to do. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/free-radical-by-vince-cable-1823822.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/free-radical-by-vince-cable-1823822.html ]]> <p>At times of crisis, Britain needs political heroes, epic figures to guide it through the wreckage and towards a more hopeful future. In the 1940s Churchill played the role of the great titan. After the war Attlee and Bevan became heroic figures. In the late 1970s enough of the country turned to Margaret Thatcher to ensure she won a series of landslide general elections. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/jealousy-the-other-life-of-cathrine-m-by-cathrine-millet-trans-helen-stevenson-1823820.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/jealousy-the-other-life-of-cathrine-m-by-cathrine-millet-trans-helen-stevenson-1823820.html ]]> <p> In The Sexual Life of Cathérine M., the French art critic Cathérine Millet shocked readers in 40 languages with her explicit revelations of years of sexual adventure. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/delhi-noir-edited-by-hirsh-sawhney-1823823.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/delhi-noir-edited-by-hirsh-sawhney-1823823.html <p> I hope that no copies of Delhi Noir ever fall into the hands of the city's police. If they do, many of the 14 authors of these nerve-shredding tales of life – and death – on the wrong side of the tracks in India's capital may face a sweaty hour or two the next time they need to renew a permit or report a crime. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/writing-in-the-dark-by-david-grossman-trans-jessica-cohen-1823831.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/writing-in-the-dark-by-david-grossman-trans-jessica-cohen-1823831.html <p> In August 2006, David Grossman signed, along with fellow writers Amos Oz and AB Yehoshua, a statement calling for a ceasefire in Israel's summer campaign in southern Lebanon. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/fred-astaire-by-joseph-epstein-1823833.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/fred-astaire-by-joseph-epstein-1823833.html <p> Hollywood legend holds that when a film executive watched Fred Astaire's first screen-test, his assessment was grim: "Balding. Can't sing. Dances a little." </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/alexander-pushkin-by-robert-chandler-1823835.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/alexander-pushkin-by-robert-chandler-1823835.html <p> Hesperus's "Brief Lives" series of short biographies offers a sound and accessible alternative to the blockbuster literary life. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-whole-day-through-by-patrick-gale-1823839.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-whole-day-through-by-patrick-gale-1823839.html <p> Middle-class melancholia has long been the subject matter of Patrick Gale's fiction. Here he examines a familiar mid-life dilemma: "Did I make the right choice?" Laura Lewis, an accountant in her forties, has returned to Winchester to care for her elderly mother. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/land-of-my-neighbours-by-barry-pilton-1823838.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/land-of-my-neighbours-by-barry-pilton-1823838.html <p> After previous novels set in the Welsh valleys, Barry Pilton's latest full-bodied farce is set in the tiny town of Abernant. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/granta-108-chicago-1823837.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/granta-108-chicago-1823837.html <p> "Dedicated to the hustle," as Ben Ratliff writes of South Side rock'n'roll innovator Bo Diddley, breezy, bruising Chicago has always had to battle for the cultural limelight against its swankier coastal rivals. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-piano-teacher-by-janice-yk-lee-1823836.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-piano-teacher-by-janice-yk-lee-1823836.html <p> When Claire Pendleton accompanies her new husband to Hong Kong in 1951, her suburban prejudices - she was raised in Croydon - soon melt away. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-national-gallery-an-illustrated-history-by-alan-crookham-1823834.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-national-gallery-an-illustrated-history-by-alan-crookham-1823834.html <p> Archivist Alan Crookham takes us from the gallery's birth in 1838 ( with its sum collection of 38 works) to the appointment of Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, its first director, whose grand tour around Europe to amass artworks may leave the current incumbent, Nicholas Penny, green-eyed with envy. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/kings-of-the-water-by-mark-behr-1823832.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/kings-of-the-water-by-mark-behr-1823832.html <p> Mark Behr is best known for his debut The Smell of Apples, a novel that exposed South Africa's Afrikaner culture at its most unappealing. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/john-piper-myfanwy-piper-lives-in-art-by-frances-spalding-1823824.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/john-piper-myfanwy-piper-lives-in-art-by-frances-spalding-1823824.html <p> Frances Spalding has a superb track-record as a writer on British art. She is an archaeologist of lives: a delver and unearther par excellence. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-red-velvet-turnshoe-by-cassandra-clark-1823090.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-red-velvet-turnshoe-by-cassandra-clark-1823090.html <p>Cassandra Clark's book is a cheat – but it cheats in the way that most authoritative historical crime fiction must. After all, any attempt to recreate the speech (and thought processes) of characters living in the 14th century has to be a conjuring trick that convinces us we're in the distant past, but doesn't render the language so archaic that it's impossible to relate to the characters. </p> Reviews Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-white-horse-trick-by-kate-thompson-1822284.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-white-horse-trick-by-kate-thompson-1822284.html ]]> <p>Kate Thompson's The White Horse Trick does the impossible: it's a cracking travel story blending Irish mythology with climate chaos. Add to that an eccentric fairy who has a craving for tobacco with some splendid family showdowns and you get a teenage novel which would not feel out of place in any book group. </p> Reviews Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/to-sea-and-back-by-richard-shelton-1821721.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/to-sea-and-back-by-richard-shelton-1821721.html ]]> <p>The opening is magical. Skirting the threat of killer whales and dolphins, a cock salmon, fattened by three years of rich feeding in the Arctic seas, begins the "sequence of navigational steps that would return him to the Highland burn where his life had begun". After encountering the scent of his watery birthplace, the fish has to wait months in deep pools for the winter thaw that permits his journey upstream. Snagged by an angler's hook, he experiences "the unpleasant realisation that, for the first time... he was being led captive by powers he did not understand".</p> Reviews Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-waters-edge-by-karin-fossum-1821233.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-waters-edge-by-karin-fossum-1821233.html ]]> <p> Shortly before they come across the dead body of a half-naked small boy, Reinhardt and Kristine Ris, a couple in their thirties, see by the forest barrier a tall shifty man. Kristine does not like the look of him, but he reminds her of somebody. Later, in the police station, she realises: "Hans Christian Andersen." When the police inspector himself – Karin Fossum's grave, indomitable Sejer, accompanied by his dedicated sidekick, Skarre – catches up with this lone individual, he too is struck by the resemblance. </p> Reviews Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:46 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/so-bright-and-delicate-by-john-keats-1818797.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/so-bright-and-delicate-by-john-keats-1818797.html <p>Following the opening earlier this month of Bright Star, Jane Campion's film about the love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne, Penguin has clearly decided to target young, love-sick girls, which inevitably means lots of flowers on the cover of this collection of letters and poems from Keats to his neighbour. Yet I'm not sure those girls will find what they're looking for in this book: the bulk is about the misery and pain of the reality of love, not its joys. </p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/we-have-always-lived-in-the-castle-by-shirley-jackson-1818798.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/we-have-always-lived-in-the-castle-by-shirley-jackson-1818798.html <p>Shirley Jackson's brilliant kind of American Gothic is offered up for our consumption in this, her final novel, first published in 1962. She liked to mix the gothic and the domestic and much of her writing centred on houses; a reflection, perhaps, of how the domestic sphere impinged on women's lives after the Second World War. </p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-dead-hand-by-paul-theroux-1818800.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-dead-hand-by-paul-theroux-1818800.html <p>A psychoanalyst would have a field day with this book. In A Dead Hand, the veteran US travel writer Paul Theroux has created a literary crime novel of sorts set in Calcutta, told through the eyes of a veteran American travel writer, Jerry Delfont. Delfont is suffering writer's block (the novel's title is another phrase for the condition), and fears that he's washed up creatively, spiritually and emotionally.</p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/under-the-dome-by-stephen-king-1818801.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/under-the-dome-by-stephen-king-1818801.html <p>Stephen King's publishers claim that Under the Dome took 25 years to write. As he explains, he hasn't spent the past two and a half decades working on this novel, but sat down to write in 1976 and then, after producing 75 pages in a fortnight, abandoned the manuscript. In 2007, he started again. "It was," he writes, "a terrific idea and it never entirely left my mind."</p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-dawn-of-green-by-harriet-ritvo-1818799.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-dawn-of-green-by-harriet-ritvo-1818799.html <p>Manchester is a thirsty city. To see just how thirsty, take a walk in the Lake District on a hot day, when water levels in the lakes are low. At Thirlmere and Haweswater, dry-stone walls marking the field edges lead straight down into the dark water. For these are no ordinary lakes: they are man-made, and their waters cover fields, roads, farms and even churches, flooded to make way for the grand reservoirs that fill Manchester's taps. </p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/an-education-by-lynn-barber-1818802.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/an-education-by-lynn-barber-1818802.html <p>When the journalist Lynn Barber was a 16-year-old in 1960, for some inexplicable reason she got into the car of a smooth-talking older man she'd never met before. </p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/legend-of-a-suicide-by-david-vann-1818808.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/legend-of-a-suicide-by-david-vann-1818808.html <p>Suicide is always horribly violent. It's the death that wreaks maximum havoc on those left behind. Whether writing about it can be therapeutic is doubtful, but David Vann has drawn upon it to produce this striking – and sometimes shocking – work of literature. This is a collection of five interlinked short stories plus a novella, which constitute an extended fictionalised treatment of Vann's father's disturbing and untimely exit from life.</p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/obama-music-by-bonnie-greer-1818810.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/obama-music-by-bonnie-greer-1818810.html <p>Bonnie Greer is a "south-sider" from Chicago, where Barack Obama made his political home – and, she says, coming from the south side means keeping it real, not forgetting your roots, and carrying blues music in your soul. </p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/outlaw-journalist-the-life-and-times-of-hunter-s-thompson-by-william-mckeen-1818811.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/outlaw-journalist-the-life-and-times-of-hunter-s-thompson-by-william-mckeen-1818811.html <p>Biography shows how much a subject was essentially a product of his or her times. Some subjects react against their times, some attempt to step out of them altogether. Hunter S Thompson was mired deep in his. Almost a cliché from the counterculture of the 1960s, he embraced it all: sexist attitudes to women, experiments with drugs, time in prison... oh, and revolutionising an art form.</p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/50-people-who-fouled-up-football-by-michael-henderson-1820891.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/50-people-who-fouled-up-football-by-michael-henderson-1820891.html <p>Michael Henderson, "Hendo" to those who know him, is a man of strong enthusiasms and equally strong dislikes, which makes him an ideal author for this feisty philippic. He sets out his stall early on, saying: "Society has become coarser in almost every respect," and naming Bobby Moore and John Arlott as two of his all-time heroes. </p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-united-states-of-mcsweeneys-ed-nick-hornby--eli-horowitz-1818809.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-united-states-of-mcsweeneys-ed-nick-hornby--eli-horowitz-1818809.html <p>It's a bit surprising to get hold of a McSweeney's anthology and find it in book form. The American literary magazine has long been as well known for the innovative, pleasingly offbeat method of its publication as it has for the actual words, whether they appear on a page, a deck of cards, a poster or junk mail. Not every issue of the quarterly from which these stories are taken is formally innovative, but very few of them are just ordinary. Turning the pages of a trickless 300-page hardback selection of those stories, it's hard to accept that you aren't about to be met with another virtuoso stunt.</p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-humbling-by-philip-roth-1818807.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-humbling-by-philip-roth-1818807.html <p>An actor, famous and fêted, at the peak of his career, steps on stage one night. Starting to speak, he finds that he simply can't do it any longer. He feels fake, inauthentic, unprepared, and, though he goes through the motions, it becomes apparent that his audience has perceived a change in him, too, and not one for the better. His gift, whatever it was, has gone. How does a life continue when the talent it rested on is abruptly removed?</p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/barbarians-to-angels-by-peter-s-wells-1819445.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/barbarians-to-angels-by-peter-s-wells-1819445.html <p> "The names conjure up images of savagery and destruction," but Wells believes the Visigoths, Huns, Vandals had a bum rap. The Dark Ages were not so dark after all. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/chaucers-london-by-ar-myers-1819449.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/chaucers-london-by-ar-myers-1819449.html <p> Though "a place of dirt and violence", 14th-century London had "not yet lost a sense of community". Myers's lively panorama includes the fashionable shopping centre and take-away food joints. Wrongdoing also has a timeless quality. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-joy-of-eating-the-virago-book-of-food-edited-by-jill-foulston-1819451.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-joy-of-eating-the-virago-book-of-food-edited-by-jill-foulston-1819451.html <p>Sampling this banquet of all-female food writing – the sorority is justified by the editor on rather curious grounds, "in the most basic sense, women are food for their offspring" – the reader may be surprised to discover a meagre serving from the stars of literary gastronomy. Jane Grigson, Alice B. Toklas, Alice Waters and Elizabeth David are represented by a single dollop, though the latter's contribution is one of her wisest paragraphs: "If I had my way, my Christmas Day eating and drinking would consist of... a smoked salmon sandwich and a glass of champagne on a tray in bed." </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-eitingons-by-marykay-wilmers-1819452.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-eitingons-by-marykay-wilmers-1819452.html ]]> <p> Mary-Kay Wilmers has spent her professional life "obsessively attending to" other people's words. Now she has produced her own – also a life's work, or at least two decades', drawing on a century of family history. The family is her mother's, the Eitingons. The name is unusual – they were Jews from the Pale of Settlement – and so, it turns, out was the family. Extending from Moscow to New York to Vienna, the family intersects with some of the key moments of 20th-century history.</p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/knut-hamsun-dreamer-and-dissenter-by-ingar-sletten-kolloen-1819455.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/knut-hamsun-dreamer-and-dissenter-by-ingar-sletten-kolloen-1819455.html <p>Nobel Prize-winning novelists are often thought sagacious, unfazed by salt mines or subordinate clauses. Picture, however, the 50-year-old Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun at work in 1909 in a house with the woman, Marie, who would soon become his second wife. Some words were slowly emerging from the paper that he crumpled up and hurled towards the bin. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/lee-valley-poems-by-yang-lian-1819458.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/lee-valley-poems-by-yang-lian-1819458.html <p> For the Chinese dissident poet Yang Lian, in transit since the repressions of 1989, Stoke Newington starts to become a truly "local" place "the fourth year you see the very last apple on the branch". </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/vitamin-ph-introduced-by-tj-demos-1819475.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/vitamin-ph-introduced-by-tj-demos-1819475.html <p> This survey of current photographs delineates the weird state of post-modern art – wildly diverse and personal, yet often bizarrely imitative. Skipping surrogates of Nan Goldin (nudity and scars) and Martin Parr (lurid close-up of iced buns), you encounter images that live on in the mind for their chilly resonance. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-united-states-of-mcsweeneys-edited-by-nick-hornby-and--eli-horowitz-1819474.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-united-states-of-mcsweeneys-edited-by-nick-hornby-and--eli-horowitz-1819474.html ]]> <p>"Things I have been reading", Nick Hornby's recently retired column from the monthly magazine The Believer, was reassuring for anyone whose rapid acquisition of books outstripped their reading. Each column began with a list of Hornby's "books bought" and "books read" from the month, and the former list was invariably longer than the latter. As he admits in his introduction to this 10th anniversary selection of its short stories, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern is just the sort of beautifully produced publication that even bestselling authors feel compelled to buy, only to leave it conspicuously on a shelf, beloved but unread.</p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-tin-drum-by-gnter-grass-trans-breon-mitchellbr-selfs-murder-by-bernhard-schlink-trans-peter-constantinebr-a-minutes-silence-by-siegfried-lenz-trans-anthea-bell-1819470.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-tin-drum-by-gnter-grass-trans-breon-mitchellbr-selfs-murder-by-bernhard-schlink-trans-peter-constantinebr-a-minutes-silence-by-siegfried-lenz-trans-anthea-bell-1819470.html <p>In some fantasy parallel universe of open-door British publishing, we might greet the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall by hailing the English version of Uwe Tellkamp's Der Turm. After all, Tellkamp's landmark epic of Dresden in the 1980s, as the GDR slithered towards its end, won the Booker-equivalent German Book Prize a year ago. Back in the real world of scant and sluggish translations, readers who have had their curiosity about Germany's singular modern fate piqued or re-ignited by this week's uneasy partying have the usual UK mixed bag of literary imports to enjoy: the re-translation of a momentous classic that scrubs up beautifully, a crime novel with political resonance from a global bestseller, and – the nicest find of all – a late-career gem by another postwar master of conscience and memory.</p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/samuel-johnson-by-peter-martin-1819468.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/samuel-johnson-by-peter-martin-1819468.html <p> Tackling the best known of all biographical subjects is a tall order, but Martin has achieved an enthralling and original portrait. Despite his Stephen Fry-like celebrity ("I believe there is hardly a day in which there is not something about me in the papers"), Johnson emerges as sad and afflicted, in keeping with his dark reflection shortly before death on "the general disease of my life". </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/ransom-by-david-malouf-1819465.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/ransom-by-david-malouf-1819465.html <p>David Malouf's book is born of war. He was first gripped by the stories of the eighth-century BC Iliad as a Brisbane schoolboy in 1943, living among sandbagged buildings and watching constant American troop movements north to the battles of the Pacific. He began this novel 60 years later, drawing on that ancient tale of war just a year or so after the destruction of the World Trade Centre.</p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/hard-rain-falling-by-don-carpenter-1819463.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/hard-rain-falling-by-don-carpenter-1819463.html <p> The New York Review Books list of resurrected clasics motors from stength to strength, and here it delivers an explosive find. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/palestine-and-israel-by-avi-shlaimbr-one-state-two-states-by-benny-morris-1819461.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/palestine-and-israel-by-avi-shlaimbr-one-state-two-states-by-benny-morris-1819461.html ]]> <p>Avi Shlaim and Benny Morris are both pioneer "new historians" of Israel who challenged some of the country's most potent founding myths. Shlaim's classic The Iron Wall – the one book everyone should read for a concise history of Israel's relations with Arabs from 1947 - showed, among much else, how consistently Israel pursued the imperative of negotiating from military strength, and the diplomatic opportunities it missed in the process. Morris, in The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, became the first Israeli historian to drive, in the words of Shlaim himself in this book, "a coach and horses through the claim that the Palestinians left Palestine of their own accord or on orders from their leaders." </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/oxford-dictionary-of-the-bible-by-wrf-browning-1819460.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/oxford-dictionary-of-the-bible-by-wrf-browning-1819460.html <p> Snappy entries elucidate hazy Biblical events ranging from Naboth's vineyard, where Jezebel did the dirty, to the virgin birth: "Some modern theologians argue... if Jesus was miraculously provided with DNA by God, with no human ancestry, how did he have a human inheritance, of the house of David?" </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-journal-of-a-novel-by-john-steinbeck-1819459.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-journal-of-a-novel-by-john-steinbeck-1819459.html <p>John Steinbeck's Journal of a Novel is a book I've kept on every desk I've written at for the past 10 years. I've rarely opened it when I'm not working on a book, and never when I'm writing well. But on those days when the engine room of a first draft feels claustrophobic or static, when the words have turned brittle and the whole endeavour seems either pointless or ridiculous, that's when I'll reach again for this idiosyncratic one-sided correspondence which comes together to form a rare map of a literary mind at the point of creation.</p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/under-the-dome-by-stephen-king-1819561.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/under-the-dome-by-stephen-king-1819561.html ]]> <p>Just as Dickens saw Victorian England as a family with the wrong members in control, so the US, in Stephen King's vast new state-of-the-nation novel, is a town with the wrong family in control. Obama may be in the White House, but for a lot of the voters in Chester's Mill, he isn't really their President. Real power is local, and rests in the three Selectmen, of whom one is an ineffectual yes-man, one addicted to pain-killers and the third Big Jim Rennie. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-lacuna-by-barbara-kingsolver-1819457.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-lacuna-by-barbara-kingsolver-1819457.html <p>At the heart of Barbara Kingsolver's sweeping historical novel lies a reluctant writer, his recalcitrant stenographer and a Nabokovian dilemma: fragments of Harrison William Shepherd's furtively written memoir are stashed in a bank vault by his assistant, Violet Brown, and await posthumous publication despite his wish to have every last sheaf burned in his back garden. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/esthers-inheritance-by-s225ndor-m225rai-1819453.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/esthers-inheritance-by-s225ndor-m225rai-1819453.html <p> Esther is preparing to meet her former lover, Lajos, twenty years after he revealed himself to be a fantasist and thief who married her more beautiful sister, Vilma. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/opening-doors-and-windows-by-james-rooseevans-1818833.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/opening-doors-and-windows-by-james-rooseevans-1818833.html ]]> <p>The theatre world is littered with self-styled gurus and shamans, but it is rare to find a director who is also an Anglican priest. In this charming and insightful memoir, 82-year-old James Roose-Evans takes us on a spiritual and creative journey from his literally tortured adolescence (he was prone to self-flagellation) to the twin heights of ordination in Hereford cathedral and Broadway success.</p> Reviews Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-scarpetta-factor-by-patricia-cornwell-1818106.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-scarpetta-factor-by-patricia-cornwell-1818106.html <p>When interviewed by this newspaper, Patricia Cornwell demonstrated the qualities that have put her in pole position in crime fiction: a fierce intelligence and a determination to be the best at what she does – both characteristics of her forensic pathologist, Kay Scarpetta. But Cornwell shares another characteristic of her heroine's, which undercuts her rather fearsome reputation: a certain vulnerability. When asked about the pretenders whose books are routinely straplined with the phrase "the next Patricia Cornwell", she replied plaintively, "I want to be the next Patricia Cornwell!... I want to be one of those young guns again." </p> Reviews Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-shirt-box-full-of-songs-by-barbara-dickson-1817682.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-shirt-box-full-of-songs-by-barbara-dickson-1817682.html <p>In an age when a few weeks' exposure on grim reality television leads inexorably to at least one memoir, how refreshing to discover that a singer whose career spans 40 years, a million-selling record, a handful of theatrical awards and an OBE had to be persuaded to put metaphorical pen to paper – and that money wasn't a deciding factor.</p> Reviews Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/voices-against-war-a-century-of-protest-by-lyn-smith-1817181.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/voices-against-war-a-century-of-protest-by-lyn-smith-1817181.html <p> My father had a bad war, but then most pacifists did. He didn't have a very good peace either, as soldiers returned from a victory in which he was only too aware he had played no part. </p> Reviews Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:48 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/conquest-the-english-kingdom-of-france-by-juliet-barker-1814713.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/conquest-the-english-kingdom-of-france-by-juliet-barker-1814713.html <p>The books that first brought Juliet Barker renown were moving studies of the Brontës' lives and letters, and an immense life of Wordsworth. Her reinvention as a medievalist with her last book, Agincourt, seemed extraordinary, but in fact the interest in heraldry and chivalry predated her appointment as curator at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Agincourt was a thrilling read, immensely informative and eye-opening. Henry V was a painstaking accountant, and rarely have military shopping lists made such exciting reading. </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/false-dawn-by-john-gray-1814714.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/false-dawn-by-john-gray-1814714.html <p>Events since False Dawn was first published in 1998 would seem to bear out John Gray's thesis that global capitalism leads not to universal prosperity but to chaos. In chapters on the US, Russia, China, Japan and developing countries, Gray shows again and again that laissez-faire capitalism is the problem, not the solution. On virtually every page there is some insight that makes you think: for instance, Gray points out that America's unemployment figures look far better than they are if you factor in the US prison population of more than a million.</p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/nation-by-terry-pratchett-1814719.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/nation-by-terry-pratchett-1814719.html <p> Nation, Terry Pratchett's latest novel for younger readers, starts promisingly: with the creation myth of an island people in the South Pacific – sorry, in Pratchett's alternative world, that's the South Pelagic Ocean. Then Mau, a boy of the Island people, returns from a solitary ordeal on a neighbouring island to find his whole nation wiped out by a tidal wave. He loses his faith in the Nation's gods – though they will keep jabbering to him in his head – and braces himself to deal with an influx of refugees from the tsunami, including Daphne, daughter of the heir to the British throne. The stage is set for a clash of cultures. </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-freewheelin-time-by-suze-rotolo-1814715.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-freewheelin-time-by-suze-rotolo-1814715.html <p>Suze Rotolo is the girl nestling up to Dylan on the album cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. She met him in 1961 when she was 17 and he was 21, and this book is a record of their time together in folky, smoky Greenwich Village. </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-peoples-train-by-thomas-keneally-1814720.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-peoples-train-by-thomas-keneally-1814720.html <p>The dark relationship between individual and society is a vexed, and vexing, subject in Russian history – and so, too, in The People's Train, Thomas Keneally's at-times brilliant retelling of the experiences of two men in the lead-up to, and during, the momentous October Revolution of 1917.</p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/winning-at-all-costs-by-paul-gogarty--ian-williamson-1816948.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/winning-at-all-costs-by-paul-gogarty--ian-williamson-1816948.html <p>"I blame the parents" goes the cliché, and in their exploration of what psychological forces make great sporting heroes great, the authors – a journalist and a children's analyst – seem to agree. The core of their book is the proposition that a desire to please their mother and vanquish rivals for her affections, be it father, siblings or others, is what drives most sportsmen on; their sporting opponents are surrogate foes (for women, substitute father for mother). </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-vagrants-by-yiyun-li-1814727.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-vagrants-by-yiyun-li-1814727.html <p>Yiyun Li takes on the omniscient voice of a 19th-century realist novelist for this bleak story set in a provincial town in China, 1979. A people who had endured the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution might have expected a thaw after the death of Mao – but it was a long time coming. </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/telling-tales-by-melissa-katsoulis-1814726.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/telling-tales-by-melissa-katsoulis-1814726.html <p> Melissa Katsoulis's entertaining account of literary hoaxes from the ancient world to the present day covers all three main kinds of hoax: the "genuine" hoax, that is to say the hoax that was never intended to be discovered (the Hitler diaries, the Ossian poems); the mock hoax, where a writer adopts a persona to create a new literary voice, such as James Norman Hall's invention of the 10-year-old poet Fern Gravel; and, most deliciously of all, the entrapment hoax, perpetrated to make a fool of a specific target. </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/tell-it-to-the-bees-by-fiona-shaw-1815301.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/tell-it-to-the-bees-by-fiona-shaw-1815301.html <p> Lydia Weekes is devasted by the disintegration of her marriage. Her son Charlie, a withdrawn young boy, is keyed into his mother's every mood change and emotion. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-true-deceiver-by-tove-jansson-1815306.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-true-deceiver-by-tove-jansson-1815306.html <p> Finnish writer and artist, Tove Jansson, is best known in this country as the creator of the Moomin stories, but her novels for adults are no less distinctive. Since her death in 2001, the author's work has become more widely available in English translation. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/reborn-early-diaries-19471963-by-susan-sontag-1815322.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/reborn-early-diaries-19471963-by-susan-sontag-1815322.html <p> "Good writers are roaring egotists, even to the point of fatuity." So wrote the superbly self-obsessed Susan Sontag in Paris in 1957. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-good-parents-by-joan-london-1815319.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-good-parents-by-joan-london-1815319.html <p> In this expansive second novel, Joan London, thoughtfully dissects the mechanics of erotic desire. Maya de Jong, an 18-year old country-girl, moves to Melbourne where she begins an affair with her married boss. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-well-and-the-mine-by-gina-phillips-1815318.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-well-and-the-mine-by-gina-phillips-1815318.html <p> "After she threw the baby in, nobody believed me for the longest time. But I kept hearing that splash." So opens Gina Phillip's debut novel about life in a small Alabama coal-mining town in the Great Depression. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/manituana-by-wu-ming-translated-by-shaun-whiteside-1815317.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/manituana-by-wu-ming-translated-by-shaun-whiteside-1815317.html <p>As a literary project, it looks at first glance like a giggly stunt positioned in some mischief-making space midway between Monty Python and the Sex Pistols. In 2000, a quartet of cultural pranksters and gadflies from Bologna published Q, a historical novel of adventure and ideas set in the 16th century. They chose as their first sobriquet "Luther Blissett": improbably enough, the name of a Watford striker subject to racial abuse after a transfer to Italy to play at AC Milan. Following a quizzical reaction from the real-life Blissett, the group recruited a couple more anonymous writers, picked for their next incarnation "Wu Ming" "no name" in Mandarin and continued to develop a unique brand of intelligent period fiction, with 54 also translated into English.</p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-the-periodic-table-by-primo-levi-1815315.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-the-periodic-table-by-primo-levi-1815315.html <p>In 1985, Primo Levi was known in Britain and America for a single book, If This is a Man, his memoir of survival in Auschwitz. Then came The Periodic Table, which arrived in this country garlanded with eulogies from Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco.</p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-last-jews-of-kerala-by-edna-fernandes-1815312.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-last-jews-of-kerala-by-edna-fernandes-1815312.html <p> "It is the end of history for the Jews of Kerala": after 2,000 years of tolerance on the Malabar coast, fewer than fifty remain. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/howards-end-is-on-the-landing-by-susan-hill-1815311.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/howards-end-is-on-the-landing-by-susan-hill-1815311.html <p>Whilst pursuing a volume of EM Forster through the warren of bookshelves that prop up her house, Susan Hill is struck by the number of books that she owns but has never read, or has read but forgotten that she owned; and the many old favourites ripe for another outing. So begins a year of re-acquaintance with her own library through an embargo on new purchases and heavily curtailed internet use. Hill offers just enough memoir to leaven what could otherwise be a very list-heavy and opinionated volume. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/bloods-a-rover-by-james-ellroy-1815309.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/bloods-a-rover-by-james-ellroy-1815309.html ]]> <p>Nearly 20 years after he started work, James Ellroy's Underworld USA Trilogy is finally complete. Begun during the administration of George Bush Sr., former director of the CIA, its final part emerges in the bright new dawn of Barack Obama's administration, appropriately enough for a series that covers the years from November 1958 to May 1972, the decade or so of struggle out of which Obama's America was formed.</p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/talking-about-detective-fiction-by-pd-james-1815307.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/talking-about-detective-fiction-by-pd-james-1815307.html <p>Considering the longevity of a form which began with Oedipus and which remains our most popular kind of TV drama, detective fiction has had surprisingly few essays written about it. PD James's slim, elegant and thoughtful eight chapters on the subject defines it on a number of levels as a history of the genre, as examinations of individuals authors she especially likes, and as an overview of a kind of fiction which has never seemed more compelling. "Whether we live in a more violent age than did, for example, the Victorians is a question for statisticians and sociologists, but we certainly feel more threatened by crime and disorder than at any other time I remember in my long life." It is PD James's longevity, as well as her serene intelligence, that makes this book especially noteworthy and enjoyable, for at 89 she has grown up with the Golden Age of detective fiction as well as made a substantial contribution to it. Perhaps the best meditation on the deep-seated charms and satisfactions of the genre since Auden's essay, "The Gentle Art of Murder", it comes to us from the mind of somebody steeped in nearly a century of literature.</p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/trust-me-by-peter-leonard-1815326.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/trust-me-by-peter-leonard-1815326.html <p> Peter Leonard, son of the better known Elmore, shares his father's predilection for heists and hucksters. His debut novel, Quiver, showed a genetic affinity for crime writing, while Trust Me, sees him playing more freely with the genre's cliches. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-plot-a-biography-of-an-english-acre-by-madeleine-bunting-1815325.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-plot-a-biography-of-an-english-acre-by-madeleine-bunting-1815325.html <p>The Plot is a "secluded acre" edged by trees five miles from Oswaldkirk on the edge of the North York Moors. On it, in 1957, John Joseph Bunting, a sculptor and the author's father, built a chapel. For thirty years, with the either willing or faintly resentful help of his large family, he tended the plot, swept the floor, trimmed the weeds and stamped down the molehills. But he never explained his commitment to this "manifesto in stone" in the middle of nowhere. He died in 2002, complaining that "death is so boring".</p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/state-of-the-nation-british-theatre-since-1945-by-michael-billington-1815324.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/state-of-the-nation-british-theatre-since-1945-by-michael-billington-1815324.html <p> This book could have run the risk of reading like a bland documentation of postwar stage productions, but Billington, theatre critic for the Guardian, gives the endeavour some Wellie with rigorous analysis of plays, politics and trends. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-chain-of-curiosity-by-sandi-toksvig-1815305.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-chain-of-curiosity-by-sandi-toksvig-1815305.html <p> This rumination on life's flotsum and jetsum reads like a voiceover of Toksvig's reassuringly whimiscal Radio 4 programme, Excess Baggage, complete with her lilting delivery, and inspires much the same wonderment and gentle chortles. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/feet-of-the-chameleon-the-story-of-african-football-by-ian-hawkey-1815303.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/feet-of-the-chameleon-the-story-of-african-football-by-ian-hawkey-1815303.html <p>In 1938, a young man from Morocco put on his finest djellaba and boarded a ship to cross the Mediterranean. His name was Larbi Ben Barek, and he was an unusually gifted footballer, who had made his name as a teenager scoring two goals with espadrilles on his feet against one of the top teams in north Africa, whose players all wore boots. His dribbling skills, his timing and his strength with both feet won a transfer to Marseille, and he went on to become a fixture in the French national team.</p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-creation-and-destruction-of-value-the-globalization-cycle-by-harold-james-1815304.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-creation-and-destruction-of-value-the-globalization-cycle-by-harold-james-1815304.html <p>We are still too close to the financial meltdown of 2008/9 to be able to see it with much perspective. It is harder still to make much of an assessment of its long-term economic consequences, for the world has yet to emerge securely from recession. But we can begin to fit what has happened into some kind of historical template and that history surely gives us the most helpful way of understanding what might happen in the future. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/present-danger-by-stella-rimington-1814758.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/present-danger-by-stella-rimington-1814758.html <p>Dame Stella Rimington isn't the author to go to for a psychological critique of secret-service operatives, but for a pacy page-turner, she's a safe bet. Present Danger is the fifth of her "insider" novels to feature Liz Carlyle, a thirtysomething MI5 officer whose career success has – surprise, surprise – come at a cost to her personal life. </p> Reviews Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/seasonal-suicide-notes-by-roger-lewis-1814138.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/seasonal-suicide-notes-by-roger-lewis-1814138.html ]]> <p>At first sight, the splenetic author of this gloriously funny book would seem to be an unlikely admirer of St Ailred of Rievaulx. Roger Lewis describes the abbot's two immortal Latin texts as "riveting". They are indeed riveting studies in tolerance and true compassion, written in the 12th century by a man who inspired love in everyone he met. </p> Reviews Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/roads-ahead-edited-by--catherine-oflynn-1813581.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/roads-ahead-edited-by--catherine-oflynn-1813581.html ]]> <p>The Birmingham-based publisher Tindal Street Press was founded 10 years ago and has built a reputation as a discoverer of new talent. Some of its writers had been turned down by mainstream publishers, others are home-grown, for the most part specialising in a tough, gritty style dealing with modern urban life. In conventional publishing terms, Tindal Street has compounded the error of investing in new writers by championing the short story. </p> Reviews Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-lie-by-petra-hammesfahr-1813066.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-lie-by-petra-hammesfahr-1813066.html ]]> <p>From time to time a crime writer embarks on the Doppelganger story, where one character sets about impersonating another. Josephine Tey's Brat Farrar is probably the classic but this sub-genre is rarely successful, chiefly because of the difficulty in convincing the reader that one human being can sufficiently resemble another to be accepted by the closest of friends and family.</p> Reviews Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/audio-book-the-girl-who-kicked-the-hornets-nest-by-stieg-larsson-read-by-martin-wenner-1811025.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/audio-book-the-girl-who-kicked-the-hornets-nest-by-stieg-larsson-read-by-martin-wenner-1811025.html <p>The brilliant young maverick investigator Lisbeth Salander spends half of this book immobile in a hospital bed. Shot three times, once in the head, and buried in a shallow grave, she has somehow emerged and found enough strength to bash in her wicked father's head with an axe. He, the old Russian defector Zalachenko, has also survived and lies, similarly bandaged, in the next room. One seems certain to kill the other.</p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/lytteltons-britain-by-iain-pattinson-1811026.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/lytteltons-britain-by-iain-pattinson-1811026.html <p>It was at a restaurant in Upper Street, Islington, that Tony Blair met Gordon Brown to debate which would be prime minister first. Brown lost, and had to pay for lunch too – although he refused to pay the 15 per cent service charge. Such nuggets make up Iain Pattinson's amusing collection – subtitled "A User's Guide to the British Isles as heard on BBC Radio's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue". The book ranges across Britain, shedding light on little-known as well as renowned places, with a blend of wit, history and invention. </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/dracula-the-undead-by-dacre-stoker-and-ian-holt-1811028.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/dracula-the-undead-by-dacre-stoker-and-ian-holt-1811028.html <p>History is repeating itself in many ways. For one, this is the "official" Dracula sequel, the book's blurb claims in blood-red font, written by a direct descendant of Stoker himself, and a well-known historian. Thematically, too, history is repeating itself, for Quincey Harker, the son of Jonathan and Mina, is prompted to explore his parents' dark secrets after coming across the troubled production of Dracula at the Lyceum, directed by Bram Stoker himself. </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/what-the-dog-saw-by-malcolm-gladwell-1811027.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/what-the-dog-saw-by-malcolm-gladwell-1811027.html <p>The first "adventure" in What the Dog Saw, a selection of Malcolm Gladwell's articles and essays from his 13 years as a staff writer on The New Yorker, is that of Ron Popeil. Popeil is a renowned TV salesman, or "pitchman": the creator and vendor of a series of hugely popular cookery appliances, chief among them the Showtime Rotisserie and BBQ. His television infomercials are familiar to viewers across the US and, as Gladwell watches him perform live from the production booth in a QVC studio, the pitchman racks up sales worth $1m in a single hour. </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/invisible-by-paul-auster-1811036.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/invisible-by-paul-auster-1811036.html <p>After a run of books with increasingly decrepit protagonists, Paul Auster's 13th novel returns to a highly recognisable "young Auster" cipher and some metafictional gamesmanship. </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-uses-of-literacy-aspects-of-workingclass-life-by-richard-hoggart-1811039.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-uses-of-literacy-aspects-of-workingclass-life-by-richard-hoggart-1811039.html <p>Richard Hoggart was once described as "today's Ruskin" and is given to quoting Ruskin's maxim that "the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way". It is this unadorned style that makes this work so gripping, holding a window up to working-class life while also asking, "What is the working class?" </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/tonys-ten-years-by-adam-boulton-1811046.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/tonys-ten-years-by-adam-boulton-1811046.html <p>Adam Boulton insists that he wrote this book neither to praise Tony Blair nor to dismantle him, but to bear witness to the epoch we lived through. Boulton began working as a political journalist 25 years ago, and here draws on the experience gleaned from his "front-row seat". (In 2006, Blair attended Boulton's wedding to Anji Hunter, Blair's closest friend and long-serving amanuensis, though she is largely absent from these pages.) </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-virago-book-of-food-the-joy--of-eating-ed-jill-foulston-1811048.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-virago-book-of-food-the-joy--of-eating-ed-jill-foulston-1811048.html <p>This mouthwatering anthology caters for every taste: the greedy, the curious, the lonely, the in love... Food spreads itself into many areas of life, and topics covered here in bite-size form are as diverse as kitchen cooking and food as a form of art. "The place I like best in this world is the kitchen," writes Banana Yoshimoto, while Angela Carter's protagonist seeks succour in the "domestic geography" of a new house – identity hinges on a slice of currant cake. </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/get-her-off-the-pitch-by-lynne-truss-1811047.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/get-her-off-the-pitch-by-lynne-truss-1811047.html <p>Lynne Truss is best known as the nation's punctuation tsar thanks to Eats, Shoots and Leaves, but before she set out in search of crackpot commas, she spent four years writing about sport for The Times, starting with Euro '96. That's football, by the way, for those who, like Truss before she began her stint, hear the word "Gascoigne" and think only of University Challenge; later, when the fever had her truly in its grip, she saw the peace-process headline "Adams in talks" and assumed it referred to Tony, the Arsenal captain. </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/players-by-tim-harris-1812855.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/players-by-tim-harris-1812855.html <p>Tim Harris doesn't do short books. After his huge, and hugely impressive, 'Sport: Almost Everything You Ever Wanted To Know', comes another doorstopper, 628 pages featuring mini-biographies of 250 men, women and animals who transformed sport. He divides these into three categories: the 'Rulers', who achieved new levels of skill; the 'Rogues', scammers and dopers who looked for ways to circumvent rules; and the 'Revolutionaries', who devised new tactics or techniques. </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/last-night-in-twisted-river-by-john-irving-1811043.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/last-night-in-twisted-river-by-john-irving-1811043.html <p>Repetition, repetition, repetition: there are those critics who have long implied that John Irving – with his recurring themes, locations, motifs and misadventures – has been writing the same book since his breakthrough, The World According to Garp, in 1978. Last Night in Twisted River does not need such readers. While it is (partially) set in New England, contains deadly accidents, single-parent families, bears and young boys sexually awakened by older women, it is also the most poetic and powerful of Irving's work to date.</p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-lacuna-by-barbara-kingsolver-1811038.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-lacuna-by-barbara-kingsolver-1811038.html <p>Every few years, you read a book that makes everything else in life seem unimportant. The Lacuna is the first book in a long time that made me swap my bike for public transport, just so I could keep reading. </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-birthday-boys-by-beryl-bainbridge-1811325.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-birthday-boys-by-beryl-bainbridge-1811325.html <p> Even those with no interest in Captain Scott's polar expeditions will be moved by the lyricism and depth of emotion in this re-enactment of his doomed Terra Nova venture, in which he led a party of five to the South Pole in 1912, only to be forestalled by a Norwegian crew. </p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/clisson-and-eugnie-by-napoleon-bonaparte-1811326.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/clisson-and-eugnie-by-napoleon-bonaparte-1811326.html <p> Yes, you read the author's name correctly. By the time he penned this almost Cartland-esque short romance of passion and sacrifice in 1795, the rising military star had been writing for a decade tales, essays, even a philosophical dialogue. </p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/contact-by-jan-morris-1811327.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/contact-by-jan-morris-1811327.html <p>In the mangrove swamps of Fiji, where cannibals once lurked, Jan Morris encounters a modern version of eating people: consuming them with curiosity. The Fijian word for curiosity is via kila, literally "knowledge want," and when meeting the great travel writer, the local women bombard her with it: "Where are you going? What is your name? Are you married? Where do you live? Have you any children? Would you like a banana? How many people live in London? Do you sleep alone?" Morris finds them a little frightening, but concludes, "I would not mind being eaten in Fiji. The pot would be spiced, the cooking gentle, and the occasion in most ways merry."</p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/family-britain-19511957-by-david-kynaston-1811331.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/family-britain-19511957-by-david-kynaston-1811331.html <p> One of the most arresting passages in Family Britain, the second instalment of David Kynaston's projected four-volume account of the period 1945-1979, takes in the opening of the controversial Kidbrooke school in Hunstanton, West Norfolk. Designed by the "iconoclastic" young husband-and-wife team of Peter and Alison Smithson, acclaimed by certain architects as a stunning example of the Le Corbusier-influenced New Brutalism, it featured what Peter Smithson's obituarist called "a brilliant planning solution of classrooms and staircases over two storeys and around a succession of small courtyards that eliminated all corridors". There was talk of the "clarity and simplicity" of its design, not to mention the "elegant integration" of its services.</p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/hetty-feather-by-jacqueline-wilson-1811335.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/hetty-feather-by-jacqueline-wilson-1811335.html <p>Thomas Coram's legendary London Foundling Hospital "for the education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children" has now been blessed with its second excellent children's novel. But nothing could be more different from Jamila Gavin's 2000 Whitbread award-winning Coram Boy than Jacqueline Wilson's first excursion into historical fiction, Hetty Feather. Gavin's somewhat gothic teen novel brought in every issue under the sun abuse of women, double standards, a lost heir, slavery, even George Frederic Handel. Wilson, writing for the 8 to 12 age group and setting her story a century later when the hospital was much more mercifully run, sticks to simpler muttons: the inner world of one penniless orphan girl.</p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000