April Reading Highlights

Reading! Reading! Reading! I think I may have overdosed on books.

Working in a publishing house is one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me, but it is also quite emotionally distressing. There are books everywhere, all around me, and I want to read them all but I can NEVER read them all. It torments me.

So what I'm realising is that I am never, realistically, going to be able to post reviews of every book I read here any more. In the last few weeks I have been reading about a book a day. So I'm reducing down again, to just the pick of the bunch. These are the books I've been evangelising about in the last month.

First, I have managed to do a review for The Bookbag: of Jenni Fagan's utterly, madly, stunningly brilliant The Panopticon. I five-starred it, and would five star again.

And the best of the rest:

Mr Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

I am ashamed to admit that it has taken me three years to read this book. I don't even know why. It's based on my favourite fairy tale, 'The Robber Bridegroom' (the English version is actually called 'Mr Fox', and it is my favourite because it contains animal people, grisly murders and a fierce girl detective who triumphs by using her brain). But somehow it never happened, until I went to the Granta Young British Novelists launch, heard Oyeyemi read and fell in instant and blazing literary love with her.

I pretty much ran to the till with Mr Fox and then fell on it like, er, Mr Fox on one of his victims - and oh my god, it's good. It's a mind-bogglingly smart collection of sharp, terrifying, stunningly well written short stories, all linking together to make up a battle of wits between a male writer and his female muse, an imaginary woman who has taken on a life of her own. Oyeyemi's writing is so bloody amazing, and what she's got to say about the way men control women is so true and (even more importantly) so effortlessly well expressed.

5 stars! 10 stars! How do I become friends with Helen Oyeyemi?


The Ghost Riders of Ordebec by Fred Vargas

I love Fred Vargas. I have nothing bad to say about her. Her mind works in such unique, charming, off-the-wall ways, and the universe she's created for her crime novels is both utterly delightful and full of animals. In The Ghost Riders of Ordebec, a pigeon is as important a character as a police officer, dogs need to be fed sugar at regular times of the day and there are a loving couple of rats who help to solve a murder.

Someone has been committing murders in the town of Ordebec, and the supersitious villagers believe that the culprit is Lord Hellequin, a ghostly rider who punishes the wicked by killing them and stealing their souls. Although the supernatural is never the real answer to one of Vargas's mysteries, there's an atmosphere of misty possibility that make you feel like you're in a slightly alternate universe. Vargas's protagonist Adamsberg is adorably vague, a cloud-shovelling policeman who has trouble remembering people's names and who didn't realise he had an extra illegitimate son because he failed to read a letter properly. This book, like all the others, is softly written but with a beautiful attention to detail and a quirky sense of humour. Vargas has a knack for creating characters (both human and animal, there really is no difference) that you instantly fall in love with, and her good guys radiate real honest goodness.

I think Vargas is the best thing in crime fiction right now. This latest novel is as good as all the others - and now that I've read it I really want a dog called Fleg.

4.5 stars.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Well, we can all pack up and go home. John Green's written the perfect YA novel and there just isn't any point trying to follow his act. As I tweeted at the time:

Just finished The Fault In Our Stars. I have been emotionally mangled in the most beautiful way. When I grow up I want to write like that.
— Robin Stevens (@redbreastedbird) May 2, 2013

Seriously, I am only exaggerating a little. This is just a virtuoso work of fiction, something that's beautiful and touching but also completely real in a way that most tearjerkers don't manage to be. The characters seriously read like people (real people, ones who are a bit mean and a bit small and a bit selfish, but still good), and so you can go from crying to laughing outrageously in about half a page. It's the most fearless presentation of the realities of suffering from cancer that I've ever read, as well as one of the best teenage love stories, and it has extremely light and intelligent things to say about everything from Great Literature to computer games.

One in the eye for anyone who thinks that YA is written by people who aren't good enough to write proper books.

5 stars. 

Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin

I went to the launch of this (launches, by the way, are the best things about publishing apart from everything to do with the books), and can confirm that Abigail is nice, fun and the same age as me (this is her second book. Yes, really). She is also an extremely thoughtful and imaginative author who has written a novel so compelling that I started it on Friday evening, had to be dragged away from it to go to a dinner party and then leaped out of bed at 7 on Saturday morning because I had to finish it now now now.

I really don't want to give away any of the plot, because so much of the book is about peeling away layers of secrets to reveal the even crazier secret underneath (it's a testament to how perfectly balanced and well-imagined Golden Boy is that when I tried to explain the plot to my boyfriend it sounded like something from Take a Break, like MY STALKER EX-BOYFRIEND ATE MY SISTER'S BABY WHILE HIGH ON DRUGS, but while I was actually reading it it didn't feel sensational at all). Suffice it to say, though, that Max Walker, the apparently perfect golden boy of the title... isn't. At all.

I'm seeing Golden Boy trailed in America as for fans of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which... I'm not sure I buy into. Sure, it's about a teenager coming of age, and there are some very nicely-observed moments of emotional resolution, but it's also incredibly dark and shocking - and it's got one of the most horrifying openings I've ever come across. I read the first three chapters, put the book down and said, "I can't believe she just did that".

Seriously, though, I loved it, and I think that Golden Boy's going to be huge. Quick, everyone, read it now!

4.5 stars

New Year's Excitements and Writing Resolutions: 2013

Dear readers, welcome to 2013! In the words of my friend Alice, I've got a good feeling about this one.

Because it is January 1, I thought I'd ring in the new year by mentioning a few of the amazing new books that I'm looking forward to getting my hands on in the months ahead. Not mentioned, of course, are all the books I don't know that I'm going to fall in love with yet. I especially can't wait for those.

- In just TWO DAYS the whole world will finally have the chance to read Jack Wolf's debut The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones. I reviewed it for The Bookbag last year and was absolutely blown away by it. Get out there and buy this book! Unless you don't like the Gothic. In which case, there is no hope for you.

- In February, there's a new Andrew Taylor novel, The Scent of Death. It's Andrew Taylor. It's historical murder. What else do I even need to say?

- In March there's a new Fred Vargas, The Ghost Riders of Ordebec. I am DANCING IN MY SEAT about this one. I am so excited. Her books are creepy and quirky and totally charming. And weird. Her last crime novel was about real vampires, for heavens' sake.

- In May the second in Stephen Gallagher's (that link is to his Q&A for Litro, he's great) series about Detective Sebastian Becker, The Bedlam Detective, comes out in the UK. I read the first one for The Bookbag (again) and loved it, so I can't wait for the next installment. I want it now.

- In June there's (finally!) a new Neil Gaiman novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I saw Gaiman speak last year, and he signed my copy of Stardust and I said thanks and cried a little bit out of sheer love. Basically, whatever this is about, I will read it.

I must be missing loads. What else is coming up? Please chip in.

And now, for something a bit more personal: my own literary resolutions for the year ahead. This year, I will achieve! Probably. Unless I don't. We shall see. Anyway...

- I will finish the book I am writing, edit it, edit it again and begin to query it. I will be rejected, and emerge refreshed.

- I will continue querying my crime novel like grim death until I get an agent for it.

- I will get at least 25% of the 1001 Books list read before the year is out. (I am currently at 20.78%, so this has to be achievable. It has to be.)

- I will not be a snob about the literary merit of any book unless I have actually read at least a part of it.

- I will write, something, every day. I will try to write fiction every day, but reviews also count.

- I will actually plan my books before I write them.

- When a scene gets boring, I will listen to Raymond Chandler and send a person bursting through the door with a gun. Indeed, I will remember that when I am bored by a scene my readers will be too.

- I will remember that I am not under a contractual obligation to put a dog into everything I write.

- Along the same lines, I will at least try to write something that does not in any way feature a murder. That said, when I do feature death...

- I shall not murder any prostitutes in anything I write. Those poor ladies of the night! What easy victims they make. But enough already. I will only kill rich people, preferably men.

- I will write more short stories. They are good for me and good to do.

- Sort of continuing on from that, I will enter more (also known as: any) literary competitions. Because it is no good writing things if I don't let anyone else see them.

- I will get a pet lion. No, wait. That one was a joke. I hear those things are expensive.


So, onwards! To 2013 proper. We can do this.

Delicious Death: Boris Akunin edition

As you may have noticed, I love crime novels. The dissertation that I should currently be writing (but I'm not, because I'm writing this) is, in essence, an excuse for me to read a lot of awesome detective fiction. I can't quite believe that I've managed to trick my department into letting me have so much fun.

For the love of god, never read this book

Now, as far as British detective fiction (and my dissertation) is concerned, the Golden Age is where it is at. Most recent British writers seem to me to be either Trying Too Hard To Be Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayer,  or Trying Too Hard To Not Be Like Them At All, and it makes for awkward, slightly painful reading (see: James, P. D.; also Rendell, Ruth, a writer so dreadful that even remembering the book I read by her makes me feel ill). In my opinion, the best stuff being written today as opposed to seventy years ago is not only not coming from Britain, it's not orginally in English at all.

Now, I know you think that's the lead-up to me starting to go googly-eyed over Scandinavian crime, to which I say: hah. Tricked you. I read a Henning Mankell once, and the experience was enough to last me a lifetime. For 450 pages, Wallander slowly stared up at the birds in the sky and slowly thought about the slow inevitability of death. Slowly. By page 100 I was hoping someone would do him in.

In fact, apart from the works of Anne Holt I've come to the conclusion that I'm not a very pro-Scandinavian person at all, and my two favourite contemporary crime writers are not from Sweden or Norway at all. They're Fred Vargas (French) and Boris Akunin (Georgian/ Russian), and they're awesome.

One day I will give Vargas (don't be fooled into thinking she's male, like me she is just trying to trick you with her name) a proper write-up, but today I'm mainly blogging about Boris Akunin.

If Akunin isn't known much around these parts, he more than makes up for it in Mother Russia. Think about our attitude to J. K. Rowling, imagine her as a writer of adult crime novels (which won't take much doing after September, actually) and you've pretty much got the way Russians feel about Akunin. Over there he is a god of popular fiction, and his detective, Erast Fandorin, is a literary hero, like Poirot but sexier.

The Fandorin series is set in late nineteenth century Imperial Russia (think Tolstoy with stabbings), and it follows the life of State Councillor Fandorin (his official title changes a lot, and trying to remember it makes me bewildered, but the essential point is that he is The Business, beloved of kings, emperors and actresses alike). Each novel lets us drop in on Fandorin at a certain point during his life - the first, The Winter Queen, is set when he's twenty and not yet cool, and by the time we get to Special Assignments, the one I've just read, he's about thirty-five and owns a very large house and several demanding mistresses.

The series (apart from being about crime and nineteenth century Russia) has an overarching theme, which in my view makes it especially cool: Akunin has identified thirteen subgenres of detective fiction (locked room, espionage, consipracy, country house and so on) and has written a Fandorin title for each of them. It's a brilliant idea, and means that the formula of the novels never begins to feel boring. In one book, Fandorin is creeping through back alleys in search of a mysterious evil, and in the next he's galloping about during the Russo-Turkish war. He goes on boats, he goes on trains, he goes to Japan and learns fabulous fighting moves and then he presumably does a lot of other stuff, but in later books that I haven't got to yet.

To be fair, Akunin's more a charming writer than a great one, and I'm also forced to conclude that there's stuff going on with the character of Fandorin's Japanese servant Masa that, if it isn't overtly racist, is definitely teetering on the edge of it. But all the same, the books are an enormous amount of fun to read. Their scenes are interesting, their plots are clever and they're laid out in a sharp, engaging, fast-paced way that means you can read 100 pages of one without even noticing.

It also doesn't hurt that Fandorin himself is a top-notch detective creation. He's got just the right balance of endearing quirks (he stutters and is somewhat strange) to sexy mystery (he has a troubled past and a startling ability to win every game of chance he plays), making him familiar but essentially unknowable and therefore insanely cool. He's even got that essential Man of Mystery accessory, a lock of pure white in an otherwise black head of hair. Ooh, Erast, you saucy thing.

As I said, I've just read Special Assignments, and I've got The State Councillor sitting on my bookshelf waiting for me to finish Moby Dick (sharp-eyed readers may have noticed the new 'currently reading' widget in the top right corner. At the moment I am on page 212 and Cap'n Ahab is being a FEROCIOUS CRUSTY DEVIL, but so far the White Whale is just rumour and hearsay). I am having surprising amounts of fun with Moby Dick (more on that later, and don't be so dirty-minded), but all the same the thought of Erast Fandorin pursuing wrongdoers on a train is a lot more enticing than 300 pages more of salty sea dogs harpooning each other (at this stage, the jokes are writing themselves). What can I say? Crime novels are fun, and good crime novels are things of endless delight.

In conclusion, if you like Russia, history, mystery and dark-haired men (and who does not?) you should put down your Scandinavian crime and your P. D. Jameses and read these books. Agatha Christie would definitely approve.

Review - 1222

As of Friday I will be the proud renter of the WORLD'S SMALLEST KITCHEN. There is a flat that goes with it, which is also exciting but not as worthy of note as the WORLD'S SMALLEST KITCHEN. I shall be making tiny insect meals and eating off children's plates, like the slow-eating-tiny-bite-taking child from that Mrs Piggle-Wiggle story. Perhaps I shall invest in some miniature cupcake moulds.

Anyway. I read another book! 1222 by Anne Holt was the perfect antidote to the painfully meaningful, sloshily dull Marriage Plot - it quite cheerfully meant nothing at all, and enjoyed itself while doing so. Perfect. If I ever get onto the Booker prize committee I shall repeatedly nominate crime novels until everyone else's head explodes from thwarted snobbery.

1222 (before you ask, that's the altitude, not the date - we don't have another medieval mystery on our hands) reads like a smartly updated, delightfully sour Miss Marple mystery, if Miss Marple was a wheelchair-bound Norwegian lesbian with a Muslim girlfriend. And if that last description seems wearily right-on, don't worry. Anne Holt is a sharply ironic writer (and probably quite a fun person to be around), and not only that, but she manages to make Hanne (our heroine) seem like a believable person instead of just the perfect storm of positive-discrimination ticky boxes that she ought to be.

My favourite Anne Holt fact (actually my only Anne Holt fact, but it's a good one) is that she used to be Norwegian Justice Minister. Of course, her publishers are most interested in the fact that she's Norwegian, because this allows them to plaster her front covers with things like THIS IS EXACTLY LIKE JO NESBO AND THEREFORE STIEG LARSSON! and SAME REGION? BASICALLY THE SAME AUTHOR! A snow storm plays a fairly central role in 1222, so I suppose it is literally Norwegian, but if I had to compare styles I'd say that this reminds me much more of Fred Vargas (side note: read Fred Vargas. She's genius). Norwegian crime, to me, is full of dour, fatalistic people who bleed a lot, and this is funny and delightfully off-beat. It also pays a lot of tribute to Agatha Christie: it's pretty much a country-house mystery (with added cabin-fever thrills since all the characters are trapped inside their hotel by a blizzard), with a slow drip of puzzly clues and people being bumped off in the night.

The central mystery - who's killing off the survivors of a train crash while they're trapped in a mountain hotel by the snow storm of the century - is a lovely balance of Hans Christian Andersen grim (oh, the bit with the dog. You will squirm) and tongue-in-cheek fun. I'm not sure Anne Holt lays her clue trail quite right - the ending wasn't quite the oh! of course! moment that makes a really successful crime novel for me, and there's a rather odd sub-mystery, too, which is both distracting and annoyingly Relevant To Today's Culture. However, 1222 is still a great read, a fun novel and a hell of a lot better than most of its Scandinavian competition. I think I've become an Anne Holt fan.

3.5 stars.