A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

I've always really enjoyed Kate Atkinson's books, ever since she burst onto the scenes with Behind the Scenes at the Museum twenty years ago.

She's highly clever, entertaining and playful in her writing. Her books defy easy pigeon-holing, although the Jackson Brodie series  are sort of whodunnits. I once heard her speak at a literary festival and she  was just as extraordinary in person as she is on the page.

I loved Life After Life,  her 2013 novel about the Todd family, who live in Fox Corner. That novel’s heroine, Ursula Todd, is given the chance to live her life again and again in many variations over the first half of the 20th century. The different  outcomes – usually the difference between life and death – depend  on the smallest, most insignificant-seeming choices. So there are echoes here of Laura Barnett's The Versions of Us, although Atkinson does a more convincing job.

Life After Life was an absorbing family drama played out through two world wars. As a reader it was hard not to care about characters and celebrate the second chances that the author grants them in her different versions. 

And one of those characters was Ursula’s much-loved younger brother Teddy who, in the final narrative, survives to become a bomber pilot in the second world war, is reported missing, presumed dead during a raid in 1943. The author granted him an eleventh-hour reprieve, and he turned up at the end of the war, having spent two years as a Prisoner of War.

A God in Ruins, published in 2015 and the winner of the Costa Prize and now out in paperback, is Teddy's story.  It's a companion piece, rather than a sequel, but it's hard to judge how that would feel to a reader coming in 'cold' to the story.  There is much overlap, both in content (the characters, for example) and in the compositional structure which sees the narrative flitting back and forth in time from Teddy's childhood in the 1920s to his old age and then back to his war years.

The war, Teddy and his wife Nancy discover, has changed everything and will overshadow their whole lives. The impact is incomprehensible to the next generation, in particular the wonderfully awful Viola, their only daughter.  And this is part of the book's magic: the way the way she creates an entirely believable tension between the generations.

The novel is also about fiction itself: about how we construct stories and use our imaginations. I won't tell you what happens at the end because there is a breathtaking twist, that some people may find infuriating. Another dazzling performance.

The fault in our stars by John Green

I picked this up in a charity shop. It's really a book intended for the young adult market, but I'd heard so much about it (with sales of more than 10 million copies, it's hard to avoid) I wanted to read it. The central character is Hazel, whose been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and her friendship with Augustus Waters, a young man she meets at the Cancer Kid Support Group.

The friendship gradually morphs into something much deeper. “I fell in love with him the way you fall asleep,” says Hazel of Gus. “Slowly, and then all at once.”

But this being a book where cancer features, there's a weepie ending.

If that sounds depressing, it's really not. It's sad, emotional and extremely funny. It reminded me of the wonderful Spoonface Steinberg, a play by Lee Hall that, when it was first broadcast on the radio, had at least one lorry driver pulling into layby because he couldn't drive through his tears.  Another book I'd recommend in the same genre is Before I Die by Jenny Downham.

If you've seen the film - which was not universally praised - you might feel no need to read the book. But I'd recommend it. My personal judgement is that it's worth all the fuss. 
​

The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
 
I’d heard a great deal about The Versions of Us before I read it. Described on the cover as ‘One Day meets Sliding Doors’ I liked the concept: three versions of the same love story. In 1958, Eva and Jim are students at Cambridge. One day in October, their paths cross. And from that moment onwards, the book takes us down three different accounts of what happened next.
 
To give you a flavour, in Version One, Jim invites Eva for a drink. They fall in love, she drops her luvvie boyfriend David, and they end up getting married. In Version Two, Eva marries David, and she and Jim don’t meet again for some time. In Version Three, they get together, briefly and passionately, but Eva goes back to David.
 
As the years progress, the reader is presented with chapters alternating between the different versions. In each version Jim becomes an artist and Eva a writer, although with varying degrees of success. Again, in each account their paths continue to cross, with considerable overlap in each of the three strands.

It’s a clever idea, if not a completely original one. As well as One Day and Sliding Doors it reminded me of Lionel Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World. In one story, Jim paints a triptych called The Versions of Us which he describes as being about the many roads not taken, the many lives not lived. And in version One, their meeting is even brought about by a swerve to avoid a rusty nail. The symbolism is obvious: for want of a nail, a kingdom was lost, as the old proverb goes.

It’s a likeable book, cleverly executed and was an enjoyable and absorbing read. However, I confess at times to struggling to keep track of the different versions. Which man was Eva with – and which were her children in this narrative strand? Unlike in Shriver’s version, where there were two distinctly different stories, beautifully brought together at the end, I’m still slightly muddled about who/what/when. There was almost too much overlap in each story. As a result my emotions were never quite as deeply engaged as I would have liked. Perhaps it would have been easier to read each version separately. 

It’s an assured and impressive debut. Certainly the publisher made a big splash with The Versions of Us and it has been widely and extravagantly admired. For myself, I’d say an enjoyable and entertaining read, but perhaps a book that didn’t entirely deliver on its promise.
 
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
 
To my slight shame, I had never read Michel Faber until recently. I knew of him by reputation, and then encountered him at a literary festival last year where he was talking about The Book of Strange New Things and his life in writing. He’s the internationally acclaimed author of the bestseller, The Crimson Petal and the White, amongst other titles. But this novel, published in 2014, will be his last, he insists.
 
Once he started talking about his life – and especially the loss of his beloved wife, Eva – the reason for this unusual decision became clearer. He’s a fascinating man, with a somewhat tortured life story, and gave a talk that was both entertaining and acutely sad. He lives in a remote farmhouse in northern Scotland. The reason? His wife fell in love with the view, and moved her entirely family (including her ex-husband) across the world from Australia to take advantage of it. 
 
But I digress. After hearing him speak, I felt I must read The Book of Strange New Things. The central character is Peter, a devoted Christian who is called to the mission of a lifetime, to take the Good News to a planet far away from his beloved wife, Bea. Peter sets off on his travels and soon becomes immersed in the mysteries of his new environment. His work introduces him to a native population struggling with a dangerous illness and hungry for Peter’s teachings—his Bible is their “book of strange new things”. But news from home is troubling: Peter receives increasingly desperate messages from home. A series of natural disasters is devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea’s faith, once the guiding light of their lives, begins to falter. 

I found this book masterly. It is highly accomplished, utterly convincing and a real page-turner. Faber insists that he has no religious faith, but inhabits the world of the Christian missionary (a dramatically reformed sinner) with conviction. I found it extraordinary and mesmerizing – and quite unlike anything I have ever read before.

"I confess, I’m a bit of an obsessive when it comes to reading. I read and read and read… mostly novels. I hoover up books. I’m not too fussed whether it’s high brow or low brow. Sometimes I want something fun and frothy, while on other occasions I’m up for something more challenging. I enjoy that mix: I feel rather the same about food. Like most people, when I’ve particularly enjoyed a book I’m keen to press copies into the hands of friends and family. On this section of the website I’m going to post really short reviews of books I’ve read recently that have stayed with me."

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

This book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction 2015 and I can see why. It shouldn’t spoil things to discover that the two main characters only meet at the end. For most of the book, we see their separate lives unfold. They are Marie-Laure, a French girl, blind since the age of six, who grows up in Paris where her father works at the Museum of National History; and Werner Pfennig, a German orphan, whose fascination and skill with radios sees him sent away to train with the Hitler Youth. 
The pair finally meet during the siege of St Malo in August 1944. The book opens, in fact, with the bombing of St Malo. Marie Laure, now 16, is trapped in an attic, while Werner, 18, is buried alive in a cellar. The plot is all about how they came to be there – and what happens next.
​
It’s a huge, sweeping book in scope and scale. The characters are original and offer an unusual perspective on the horrors of living through the Second World War. Descriptions are meticulous and evocative, and the whole narrative is laced with images of natural history, the sea, shells, Jules Verne, and the radio. The research the author has undertaken is awe-inspiring. Where it is less than perfect is in the occasional cliché (the anti-Semitic and greedy German baddie, for example, with his limp) and the awkward unhistorical Americanisms. Having said all that… I loved this book. It may not be flawless, but it is hugely absorbing and profoundly moving. 

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

I wouldn’t have picked this up if it hadn’t been recommended by a very old friend. We met for supper recently having not seen each other for some years. Having exchanged family news it wasn’t long before I asked her what she was reading; and this was her recommendation.
    
I say I wouldn’t have picked it up because – as the members of my book group know – I’m not generally drawn to anything that smacks of “science fiction”. Mind you, that’s an odd and pretty outdated phrase.  Which probably shows how outdated my prejudice is, too, but that’s another story. My problem, too often, is that I find myself sceptically responding “That’s just silly…” 
​
Anyway, Station Eleven is set in a post-apocalyptic future where a virulent strain of flu has wiped out 99 per cent of humanity. Survivors hang on to life while the world collapses around them. They walk blasted roads in a desperate attempt to find fellow survivors. Cults spring up around crazy prophets. 
    
Where Station Eleven appeals is that it flips between the pre flu world and Year Twenty, i.e. 20 years after the global collapse, when the worst is over. The two worlds are linked through a hand-drawn comic called ‘Station Eleven’, and a famous actor called Arthur Leander. As a result the story is less about apocalypse as it is about memory, loss and nostalgia. I won’t say too much more, for fear of giving too much away.

But the other really important point is the quality of the writing which is breath-taking. Emily St John Mandel’s prose is hypnotically good, and as a result the world she creates is utterly believable. I am in awe.

A Spool of Blue Thread  by Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler is a superstar writer, as far as I’m concerned. I await her novels with the anticipation of a football fan awaiting the start of the season.  Her talent is to turn very ordinary, homely things into utterly absorbing novels.  A Spool of Blue Thread is her 20th novel, and no disappointment.
    
The book is a portrait of the Whitshank family across several generations. As the book opens, Abby, a social worker and mother with a tendency to collect lame ducks, is beginning to become a lame duck herself. She forgets things, goes wandering in the neighbourhood and muddles her words. The family – including the feckless Denny – rally round to try and help, bringing with them as they descend on the family home old habits and deep-seated rivalries.
    
Although the subject matter is sad – Abby, so long the heart and soul of her home is falling apart – one of Anne Tyler’s many talents is to ensure that humour is always bubbling just below the surface of the melancholy. She has a witty turn of phrase: characters are summed with a beautiful economy. 

​But there’s so much more to the book than Abby’s decline. The house where the family live – a whole character in itself – reveals its own story, as we spool backwards through history to discover how the family came to be living there. What Anne Tyler is so good at is writing about human imperfection. Life is a muddle, and people are flawed. Nonetheless, she manages to create characters who are loveable and a narrative that is entertaining to the end. 

A Man called Ove by Fredrik Backman

I confess. I picked this up in Waterstones because it was in the “buy one, get one half price” pile. Clever marketing. I hadn’t heard of it, but thought the cover was entertaining. (Superficial, me?) And it was a delight. The story is all about Ove: a man who is a bit of a curmudgeon. (He’s only 59, but seems much older.) He’s a grumpy neighbour, a stickler for the rules and makes life pretty difficult for those around him. But underneath all that, he has a heart of gold. It turns out that Ove has had a huge amount of sadness in his life, but is capable of huge love and loyalty. Read it and you’ll see what I mean…