Gilead Reclaimed

'The Testaments' by Margaret Atwood (Chatto & Windus, 2019)

So, where do you start with probably the biggest book of the year, in terms of anticipation, hype and sales?  Was there anything more to 'The Testaments' by Margaret Atwood than outstanding branding and an expertly co-ordinated, multi-platform promotional campaign?  Well, here are my thoughts, for what they're worth.

Love Fools (Nearly)

'The Love Delusion' by Nicola Mostyn

Last year, I thoroughly enjoyed Nicola Mostyn's chick-lit-adventure-comedy-fantasy mash up 'The Gods of Love', so you can imagine how excited I was when a follow up was announced.  So, did 'The Love Delusion' leave me smitten all over again?

Frida McKenzie is the most cynical of all divorce lawyers, independent, self-assured and, above all, really great at her job.  So great in fact that she's rapidly rising through the ranks of 'The Love Delusion', a movement determined to rid the world of it's illogical obsession with love.  Frida's even become the lawyer of choice for new converts and been given the chance to meet the movement's founder, the elusive R. A. Stone. Everything looks rosy, until a chance meeting with a strange yet familiar protestor plants a seed of doubt in her mind. Where did the Love Delusion come from, and why can't she remember her life before it?  Who is this strange man and why is there a photo of them together hidden in her home?  Could it be there's something important that she's somehow forgotten?

Movie Magic Michael

'Who is Michael Ovitz?' by... erm... Michael Ovitz

Who doesn't love a good Hollywood movie?  If you've ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes to make the magic happen, then 'Who is Michael Ovitz?' might be just the book for you.

Super-agent Michael Ovitz was once one of the biggest Hollywood names you hadn't heard of.  As joint owner of innovative creative agency CAA, he worked 24/7 to recruit and package perfect combinations of talented writers, directors and actors to work on films and TV shows in the '70s, '80s and '90s.  Thanks to his eye for great talent and an alchemist-like instinct for mixing the right creative ingredients, Ovitz was often at the birth of box office gold.  His deals led to hits like 'Rain Man', 'Ghostbusters', 'Jurassic Park', 'Tootsie', 'Schindler's List' and the epic TV mini-series 'Shogun'.  Not bad for a kid from the San Fernando Valley whose career began as a Universal Studios tour guide before he talked his way into a post in the William Morris Agency mailroom.  But though this story takes place in the City of Angels, Ovitz was no saint, and his hard-nosed work ethic, drive and often blinkered focus on making the deal made friends into enemies and enemies into friends.  By the end, his reputation had taken some hard knocks and gossip was rife.  In this book, he aims to set out his side of the story.

Gilead Revisited

'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood

With the release of companion piece 'The Testaments' just ten days away, I've done something I don't normally do - I've re-read a book!  So, unsure of whether it was as good as I remembered and with some trepidation, I returned to Gilead and 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood.

Following a carefully planned coup that wipes out Congress and strips civil liberties, the United States of America has been taken over by a fundamentalist Christian group and renamed 'Gilead'.  Those not purged find themselves boxed into new, sanctioned roles that mean work and above all relationships are state controlled.  With birth rates low and people needed to fight ongoing wars, the rulers of Gilead assign senior personnel 'Handmaids', fertile women to be ritually raped in the hope that they will provide the Commanders and their Wives with children.  'Offred' is one of the first wave of Handmaids, haunted by memories of the life she had before, fearful for the future of her lost daughter, and stunned into compliance by the isolating existence she now endures as an object of desire and moral revulsion.  As the shock begins to fade, however, she starts to see that things are not quite as godly as the regime would like believed, and even those at the highest levels are showing signs of very human weakness...

A Walk in the Dark

'Help the Witch' by Tom Cox (Unbound, 2018)

As some of you may remember, I really enjoyed Tom Cox's '21st Century Yokel' about this time last year.  His next adventure was in short fiction, so, as a short story fan, I couldn't wait to try his folk horror collection 'Help the Witch'.

'Help the Witch' is a collection of ten tense tales which put the nature back into the supernatural.  A village's dark past haunts a new resident in the story 'Help the Witch', while a covertly sinister waterway permeates 'The Pool'.  Spirits walk in unlikely places in 'Speed Awareness' and 'Just Good Friends' and morality tales are modernised and subverted for comic effect in 'Folk Tales for the Twenty-Third Century'.  This is a collection that draws readers' attentions to the murky shadows that are inevitably cast even on bright, sunny days in the countryside.  You can't have one without the other, after all.  You may not notice them as you picnic and play, but they're always there.  And they may be out to get you...

Great Expectations

'Expectation' by Anna Hope (Transworld, 2019)

A few years ago, I read Anna Hope's 'Wake', a thoughtful novel set in the aftermath of the First World War and structured around the return of the Unknown Warrior.  This was followed by 'The Ballroom', also set in the early 20th century.  In the forthcoming 'Expectation', Hope arrives in the 21st century with a story of three modern women and the challenges faced when dreams don't become reality.

London, 2004: Hannah, Cate and Lissa are best friends, housemates with their whole lives ahead of them and high hopes for successful careers, fulfilling relationships and ongoing friendship.  But ten years on, they are not where they expected to be.  Despite their best efforts, things have not gone to plan - in work, in marriage or in motherhood.  As the gap between their twenty-something aspirations and the thirty-something reality dawns, they struggle to reconcile the two.  Faced with an overwhelming desire to salvage something of their youthful hopes and dreams, each acts desperately in a last ditch attempt to find the satisfaction they crave.  As obsession, lust and regret take hold, can their friendship survive its greatest test?

Mama, We're All Sweary Now

'Why Mummy Swears' by Gill Sims (HarperCollins, 2019)

I haven't read 'Why Mummy Drinks', but I did recently finish 'Why Mummy Swears', Gill Sims' potty-mouthed sequel, continuing Ellen's story of contemporary motherhood and family life.

'Why Mummy Swears' follows mother-of-two Ellen through another 12 months of ups, downs, wobbles and squabbles.  While her son Peter ignores her in favour of his tablet, her daughter Jane only speaks to her to demand an Instagram account.  Outside the house, Ellen's been suckered into chairing their school's PTA (because no one else will) and her father's Big News has got her pretentious sister Jessica tied up in knots. On top of this, her well of ideas has dried up and it's becoming clear that working from home on a new money-making scheme is not going to pan out.  Fortunately, Ellen's dream job comes up just in time.  But can she rely on her husband Simon to step up and do his fair share of the parenting so she can go back to work full-time?

Mr Bright Side

'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography' by Eric Idle (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2018)

After the intensity of 'The Five', I needed something more frivolous and optimistic.  As it turns out, you can't really get more optimistic than Monty Python's Eric Idle.

'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' is a scamper through the highs and lows (but mostly the highs) of the life of Eric Idle. After a childhood marred by the early loss of his father and an unpleasant spell at boarding school, Idle gained a place at Cambridge University in the 1960s, that now-legendary cradle of intellectuals and alternative comedy.  In this Big Bang of confidence and creative energy, many significant cultural figures mixed, with groups forming, splitting and reforming, until the infamous Pythons gravitated together and stuck.  Over the next 50 years, due to hard work and a positive attitude, Idle's career as a performer and writer thrived.  As well as professional success in film, theatre and television, he became friends with many like-minded people (who also happen to be celebrities), including George Harrison and Robin Williams.  'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' is a life story and a love story, about friendship as well as fame, humanity as well as humour.  There is laughter, there are tears, but, somehow, there is always a bright side.

They Were Only Prostitutes, Weren't They?

'The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper' by Hallie Rubenhold (Doubleday, 2019)

Ask anyone about the 'Jack the Ripper' murder victims, and most people will tell you that they were prostitutes.  It's everywhere, from the BBC to Wikipedia.  Even Hallie Rubenhold, an author noted for books on the history of women and sex, expected to use the infamous crimes as a gateway into the story of Victorian prostitution.  There was just one problem.  Her research showed little evidence that three of the five victims were sex workers.  Thus the world lost an account of the historical sex trade, but gained an unexpected book about women, history and prejudice - 'The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper'.

Broken Hearts, Broken Minds

'When I Had a Little Sister' by Catherine Simpson (4th Estate, 2019)

Well, it's going to be a bit of a challenge to write this post, but nowhere near as tough as it must've been for Catherine Simpson and her family to decide to share 'When I Had a Little Sister', a powerful story of family, grief and mental illness.

The 'Little Sister' of the title is Tricia, who, following a lifetime dogged by mental health issues and depression, killed herself in December 2013 at the age of 46.  Beginning with this terrible event, Simpson describes the feelings and formalities of the immediate aftermath, then reflects on her family's past and how the tough, stoic attitude of generations ultimately led to tragedy.  Tricia, Catherine and their eldest sister Elizabeth grew up together on the ancestral Lancashire farm, living in the farmhouse where Tricia's life would eventually end.  The apparently idyllic surroundings belied a childhood dominated by tough and eccentric personalities, whose influence would echo down the generations.  Eventually, having exhausted their shared experiences, Simpson cautiously turns to her sister's journals, filling in the gaps and discovering a whole life that no-one knew her sister had.  The book ends where it began, with Tricia's death, and the effect of the tragedy on the family closest to her.

Could you Make it Up?

'Truths, Half Truths & Little White Lies: A Memoir' by Nick Frost (Hodder & Stoughton, 2015)

Hello everyone!  As you may have noticed, I'm a bit of a sucker for a celebrity biography.  My most recent read is 'Truths, Half Truths and Little White Lies: A Memoir' by film and TV actor Nick Frost.

(You know, the chap in the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy.  And 'Spaced'.  And 'Cuban Fury'.  Simon Pegg's mate.  Oh, for goodness sake, if you're not sure, Google him!  Know who I mean now?  Good, let's proceed...)

Back to the Future

'The Time Machine' by HG Wells (Gollancz reprint, 2001)

So, as Old Father Time used his scythe to harvest 2018, I, rather appropriately, found myself reading the Science Fiction classic 'The Time Machine' by HG Wells.

In a middle class, Edwardian drawing room, a brilliant scientist and engineer demonstrates his latest invention; a Time Machine. His audience of intellectual friends include a Psychologist, a Provincial Mayor and a Doctor, who, despite what they see, remain unconvinced of his achievement.  Determined to prove his theories, the Time Traveller sets out on an adventure in time, intending to bring back future proof of humanity's advances from centuries to come.  But when he lands in 802,701, he's shocked by what he finds.  The docile Eloi and the crumbling structures they inhabit disappoint his ideals of curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge.  But disappointment turns to horror when he encounters a second branch of the Homo Sapien family tree - the sinister, darkness-dwelling Morlocks - and he begins to realise where the ills of his present could ultimately lead.  Is it too late for civilisation or has the Time Traveller arrived just in time to give these descendants a better future?

A Heart in the Darkness

‘Girl in the Dark’ by Anna Lyndsey (Bloomsbury, 2016)

As every reader knows, there are some books that stay with you.  This can be for a variety of reasons.  A hero may become your ideal man, a horror story may make you shy away from innocuous places, an adventure may make you want to see more of the world.  I think ‘Girl in the Dark’ by Anna Lyndsey may be such a book for me.

Anna Lyndsey was living a relatively normal life when things began to change.  Working at an office computer, she found that her face began to burn.  At first, she endured it, using fans to cool her skin.  But attending a meeting one day, she found that the subterranean room’s ceiling lights were also causing a reaction and she realised with horror that the problem was getting worse.  She sought medical help and went on sick leave, not knowing that she would never return to office work again.  Diagnosed with photosensitive seborrhoeic dermatitis, what began as an irritation became a debilitating, chronic condition that led to an isolated life in a blacked out room.  With limited options and no hope for a cure, how can a vibrant young woman, brimming with ambition, survive?