I really enjoyed ‘A Tale for the Time Being‘ by Ruth Ozeki which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize last year. I was lucky enough to get my copy of her debut novel ‘My Year of Meats’ (or ‘My Year of Meat’ in some older editions) signed at the shortlist readings event at the Southbank Centre in October and this week, I finally got around to reading it. Originally published in 1998, it tells the story of Jane Takagi-Little, a Japanese-American journalist and documentary film-maker who is producing a series called ‘My American Wife’ for Japanese television. Sponsored by BEEF-EX to promote American beef in Japan, the aim of the programme is to promote a “wholesome” image of America. However, as Jane travels across the United States searching for suitable families to participate in the series, she becomes more alarmed by the methods of meat production and plans to expose them in the programme. Meanwhile, the story also follows Akiko, a Japanese housewife married to Jane’s abusive boss, and eventually their lives converge. Continue reading
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My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki
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The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
‘The Silkworm’ is the second novel by Robert Galbraith featuring ex-military policeman turned private detective Cormoran Strike. In his latest case, Strike is hired by the wife of Owen Quine, a little-known author who has gone off by himself for a few days and is expected to return home once he has been found. However, Quine had recently completed a new novel entitled ‘Bombyx Mori’ featuring grotesque pen-portraits thinly disguised as various people he knows. The unpublished manuscript has already been circulating the literary world and having made a considerable number of enemies, Quine is later discovered brutally murdered. Continue reading
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The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
When you have a reading list as long as mine and you don’t know what to choose next, sometimes it’s just easier to just start at the top. A book which had been lingering for a long time on my list was ‘The Master and Margarita’ by Mikhail Bulgakov, a fantastical satire about Soviet Russia widely considered to be one of the masterpieces of 20th century literature. Although difficult to summarise a plot as such, ‘The Master and Margarita’ is essentially a story about the devil in the form of Woland the magician who visits Moscow and wreaks havoc with his accomplices including Behemoth, a cigar-smoking vodka-drinking cat. Embedded in the story is another novel written by the unnamed Master who has been incarcerated for writing a book about the crucifixion of Yeshua Ha-Nozri (or Jesus Christ) while his former lover, Margarita, seeks help from Woland to be reunited with him. Continue reading
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Hard Choices by Hillary Rodham Clinton
‘Hard Choices’ is Hillary Rodham Clinton’s account of the challenges she faced as America’s 67th Secretary of State between 2009 and 2013 during Barack Obama’s first term as President of the United States. Covering major world events including the global financial crisis, the Arab Spring, wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East and the continuing global challenges of climate change and poverty, ‘Hard Choices’ charts Clinton’s first-hand experience of foreign affairs and outlines her approach to diplomacy based on “smart power” using a combination of “hard power” in the form of actions and “soft power” through discussions. Continue reading
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Film Review: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
Last week, I was lucky enough to attend a special screening of the film adaptation of ‘The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared’ at the Soho Hotel in London ahead of its general release on Friday. Thanks to the likes of Steig Larsson and Henning Mankell, Sweden is generally more famous for producing atmospheric crime fiction. However, the comic novel by Jonas Jonasson has been a worldwide hit and has been translated into more than thirty languages with more than six million copies sold since 2009. The film is likely to match the book’s success across the globe this summer having already broken box office records in Sweden when it was released last December. Continue reading
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Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey
‘Elizabeth is Missing’ by Emma Healey tells the story of Maud Horsham, an elderly woman who is searching for her friend Elizabeth. However, Maud is suffering from dementia and she becomes increasingly muddled between the clues leading to Elizabeth’s whereabouts and those related to another unsolved mystery involving Maud’s sister Sukey who disappeared without trace nearly seventy years ago. Continue reading
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Dominion by C. J. Sansom
‘Dominion’ by C. J. Sansom is an alternate history of what could have happened if Winston Churchill had failed to become Prime Minister in 1940 and Britain had signed a treaty with Germany ending the Second World War. In 1952, David Fitzgerald is a civil servant hiding his Jewish identity and secretly working for the British Resistance movement as a spy. His mission is to rescue his friend, Frank Muncaster, from a mental hospital before the Gestapo discover his terrible secret which could potentially change the balance of world power. Continue reading
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Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami
‘Strange Weather in Tokyo’ by Hiromi Kawakami (also known as ‘The Briefcase’ in the United States and Canada) tells the story of Tsukiko, an office worker in her late thirties who meets one of her old high school teachers by chance in a sake bar. His name is Harutsuna Matsumoto but she calls him Sensei. They strike up an unusual relationship and continue to meet from time to time without prior arrangements as the seasons pass. Continue reading
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Fallout by Sadie Jones
Set in the 1970s, ‘Fallout’ by Sadie Jones tells the story of Luke Kanowski, a young playwright whose mother is mentally ill and father is an alcoholic. Trying to make his break in London, he shares a flat with his friend, Paul Driscoll, and Paul’s girlfriend, Leigh Radley, who both share Luke’s passion for theatre. Although initially drawn to Leigh, Luke meets and falls in love with Nina Jacobs, an aspiring actress married to a manipulative West End producer. Continue reading
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Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman and The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami is one of my favourite authors but after reading all three volumes of ‘1Q84‘ when I finished my degree, I decided to take a break from his writing for a while. Somehow, two years seems to have gone by in a flash and his next novel ‘Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage’ is due to be published in the UK in August. I borrowed Murakami’s collection of short stories about the Kobe earthquake ‘after the quake’ from the library some time ago but I thought I should finally investigate the other two volumes of his short stories that I had yet to read. I recently bought ‘The Elephant Vanishes’ from a charity shop (by recently, I mean about eight months ago) and ‘Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman’ has been on my shelves for some time. Continue reading
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The Insult by Rupert Thomson
‘The Insult’ by Rupert Thomson tells the story of Martin Blom who is shot in the head in a random attack in a supermarket car park after buying groceries on a Thursday evening. When he wakes up in hospital, he is told that his occipital cortex has been irreparably damaged and he will be completely blind for the rest of his life. However, while his doctors tell him that he is likely to experience hallucinations, Martin believes he has regained his vision but only at night time and he later uses this to search for Nina, his lover who has suddenly gone missing. Continue reading
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The Circle by Dave Eggers
After battling my way through ‘The Luminaries‘ by Eleanor Catton recently, I wanted to read something which was the absolute polar opposite of historical fiction and settled on ‘The Circle’ by Dave Eggers. It tells the story of Mae Holland, a twenty-something graduate who starts a new job at The Circle – a social media conglomerate the size and power of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and every other major tech company combined. Although Mae is impressed by what she finds there, the wider implications of how the company is developing soon become apparent.
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Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Shortlisted for this year’s Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, ‘Americanah’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells the story of Ifemelu and her boyfriend Obinze who fall in love as teenagers in Lagos. During university strikes, Ifemelu leaves Nigeria to pursue her postgraduate studies in the United States. Meanwhile, Obinze has moved to England after graduating and is working in Essex using a false identity while attempting to secure a visa through an arranged marriage. The story follows the separate paths they take on different continents before they are reunited back in Lagos many years later. Continue reading
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Little Egypt by Lesley Glaister
‘Little Egypt’ by Lesley Glaister tells the story of twin siblings, Isis and Osiris, and their childhood in the 1920s. Living in a large family home called Little Egypt, their eccentric parents, Evelyn and Arthur, set off to search for the fabled tomb of Herihor, leaving the twins in the care of their housekeeper Mary and their uncle Victor. Many decades later, Isis and Osiris are now in their nineties and still living in their derelict house which Isis cannot sell for fear of someone discovering what happened there all those years ago.
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Moranthology by Caitlin Moran
The ingeniously titled ‘Moranthology’ is a collection of Caitlin Moran’s columns, reviews and interviews originally published in The Times. Following the success of her guide to modern feminism, ‘How To Be a Woman‘, this collection covers a broader range of topics including Boris Johnson, cannabis, tax, Doctor Who, holidays in Aberystwyth, burqas, World of Warcraft, party bags and pandas to name a few. Continue reading
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The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
Last summer, I read ‘The Last Life‘ by Claire Messud but gave it a mixed review. I had expected a character-driven novel about French-Americans to be something I would really enjoy. However, I didn’t really get on with it and I wanted to try Messud’s latest novel, ‘The Woman Upstairs’, so I could find out whether it was just that particular book which wasn’t for me or her work in general. Continue reading
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Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty
‘Apple Tree Yard’ by Louise Doughty tells the story of Yvonne Carmichael, a middle-aged geneticist who begins an affair with a man she meets while she is giving evidence to a Select Committee at the Houses of Parliament. It is revealed at the beginning of the book that the affair has been exposed in dramatic circumstances while Yvonne is on trial at the Old Bailey. However, even though it is clear that she is doomed from the beginning, the story behind how she became embroiled in the most serious of crimes and who her lover really is still offers many twists and turns.
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Big Brother by Lionel Shriver
‘Big Brother’ by Lionel Shriver tells the story of Pandora Halfdanarson and her relationship with her brother, Edison, a jazz musician who is coming to visit her in Iowa where she lives with her husband and two teenage stepchildren. On arrival, Pandora is horrified to discover that Edison has become morbidly obese in the time since she last saw him four years ago and has to decide whether or not she will take matters into her own hands.
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A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard
‘A Man in Love’ is the second book in Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle six-part autobiographical series of novels. This particular volume focuses on Knausgaard’s relationship with his second wife, Linda, and their life in Stockholm with their three young children. At the time, Knausgaard had recently published his first novel to widespread critical acclaim but was finding it difficult to balance the demands of his domestic life with his writing. Continue reading
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Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld
‘Sisterland’ by Curtis Sittenfeld tells the story of identical twin sisters, Violet and Kate, who have both had psychic powers of intuition, or “senses” as they call them, since childhood. While Violet continues to embrace this power as an adult and becomes a medium, Kate is a suburban housewife who has tried her best to suppress these senses. However, when Violet goes on television to share her premonition of a catastrophic earthquake which she says will strike the St. Louis area where they both live, their relationship is seriously tested in the days leading towards the predicted event. Continue reading
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