Norman Collins - London Belongs to Me

Author: Norman Collins

Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics

First published:1945

Setting: London, UK
Read in March 2014

My Rating ★★★★  4.2

My Waterstones Review

In the microcosm of No. 10 Dulcimer Street, Kennington, Norman Collins documents with dead-pan humour the lives of the tenants of a boarding house in the two year period from Christmas 1938. London Belongs to Me is loosely split into seven books of unequal length. 

The first book opens with the retirement of Mr Josser as an account's clerk from Battlebury's and his coming to terms with life at home under the feet of Mrs Josser, the matriarch. Doris Josser has started at work and unlike her sibling, Ted, is still living at home. Ted has a good job and is married to Cynthia, an ex-usherette whose life is occupied by Baby. Moving upstairs we have Mrs Boon and her mechanic son Percy, he plays life on the edge. In the attic rooms are Connie Clark, a colourful cloakroom attendant and Mr Puddy, a portly and stammering night watchman. The boarding house is owned by spinster Mrs Vizzard who shares the basement with the pyschic Mr Squales. These are unglamorous lives but observed through our microscope they are certainly interesting lives. The book is punctuated with some wonderful secondary characters including Bill, Mrs Jan Byl, Mr Barks and the eccentric Uncle Henry.

This novel is over 700 pages, it never drifts and it is never dull; it was a delight to read. The focus of attention changes between each book but we never lose touch with any of the principal characters. Living in a closed community their lives must interact with each other, but it is subtle, privacy is maintained between each household. This is an interesting phase in London's history, war seems inevitable but it does not dominate life, it begins to take effect with the evacuation of Dunkirk (27 May - 4 Jun 1940) and the start of The Blitz on 7 September 1940. Every reader will have a favourite character, by a short nose mine was Uncle Henry.

The Man Who Fell to Earth - Walter Tevis

Author: Walter Tevis

Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics

First published:1963

Setting: USA
Read in March 2014

My Rating ★★★★  3.9

My Waterstones Review

Thomas Jerome Newton is an alien from planet Anthea who has landed in an isolated part of Kentucky. He is tall at six and a half feet with white hair, peculiar looking but not out of place; out of disguise he would have no fingernails and only slits for his eyes, he was human; but not, properly, a man. He is highly intelligent and uses his knowledge from Anthea to patent inventions that creates immense wealth. His mission is to construct a space ship to ferry the few remaining Antheans to Earth to stop it from destroying itself with Nuclear bombs. 

Nathan Bryce is a Professor at an Iowa University who is struck by the definition of the film he was watching at the cinema. At an all night drugstore he sees some 35mm camera film with the same brand name Worldcolour from World Enterprises Corporation. Intrigued by the claim to be self-developing he sets about analysing the chemical properties only to discover the process did not use conventional chemicals. His suspicions will lead him to applying for a position with W.E.Corp.

Set in the future in 1985 this science fiction book never strays too far from reality. In Kentucky Thomas finds that he tires easily under the 90 degree heat being physically unable to perspire and in a hotel elevator his body cripples with the multiplication effect of gravity. Here he meets a chubby, pretty woman, Betty Jo, who looks after him when he passes out. Betty Jo is a Gin alcoholic. Betty Jo and Nathan will become friends of Thomas but the inventions and gathering of scientists around his project will not go unnoticed by the American authorities.

The Man Who Fell to Earth is a short book of less than 200 pages, it is beautifully written. In 1976 it was made into a film starring David Bowie and it reached cult status.

A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh

Author: Evelyn Waugh

Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics

First published:1934

Setting: Warwickshire and London, UK and Boa Vista, Brazil
Read in March 2014

My Rating ★★★★  4.0

My Waterstones Review

In January 2010 Time Magazine published a list of the top 100 books written in English since 1923 and amongst many modern day classics you will find A Handful of Dust. Similarly it made the top 100 best novels of the 20th century in the Modern Library list coming in at number 34.

Written on the theme of the betrayed romantic A Handful of Dust starts with an introduction of the insignificant and shallow John Beaver who at Brat's club had managed to wangle a weekend invite to Lord and Lady Last's Gothic mansion Hetton Abbey. Taken by surprise, Tony makes himself scarce with duties around his beloved estate leaving Lady Brenda to entertain John Beaver. Lady Brenda considers John rather pathetic but nonetheless he has taken her fancy. In one of Lady Brenda's weekday trips to London there is a chance lunchtime meeting with John's mother who is selling some small flats in Belgravia. We soon find that Lady Brenda has invited John Beaver to Lady Polly Cockpurse's party and the start of the affair is set. Speculation amongst Society is rife and is confirmed when Lady Brenda lets a flat and starts an Economics course in order to remain in London for longer periods.

The origins of a A Handful of Dust unusually starts with the ending. In December 1923 Evelyn Waugh embarked on a 3 month trip to British Guiana in S.America and this resulted in the short story 'The Man Who Liked Dickens' which was published in America. A Handful of Dust followed with a serialized version published in an American Magazine and called 'A Flat in London', this had a much closer affinity with the earlier chapters but which required the alternative ending due to the earlier publishing of 'The Man Who Liked Dickens'. The novel version of A Handful of Dust has a disconcerting shift from England to S.America to bind in the short story in the chapter called Du Côté de Chez Todd.  

In A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh gives a satirical dig at the landed gentry, the decay of English society, the disintegration of social and moral standards and the resulting set of shallow values. This is both a tragedy and a comedy with the unlikely hero of an English society bore.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia - Mohsin Hamid

Author: Mohsin Hamid

Publisher: Penguin Books

First published:2013

Setting: Asia
Read in March 2014

My Rating ★★     2.4

My Waterstones Review

My expectations were high having loved Mohsin's previous book The Reluctant Fundamentalist, ultimately it was like falling off a cliff, it didn't take long to get to the end and the view got progressively worse as I realised it was never going to improve. In a literary sense it made me feel somewhat inadequate, the publishers had provided forty endorsements from a series of papers and magazines, and Philip Pulman thought it 'Intriguing, compelling and moving. A marvellous book'. What did I miss!

It opens by explaining that this is a self-help book, it isn't. Its chapter titles suggest an order for a would-be entrepreneur; Move to the city, Get an education, Don't fall in love....Have an exit strategy, these are used as a framework for the life story of an Asian who starts life as a country boy in a single mud-walled room. It feels more like a love story, boy meets girl, will they get together?

Each chapter starts with a page or so reminding us that we are back in self-help mode, before returning to the storyline. We are traveling through life at breakneck speed, it feels like we are continually jumping in time and lacks a degree of continuity. This is a short book, a page turner for all the wrong reasons, 12 chapters, 228 pages with 4 pages of white space between each chapter and an unusual line spacing that only manages 24-25 lines per page, this should by rights be filling only half the space in my library.

Written in the second person narrative some of the sentences were unnecessarily difficult to read, this was normally at the beginning of each chapter so much so that I began to dread the end of each chapter and these came round often enough. This was a great pity, as the second person narrative was one of the reasons why I liked The Reluctant Fundamentalist, it was refreshingly different. Ultimately, this book had very little depth, bordering on the boring, and annoying, but I really must have missed something, didn't I?

Agent Zigzag - Ben Macintyre

Author: Ben Macintyre

Publisher: Bloomsbury

First published: 2007

Setting: Britain, France, Germany, Norway
Read in August 2013

My Rating ★★★★  4.2

My Waterstones Review

Eddie Chapman was 24 when Ben Macintyre takes up his account of Britain's most improbable double agent of WWII. At 17 Eddie had lasted just 9 months in the army before absconding. When the army finally caught up with him he received 84 days in Aldershot military prison before being dishonorably discharged. After release he returned to Soho and turned to petty crime, prostitution and blackmail picking up lengthening sentences along the way. He then turned his hand to safe-cracking and formed the 'Jelly Gang' so called because of their use of gelignite, they were successful. Fast cars, Saville Row suits and living it up in London followed along with acquaintances made with Noel Coward, Ivor Novello and Marlene Dietrich. In February 1939 the police finally caught up with him in Jersey, but Eddie escaped by jumping through a restaurant window and while on the run was fortunate enough to break into a pavilion before being caught, by breaking a Jersey law he avoided a quick return to Britain.

Eddie received a two year sentence with an extra year added after he briefly escaped from jail. On 30th June 1940 while still serving his three year sentence Jersey was invaded by Germans. In October 1941 he was released from prison but wanting to return to Britain he conjured an ingenious plan, if I bluffed my way into becoming a German spy they would will find a way of getting me home undercover. With a friend, Faramus, they wrote a letter to the German Command offering their services but they heard nothing, until one morning the Gestapo arrested them for sabotage, a new experience for Eddie being arrested for something he had not done. They were transferred to the infamous Fort de Romainville prison in Paris. Meanwhile the letter had reached the German Secret Service and by April 1942 Eddie had been recruited by Dr Stephan Graumann, leaving his friend Faramus behind as hostage for Chapman's good behaviour. Trained in wireless, sabotage, espionage and parachute jumping and with a codename of Fritz it was in December 1942 when Eddie parachuted into Britain.

Bletchley Park had been tracking references to Fritz since February 1942, were aware of the 9500 Francs paid for remodeling Eddie's teeth after a failed parachute jump and knew that Fritz would soon be going on his holiday. Early on 16th December 1942 Eddie landed in a celery field in Cambridgeshire having missed his drop point after being dangled out of an aircraft at high speed.

Ben Macintyre's account is brilliant and is extremely easy to read, a page turner in fact, this is generally not the case for either a historical book or a biography. It reads like a piece of far fetched fiction but every word is true, outstanding for its genre.

Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh

Author: Evelyn Waugh

Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics

First published:1928

Setting: Oxford, Wales, London, Hampshire UK
Read in February 2014

My Rating ★★★★  4.4

My Waterstones Review

Paul Pennyfeather is in his third year as an undergraduate at the fictional Scone College, Oxford. One evening he is returning across the quad to his rooms when he is discovered by the Bollinger Club, debagged and consequently sent down for indecent behaviour. Losing his guardians allowance he takes a teaching position in a small inferior public school based in a castle in North Wales. Here he meets a motley crew of teachers, staff and pupils. Dr Fagan the headmaster, his two daughters Flossie and Dingy, their butler and professional conman Mr Soloman Philbrick, and fellow teachers Captain Grimes, ex-public school pupil of Podger's who goes through life from one crises to another being saved from "the soup" by the old-boys network, and wig wearing, pipe smoking, ex-clergyman Mr Prendergast who has developed insuperable Doubts.

Decline and Fall is a rich comedy of carefully selected  narrative and dialogue that is loosely based on Waugh's time at Oxford and as a teacher in Wales. This was his first published novel and he must have had great fun conjuring his characters, including the Countess of Circumference and their son Lord Tangent, and the Honourable Mrs Margot Beste-Chetwynde the attractive and wealthy mother of Peter who engineers Paul to become his private tutor and then to be engaged to his mother. Throughout there is a tongue in cheek poking of fun at the establishment and comparisons can be made to the writings of P.G. Woodhouse. Evelyn Waugh meant this to be a funny book, it is!

City of Women - David Gillham

Author: David Gillham

Publisher: Penguin Books

First published: 2013

Setting: Berlin, Germany
Read in February 2014

My Rating ★★★★  4.1

My Waterstones Review

Early in 1943 the German 6th Army has surrendered in Stalingrad and doubts are beginning to grow on the outcome of the war. Goebbels' propaganda machine calls for 'Total War' and in Berlin Jews are being rounded-up.  Against this backdrop we find Sigrid Schröder, a stenographer, living with her mother in law while her husband, Kasper, is fighting on the Eastern Front. Her life seems tough, living off meager rations that is made into soup, frequent air raids by the Tommies, nights spent in the basement with the other residents of the apartment block and evenings spent in a small flat avoiding her mother in law who despises her for not providing her with a grandchild, her duty as a married woman.

Sigrid often escapes to the cinema and here she meets a man who is to become her lover, Egon, a Jewish lover. Here she also befriends Ericha Kohl who is the young duty-year girl for her neighbour Frau Granzinger and her six children; Mrs Granzinger had been awarded the Mother's Cross. Ericha is being pursued by plain clothes officers of the SiPo (Security Police) and desperately asks Sigrid to help her. This is the first difficult choice that we see Sigrid make, help Ericha or be a good German. Sigrid starts to help Ericha who is working in an undercover network hiding Jews, deserters and others escaping the Nazi regime and in fear of their lives. Against advice Sigrid is drawn to a Jewish mother, Anna Weiss from Vienna, and her two young daughters, she is sure that they are the wife and family of Egon, if she betrays them she could have Egon for herself.

City of Women paints a realistic view of life in Berlin at this time and from this aspect is on a par with the detective novels of Philip Kerr (Bernie Gunther stories). What I found extraordinary about this book is that it is a debut novel written by a man, and convincingly taking a woman's story. It feels that difficult choices are made by ordinary women every day. Who can you trust? There are party members and servants of the Police and Gestapo everywhere, many are willing to become an informant in order to avoid torture and imprisonment, and if someone is breaking the law then recriminations will be felt by family members. For the poor Jew they are just as likely to be denounced by another Jew employed as a Catcher. The theme on who to trust and who can be used drives the book through to its end, it is certainly gripping.

Operation Massacre - Rodolfo Walsh

Author: Rodolfo Walsh

Publisher: Old Street Publishing

First published: 1957

Setting: Argentina
Read in February 2014

My Rating ★★     2.3

My Waterstones Review

Late on June 9th 1956 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a dozen men were arrested and then executed a few hours later. Martial Law was not introduced until the 10th and so it was illegal to execute the men without trial, murder in fact. But there were witnesses to the execution, several survivors, 5 men lost their lives leaving wives and 16 children behind. 

When Rudolfo, a journalist, hears several weeks later that there was a survivor to this relatively unreported incident he sees an opportunity for a scoop and starts to investigate. In a country run by dictatorships and a military junta, with kidnapping, disappearances and killings commonplace, pursuing a possible police cover-up is difficult and dangerous for all involved. 

We therefore have a strong plot, one based on an actual event. Where for me this book struggles to engage is that it becomes too obvious that Rudolfo’s mission is to bring down the Chief of Police, a colonel, who was responsible for ordering the executions, it feels personal, it feels political. The other negative is that it is difficult trying to keep up with the people involved in the drama, who was murdered, who survived, who was in the police, government or judiciary. There is a useful character list at the back, but a diagram at the front would have been an advantage. On 24th March 1977 Rodolfo sent an open letter to the Military Junta and the following day he was kidnapped not to be seen again, presumed murdered.

Published in 1957 this book is recognised as the first book in the genre of investigative journalism. There is no doubt that Rodolfo undertook a monumental task tracking down survivors who did not want to be found, especially as nobody really knew how many people had been arrested and taken to the garbage dump to be executed. His perseverance and bravery in following through on the publishing of this book is to be highly commended. My expectation from the hype on the cover was unfortunately not delivered.

A Foreign Country - Charles Cumming

Author: Charles Cumming

Publisher: Harper Collins

First published: 2012

Setting: France and Tunisia
Read in September 2013

My Rating ★★★★  4.2

My Waterstones Review

The book opens with a flashback to 1978. Amelia Weldon, a 20 year old au pair in Tunisia, has been missing for 6 days, she has been having an affair with her employer Jean-Marc Daumal. Back in the present day an elderly French couple are brutally murdered in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Thomas Kell, a 42 year old disgraced ex British Intelligence officer is recovering from a friends birthday celebrations when his mobile rings, 'We've lost the Chief'. Amelia Levene is due to take over as the first female head of MI6 in six weeks, she has disappeared, feared to have been abducted in Paris, Tom is back in the game. Amelia is soon found to have checked into a hotel near Nice and is reportedly on a painting course but Tom tracks her down to a hotel in Carthage, Tunisia where she has met up with Francois Mallot the son of the murdered french couple.

This is an easy to read and gripping thriller that creates a great sense of pace through 80 short chapters, at an average of 5 pages per chapter. Charles Cumming had a short career in MI6 and he brings a realistic sense of a modern spy to this book. It is no surprise that it has won awards and has been voted Best Thriller of the Year by newspapers.

The Honorary Consul - Graham Greene

Author: Graham Greene

Publisher: Vintage Books

First published:1973

Setting: Corrientes, Argentina
Read in January 2014

My Rating ★★★★  4.3

My Waterstones Review

Doctor Eduardo Plarr born of a Paraguayan mother and English father is living in the small river port of Corrientes in Argentina. He is one of three English residents; Doctor Humphries a doctor of letters and Charley Fortnum, the alcoholic Honorary Consul. Doctor Plarr has been having an affair with the Honorary Consul's wife, Clara. 

As a child Eduardo lived in Paraguay and at 14 he and his mother moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina leaving his father on the quay at Asunción. Eduardo is somewhat sympathetic to the causes of the Juventud Febrerista guerrilla action, two of his old school friends Father León Rivas and Aquino are members. Eduardo is aware that they aim to kidnap the American Ambassador and they may need his help. One morning in the early hours Doctor Plarr is awoken by a telephone call and told that a man is dying, he is taken to the place where he expects to attend to the Ambassador only to find that the guerrillas have bungled their mission, they have captured the Honorary Consul.

Eduardo is a bit of a cold fish, he has been emotionally affected by his childhood and finds it difficult building lasting relationships. He has had affairs and occasionally joins other locals at Mother Sanchez' brothel, here he is attracted to Clara but she has other clients one of which is Charley 40 years her senior and soon to be her husband. Eduardo is struggling to understand the notion of love.

The Honorary Consul was Graham Greene's favourite book and has his customary Catholic religious theme. The book is probably pitched in 1969, there is a reference to Nixon as USA President. These are turbulent times for Argentina, there are military dictatorships between the two presidential periods of Juan Perón, kidnapping and political unrest are common. There must have been some affinity with the area for Greene to spend time in Corrientes researching for his book. It is a beautifully written and interesting book, but it was a struggle for Graham Greene and two thirds through he hit a block and nearly abandoned it.

The Other Typist - Suzanne Rindell

Author: Suzanne Rindell

Publisher: Penguin Books

First published: 2013

Setting: New York City, USA
Read in January 2014

My Rating ★★★★  4.2

My Waterstones Review

It is 1924 and Rose Baker, our narrator, is a typist at a police precinct exposed to the interrogations of criminals of all types and the smells of the drunks who are brought in for their overnight recuperation. Rose, an orphan that has been raised by nuns, has led a sheltered life where right and wrong have been clearly defined. Prohibition is well established and the mayor has ordered that the police are to crack down on the organized crime that has erupted across the city as a result, they will need to recruit another typist.

Enter Odalie Lazare, a well dressed flapper, but not like Daisy from The Great Gatsby, Odalie is charming and intelligent, but we soon find out she is also streetwise and can manipulate others to perform tasks which are out of character. Rose is drawn into Odalie's web as admiration turns into obsession. There is a growing sense that the book will climax probably with a twist and midway through we are introduced to Rose's doctor, a psychiatrist.

This is an excellent debut novel which is well paced and clever, providing a window into the world of speakeasies and the familiar decadence of the Roaring Twenties, it will more than likely be turned into a film. Throughout the book we are wondering about Odalie's true background, more than one explanation is given. We also wonder about Rose, clearly she considers herself plain and unattractive but the Lieutenant Detective, our batchelor, shows signs of interest, will Rose reciprocate or is Rose in love with Odalie and does she have lesbian tendencies? When we arrive at the end we are left with a number of unanswered questions about both Odalie, Rose and also what actually happened at the climax. Suzanne provides her answer in the last sentence of the book but by then the reader may have been led to other conclusions. As I say it is a clever book.

Exposure - Michael Woodford

Author: Michael Woodford

Publisher: Penguin Books

First published: 2012

Setting: Southend, UK - Hamburg, Germany - Tokyo, Japan
Read in September 2013

My Rating ★★★★★  4.5

My Waterstones Review

Michael Woodford joined the British company KeyMed in 1980 which became a subsidiary of the Olympus Corporation of Japan in 1986. Over thirty years Michael rose through the ranks becoming President of Olympus in April 2011. A rare state for a western man to run a Japanese giant. In October that year he was also made CEO only to be dismissed two weeks later for querying inexplicable payments in excess of  $1.5 billion.

This excellent and revealing book starts four months into Michael's presidency when in July 2011 he receives an email from a friend in Tokyo with subject URGENT NEWS alerting Michael to an article in an obscure Japanese magazine called Facta. In financial years 2008 - 2010 the article alleged that Olympus had purchased three essentially 'Mickey Mouse' companies costing hundreds of millions of dollars. This was under the Presidency of Tsuyoshi Kikukawa who was now Chairman, and having appointed Michael to President had for the first time introduced the role of CEO to Olympus appointing himself to this position.

Michael set about trying to uncover the truth behind these allegations and in so doing risked his job with possible threats to his life. The Japanese police are well aware that people who know too much in Japan tend to meet a bleak fate when corporate scandal erupts. Michael collected the evidence and created a statement to the board of directors for a meeting to be held on October 14th, 2011. In the statement he registered serious concerns in relation to the companies governance. At the board meeting and in the face of the evidence the 15 member Olympus board chose to acquiesce to Kikukawa's motion to dismiss Mr Woodford as President and CEO rather than discuss any of the allegations. Having been dismissed Michael submitted his prepared dossier to the Financial Times in Tokyo and in so doing become one of the worlds biggest corporate whistleblowers, within a few hours he was heading for Hong Kong and for his connecting flight home to safety.

There is no doubt that Michael's values of honesty and integrity drove him to becoming a whistleblower. His preference would have been to root out the issues from within and having been dismissed he could have kept quiet, the safer option. But he was prepared for his dismissal and what he would do when the inevitable occurred. There is a Japanese saying which when translated reads 'The honest man is sure to lose'. What is revealed by this book is how the corporate systems of Japan appear closed and not open to as much scrutiny as would be the case in other parts of the world. But perhaps a new wind is emerging; the Japanese edition of Exposure has become a bestseller.

This is a great book and recommended reading for all business people, it is easy to read and gripping, a real page turner for a business book!  Since the story became public Michael has been named Business Person of the Year 2011 by the Sunday Times, the Independent and the Sun, and in 2012 won the Financial Times ArcelorMittal Award for Boldness in Business. In 2013 he was the winner of the inaugural Contrarian Prize.

Field Grey - Philip Kerr

Author: Philip Kerr

Publisher: Quercus

First published: 2010

Setting: Cuba, New York, Germany, Minsk, France, Russia
Read in January 2014

My Rating ★★★  3.4

My Waterstones Review

Field Grey is set in 1954, starts in Cuba, ends in Berlin, in between Bernie Gunther, our ex-detective, will go via New York, Germany, France and back to Germany, most often traveling from prison to prison. The book is not written linearly and under interrogation Bernie reminisces events from 1941, 1931, 1940, 1945, and 1946 and in various locations; Minsk (Belarus), Germany, France and Russia. If you have gathered the gist, with 21 time and location changes across 40 chapters this is not the easiest book to follow, but at least Philip must have recognized this as a problem because each chapter heading repositions us by location and time. Just keep reminding yourself that time now is 1954 and when it isn't then we are time traveling.

This is my 7th Bernie Gunther story, Berlin Noir counting as three of these, I am a great fan, but Field Grey was disappointing. It is the 7th in the series of 9, the last was - A Man Without Breath (2013). I am treating Field Grey as a bit of a blip as I loved Prague Fatale which was published one year later in 2011. Then again it might just be me, the 1500+ goodread reviewers rated it at an average of 4.03.

Goodread reviews of Philip Kerr books

Field Grey has a great start and end, but at 567 pages it is the middle which starts to drag. It is the lack of plot which drove my rating. The reminisces follow the history between Bernie and Erich Mielke who in 1954 is not quite the top dog in the East German Ministry of State Security, the Stasi. Erich Mielke was actually a real person, the head of the secret police for 32 years from 1957. In 1993 after German reunification Erich Mielke was convicted of the murders of two police officers Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck in 1931 which is when Erich and Bernie first met in Field Grey, but in Chapter 12.

All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren

Author: Robert Penn Warren

Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics

First published:1946

Setting: Louisiana, USA
Read in December 2013

My Rating ★★★★  4.2

My Waterstones Review

Robert Penn Warren won a Pulitzer Prize (1947) for this novel. It was made into a film in 1949 (winner of 3 Academy Awards and nominated in 4 other categories) and also in 2006. It is written in the first person, Jack Burden is a journalist and fixer for "the Boss" Governor Willie Stark. We follow the life of Willie from a "play by the book" lawyer who is respected for his anti-corruption stance through to his ultimate demise, in politics you cannot always play with a straight bat.

This is a great book with a number of themes, love (and affairs), family, race, slavery, education, alcohol, religion and politics. It is loosley based on Huey Pierce Long Jr, a Governor of Louisiana and a member of the United States Senate until he was assassinated. You will find on the first page that it uses politically incorrect language in today's terms but this should not spoil the enjoyment of reading this long book.

The book jumps back and forth in time and this can be a bit confusing. The present is 1936 but we start with a journey remembered back three years earlier and Jack soon recollects the time when he first met Willie Stark in 1922. In Chapter 4 we are thrown even further back in time, pre-Civil War, when slavery was rife in the middle of the 19th Century, this chapter seems a little redundant with the rest of the book. While the book is considered as a political story, we are also following the developing relationships between Jack, his mother and father, and the fellow residents of Burden's Landing, Judge Irwin, and his childhood friends Anne and Adam Stanton. Will Jack and Anne eventually get together?

The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald

Author: F.Scott Fitzgerald

Publisher: Wordsworth Classics

First published: 1925

Setting: Long Island, New York, USA
Read in January 2014

My Rating ★★★★  4.3

My Waterstones Review

This is a short novel at 115 pages which is as much about the narrator Nick Carraway as it is the subject of the title, Jay Gatz (Gatsby). It is the summer of 1922 and Nick lives in the fictional area of West Egg on Long Island directly across the sound from his second cousin once removed Daisy, who is married to Tom Buchanan, they have a three year old daughter. Nick has a small cottage next to the mansion owned by Mr Gatsby whose lavish parties are the talk of New York. Nick is reacquainted with Daisy and meets Daisy's friend Jordan Baker a golf champion, Daisy is to encourage the pairing up of Jordan and Nick. 'Tom's got some woman in New York.' says Jordan. Soon we are to meet Myrtle the wife of George B Wilson a garage owner and mechanic. Back in 1917, five years earlier, Daisy had met Jay Gatsby, an officer from the nearby Camp Taylor who was waiting to embark for Europe, they had fallen in love with each other.

This is a book about love and obsession driven by wealth. Tom has inherited wealth, old money, and he is obsessed with finding out how Gatsby has obtained his new money, a form of snobbery. Tom suspects Gatsby is involved in bootlegging, prohibition had been introduced in 1920; it was not illegal to own or consume alcohol, and it was abundantly available at Gatsby's parties. Gatsby is obsessed with winning back Daisy, Mrytle is obsessed with milking her position as Tom's mistress and trying to extract herself from her loveless marriage. This is the quintessential book describing the American Roaring Twenties (The Jazz Age) and its decadent living. The Great Gatsby was inspired by the parties that Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda attended when they became the celebrity couple following the publishing success of Fitzgerald's first novel - This Side of Paradise. It predictably ends in tragedy for all concerned.

This Side of Paradise - F.Scott Fitzgerald

Author: F.Scott Fitzgerald

Publisher: Alma Classics

First published: 1920

Setting: Princeton, New Jersey, USA
Read in December 2013

My Rating ★★★  3.4

My Waterstones Review

This is the first of F.Scott Fitzgerald's novels. It introduces us to the ambitious young Amory Blaine from the midwest and his arrival at Princeton University. It has parallels with Fitzgerald's own life, he also attended Princeton. It is split into two books.

The first book - The Romantic Egotist - soon introduces us to the sudden revulsion felt following Amory's first kiss with the unfortunate Myra St Claire whose party is now spoiled. But Amory is not discouraged and through his school years proceeds to collect locks of hair and rings. Amory considers himself in possession of personality, charm, magnetism, and poise, an exceedingly handsome chap with the gift of fascinating all women. Amory is sent by his mainly absent mother, Beatrice, to St Regis boarding school in Connecticut and he is also to visit a family friend, Monsignor Darcy, a Roman Catholic priest. At St Regis Amory reads voluminously, classifies men into "The Slicker" or "The Big Man" and concerns himself with the intricacies of a university social system. At 18 and while in his Sophomore year at Princeton, Amory briefly returns to Minneapolis and falls for Isabelle Borgé his arranged dinner partner. Isabelle remarks on his keen eyes, and in response Amory attempts to make his eyes look even keener. The first book completes with Amory in his Senior year at Princeton with The Great War scarcely touching him and his friends except for the sounds of the afternoon drills.

The second book - The Education of a Personage - follows a short Interlude which finds Amory as second lieutenant preparing for embarkation to Europe. The second book starts by introducing us to the Connage daughters, 19 year old Debutante Rosalind and her sister Cecilia 16. Amory is nearly 23, a second love to be won and lost. Amory is now bored and restless and no longer able to wander the bars due to the introduction of prohibition. Amory is starting to write and has some articles published but is not earning enough to make a living, his inherited investments are doing poorly. He needs a purpose and seeks help from his old friend Monsignor Darcy. We follow Amory through various incidents involving Eleanor (a third love) and her horse, and in Atlantic City with his friend Alec Connage; this had chilled following the brief encounter with Rosalind. These are life's lessons, far from the optimism experienced at Princeton (Paradise) and in a world full of struggle where disillusionment with life itself is all too real. Following Monsignor Darcy's funeral and Amory's walk to Princeton when he is picked up and discusses politics with Jesse Ferrenby, the man with the googles, there is a road to Damascus moment, whether in art, politics or religion, whatever his medium Amory cries "I know myself, but that is all".