My Dearest Jonah - Matthew Crow

Jonah and Verity strike up a mutually life-saving pen-pal relationship just at the point Verity’s life spectacularly implodes and Jonah’s is set to be rebuilt following a lengthy prison sentence.

Desperate to escape the person he once was, Jonah tried to disappear into a quiet, small-town life, but he finds it as difficult to escape his past as Verity finds it to emerge from hers. They cling to each others letters as the only source of hope and light in the face of increasingly dark forces.

Most of the early chapters were spent muddling through the fog of who exactly our hero and heroine are, how they know each other and why they’re in touch but despite this, the decrepitly glamorous setting, enigmatic snippets of back-story and endearingly sincere exchanges hold your attention from the start.

Crowe has turned out a story that writers with decades of experience would proudly call their best and My Dearest Jonah is a return to the kind of craftsmanship we’ve given up on seeing in modern novels and you probably won’t have seen since you last read a ‘classic’. Crowe’s tightrope balance of visual embellishment without exhaustive description can’t be taught and will certainly see him crowned as one of our greatest modern writers once the national curriculum exam book selection committee get hold of his work.

You’ll surely want to read more from this young writer and, sadly, this is only his second novel, but his debut, Ashes, looks equally dark & captivating.  

Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes - Sue Watson

Stella Weston has worked for years to secure her place as a top television producer and the best mum and wife her career would allow, so when her conniving boss puts her out to pasture in the gardening programming department, Stella’s family-life, along with her career, take a nose-dive when she’s packed off to the country to produce a curious Songs of Praise meets Gardener’s World hybrid.

As Stella’s personal and professional life take hit after hit, she seeks comfort in the only therapy she’s ever known-baking and eating the products of said baking.

There’s a gay best friend, a flamboyant divorcee, a tart married to a vicar, a cheating husband and a draconian power-dressing boss, making Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes more predictably cast than a Grimm’s fairytale.

When you learn that author, Sue Watson, is a real-life TV producer turned author, the lack of ingenuity in her ‘creation’ of TV producer turned professional baker, Stella Watson, I mean, Weston becomes even more disappointing.

Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes is one of those inoffensive reads that should hold the attention of easily-pleased chick-lit fans for a couple of days or so and all those lengthy passages about baking can be skipped over to help you get to the end of this predictable froth as quickly as possible.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson

It’s Allan Karlsson's 100^th birthday and the mayor, among many other distinguished guests have gathered at the retirement home to wish him well and congratulate his advanced age, but Allan has another plan, and by the time the matronly care nurse comes to collect him from his room, he's already slipped out with just his wallet and indoor slippers. 

Allan makes it to the bus station before anyone notices he is gone and a chance run-in with an unpleasant youth transporting an inestimable suitcase alters the course of his gentle escape plan. Luckily a seasoned, but accommodating, criminal takes Allan under his wing and leads him safely from the encroaching police search party and the owner of the inestimable suitcase.

Despite multiple deaths, close-calls and a nationwide search, a recognisable tedium stunts the flow, and a little more pace when describing an armed robbery or gallant cross-country escape would've been more fit for purpose. The snail's pace might characterise the experiences of our centenarian hero, helping us to understand his very unusual version of a crime-caper, but lengthy descriptive passages combined with the clean, direct writing (which works in some instances) makes for a dry reading experience.

However, when Jonasson skips back several decades and better acquaints us with Allan's impressively colourful past, this chapter of his life seem much less extraordinary and more like the way this gallivanting munitions expert who has not only seen but shaped some of the most important events of the last century SHOULD end his time on earth.  

Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World - Simon Callow

2012 marks the bicentenary of Dickens’ birth, a writer who’s work continues to inspire contemporary writers, film and television adaptations, and artists the world over, with Helena Bonham Carter as Ms. Havisham in the latest incarnation of Great Expectations due out in November.

Callow has focused on a lesser-known aspect of Dickens’ creative life, in a bid to offer an alternative to the scores of autobiographies sure to be reissued in this bicentennial year, that of Dickens’ love for the stage.

A child entertainer from a very young age, Dickens wrote, staged and acted in countless theatre productions right up until his death.

His dramatic personality and adoration of the theatrical process shaped how he presented the characters, settings and plots in his darkly, humorous gothic stories.

Dickens loved to see his fans enjoying his work and felt the creative process was completed by presenting his stories first-hand to legions of adoring fans at public readings where he brought those, now iconic, characters to life with his dramatic skill.

Callow, a famously exuberant and flamboyant performer himself, (best known for his role as one half of the May-December gay couple in Four Weddings and a Funeral) explores how Dickens’ own personality, wit, love for performing and lust for attention transferred to the page, making his timeless stories and character spring to life for his readers, even 200 years on.

Desert Island Discs: 70 years of castaways - Sean Magee & Kirsty Young

BBC Radio 4 is often dismissed as stuffy and old-fashioned, holding little relevance in this digital age, but it has been the home of one of the most enduringly relevant radio programmes of all time, Desert Island Discs.

Since the man who devised the programme, Roy Plomley, interviewed the first ever castaway in January 1942, more than 3000 of the day’s most influential, controversial and news-worthy faces have talked through the eight records, one book and single luxury they would take with them to the mythical desert island.

To celebrate 70 years of Desert Island Discs, Kirsty Young, sometime Have I Got News For You anchor and presenter of the radio show since 2006, has brought together over 80 of the most memorable guests to grace the airwaves over the past seven decades.

The show has only had four presenters, who have each scored equally impressive coups with their celebrity bookings.

Plomley, who served as presenter for over forty years had the pleasure of Alfred Hitchcock and Margaret Thatcher’s company, as well as the young, now Sir, Cliff Richard, whom he quizzed about his “frenzied” on-stage dancing.

Plomley’s successors, Michael Parkinson and Sue Lawley, saw the likes of Elton John, Tony Blair and HRH Princess Margaret during the 1980s and 1990s, while today’s presenter, Kirsty Young, has lured similarly impressive guests, from Morrissey to Johnny Vegas, the latter of whom gave, surprisingly, one of the most personal and affecting interviews to be captured in the book.  

Sleb - Andrew Holmes

Felix Carter is famous, ‘properly’ famous, he’s the stylish, rough-and-ready, pop sensation every guy wants to be etc. etc.

Chris Sewell, a married, alcoholic, 30-something advertising executive is also famous, but only because he shot Felix Carter dead and is now the nation’s most infamous lifer, courting his adoring public from his prison cell. 

This 2003 publication was presumably re-released last month to cash in on our relentless obsession with celebrity, a phenomenon even author, Andrew Holmes, must have expected to have died down by now, but his satirical hero, Chris, who’s ‘fame’ is of the most questionable kind, is more relatable now than ever.

Sleb is chick-lit for men - an easy-going, readable, first-person caper, with plenty of guy-friendly criminal behaviour, minimal dialogue from fussy-females, vigilante displays of political and social power and frequent references to Star Wars, boozing, laddish behaviour and early Noughtie’s gadgetry. 

Despite this, Holmes - a journalist by trade and hence, well-trained in the art of organising sensationalised titbits into a page-turning news story – has constructed a layered, time-bending, ‘whodunnit’ style plot, even though we know who did it, as he tells us so himself fairly early on, but it’s the why and the how that the author tantalisingly drags out. 

Sleb is gory, messy and brash but even if that’s not your thing, Chris’ complicated motives should hold your interest until the end.

The Great British Bake Off: How to turn everyday bakes into showstoppers - Linda Collister

What should have been a niche tea-time show on BBC2 has turned out to be one of the channel's biggest ever ratings winners, with the third series of The Great British Bake Off bringing in around 4 million viewers per episode.

Building on the previous series tie-in book, How to Bake: The Perfect Victoria Sponge and Other Baking Secrets, baking expert, Linda Collister's, latest offering vows to take your skills to the next level, with extra special twists on everything from quick school bake sale cookie and cake recipes, to savoury pastries and breads and more ambitious show-stopping special occasion bakes. 

Also included within the mouth-wateringly photographed pages is 'The Best of the Bake Off', which reveals the most impressive recipes from the amateur bakers on the show, as well as all of presenters, Mary Berry and Mark Hollywood's, 'Technical Challenges' from the series. 

If you're new to the baking game or have only just become a fan of the show, then it's advisable you start with Linda's first book rather than jumping straight into this 'showstoppers' collection as the emphasis really is on those next-level finishing touches, presentation advice and expert tips, with the fundamentals of baking considered a given.

Are We Nearly There Yet? A Family’s 8000 Mile Car Journey Around Britain - Ben Hatch

Ben and Dinah dreamt of becoming hard-nosed journalists, blowing the lid off political wrong-doings and uncovering global scandals, but with both of them nearing 40 and clinging to the last of their professional dreams, they sign up for a laughably stressful freelance job writing a family guidebook that would see them and their two young children travelling around Britain for five months.

The four of them pack their lives into a Vauxhall Astra and pinball between blagged free hotels and what seems like every single last “attraction” the British Isles has to offer, from Shakespeare’s birth place to Northampton’s riveting shoe museum.

A touchingly written side-story about Ben’s sick dad provides some heart and the author doesn’t shy away from dealing with the real-life, day-to-day business when you’re faced with losing a parent. Hatch doesn’t side-step real life at all in fact, resisting the urge to create a bubble around the family’s unusual temporary existence living between their car, hotel rooms and twee attractions, allowing disappointments about Ben and Dinah’s careers and relationships to crop up often.

The book eventually reveals itself to be, not a mid-life crisis diary, but rather a later in life ‘finding yourself’ gap-year type adventure. The message is to appreciate where you are in life, what you’ve got and what you’ve achieved, rather than succumbing to ‘grass is greener’ syndrome or dwelling on past regrets.

An invaluable personal account for the author’s posterity but a little self-indulgent. The actual guidebook the trip spawned looks a lot more fun.

Girls in White Dresses - Jennifer Close

Isabelle, Mary and Lauren have been friends since college but have now reached the age where their peers go one way (marriage, mortgage, procreation) or the other (job-hopping, bed-hopping, bar-hopping). The loveably dysfunctional trio attend wedding after wedding while muddling through the unexpected turns their own lives take.

Each chapter focusses on a different character and delves into the nominated narrator’s own life, blinkering against the other girls’ issues and problems. This not only helps you connect with every single girl, but also helps you recognise how, despite having a close-knit support system, everyone suffers, tackles and conquers life’s challenges largely on their own, with inner-reserves of strength and humility. 

Girls in White Dresses is a real anthem for those who feel like everyone except them is where they should be in life, with a better job, relationship and lifestyle. The author doesn’t conform to the ‘life porn’ trap as with most chick-lit, her characters have pokey, affordable apartments and steady, dull jobs, there’s no chic city loft-living or inexhaustible income streams, you can actually relate to these women.

Again mirroring real life, you don’t notice the characters growing up and despite the pace settling in the last few chapters, at the last page it’s suddenly alarming how different they all are from the college girls we met at the beginning. 

This witty, heartfelt work of fiction resonates more than most autobiographies as well as being both clever and readable.

London The Autobiography - Jon. E. Lewis

Events of the past few weeks have cemented London’s reputation as one of the greatest cities on earth but our first-class hospitality, multi-million pound fireworks and Olympic medal collection shouldn’t overshadow the many hundreds of years of history and people that has seen our capital city reign supreme among its global counterparts since Boudicca sacked it in AD 60.

This isn’t the author’s dissertation-length creation, but a collection of completely original texts, including letters, diary entries and poems, written by real people who lived through these historical events. For this reason the language is, understandably, archaic and makes for a laborious read in places.

The entire first half of the book, from Boudicca up to the 1800’s feels particularly slow given the fashion for comprehensive record-keeping (there’s more than one painfully comprehensive list of household items) and the fact that Roman, Tudor and Shakespearean London are well-visited periods in history and while these original texts offer a more personal angle to events, they reveal nothing new that wouldn’t have been covered in history class.

Our more recent history is brought alive however with expertly selected entries from infamous historical figures documenting life-altering events. A 19 year old Queen Victoria walks us through her own coronation, The Sex Pistols tell of their first ever gig in 1975 and eye-witness accounts of Princess Diana’s funeral procession and the 7/7 bombings remind us of the darker side of London’s history. 

More of a research text, masquerading as a novel, that should be dipped into at whatever historical period takes your fancy.

Twenty Tiny Tales - Willie Wit

Clinging on to the Olympic theme by the skin of my teeth, I present Twenty Tiny Tales-a unique booked featuring perfect bite-sized literary chunks to dip in and out of while you attempt to get your life back on track following two and half weeks of professional and personal neglect due to the relentless televised patriotic athleticism. 

Don’t be put off by the first ‘tale’, it’s by far the least gripping and once you get past that four page hurdle, each subsequent story is more surprising and revelatory than the last.

There is a recurring theme of last-minute twists at the end of each (very) short story and once you get into the pattern, you’ll find yourself looking for clues from the very first page as to who or what the ambiguously enigmatic narrator of each tale really is. 

Each story flips between devilishly dark, unaffectedly poignant and charmingly romantic-a particular highlight being, The Wedding, which is a mini Tarantino script in five pages. 

This frivolous collection of fables offers an insight into the author’s obscure train of thought, as you get the feeling each tale was borne out of the same kind of ridiculous fleeting ‘what if’ mind-tracks we all get throughout the day, Willie Wit just took them one step further and had the creativity to devise the right format to record and share them. 

An original creation and refreshing reading experience.

Big Day Out - Jacqueline Wilson

It's advisable that primary school aged children keep up with their reading over (what seems to them) an endless summer break, but try telling an eight-year-old that.

Jacqueline Wilson, our most beloved (living) children’s writer, has put together four short stories to help ease reluctant young readers into the hobby while they’re off school and stuck inside due to them being off school in England, where we don’t get a summer. 

All four stories encourage affordable, outdoor activities while subtly promoting the fringe benefits of none-nuclear families, equality and acceptance.

First up we have Our Free Day Out, in which Lily, is despairing at the thought of six weeks trapped in a tiny flat with them all.

Relief comes in the form of an accommodating Over 60’s group, who invite the struggling family along on their seaside trip.

The second story, Day Out in the Country, sees Hayley forced to socialise with her mum’s new boyfriend, whose idea of a fun day out is hiking up a big hill. 

The heroine of Odd One Out, Laura, prefers ‘innings’ to outings and would rather be writing stories than consorting with her gaggle of half and step siblings.

And finally, we have Marty, whose animal obsession is rewarded with a very special summer holiday trip.

All four heroines are also avid readers and writers themselves, which should hopefully inspire Wilson’s target demographic, which I’d put in the female, aged 5-10 bracket in this case.

Shakespeare: The World as a Stage - Bill Bryson

Continuing with the “aren’t we brilliant, look at our Olympics” theme, and in light of this summer’s World Shakespeare Festival, it seemed appropriate to revisit the most comprehensive, enlightening yet humorous and abstract biography of the most famous playwright in history…written by an American.

Bryson treats Shakespeare in the same way he does any of the subjects from his travel diaries, with an expert combination of forthright affection, at once applauding his much celebrated achievements and firmly shutting down those romanticised myths about the man we actually know very little about, very little for sure at least.

Most startling are the globally accepted lies that have made their way into the history books, and stayed there, simply because a single, ill-informed fan scribbled them down a few hundred years ago.

Also up for debate is his reportedly devoted relationship with Anne Hathaway, a wife he abandoned, along with his young children, while he gallivanted off to London to set the theatre scene alight.

Bryson admits where his research has come up against a brick wall, as with his investigations into the enigmatic subject of what Will did with himself during the ‘dark period’ in which he dropped off the face of the earth’s written records, but never fails to intelligently combine all possible solutions and present us with a credible conclusion.

Plenty of bonus history lessons about Elizabethan London, Elizabeth herself and her curiously ascended successor, James flesh out this detailed, yet uncomplicated biography.

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott. Fitzgerald

Baz Luhrman’s spectacular re-make of The Great Gatsby, due for release on Boxing Day, provides the perfect opportunity to (re)discover a literary classic. Often lauded as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s finest work, the American writer set out to compose a "consciously artistic” piece of work and Gatsby turned out to be, in his own words, the “sustained imagination of a sincere and yet radiant world". Radiant indeed was the world of New York during the ‘Roaring Twenties’ in which our narrator, Nick Carraway, finds himself as a young Yale graduate working in the city and living out at West Egg, a peaceful, well-to-do commuter town.

Nick becomes ensconced in the tennis playing, all day drinking, shallow partying culture of the millionaire East and West Egg sets through a tenuous family link to Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is in a traditionally unhappy marriage to Tom but her historic links to Nick’s ostentatious yet mysterious neighbour, Gastby, slowly come to light.

Fitzgerald’s plot enjoys the trappings of the gaudy deviance of the era, with multiple mistresses running around and decadence dripping from every setting.  The skilled writer expertly holds back Gatsby’s character, switching between obvious support for the entrepreneurial war veteran and cynical disdain for the suspected petty criminal. 

Readers aren’t patronised with clear, directional plot revelations, leaving you to piece together the mess that is the lives of his chic, bed-hopping group of characters. 

A glittering, accessible classic.

Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

To begin this most daunting of tasks, in reviewing a modern classic, I’ll go out on a limb and call Perks of Being a Wallflower the modern equivalent of J.D Salinger’s 1951 novel, Catcher in the Rye. The two compare in that their characters and life-lessons resonate deeply with the writers’ original intended audiences but are also universal in their message.

 

Perks of Being a Wallflower is, in fact, a little more subtle in imparting personal encouragement, but that’s perhaps due to readers being more receptive to that kind of thing in the mid 90’s, as opposed to the middle of the century, which probably has a lot to do with the likes of Salinger.

Our protagonist, Charlie, narrates this archetypal coming-of-age tale, through a series of letters in which the introverted teenager shares every detail of his high school freshman year, from the banal to the profound. An ostensible wallflower and unconventional thinker, Charlie retreats into the world of literature, guided by an enthusiastic young teacher, who fears that Charlie’s extraordinary outlook on life will limit his ‘real’ experiences. The likeably difficult teen embarks on a year of social and personal enlightenment when two, older, students from his Pittsburgh school take him under their wing.

MTV first published Steven Chobsky’s novel in 1999-a fitting vehicle for a story with such a conspicuous ‘soundtrack’. Chobsky himself directed Emma Watson (Harry Potter) and Ezra Miller (We Need to Talk About Kevin) in the film adaptation, due for release this September.