Book Reviews

Our reviews of the latest in literature

Glutton for punishment

With its vast areas of barely explored wilderness, and its heady mix of the sublime, the bizarre and the lushly seductive, South America would appear to have all the ingredients to attract the travel writer. Yet the recent travel literature on the continent has been surprisingly scant and taken up by lightweight, gung-ho tales of not especially remarkable adventures. Fortunately there is John Gimlette, whose first South American travel book, At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig, captured with great wit and learning the quirkiness of Paraguay. He has now produced a no less remarkable portrait of the highly idiosyncratic countries known collectively as Guiana, the ‘Land of Many Waters’.

Iron in the blood

How curious that such an outsize man, in physique as well as personality, should be remembered today mainly for giving his name to a small fish. For the 19th century, Bismarck was no herring but a leviathan. Between 1862 and 1890 he created Germany, seeing off first the Austrian empire and then France. He dominated Prussian and then German politics and played a central role in the international relations of Europe. He also created the German problem which has been with us in one form or another ever since: his new country which sat at the heart of Europe was already a great military power and in the years after

A clash of commerce and culture

Other People’s Money — and How the Bankers Use It by Louis D. Brandeis was a collection of articles about the predatory practices of big banks, published in book form in 1914. Nearly a century later, it remains in print. In 1991 Danny de Vito starred as ‘Larry the Liquidator’ in the film Other People’s Money. The wanton boys of banking sport with us in life and art and in Justin Cartwright’s latest novel. Other People’s Money — and How the Bankers Use It by Louis D. Brandeis was a collection of articles about the predatory practices of big banks, published in book form in 1914. Nearly a century later,

The masters in miniature

Jeremy Treglown finds something for everyone in Penguin’s new Mini Modern series It’s a cool silver-grey in colour, weighs two and a half ounces and fits flexibly into your pocket. It opens easily to reveal words imaginatively chosen and arranged in sequences so absorbing and surprising that they can make you miss your bus stop. It costs £3. Penguin’s Mini Moderns — there are 50 of them, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Penguin Modern Classics — include a story in which a boy uses something very like Skype to call his mother and tell her he would like her to come and see him. She protests: ‘But I can

Bookend: Capital rewards

Mark Mason has written this week’s Bookend column in the magazine. Here it is for readers of this blog: London has been the subject of more anthologies than Samuel Pepys had hot chambermaids. This is fitting, as an anthology’s appeal — unexpected juxtaposition — matches that of the capital itself. But it does mean that any new contender has to work hard to justify its publication. Irreverence is one possible route, and here the Blue Guide Literary Companion: London scores well, with Trollope spilling ink over a pompous colonel, and Keats struggling not to snigger as Wordsworth is buttonholed by a tedious fan. There are interesting historical snippets: at top-notch

Brat pack forever

There are two prevailing views on Charlie Sheen: he has never fulfilled his potential, and he has never had any to fulfil. Either way, the meltdown of glorified soap star has received disproportionate attention – most of it a mix of faux-sympathy, awkward chuckling and superior disgust. However, Bret Easton Ellis has torn it all up in a column at The Daily Beast. The Empire is losing, says Bret. Charlie is… winning. If you’re not put off by Easton Ellis’ sweary drawl, I urge you to read the unabashed piece in full. But here’s an excerpt: ‘It’s thrilling watching someone call out the solemnity of the celebrity interview, and Charlie

In their debt

David Philipps’ Lethal Warriors opens with the true story of the discovery of a dead body by the roadside in suburban, white-picket-fenced America. One naturally thinks, given the subject matter, that this dead man is a traumatised soldier who has taken his own life. It is not – it is the body of a traumatised soldier shot dead by three his comrades on home soil, just one victim of the spree of beatings, assaults and six killings committed by the veterans of the 506th Infantry Regiment – the “Band of Brothers” – on their return to Colorado from Iraq in 2006. Philipps, a journalist with the newspaper whose deliveryman found

Saving the high street bookshop

The bell seems to be tolling for the high street bookshop. The HMV Group, which owns Waterstone’s, has issued its third straight profit warning. Waterstone’s is supposedly on target for this financial year, but 11 of its branches were forced to close across the UK and Ireland in February alone and the company has conceded that it can’t compete in the mass market. Therefore, managing director Dominic Myers has decided on a strategy that challenges readers to escape the ‘stifling homogeneity’ of Dan Brown and Katie Price. The latest campaign will push 11 exciting first time novels on a public that largely ignores new novelists. Admirable though this plan may

Ishiguro’s creative friendship

Kazuo Ishiguro has written screenplays, but baulks at adapting his own novels. Faber and Faber are publishing Alex Garland’s script for the film, Never Let Me Go, which went on general release last week. Ishiguro has written the introduction to the edition of his friend’s script. It is a quietly evocative meditation on friendship, creativity and collaboration. Here it is for readers of this blog: Perhaps you’ve heard that the cafés of North-West London, especially in its leafier districts, are filled with writers in earnest discussion about their work. This of course is largely myth. As any local will testify, it is babies, not writers, who are to be found

Flipping back

Much twittering and blogging occurred yesterday about a new publishing format called the “flipback” – a species of compact paperback. Word first reached me from Canada, and doubtless the conversation spread even further than that. The main talking point was the clever headline that a subeditor on the Guardian had given the story: Could this new book kill the Kindle? But I was more interested in the official pitch for the flipback, because it sounded oddly familiar: “I am keen to see what the hype is about so I take a pre-released copy on my travels: Chris Cleave’s The Other Hand. Nearly 370 pages long in its original format, the

Across the literary pages | 21 March 2011

The Telegraph has an exclusive extract from Henning Mankel‘s latest book, the last to feature Kurt Wallander. ‘When Wallander arrived at Ystad police station, there was a message waiting for him at the front desk, from Martinsson. Wallander swore under his breath. He was hung-over and felt awful. If Martinsson wanted to speak to him the moment he arrived, it could mean only that something had happened that required Wallander’s immediate presence. If only it could have waited for a couple of days, he thought. Or at least a few hours. Right now all he wanted to do was to close the door to his office, unplug his phone and

Revolutionary literature

The book world has been abuzz with the Arabic Booker. High-quality fiction is connecting with political conflict and the convulsions in the Middle East have revealed a literary culture often closed to the West. Boyd Tonkin describes how the ceremony itself was infected by the surrounding political drama: ‘Yet even here, under the obligatory tank-sized chandeliers of a hotel ballroom and with local dignitaries aplenty in the audience, the unsettling new realities could hardly be left outside. Whenever a speaker mentioned the Arab democratic spring, a gunshot crackle of applause rippled through the hall.’ Formal innovation has played its part too, with the novel finally coming to prominence in the

A chorus of disapproval

At more than 700 pages including appendices, Guardian writer Dorian Lynskey’s 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs (Faber & Faber, £17.99) certainly can’t be accused of skimping on the details. Adherence to the pun of the title has resulted in a thorough if necessarily left-wing history of political dissent since the Thirties, but don’t expect much emphasis on the music. There’s a reason polemical songs are the ones you admire for their commitment rather than sing in the shower. But it’s precisely because there’s more protest here than song that the book does such a good job of exposing the poseurs. John Lennon, for example, stands revealed

Rogues’ gallery

The distinguished writer Brian Masters in his handsomely produced book on the actors of the Garrick Club has set himself a formidable task. Not only, until he reaches the mid-20th century, does he have to assess the art of long-dead actors from contemporary accounts; he is also writing a history of the theatrical profession from the time when actors were actually designated, in an 1822 Act of Parliament, ‘Rogues and Vagabonds’, until their gradual edging into respectability. This was symbolised by two events: the founding of the Garrick Club in 1831 and Henry Irving’s knighthood in 1895. Later, Masters enumerates 20th- century Garrick actors, many of whom he has known,

‘We’ll always have Paris’

The long war between France and the US has its liveliest consequence in the world of film: Hollywood does movies, the French do cinema. In terms of equipment, the Yanks were the pioneers, but France’s Charles Pathé was the first tycoon and — more importantly — George Méliès was the inventor, by accident, of the method of cutting from scene to scene which has become the signal contribution of cinema to narrative. After the invention of talkies, Hollywood pulled out of sight and sound of its panting pursuers, but the French have remained obstinately inventive and creatively resentful: they harbour an abiding sense of having been robbed of an art

Design for living

The first thing to be said about this remarkable book is that it has nothing to do with animal rights. The title is borrowed from the archaic Greek poet Archilochus, who is known mainly for a single aphorism: ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.’ Isaiah Berlin borrowed this gnomic utterance for the title of his essay on Tolstoy, using it to illustrate his idea that great thinkers can be divided into two categories, the more focussed spirits who bring insights to a single great idea and the versatile universal men who skate over the whole surface of human knowledge. Ronald Dworkin is a self-proclaimed

Nostalgie de la boue

In the late 1960s I grew up in the London borough of Greenwich, which in those days had a shabby, post-industrial edge. Behind our house on Crooms Hill stood a disused London Electricity Board sub-station. Broken glass crunched underfoot and buddleia grew amid the fly-tipped junk. I went there chiefly to shoot at pigeons and set fire to things. Tea chests went up in a satisfying orange whoosh; I was mesmerised. One day, dreadfully, the LEB building burned down after I neglected to extinguish embers. The fire-fighters flashed a spectral white and blue, I remember, from the fire-engine’s beacon. I could no longer go there unnoticed. I was reminded of

Triumph and disaster

The title of this first novel refers to a version of childhood as a magical kingdom where evil can be overturned and heaven and earth remade at the whim of a power-crazed infant. In fact our narrator’s world has already been darkened by the time she is presented by her beloved elder brother with the rabbit she insists on calling God. She has been sexually abused by an elderly neighbour, a Jewish musician who fascinates her with tales of the concentration camp in which he was never interned. The brother discovers the betrayal, promises to keep it a secret and — this all happens in the first 30 pages —

Bookends: A chorus of disapproval

Andrew Petrie has written the Bookend column in this week’s magazine. Here it is for readers of this blog. At more than 700 pages including appendices, Guardian writer Dorian Lynskey’s 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs certainly can’t be accused of skimping on the details. Adherence to the pun of the title has resulted in a thorough if necessarily left-wing history of political dissent since the Thirties, but don’t expect much emphasis on the music. There’s a reason polemical songs are the ones you admire for their commitment rather than sing in the shower. But it’s precisely because there’s more protest here than song that the book