TOP 100 BOOK SITES
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| Crime novels roundup | Book reviews Winterland, by Alan Glynn (Faber, £12.99)Irish writer Glynn's second novel is a heavyweight, grown-up thriller set in Dublin against a background of dirty politics and even dirtier business dealings. As the landscape is reinvented as a glittering monument to capitalism, morality is sacrificed to profit. When two men with the same name and from the same family die on the same night, one murdered and one in what seems to be a straightforward case of drunk driving, Gina Rafferty, aunt to one and sister to the other, starts to ask questions. When she comes upon an account of another fatal car accident, 25 years before, a pattern begins to emerge. Emotionally truthful, with a plausible cast, and told in wonderfully fluent prose, Winterland is a gripping tale of a world of greed and secrets, where public image is all that matters.The Cemetery of Secrets: A Venetian Mystery, by David Hewson (Pan, £6.99)Originally published as Lucifer's Shadow, this novel deals with a different sort of greed – the desire to possess beauty, whether in the form of artefacts, musical talent, or people. Two narratives, one contemporary and one set in 1733, show how the past impacts on the present, as long-buried musical treasures are discovered and fought over by collectors. The scene-setting is excellent – one can almost smell the foetid 18th-century canals – and the large cast is handled with aplomb. The pace is fairly sedate, but it's none the worse for that. Thorough research and a strong narrative make The Cemetery of Secrets a rich and surprisingly romantic tour de force. And – oh, joy! – there's a map of the city.Bad Penny Blues, by Cathi Unsworth (Serpent's Tail, £7.99)Cathi Unsworth's third novel is another tour de force – a panoramic story set in London between 1959 and 1965, with a strong element of roman-a-clef. The plot centres on the real-life unsolved crimes of a killer of prostitutes dubbed Jack the Stripper by the press, but there are also portraits of record producer Joe Meek, Screaming Lord Sutch, artist Pauline Boty, the over-zealous policeman Harold Challenor, and many more. However, Unsworth's ability to create the feel of the period is such that background knowledge is immaterial. Two appealing narrators – young designer and psychic Stella Reade, and copper Pete Bradley, who finds the first body – try, in their own way, to make sense not only of the mystery, but also of their rapidly changing world. Authentically atmospheric and very evocative, the book's song-title chapter headings supply an inbuilt soundtrack.Hypothermia, by Arnaldur Indridason, translated by Victoria Cribb (Harvill Secker, £11.99)Most things in award-winning Icelandic author Indridason's latest novel are cold, if not actually frozen, including his emotionally numb detective, Erlendur. This time, he's embarking on an unofficial investigation into the apparent suicide by hanging of a young woman with a history of depression. There's a lot of weather here, and a lot of ghosts in the landscape, not only in the form of a tape of a séance attended by the dead woman, but also two young people who went missing 30 years previously, not to mention Erlendur's own quest to discover the body of his brother, who perished in a blizzard when he was a boy. There's also the ghost of the detective's disastrous marriage, which, despite the pleas of his drug-addict daughter, he is unwilling to confront. Although Erlendur can be an infuriating character – one wishes the man would thaw enough to feel something – the narrative grips, the writing, excellently translated by Cribb, is resonant and lyrical, and the atmosphere is chillingly creepy. Brrr.Laura Wilson's An Empty Death is published by Orion.Crime booksFictionLaura Wilsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Borders suspends website orders increasing administration fears • Bookshop chain cancels author signing• At least three distributors have stopped supplying retailerThere were further fears for the future of Bordertonight after the struggling book and music retailer closed its website to new orders and cancelled at least one upcoming author signing in Bristol.So far, three book distributors have stopped supplying the high street retailer amid concerns that it might be on the brink of administration, though one publisher cautioned that temporary supply disruptions over late payment and other issues were not uncommon in the trade.Borders, acquired in a management buyout backed by private equity group Valco as recently as July, lost £13.6m last year and has been trying to attract a white knight. It has held talks with WH Smith, but the discussions, described by one party as not especially meaningful, broke down at the end of last week. HMV, which owns Waterstone's and has also been in talks with Borders, is thought to only be interested in picking up a handful of its 45 stores in areas where there is no overlap.At least two of the big four book firms – Dan Brown publisher Random House, and Hachette UK, publisher of the Twilight saga – have stopped trading with Borders, as well as the Independent Alliance, which represents publishers including Faber & Faber. Random House stopped supplying after an issue with a payment. Borders, though, could still get hold of their titles through wholesalers.Visitors to the Borders website today found themselves unable to place orders. The company also owns the Books Etc chain, which it is in the process of closing.Borders would not comment on any ongoing discussions. In a statement, the company said the website "is currently unable to process new orders for books while the business is in discussion with potential buyers. Existing customer orders are also being delayed but will be fulfilled".Neill Denny, editor-in-chief of the Bookseller, said: "Borders' essential problem has always been trying to make a big box US retail format work here, where on average retail square footage costs about twice as much. They expanded fast in the late 1990s and the early part of this decade and may well have overpaid for leases."It may be that in a tightening book market, there just isn't room for three national chains, particularly when you consider the continuing growth of the supermarkets and the web."BDO Stoy Hayward declined to comment on reports that it was poised to step in as administrator.Borders chief executive, Philip Downer, led the acquisition of the chain from Channel 4 chairman Luke Johnson's Risk Capital Partners, who had bought it from its American parent in 2007. The US chain had launched in Britain in 1998.According to the Booksellers' Association, online retailers, led by Amazon, are taking an increasing role in the market, more than doubling their share to 13.4% by 2008.Retail industryWH SmithHMVPrivate equityRecessionBooksellersDavid Teatherguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Film Weekly on John Hurt, The Red Shoes and Where the Wild Things Are In this edition, Film Weekly twirls from discussing Jim Jarmusch films with John Hurt to stomping with the monsters in Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are and does a dance of joy for the newly restored The Red Shoes. First up, Jason Solomons talks to the great British actor John Hurt about his ability to make a cameo count and the pleasure of working with Jim Jarmusch on his new film, the highbrow hitman thriller The Limits of Control. The actor, who was conferred a BFI fellowship at the London film festival this year, shares how his collaboration with Jarmusch started on Dead Man and why he enjoys working with first-time directors.Xan Brooks then joins Jason to review the week's key releases: they disagree on Spike Jonze's airy adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are and Jim Jarmusch's zen-like The Limits of Control, but are united in lauding the re-issue of Powell and Pressburger's cinematic gem The Red Shoes, one of the great British films of the last century.And finally, as the digitally cleaned up version of the 1948 classic pirouettes into cinemas this week, Michael Brook, curator of the BFI's Screen Online, joins Jason to discuss Martin Scorsese's debt to The Red Shoes and his close relationship with Michael Powell which led to his World Cinema Foundation undertaking the restoration of the masterwork.Jason SolomonsXan BrooksJason PhippsObserver feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Awkward Timing for a Book by Woods Motorists could soon be driving under the influence of Tiger Woods as Hachette Audio in May will release his 2001 best seller as an audio book. feeds.nytimes.com |
How Bach's Cello Suites changed Eric Siblin's life Eric Siblin tells how the 13-year-old Pablo Casals stumbled on Bach's forgotten masterpieceMy first exposure to Bach's Cello Suites, after working as a pop music critic for a daily newspaper, rewired my audio circuitry. It took place in a small concert hall where a cellist with a shock of white hair was bent over a 17th-century instrument. In the hands of Laurence Lesser, the instrument seemed to defy the laws of musical gravity. I heard courtly music that would have made Louis XIV hit the dance floor, but also riffs that could have been powered by Jimmy Page; there were Celtic jigs and spiritual dirges, a spy-movie theme, near-eastern flourishes, modern minimalism and the merriment of a medieval tavern fiddler.In the programme notes Lesser, from Boston, explained that the suites were largely unheard until 1890, when a 13-year-old cellist was out for a stroll with his father in the old port district of Barcelona. The cellist was Pablo Casals, and when he stumbled on the sheet music of the Cello Suites in a secondhand shop, both his career and the course of music history were transformed. Casals spent the next dozen years mastering the music before summoning the confidence to play an entire suite in public. This image of a boy cellist discovering the music was the dramatic kick-start for the story I now knew I wanted to tell. Soon enough, as I listened to this sublime music again and again, I seemed to hear that serendipitous stroll in the prelude of the first suite.Why did Bach write this unprecedented solo music in the first place? It is thought to have been composed around 1720, but there is no hard evidence as Bach's original manuscript disappeared. There are other question marks. Suite No 5, for example, composed for a strange tuning, also exists in a gorgeous version for solo lute dedicated to a "Monsieur Schouster", about whom nothing is known. And Suite No 6 was written for a mysterious five-string instrument.Such questions are typical when it comes to Bach. Unlike his main competitors in the classical music pantheon – Mozart and Beethoven – he has received only passing attention in popular culture. That's partly a result of the sketchy historical record. Only one authentic portrait has survived, by the Saxon court painter Elias Hausmann, which depicts a bewigged, somewhat dour, solid citizen, a bit on the heavy side, holding a sheet of music for posterity to puzzle over. Yet Bach's life was not stuffy. He was very fond of his drink (wine, beer and brandy), his pipe tobacco, his 20 children (10 of whom lived to adulthood), his first wife (who died young) and his second wife (who was young when they married). On one memorable occasion he brawled with a rowdy bassoonist and drew his sword. Another time he was thrown into a duke's jail.One thing Bach did not experience in his lifetime – he lived from 1685 to 1750 – was great fame. The road to major success for a composer in his day ran through the opera house, and Bach never lived in a city that supported an opera. He toiled in relative obscurity in places such as Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, Weimar, Cöthen, and Leipzig.Wider renown came nearly 80 years after his death, when a 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn staged a performance of the St Matthew Passion. It was a triumph. But the so-called Bach revival – the first time he was plucked from the realm of specialists and given a popular audience – remained slow-going. So when Casals laid eyes on cello music he never knew existed, it was very much in keeping with the story of Bach. For those musicians who knew of them, the Cello Suites were considered dry, technical exercises, of some pedagogical value, but not fit for the concert hall. When Casals started figuring out the music he didn't have a model. He had to reinvent the music, because the autograph manuscript had gone missing and the few copies that survived differ in details. We still don't know what Bach had in mind for tempo, dynamics, bowing or styles of play. The sheet music, as a result, comes with poetic licence attached.Every cellist of the past century would measure their performance against that of a short, balding musician from a small town in Catalonia, who suffered regular bouts of stage fright and clenched his eyes tightly shut when playing. For a long time nobody sounded anywhere near as good.The earliest evidence I came across of Casals performing a Cello Suite was in the autumn of 1901. He was on a joint concert tour of Spain with the British pianist Harold Bauer. The newspaper Diario de Barcelona noted that on 17 October, Casals played "the 'Suite' of Bach" and praised his performance for its diction and dignity. Later in the same tour, Madrid's El Liberal reported that "a Bach suite earned Señor Casals a prolonged ovation". The music that had lain dormant for nearly two centuries was finally being heard.But it was not until the 1930s – during and shortly after the Spanish civil war – that Casals finally recorded all six suites. That first-ever complete recording of the music sounds terrifically urgent and desperate and hopeful in ways that peacetime might not have produced. Casals, an anti-fascist republican, recorded the second and third suites at London's Abbey Road studios in 1936, at the very moment that the Battle of Madrid was raging and civilians were being bombarded. Suites one and six were recorded in Paris in 1938 while the Spanish Republic was still holding out against the fascist onslaught. And finally, suites four and five were recorded in June 1939, after General Franco had won the war.Since then, the suites have become a rite of passage for cello players. On a recent trip to a record store in Manhattan I found no fewer than 24 versions; Casals's historic recording remains a top seller.Each of the suites has its own personality. The first is optimistic and full of youthful energy. The second suite, for me, has become one of tragedy, and there is evidence that it might express Bach's grief at the death of his first wife. The third suite represents love, the fourth struggle, the fifth mystery, and the sixth – bursting the boundaries of all that came before and composed for an instrument with one extra string – transcendence.When researching the sixth suite, I happened to be in Brussels and one afternoon found a business card advertising a secondhand music shop called Prelude. I was intrigued and tracked it down. It was a bare-bones setup, with a snoozing dog and a similarly listless salesman. There was precious little to buy except for some musty stacks of sheet music. I went through the pile earmarked for cello, and recognised the names of pedagogues from the 19th century. Then I leafed through a custom-bound piece of music selling for ¤6. The room seemed to spin. It was the Grützmacher edition of the Suites – the same one that Casals stumbled on in 1890. The old-fashioned cash register rang up my purchase. I had strolled into a scene from my imagination.Musicguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |