TOP 100 BOOK SITES
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| Digested read podcast: Meltdown by Ben Elton Ben Elton's new novel, set in a world of financial mayhem, suffers a severe crash in the hands of John CraceJohn Crace feeds.guardian.co.uk |
The Original of Laura, Running and Your Face Tomorrow Reviews roundup"The Original of Laura adds nothing to our appreciation of its author," Kevin Jackson declared in the Sunday Times. "Might this have been a great novel had Vladimir Nabokov lived a few more years? Maybe . . . It is at best an elegant literary folly: a handsome piece of book-making, but hardly a real book." "It seems likely that, had Nabokov finished it, The Original of Laura would indeed have been an important work, if not necessarily a masterpiece," William Skidelsky wrote in the Observer. "The style is not vintage Nabokov (he was by this point in sharp decline), but there are some nice touches . . . Further entertainment is provided by Dmitri Nabokov's pompous, atrociously written introduction . . . It seems likely that this book will have a more significant impact on the size of Dmitri Nabokov's bank balance than it ever will on the world of letters." "The Original of Laura is many things . . . but it is emphatically not a novel," Robert Douglas-Fairhurst announced in the Daily Telegraph. "It will become the 20th century's answer to Edwin Drood. What nobody will want to admit is that what we have may be substantially what Nabokov wanted to give us all along: a puzzle without a solution. No writer more enjoyed leaving phoney clues and false trails, and it is hard to avoid closing Laura without wondering whether it is anything more than a great big wink at posterity.""At first glance, a history of running seems a pretty doomed exercise, like writing a history of breathing, or sneezing," Joanna Kavenna said in the Spectator, reviewing Running: A Global History. "Thor Gotaas confines himself to a specific sort of running . . . running as competitive sport . . . His structure is anecdotal, his tone often whimsical. He either has a keen eye for grotesques and native extremists, or elite athletics has produced an unending series of such types." "He spends an entire chapter articulating the notion that running is, ultimately, about a sense of personal achievement and, in particular, an achievement that exacts a price in pain and suffering," Matthew Syed observed in the Times. "Perhaps, then, the ancient notion of pain as redemption finds a modern psychological echo in the cult of running. Perhaps it is seen as a counterpoint to the bourgeois indolence of modern capitalism.""Your Face Tomorrow – the title of the trilogy, which is really a single long novel – is intellectually complex but far from dry," Tim Martin wrote in the Daily Telegraph, reviewing Your Face Tomorrow 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell. "Your Face Tomorrow is both an inquisitive novel of ideas and a troubling piece of espionage fiction . . . It deserves to be recognised as one of the finest novels of modern times." "Javier MarÃas is so playful and virtuosic that he at first seems a brilliant postmodern conjuror, throwing all points of view into the hat, but not himself taking an ethical position," Michael Eaude observed in the Independent. "In fact, he is very serious about 'seeing things as they really are' (a recurrent phrase) and establishing what happened in history . . . MarÃas, you feel, enjoys his writing and that helps readers to revel in an outstanding book that rounds off one of the most thoughtful and inspiring fictional works of the last decade."Vladimir Nabokovguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Movie gives 'a whole new life' to Sapphire's novel 'Push' The author known simply as Sapphire titled her acclaimed 1996 novel, Push, for a simple reason: Her narrator is urged to do a ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Truer crime The debut crime novelist offers some alternatives to the fanciful solutions and foggy London of Sherlock HolmesJames McCreet is the author of The Incendiary's Trail, a Victorian detective thriller influenced by the early works of Edgar Allan Poe and drawing on detailed historical research. Our review described it as "splendid… full of vividly depicted squalor and grotesquery".McCreet was born in Sheffield in 1971. He is currently at work on the third book in the series alongside his job as a copywriter.Buy The Incendiary's Trail at the Guardian bookshop "Sherlock Holmes and his predecessor, Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin, were always fantasy detectives. Their powers of deduction often bordered on the paranormal, and what passed for deduction was more usually just imagination. In fact, the real Victorian detectives, though more prosaic, were much more interesting. Armed with little more than their wits and a sharp eye, they were required simply to outsmart the criminals. No DNA, no databases and until the very end of the century no fingerprints – the true detectives of that period were perhaps the purest of the form, either literary or factual. Their London was one that straddled industrial modernity and Elizabethan poverty: a breeding ground for crime, and for stories."  1. On Murder by Thomas de QuinceyThe old opium eater's series of articles about the real-life Ratcliff Highway murders pre-dated Poe and arguably have a claim to be the true origin of detective fiction. The Postscript in particular is a thrilling literary reconstruction of how the murders were committed, tracing how "the silent hieroglyphics of the case betray to us the whole process and movements of the bloody drama". 2. The Mystery of Marie Roget by Edgar Allan PoeThis overlooked short story was the follow-up to the seminal Murders in the Rue Morgue and was based on a genuine murder. Eschewing some of the more ludicrous mental gymnastics of Rue Morgue, this one instead has the detective solving the case merely by reading newspaper accounts of it. Fanciful it may be, but the logic is powerful, the parallels with literary criticism are clear, and the true victim lurks tragically behind it all. 3. Bleak House by Charles DickensDickens was fascinated with the idea of detection and spent much time with real detectives to produce journalism including "The Modern Science of Thief-Taking" and "A Detective Police Party". In Bleak House, he is one of the first authors to feature such an investigator in the form of the sober and practical Inspector Bucket, very likely influenced by the real Inspector Field. 4. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate SummerscaleThis deservedly popular book examines a genuine case to get under the skin of real investigative techniques and provide a useful background to the origins of police detection. The "hero" Mr Whicher was indeed an archetype of the Victorian 'tec who applied a certain objective "x-ray" vision to the people and society around him. 5. The Moonstone by Wilkie CollinsA competitor with Rue Morgue for the sheer preposterousness of its solution, this was another Victorian celebration of the genuine detective. The character of Detective Sergeant Cuff was allegedly based on the real-life Mr Whicher and exhibited the true traits of the historical detective: method, rationality, pragmatism and a healthy sense of distrust about what one might be told. 6. Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner by Henry GoddardThis relative rarity is hailed as one of the few authentic accounts of a real detective and as such provides fascinating insight into how these men went about their investigations without the aid of science or technology. Goddard was a detective with the Runners until they were superseded by the Metropolitan Police in 1839, but he worked privately (and lucratively) for years afterwards. 7. London Labour and the London Poor by Henry MayhewMoriarty, like all master criminals, was pure imagination. Journalist and social historian Mayhew went out in the 1850s to interview the true downtrodden denizens of the underworld: the conmen, prostitutes and chancers who stayed alive on their wits alone. My favourite – the man who sold old newspapers in sealed brown-paper wrappers under the pretence they were obscene prints. 8. Fingerprints by Douglas G BrowneNovelist Browne also produced some important history of the art, including a notable book on Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police's Detective Force. His volume Fingerprints documents the development of forensic science from its earliest origins and lends a fascinating parallel to the pseudo-scientific larking of Sherlock Holmes. 9. A Dictionary of Victorian London by Lee JacksonFor all the investigative audacity in Conan Doyle's work, London itself remains little more than a backdrop to the narrative. Dickens knew that the city was the real star, and Lee Jackson's delicious collection of contemporary sources paints a picture of a city that often seemed too weird to be real, but always too real to be entirely fictional. 10. Victorian London by Liza PicardAmong a multiplicity of books on the period, Liza Picard's social history has a humour and personality that really brings London to life. Her chapter on the smells of the city does more than any cinematic cliché of fog to evoke just what it must have been like to live and work there. These were the very streets upon which Victorian crime played out.Crime booksFictionCharles Dickensguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Get to know the real (albeit edited) 'Ozzy' memoir Rocker Ozzy Osbourne has led quite the life. He shares his wild ride in his new memoir. rssfeeds.usatoday.com |