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Book Reviews
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Of Mice and Men (Pocket Penguin Classics)
John C28 February 2011
John Steinbeck's novella 'Of Mice and Men', published in 1937, derives its title from a couplet in Robert Burns' poem 'To a Mouse' - 'The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, Go aft awry - and, as the title would suggest, is a statement of belief in the precariousness of individual hopes and dreams that might also be considered a wider critique of the American Dream.
It is the story of George and Lennie, two migrant workers whose shared ambition is, through the collaboration of their wages earned as they travel from ranch to ranch across the State of California during the Great Depression, to purchase their own piece of farmland upon which they will live off the fat of the land, tending livestock and growing their own food, creating their own idyll in a world they find insidious and hostile to their well-being.
Early in the novella it becomes clear that Lennie, despite being a man of great size and strength, has an underdeveloped character of extreme naivety, and as such is entirely dependent upon George who frequently expresses the opinion that his life would be better had he not the responsibility of caring for Lennie, though you soon realise George is just as dependent on Lennie for the unconditional and devoted friendship he offers. Each man has, after all, little in this world but the friendship of the other.
The two men, fleeing from a previous ranch after Lennie's naivety had brought him into a situation which led to an accusation that he had attacked a woman, arrive at a new ranch seeking work, and here, among a number of other characters each of differing temperaments and intentions, they befriend an elderly, one-armed ranch worker named Candy.
Candy fears that, like his old and lumbering pet dog who the other ranch workers insist should be put out of his misery, he too is nearing the time when he will be cast aside as no earthly use to anyone and when he overhears George, at Lennie's insistence, telling longingly of this idyllic piece of land, he offers to contribute his monetary savings towards the cost of purchasing the land on the understanding that he will come and live on the farm with George and Lennie and share in their idyll. The offer is accepted, and for the first time the dream becomes a real possibility.
But the intentions of others aren't always quite so altruistic as the intentions of Candy, and when Lennie finds himself in a situation foreshadowed by the one which had caused him and George to flee their previous ranch, it seems both their dream and their friendship must be sacrificed in a moving and heartfelt ending...
In 1962 John Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception." And while 'Of Mice and Men' is a story much more concise than the generation-spanning stories of Steinbeck's other great novels ('The Grapes of Wrath' and 'East of Eden') which perhaps earned him his Nobel Prize, its impact on the reader, with moments of genuine pathos, isn't any less.
'Of Mice and Men' is most certainly a must read book. -
Liam Cromar28 February 2011
Alexander McCall Smith is, of course, famous largely for his hugely successful 'No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' series. For the 44 Scotland Street series, he moves to the streets of Edinburgh: a location about as un-Botswana as possible, but with the same light touch.
First of all, it should be said that while 44 Scotland Street does not have the same refreshing African clarity exuded from the Precious Ramotswe adventures, it nevertheless has a charm of its own. The focus is rather looser than that series; here the main characters are rather more unconnected, the main point linking them together being that they either live in the eponymous block of flats, or are linked in some way to an inhabitant. These inhabitants are rather varied: Pat, a twenty-year-old on her second gap year; Bruce, a young surveyor with a somewhat inflated ego; Bertie, the Italian-speaking put-upon child prodigy; Domenica, the middle-aged widow with a belief in determinism. From chapter to chapter, McCall Smith skips from one character to the next, chronicling their interactions with good-natured humour, while managing to contrast such subjects as psychiatry and psychotherapy, poking some gentle fun at the latter.
44 Scotland Street was originally produced as a serialised novel, published in The Scotsman. As such, it short chapters, of around 2-3 pages, create a flow that is considerably different to that of the Ramotswe novels. Nonetheless, this gives the reading a most enticing quality: you're constantly tempted to "just read one more"; it's almost like munching your way through a packet of chocolate raisins, and just as enjoyable. It won't win the Nobel Prize for Literature but it's a lot of fun. Give it a try. -
The Last Good Kiss (Vintage Contemporaries)
Elio28 February 2011
James Crumley's The Last Good Kiss is a slice of heaven sent hard-boiled detective fiction set in the roadside West of 1970s America. Our private eye is C W Sughrue, similar in some ways to Hammett's and Chandler's character creations but only in so much as C W is a heavy drinker, a womanizer and a hard working, competent private investigator. This is where the similarities end. Whereas Hammett's Sam Spade and Chandler's Philip Marlowe are sophisticated gentlemanly types with sharp suits and sharper tongues, C W is a scruffy, dirty, unshaven drunk with 'itchy feet' and an ingrained desire/need to keep on travelling. Spade and Marlowe handled their drink with consummate ease, seemingly unaffected by the intoxicating spirits they knock back all day and all night long. C W on the other hand gets as drunk as a skunk and often behaves as inappropriately as you would expect for a man downing whole bottles of whiskey in one sitting.
We meet up with C W searching for an author called Abraham Trahearne at the behest of the man's concerned wife. Trahearne is an eccentric drunkard who ups sticks every now and then and embarks on epic bar crawls across America, drinking himself silly and generally having what he deems a good time (and the rest of us would call drunken debauchery). C W finally catches up with Trahearne 'drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.' (p.1) Yes, you read that correctly...an alcoholic bulldog. After a certain incident which sees Trahearne holed up in the hospital with a bullet in his buttock, C W befriends the female bar owner and learns of her only daughter Betty Sue's unexplained and sudden disappearance some ten years earlier. With similarities aplenty C W and Trahearne find it easy to strike up a friendship and both men hit the road with Fireball in tow, in search of Betty Sue - C W because he's a good guy and it's his job; Trahearne because he's not quite ready to go home; Fireball because he goes where the beer goes. What unfolds during the subsequent investigation/search is a crawl through the seedy underbelly of organized crime, fistfights and shootouts, the blossoming and hilarious yet sweet relationship between two men and their adopted dog, all interspersed with enough drinking to put you off your Sunday afternoon pint for life, and enough mystery to leave you twisting in the wind to the last page.
Fireball Roberts, the alcoholic bulldog is one of my favourite literary characters of all time. Although completely unacceptable by today's modern standards, it would seem 'bar dogs' were quite a popular cultural phenomenon in the U.S. several decades ago. If you can accept the character as a product of his time then you will learn to love the brave little dog, fiercely loyal and bonding with C W and Trahearne in a way that will make your eyes moisten! The trio get themselves into various capers and cap every hard day off with an ice cold beer and a nap. What a team!
The Last Good Kiss symbolises another time and era: one of freedom, opportunity, the open road and to use a modern phrase - political incorrectness! It is my favourite hard-boiled detective novel to date, with its gritty, realistic take on crime. C W is a character laid bare with all his flaws plain to see. He is not sharp of mind and quick of wit, but he is good and honest, a Robin Hood in a world of Sheriffs of Nottingham. If you like crime and mystery then pick this book up, read it over a rainy weekend and join C W, Trahearne and Fireball Roberts for a crazy bar crawl around America...just don't forget to choose your designated driver. -
Nonlinear Solid Mechanics: A Continuum Approach for Engineering
Krishna Kumar07 February 2011
This book is one of the classic books on "Continuum mechanics" and is a must have for all the researcheres and students working on solving nonlinear solid mechanics problems. The book also covers the basic tensor calculus required for solving continuum problems.
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Savour the Moment (Bride Quartet)
Tracy Stevens05 February 2011
I picked up this book because i liked the look of the cover. I was just going to read a little bit before i got on with some work. In the end i was hooked. I found it difficult to put down. It didn't really matter that i had started with book three. I loved the characters straight away. Each of the four women are very different. I am going to buy the other books as soon as possible. I will definately be looking at other books written by Nora Roberts. I am an avid reader and this is one of my favourites. Brilliant
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The Postman Always Rings Twice
Chuck Cauchon31 January 2011
The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain is a short but intense thriller with a sharp punch to the nose dose of American crime, entwined with romance. I say a sharp punch to the nose because that really sums up how I felt after I had turned the last page; like instead of sitting and reading for a few hours I had actually been physically assaulted by Cain himself. Narrated in the first person by a drifter called Frank Chambers, the story begins with our narrator stumbling upon a roadside diner after having been thrown off the hay truck he was hitching a ride in the back of. Frank orders some food and before he knows it has struck up a conversation with Nick the Greek, the manager and proprietor. Nick is desperate for an honest and hard working odd jobs man to work in his diner and garage. All his past employees were unreliable and quit on him just as soon as he hired them, but Nick is convinced that Frank fits the bill. Being a drifter, Frank is not so sure that he wants to stick around in one place for any length of time. That is until he sees Nick's wife Cora. Frank is filled with desire for Cora and a mutual animal attraction is sparked the second the two's eyes meet. Frank takes the job and sets about taking his boss' wife too. The pair begin a violently passionate relationship and become consumed by their hunger and desire for each other, arriving at the conclusion that they must kill Cora's husband Nick, in order to be together. The rest of the book brutally documents Frank's and Cora's plans and attempts to kill Nick, the realities and consequences of the pair's actions and the price they ultimately both have to pay.
The reverse of the book offers an irresistibly enticing account of the original 1934 publication's ban in Boston for 'its explosive mix of eroticism and violence'. Before reading the book I assumed this ban probably arose out of overzealous 1930s Irish-American religious prudence and puritanism. How wrong I proved to be! I found the book to be rather shocking in several places, even by today's standards. For example, in one scene a kiss between the two lovers sees Frank bite Cora's lip so hard it spurts blood. In another a character's skull is cracked with the sickening thud of a spanner. The violence is spread evenly and sparsely throughout the book and is by no means a constant theme. However, it is probably this sparseness that makes the violence all the more affecting when it suddenly and unexpectedly explodes from the page. Whilst definitely not for the faint hearted, if you are used to watching modern crime dramas like CSI and Law and Order, the content should not be unbearably offensive or shocking.
The first two thirds of the book developed interestingly, yet rather smoothly and as expected based upon my estimation and prediction of the story arc. The last third however completely blew me away. Cain threw the rule book out the window and turned the story upside down on its head, offering thrilling and complex plot twists and breathtaking shocks and jolts. The ending left be gobsmacked as Cain unpredictably yet skilfully killed off the story in a couple of pages, producing a literary whiplash that both shocked and surprised me to my core.
The Postman Always Rings Twice is undoubtedly a love story and a crime thriller in equal measure, but it has a good element of humour also. The character development is superbly advanced for such a short story, and like an Espresso compared to an Americano, Cain concentrated all the flavour and intensity into one tiny cup where other authors use a mug. I particularly liked the character of Nick the Greek, with his singing and guitar playing and his funny sayings and phrases. It is worth remembering that the story is sexually charged as well as violent in nature and so is best suited to a mature audience. However other than this I would recommend the book to anyone interested in crime or romance. I loved it. Hope you do too. -
The Thirty-Nine Steps (Penguin Popular Classics)
Liam Cromar31 January 2011
Why can't filmmakers leave well alone? There seem to have been countless productions of John Buchan's famous thriller, ranging from Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 big-screen adaptation to the confused and literally ridiculous BBC 2008 TV effort, but none have been able to resist the temptation to meddle with the plot. This is a distinct disappointment, since the book's plot is ideally suited to TV adaptation. Consequently, the original book still provides what is arguably the most satisfying entertainment.
The 39 Steps is Buchan's first outing for his hero Richard Hannay, here still single and spoiling for action. One has to recognise straight away that it doesn't have the same development, background, or-dare I say it-intelligence of the later Hannay novels. Buchan himself admitted he wrote it as a "dime novel". Nevertheless this can be regarded as a Good Thing: whereas some of the later novels, such as Greenmantle, suffered at times from dull passages of wordiness and analysis, here it's just action, action, action. That doesn't render it a one-read wonder: picking up it again in later years is still rewarding, by virtue of how easy it is to jump in and be gripped anew.
The book is very much episodic: four of the chapters sound as if they could belong to the hero of Buchan's contemporary author, Conan Doyle, with names such as "The Adventure of the Literary Innkeeper"; indeed, in the penultimate chapter, Hannay has to display mental agility which would make Mr Holmes proud. Since there isn't a lot of plot to divulge, I won't do so; suffice to say that it's a 1914 scramble through Scotland for an innocent man suspected of murder who also happens to have vital information for European peace. Yes, it's a touch contrived at times, but do remember that Buchan was just indulging his desire to write this type of simple tale, where, to quote his dedicatory note, "the romance where the incidents defy the probabilities, and march just within the borders of the possible".
The other thing to note is that it's the shortest of the Hannay adventures, and as such is a good starting point for the whole series: if you enjoy the style of The 39 Steps, you'll be likely to enjoy the more stimulating reads such as The Three Hostages; if you don't like '39', you haven't wasted too much time. Furthermore, Buchan later saw fit to include some of the other characters from The 39 Steps in his later Hannay novels; here you see them as they first appear, providing useful background.
Finally: there is no lead part for a girl in The 39 Steps, despite the continual efforts of the adaptations to insert one! Major female characters started to appear from Greenmantle onwards. Not The 39 Steps. Filmmakers, take heed.
Now, if only a director could make a truly faithful adaptation...until that time comes, there's only one thing for it. It's time to rebel against the unforgiveable story-mangling of the screen productions: do yourself a favour and learn what really happened in The 39 Steps. -
Happy Ever After (Bride Quartet)
Kelly Marsh30 January 2011
This is the latest book in the Bride Quartet, an entertaining series by the very popular author Nora Roberts. Mackensie, Parker, Laurel and Emmeline have been running a successful wedding planning business together but, despite being great at planning life-long happiness for others, all four of the friends have struggled to find love in their own lives. But this book picks up with three of the group happily settled in relationships so that only workaholic Parker remains single. Her business is her life and she devotes all her energies to it, but fortunately someone is about to arrive on the scene who might change all this. Happy Ever After is a great end to the series as it has all of the humour and magic of the other books but also gets everything wrapped up nicely. This is a great book if you feel the need for a cheer-up or you just want to enjoy a good laugh!
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Andrea Schiffner24 January 2011
This book rocks! One of the best books I have read all year! Hilarious! Unpredictable! Packed with action, You've Got Blackmail will keep you on the edge of your seat reading to find out whodunit.
Lozzie Cracknell is a girl with guts who's not afraid to crack the case. -
Anonymous17 January 2011
An easy to read novel. Great story. Birdsong is a book you will read in a couple of sittings and pick it up next year on holiday and read it over again.
