Micro Review 12 (2024) Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize

 

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Pan Macmillan)

This was my last read from the Waterstones Prize shortlist and sadly it wasn't a case that I'd left the best until last. In fact for quite some time I wasn't sure that I'd even get to the end of the book - and I rarely mark a book DNF (did not finish).

Cyrus Shams is lost.

Ever since his mother’s plane was senselessly shot down over the Persian Gulf when he was just a baby, Cyrus has been grappling with her death. Now, newly sober, he is set to learn the truth of her life.

When an encounter with a dying artist leads Cyrus towards the mysteries of his past - an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as an Angel of Death, a haunting work of art by an exiled painter – he finds himself once again caught up in the story of his mother, who may not have been who or what she seemed. As Cyrus searches for meaning in the scattered clues of his life, a final revelation transforms everything he thought he knew.

The premise of this one was good - how does one respond when a parent has become a martyr? It was made all the more interesting as Cyrus's dad then moved them to the country responsible for his mother's death.

However for much of the book I found the descriptions of drinking and drug taking to be overwhelming and it was impossible for me to connect with the characters at all. 

Once the action moved to New York I did become more enthralled and the preconceived ideas I'd made from the blurb were challenged, and then the next ideas as to where the plot was going were also proved wrong and I found myself breathlessly turning the page to see how the story was going to resolve.

This book isn't going to be for everyone, and in a way made a nice complementary read to one of my Women In Translation books, but I am glad I did stick with it.

Micro Review 1 (2023)

 

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy Upon My Little Pain by Victoria Mackenzie (Bloomsbury Books)

2023 has got off to a strong start and I've had a run of good books which is cheering. I did read this one at the end of 2022 but as it is officially published this week now seems the time to talk about it.

This is a shortish book that I was always going to fall in love with as it is set in Norwich/Norfolk and about strong, literary, women,

The book tells the stories of Margery Kempe, a Norfolk woman who is considered to have written (dictated) the first autobiography in the English language, and Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchoress whose book the Revelations of Devine Love is the first book in English by a woman.

In this book we learn about both of their lives, and their growing and changing faiths as well as Mackenzie imagining how a meeting between them would have played out.

From past jobs, projects and reading I knew a little about each woman but through this books I know feel I know much more about both them, and Norfolk during the late 1300s/ early 1400s.  I also want to find out more so this has to be a sign of just how good I found the book!

Micro Review 31

 

The Book  Lover's Bucket List by Caroline Taggart (British Library Publishing)

Library book

This book for me is a cautionary tale in reviewing, as at first pass of this one I was a bit disappointed in it. However since those first thoughts the book has stuck with me and new thoughts keep rising to the surface and I think that my first response was too harsh.

A literary tour of Great Britain in just 100 locations is of course going to miss out lots of authors and locations, and as is so often the way in the publishing world the book is going to be quite London centric. 

The information within each entry is quirky, informative and interesting and that I was upset my favourite authors and locations weren't included is a fault with me and not the book! 

I also think that I am spoiled by living in Norfolk, a county that is very proud of its authors and literary locations - there's a whole website dedicated to them after all!

The book has definitely added some interesting places and authors to my own bucket lists and there's certainly some places in London that I now look forward to visiting.

This book has made me think what locations would appear in a Norfolkbookworm's Bucket List, and how I would structure it differently - who knows if we end up in another COVID lockdown this might become my pandemic project...

I'm glad I didn't write this review on finishing the book, and I think that I'd be even more generous with my thoughts if it was called A Book Lover's Bucket List rather than The Book Lover's Bucket List!

World Book Night 2021: Book Twenty-one

 

To Sir With Love by E R Braithwaite (Vintage Books)

Own eBook

I took quite a gamble leaving this book for my last. I'd read it before many years ago and it is a novel that left a big impression, and even a good twenty years on I could still recall lines from the book. Would a reread tarnish my memories, should I just stick to my 'book shadow' thoughts?

In this case I am really pleased that rereading the book was a pleasure, it was still the incredible book that I remembered. I had forgotten many details but as I read through the book it was a little bit like meeting up with an old friend after many years. I definitely had remembered the big themes.

Although the book is now over 60 years old I was struck by how little has actually changed in the world in so many ways. It is also interesting to think that this book is a contemporary to the setting for the Call the Midwife books, in so many ways the books complement each other and create a window back to the London East End of the 1950s

What Braithwaite has to say about education, racism, gang culture and London is still horribly accurate and in many ways A Dutiful Boy, which is also a World Book Night book this year, is the same story just about more recent times.

I am glad that I left this until last, and I am glad that my challenge did give me the opportunity to reread the book and fall in love with it all over again. 

Micro Review 19

 

A Burning by Megha Majumdar (Simon & Schuster)

proof copy

Again regular readers may realise that this book was actually in my top 10 for 2020 but that I hadn't reviewed it. I was a bit sneaky adding it to last year's top reads as it was only published a few weeks ago - in 2021.

However this was a book that really made an impact on me and was certainly one of the best books I did read last year so I bent my (pretty non-existent) blogging rules!

This book brings to light a lot of inequalities that exist in modern India and very much like Two Tress Make a Forest and Kim YiJung, born 1982   really made me reconsider my opinions on the nation.

The book has a simple plot outline: 

Set in contemporary India, Majumdar’s debut is a pulsating character study based in the aftermath of a terrorist attack and the complex, conflicting legacy that the atrocity unleashes on ordinary people’s lives. 

but is so much deeper than this. It brings to light the stories of minorities and also shows how quickly someone can be radicalised. It also shows the dangers of social media, albeit in an extreme manner.

I'm loathe to say too much about the book as the gentle (and not so gentle) unfolding of the story is one of the best things about it. In many ways the tone of the story reminded me of The Reluctant Fundamentalist and how that made me think when I read it. For a debut book this is astounding and Majumdar is definitely an author who's next book I will be eagerly awaiting.

Theatre 2017: Review Twenty-Seven - Fiddler on the Roof

Fiddler on the Roof, Chichester Festival Theatre, Chichester. August 2017

This was what has become our annual treat with Mr Norfolkbookworm's aunt, but I think that in this case I was the only one in the audience who didn't know the entire plot of the show.

For some reason I've never seen this before, either on stage or the film version which is strange as I know that it is one of my dad's favourites.  I know the famous song of course (If I Were a Rich Man) and I think I'd heard Matchmaker, Matchmaker and Sun Rise, Sun Set before but that was it.

During the first act I wasn't convinced, Tevye and Golde spoke with Russian/Yiddish accents but their equally rural children all spoke with almost RP accents and for a while this stopped me being drawn in to the story.  I also found it a little over long in the first part - I don't know what could have been shaved but at the interval I was definitely pleased that act two was going to be a lot shorter.

And here's the lesson why you should never leave at the interval because all of the build up in that long first act paid off and I was utterly immersed in the story by the end and truly sad that it came to and end.  I want to know what happened to all of the characters after they were forced out of their village - such an open and potentially sad ending was a real surprise.

Another real surprise was just how good Omid Djalili was - I'd seen him on stage in What the Butler Saw a few years ago and I really disliked his acting, but here he was Tevye and the lynch pin of the production.

I am not sure if this really counts as a musical - I feel that a play with some songs is a more accurate description for the songs don't really move the plot on at any point, they just emphasise what is said/shown but I am glad that we saw it.  I might not have been keen at the interval but by the end I was won over and now I can't stop thinking about is which means that it was obviously a good outing!

Theatre 2017: Review Twenty-Six: Ink

Ink, The Almeida Theatre, London. July 2017.

Wow - what a play. I am so glad that after a dip in June that the plays I've seen in July have meant that summer 2017 hasn't been a washout after all.

This is a play about the newspaper industry in 1969/1970. Rupert Murdoch has just bought a failing newspaper, The Sun, and challenges the new editor to make it outsell The Mirror within a year. He doesn't really care how this happens...

The first act is quite light, the explanation of how Larry Lamb sets his paper up is actually done through a song and dance routine - don't wince it was amazing! There is lots of humour as a bunch of misfits come together and turn a broadsheet paper into a million copy selling tabloid.

Act two is much, much darker as Lamb's ruthlessness to meet the target knows no bounds.  At times the actions taken are heart stopping and also very prophetic as to where the press, and in particular The Sun, have gone since.

This was an incredibly strong play and my two complaints  about it are personal to me. I am a printer's daughter and knowing what Murdoch did to the print trade in the 1980s it was very disconcerting to feel any sympathy for him while watching the play. Secondly I am also very much pro-union and seeing them in a less than favourable light was again not a comfortable watch!

As I said criticisms very personal to me and this was a brilliant play. It left me wanting to know more and I was very pleased to see a list of references in the programme so I can find out more!

Theatre 2016: Review Sixteen

X The Play, Royal Court, London. April 2016.

I really don't know where to start with this play, and I think that the fault is with me.  From reviews I'd heard on the radio (possibly only half listened to as I was cooking) made me think I was going to see something that was going to be akin to The Martian or Red Dwarf - a comedy set in a space outpost.

It started out like that, a group of people are in a ship or base on Pluto and all of a sudden they fall out of communication with Earth. So far what I was expecting.

Then things got weird and it became more like a horror film, and then it got even more strange and while it will stay with me for a long time I am not sure at all what the play was about.  Dementia? Madness? Nightmare? Drug hallucination?

I'm not sure it matters in some way as Rebecca and I are still talking about it, looking for other theories on the meaning and generally being haunted by it.  It won't make my top 10 but I don't think it will be in the bottom three either, thought provoking is good.

Pictures at an exhibition

Anslem Kiefer, Royal Academy of the Arts, London. October 2014.

Rebecca was keen to see this exhibition but unsure if it was my thing (I am pretty conservative and mainstream in my liking/understanding/appreciation of the art world) but I do like to try new things and so off we went to the RA no thanks to the combined efforts of various rail companies.

In advance Rebecca had warned me that some of Kiefer's work was bleak but thanks to the excellent website run by the Royal Academy I watched some films about the artist and his work and entered the exhibition with an open mind.

Like so many exhibitions where there is an audio guide the first room was a bit of a nightmare with people walking in and stopping but after this it thinned out and there was plenty of space to really spend some time looking at the pieces displayed.

I can't say I liked it all, but I had a very visceral response to many of the pieces and some of them grew more and more haunting the longer I spent looking at them. Some of the work I found myself rationalising in to things I was familiar with in an attempt to understand them and a few (many of the ones including the sunflowers below) I treated like astronomy.  The longer you actually look directly at something the less clear it becomes, but when you look to one side you clearly see the image...

The real downside to the exhibition was that they had run out of leaflets/guides to the works and so if you didn't take the audio guide then there was very little description to help you understand the pictures and installations - this was liberating in a way as we could invent our own narratives to them but I'm pretty sure we were wide of the mark!

Theatre 2014: Review Nineteen

The Silver Tassie. Lyttleton Theatre at the National Theatre, London. May 2014.

After having a disappointing time at The View From the Bridge which had rave reviews I was very nervous about this play as it has had a very lukewarm reception.

Perhaps going in with lower expectations was the right thing to do as I found this play a real curiosity.  The subject matter meant that it could never be classed as enjoyable but it was challenging and thought provoking in just the right way.

It is a play in four acts, three are set in a very traditional manner and depict life in Ireland during and after World War One and the second act is set in the trenches and is as different to anything I've ever seen on stage as is imaginable.

In a nutshell Harry is our main character and in act one he is the town's sporting hero, in act two we see him at the front and then after the interval he is back in Dublin but this time in a wheelchair after being paralysed from the waist down.

The war scenes are incredible, the pyrotechnic team have a field day and actually blow up the set! The madness of the war is portrayed using song and movement as well as through the way the superior officers act.  The interval is heralded by a howitzer gun turning to face the audience and firing.  I've never wanted to grab the person sitting next to me in fear so much before.

The second half of the play almost depicts the horror of war better as it is all about the maimed survivors.  No one wanted the lads to die but no one wants to actually deal with those who survived but were disabled.

This play is a very early anti-war play, written decades before Oh! What a Lovely War and for those who say that the idea of 'lions being led by donkeys' is a new and revisionist idea should look back at this play and the date it was written.

This is certainly a play that will stay with me for a long time and makes a great foil to both War Horse and Journey's End.

Theatrical Interlude 26

Blue Stockings, The Globe Theatre, London. August 2013.

I'd given up hope of seeing this play as it had so few performances and even fewer matinees but sometimes luck works in my favour and Mr Norfolkbookworm agreed that we could go on our wedding anniversary and he'd drive us home afterwards as he had the day after off work.

I'm so pleased that we could see this as a play about the struggle that women had in the past for the right to vote and for an education ticked so many of my personal boxes.  I went to an all girls school where it was expected that most of us would go on to university and take a degree but little was made of the fact that this expectation was a recent phenomenon. I certainly didn't know just how much of a fight women just 100 years before I took my undergraduate degree had to even attend lectures let alone graduate.

We saw the second performance of this new play and from the very beginning I was swept up in the story, the conflict between the male and female students, the conflict between the classes and the conflict between the desire for an education and a love life all came to life before my eyes and it really did feel like I was seeing history rather than a fictitious story.

Today women may be able to attend university on the same grounds as men but the fees are making it as hard for some to gain an education now as it was for women 100 years ago and this parallel made the play even more poignant to me.

I think that there were two things about this play that stood out for me - firstly the story focused on women trying to obtain science degrees (and being better at science than the men) not typically female 'arty' subjects and secondly that there were many sly digs at either Shakespeare or the topics (i.e. the French) that he typically made fun of which linked the play nicely to the setting.

This was the first modern piece that I'd seen at the Globe and it has made me keen to see more of the plays commissioned for the space - I wonder if I can fit in a trip to see The Lightning Child?