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For those of you who like a non-fiction book fix from time to time, alongside your fiction, you might want to look at Bagot Book Blog. My colleague Nigel of Bagot Books has begun a blog on books, music, art and science. He has got off to a flying start with lovely posts on a visit to Samuel Johnson's birthplace, Stonehenge and Alexander Pope's grotto.
Please drop in and say hello.
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As it is Independent Booksellers Week 2010 I thought I would flag up my own local new books indie, Alley Books of Skipton. Their specialisation, Aviation, is not my thing, but the staff are very friendly and their ordering service is very fast. From their own website:
With a personal interest in aviation, we aim to stock the most current, informative and renowned books in the aviation industry. Exclusive and historical books on aeroplanes, airliners, flying and more can be found at your local Bookshop in Skipton.
Alley Books have also kindly sent customers my way when they are looking for out of print books. For used books of course I am my own local indie, sadly not open to the public, but available 24/7 online here.
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The wonderful Conceit by Mary Novik still languishes without a UK publisher. Madness!
I have just found a review of Conceit by Inkslinger on The Overdecorated Bookcase:
"To say I loved this book would not exactly be accurate. And yet, this is probably one of the best novels I've read in a long time. I preferred Humphreys' Afterimage, but Novik's novel has more depth and snaps the very bones of expectation."
Whether you like it or not it will certainly intrigue. Please read Inkslinger's review of Conceit and my review is here if you missed it.
EDITED TO ADD:
I am just pulling Inkslinger's remarks from the comments section up into this post, as I know not everyone reads the comments:
"I have to add that as time passed (and I read it a second time) my affection and respect for the novel only increased. Can't wait for her next novel! I hope both find their way to a UK publisher . . . "
This really is a seriously good book and with its London setting and metaphysical thoughts seems designed for the literary end of the UK market!
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Singing School: the Making of a Poet by Jon Stallworthy was one of my first purchases as a bookdealer. In fact it was just number 99 in my stock database. Stallworthy is mainly a literary critic and I first came across his name as an undergraduate as he wrote an essay on versification, which was one of the extras in my edition of the wonderful Norton Anthology of Poetry. This autobiography of the New Zealand born poet dwells on what made him a poet and his early writing experiences.
Singing School is an elegantly written childhood memoir. Although Stallworthy's family are New Zealanders he grew up in the UK as his father came here as a surgeon. Undoubted well connected, Stallworthy had the advantages of an upper middle class education including that breeding ground of writers, the Dragon School in Oxford and then Rugby and Magdalen College, Oxford. He had influential friends including his godfather Geoffrey Keynes who, aside from his day job as a surgeon, was a bibliographer and the literary executor of the estate of Rupert Brooke. Like many literary autobiographies this is window into the wider literary world of the time.
I was sensible enough to read Singing School before selling it on (unlike my previous book in this series of posts) and what strikes you most as you read is Stallworthy's sense of adventure with words. Despite not having seen the book for nearly ten years his description of his joy of discovery of just what you can do with words, and with the sound of words, has stayed with me. There is a lovely description of his enjoyment of A A Milne's poetry for children and the most wonderful assessment of the merits of The King's Breakfast.
Stallworthy's prose is light and controlled, as you would expect from a poet, and every page from his childhood to early adulthood is a pleasure. As an English teacher (my teaching and bookselling careers overlapped a somewhat) I gained a lot from his descriptions of the process of learning to write and heartily recommend this book both for teachers as aspiring poets.
I will own this book again one day, and this time it will stay on my shelves.
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I have finally read my first Dalziel and Pascoe books by Reginald Hill (I read and thoroughly enjoyed a Joe Sixsmith mystery last year). A Clubbable Woman (1970) is the first in the series and On Beulah Height (1998) is the seventeenth.
A Clubbable Woman is an excellent mystery but it does suffer slightly from its context. The victim Mary is one of the Rugby Club wives and the case is played out amongst the complexity of the club social scene. That, and the fact that the victim's head has been smashed in, provide the the pun of the title. And here is our contextual problem: "A Clubbable Woman" suggests this attractive, sociable victim somehow deserves her fate, that something about her person makes her "clubbable", that people will want to club her. There is an inherent sexism here that is a little unsettling to the modern reader, especially given Dalziel's much vaunted boorish Yorkshireness. If you can let this go on grounds of context then read it, it is a clever mystery and the beginnings of the Dalziel and Pascoe relationship are interesting to experience. And however bad Dalziel and the other rugby club members are, they're a lot more acceptable than that sexist old goat Morse whose literary birth was five years later and whose opinions on women did not move much with the times over a fourteen year period.
On Beulah Height, published 18 years later, shows us more the Dalziel and Pascoe we're familiar with from the TV series. Dalziel is still an irascible old thing but the inclusion of strong female characters including Novello and Pascoe's wife Ellie means that the whole tone of the book has moved on. I don't think Dexter ever managed this with Morse. Frankly the sociology of the book will not be on your mind as you read; it's too darn good for that.
The haunting premise: a remote village abandoned and flooded as a reservoir is needed at the same time as unsolved child abductions occur. Years later Dalziel relives his worst unsolved case as the waters recede under drought conditions and another child goes missing. The sensitively detailed parallel plot centres on the Pascoe family as their little girl lies fighting for her own life in hospital. Peter's feelings as he deals with the consequences of bereavement whilst facing the possibility of the the worst bereavement of his own show the complexity of the policeman's lot.
If I had a top ten crime fiction books then this would be one of the first on the list. The literary elements are excellent with first class characterisation within the terms of the genre, the use of landscape is moving, the clue laying is delicate and meticulous and there's a truly inspirational denouement. It is a fabulous book and I recommend it regardless of whether you liked the TV series or not.
The Arsenic Labyrinth by Martin Edwards is my first read from this author (who blogs wonderful crime reviews at Do You Write Under Your Own Name). It is one of Edward's Lake District Mysteries and like the Yorkshire Dales-set On Beulah Height uses the dramatic upland landscape beautifully as backdrop, as hiding place, as character definer and atmosphere evoker, as clue giver and clue taker, as thwarter of detectives and as revealer of crimes. With our female detective Hannah Scarlett who runs a cold case team, and a historian Daniel Kind escaping the academic rat race, we have the classic whodunit professional/amateur mix; it reminded me of both Margery Allingham's playful early novella The White Cottage Mystery (not a Campion tale) and Josephine Tey's wonderful The Franchise Affair. This is no pastiche however and our modern characters have modern problems which form the psychological backdrop to the story. The plot is delivered from several viewpoints, very successfully, and flick flacks across its literary landscape with narrative hairpins like Hardknott Pass. The working relationship between Hannah and Daniel is intriguing and acts as a good motivator for continuing with the books. All in all, very enjoyable and I shall be acquiring the rest of the series as soon as funds and space allow.
Last in my little crime spree is Borderlands by Brian McGilloway, the first in his Inspector Devlin Mysteries. Again, this was my first foray into the works of this author. Set on the Republic of Ireland side of the border this careful and considered tale takes us into the past. The story of young victim Angela and her family becomes a small part in a wider, complex pattern of deceit and corruption. The plot has the sense of being very carefully built, brick by and brick, and the revelation at the end is less of a surprise than it might have been but this is offset by the pace of the writing. The end when it comes is fast and exciting as though once we start to focus on the full picture it starts to spin out of our grasp as events out-pace the details. This is grittier than the other books covered here and might well appeal to Rankin fans. Devlin is from the school of hardknocks and indeed gets injured more than is plausible for anyone outside the armed forces. Less preposterous than the BBC's recent delightfully bonkers Luther but with a similar mix of personal angst and canny detecting set against a clock always ticking. I enjoyed this slightly less than the others but then I don't like Rankin's books either! Unlike Rankin's work I will be trying some more Brian McGilloway quite simply because Devlin is a more intriguing man than Rebus.
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