Love For Books

A horrifying but essential read: The Shock Doctrine

The Canadian journalist Naomi Klein first came to my attention when I was given a copy of No Logo by my dad. Her exposure of the dark side of our capitalist, acquisitive society was relentless and left me feeling outraged.

I was expecting the same kind of reaction to The Shock Doctrine. It made for compelling reading, although I know of more than one person who has been unable to read to the end, simply because it is too horrifying.

Klein starts by talking about the shock treatment dished out to vulnerable people in the US; the idea that personality can be wiped clean, only to be rebuilt by those who know best. She then shows how these ideas were translated into economic policy that has been destroying lives ever since.

In the current economic climate, this is an essential, if depressing, read.

Are short stories worth the effort?

The American novelist Cormack McCarthy famously said that writing short stories didn’t interest him because ‘anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing’.

This seems a rather extreme approach to writing, although you can’t argue with the quality of the work that McCarthy has produced himself.

It also seems to suggest that short stories belong to a genre that is more light-weight and less demanding for an author. Surely, however, the need for economy of language and effective plotting and structure places more demands on a writer, not fewer?

Reviewers recognised: The Hatchett Job Award is born

There are probably too many literary awards around for anyone to want to introduce another, so attention has been turned to those who review the books that may or may not win the awards.

Baptised The Hatchett Job Award, this year’s winner (the first in the history of the award) has gone to Adam Mars-Jones for his review of American author Michael Cunningham.

According to the website Omnivore that had the bright idea of launching the competition, the aim of the prize is to reward the “writer of the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review” of the past year “not to punish bad writing, but to reward good and brave and funny and learned reviewing”.

Celebrate World Book Night on April 23rd

Unfortunately, it is now too late to apply to become an official giver on World Book Night in 2012, although this shouldn’t stop you! This year will see the event take place in the UK, Ireland, USA and Germany – with twenty five books on the list of titles to be distributed.

The idea of passing books on is a great one, although I have to say that I have found more than one World Book Night edition in my local second hand bookshops.

There used to be a similar event in the town I lived in in France, the difference being that there was no list: you simply took a book that you wanted to pass on to the local park and left it where someone else could find it.

The Shadow of the wind creates an atmospheric portrait of Barcelona

If you are looking for a bit of escapism in your reading material at this time of year, you could do worse than The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The author conjures up a very atmospheric picture of Barcelona, both pre and post war, with some vivid and beguiling characterisation.

The plot is sufficiently intriguing to draw you in, although some of the devices used to reveal elements of the story can occasionally feel a little clunky, included more for the convenience of the author than anything else.

While the revelatory letters and suchlike can feel clumsy and disappointing, ultimately this is an enjoyable story about loss, love, community and personal triumph in a world full of disappointment and failure.

Look for books in the January sales

January is often the time when you can pick up lots of bargains on clothing, furniture and electronics, but you can also pick up some bargains on books. Books are pretty expensive to get hold of even if you do find them incredibly rewarding.

All the big book shops and online retailers have large scale sales in early January to boost their own sales figures. You can take advantage of this by making a list of the books you’ve wanted for a while and then checking out their prices in the sales. You might even be able to pick up a load of them half price, keeping you in great literature for the next few months.

Get to know your favourite authors with The Paris Review Interviews

It is interesting to find out more about your favourite writers, but many biographies are difficult to get into because they seem a little speculative. Many writers are very secretive and it is hard to imagine how their biographers could penetrate their private and working lives to any great degree.

However, I would certainly recommend getting your hands on a copy of The Paris Review Interviews. There are four volumes in total and they feature interviews from throughout the 20th century, taking in some of the most influential writers of all time. The interviews promise a much greater insight into the way great writers approach writing and they make wonderful reading for literature lovers.

Delve a little deeper into the lesser known works of Steinbeck

John Steinbeck is one of America’s best-loved writers and books like The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden and Of Mice and Men have cemented his place in the history books. However, some little-known works are also incredibly rewarding.

Among those works is a short novel called Tortilla Flat. This wonderful story takes place in the familiar Steinbeck setting of California. The ups and downs and moral twists and turns of a group of friends in a downtrodden part of Monterey provides the plot, which comes in the form of a number of short vignettes that are incredibly easy to digest and yet which feel full of meaning.

If your relationship with Steinbeck only stretches as far as the major works, it is definitely worth delving a little deeper.

Mini Modern Classics range is great news for the short story

The short story is a format that was embraced by American audiences a long time ago and writers from all over the world have produced some of their best work in this form. However, British readers have taken a long time to warm to the format which means they are missing out on some fantastic literature.

However, Penguin produces a number of ‘Mini Modern Classics’ which give readers the chance to discover works in short story format by a selection of truly remarkable authors. This gives people ready access to some great short pieces of fiction and allows them to sample a way of reading that is completely different to the novel.

How Greene balances escapism with intense humanity

A lot of avid readers would count escapism, imagination and depth among the most important factors that make a book a great read. These are factors that I’ve always found Graham Greene to deliver in plentiful supply.

Greene is a master at weaving imaginative stories with a dose of realistic depth thanks to his intensely human characters. The humanity of Greene’s characters in works such as The End of the Affair, The Heart of the Matter, The Quiet American and Brighton Rock (to name a few famous examples) is perhaps their real strength, although the thrilling plots they must negotiate are lapped up by his massive readership.

Few authors are able to make thrillers feel as profound as Greene makes them feel. His studies of relationships and miscommunication lend his works a masterful sense of tragedy and realism whilst retaining much of the romance expected of novels read for pure escapism.