The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins

This is one of the few times I have found myself completely in two minds about a book.  On the one hand what Dawkins does in this book is brilliant and I learned so much, he takes us step by step through the evidence for evolution, clarifying the concepts of DNA, fossil records, Darwin's theories of natural selection and countering the Creationist and Intelligent Design theories about the natural world.  But there were moments where I could happily have thrown the book, if it wasn't a library book!  Dawkins keeps going on about his other books, if you want to read more on this read my other book.  This is lazy scholarship, he should either leave it out altogether or put together an intelligent precis of his point.  And his attacks on Creationists smack of crowing and a peacock like pride in just how right he is. 

The Roundabout Man by Clare Morrall

Quinn Smith is approaching old age and is in retreat from his past. His mother was a children's author, as famous as as Shirley Hughes, AA Milne, Arthur Ransome and Enid Blyton, and he and his triplets are the infamous stars of her books. But real life growing up in Quinn's family was very different, as bereft of love as rich in priveledge and he has grown old without growing up, fixed like a fly in amber at the age of 5 in the pages of his mother's books. As The Roundabout Man opens Quinn is living in anonimity in a caravan on a motorway roundabout, hidden away in the trees that remain of Primrose Valley and existing by scavenging from the service station of the same name. But his peace is disturbed when he is approached by a young ambitious journalist unaware of his past, who breaks his solitude. As tragedy strikes he is forced into contact and engagement with the staff of Primrose Valley service station and begins at last to question his past and separate the fiction of his mother's books from the reality of a painful upbringing. Delicately asking the question as to what happens to those like Christopher Robin who have fame thrust upon them by others.

A History of Violence by John Wagner

I must admit I've never seen the film, and I can see that this is a graphic novel that could be easily translated into a gore fest with little delicacy. However, the graphic novel treats what could be quite a sterotypical story with great deftness and feeling. Tom McKenna is in hiding, outwardly a pillar of his local small town, married with a little girl, the proprieter of a diner in an idyllic close knit neighbourhood. But when he shoots and kills one of a pair of predatory killers who try to rob him he becomes a media celebrity and attracts the interest of the mob. It is the characteristation, quality of drawing and careful touches which draw together the story of a man thrown back to memories of a traumatic coming of age. Very highly recommended.

Metamaus by Art Spiegelman

I learned so much in this book. I knew that Maus had affected me deeply and that it wasn't just to do with the subject matter, but in MetaMaus I felt I really came to an understanding of the level of craft Spiegelman put into his work. Spiegelman speaks about the different levels of his books, the overt subject of Auschwitz and the Holocaust, but also the framing narrative of intergenerational misuderstandings and conflict, that being a survivor of the Holocaust doesn't make you perfect, and of the deep reasons for the use of animal models that reflected how Nazis themselves propagandised about Jews. I learned about the symbolism and movement of the panels across each page and Spiegelman's own struggle to express his ambivalism about his family history. I didn't think I could respect Spiegelman more that I did, but I do now. A wonderful piece, not just about Maus but about the history and methodology of the comic medium.

The Small Hand by Susan Hill

In this little ghost story, Hill reworks some of the elements of the Turn of the Screw to create a haunting psychological tingler. Adam Snow is an antiqarian book dealer, travelling all over the world to find rare books for his clients. Returning to London by car across the Downs he becomes lost and ends up at a dilapidated abandoned house with extensive gardens. As he wanders in the dusk he feels quite distictly the hand of a small child slip into his own, but there is no one there. The owner of the hand goes with him to an isolated monastery in France where Adam has gone in search of a Shakespeare First Folio and becomes malign. Snow begins to doubt his sanity and safety and speaks to his brother Hugo, who has recovered from a mental breakdown, about his experience. Compelled, he returns to the garden having been given some information about its history, and sets in motion a train of events with tragic consequences. I liked the way that the story twisted and turned, but that the outcome seemed elegant and 'right', though not predictable.

1Q84 Books 1 & 2 by Haruki Murakami

Murakami introduces us to a cast of characters that are deeply moral and indeed gentle, ironic given that two of them are killers. As Aomame is on the Tokyo expressway in a taxi snarled in traffic the suggestion by the driver that she climb down the emergency stairway to make her appointment on time is the beginning of a shift, she is pitched into a new world, from 1984 to 1Q84, a world in which there are two moons. She makes her appointment, to dispatch a beater of women into the next world with a delicate touch, and remembers her past, her upbringing as a Jehovah's Witness and a boy, Tengo, whom she has never seen since elementary school but is drawn to. We alternate between her narrative and that of Tengo, a maths teacher at a Tokyo cramming school and part time writer, a man with a weekly lover but who is haunted by his memories of Aomame and unable to form any other permanent relationships with women. He is engaged to ghost edit the work of a young 17 year old girl and is pitched into a strange world of supernatural forces. Though slow to start, I really enjoyed being immersed in Japanese culture which in its reticence and attention to manners is similar to the British psyche, and by the end of the second book I was completely hooked. Can't wait for the third one