Mid-Year Reading Lists 1 – Literature and the Pulps

Posted: June 25th, 2012 | No Comments »

Another half year gone!! A few fiction and pulp reads from the first half of the year that come recommended and might be good for the summer months…

The Picture Book – Jo Baker – a truly great series of episodic pieces that trace the history of Britain from the First World War through various slices of life affecting one London family.

The Greatcoat – Helen Dunmore – I’m a serious fan of Dunmore’s and this book is both a lilting ghost story as well as an evocation of the war years and the immediate post-war provincial Britain. It’s hard to read The Greatcoat and not be reminded of Sarah Walters’s The Little Stranger but that’s OK – to read one good writer and be reminded of another is not a problem.

Waiting for Sunrise – William Boyd – Boyd is always a delight and, after a very slow start (but stick with it) Waiting for Sunrise moves into the territory of the classic interwar British spy novel. Think Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden, John Buchan, GK Chesterton, Erskine Childers. Lysander is a great Boyd character.

The Girl in Berlin – Elizabeth Wilson – Wilson’s latest book in part follows familiar territory – London after the war, austerity Britain, England on its post-war uppers – but is more of a spy thriller than her previous books. As ever it is Wilson’s attention to detail (she’s a specialist in fashion and popular culture) that most fascinates.

Pure – Andrew Miller – a real joy to read, it flows as effortlessly as shit and offal through a sewer, which is sort of appropriate. A wonderful evocation of pre-Hausmann Paris when the city still lingered as a sprawling Medieval mess.

Visitation – Jenny Erpenbeck – for the first third of this book, really a novella, from the East German writer I wondered why I was bothering. Then Erpenbeck suddenly kicks in with passage s of staggering imagery and the ability, rare in books, to pull you up sharp in surprise and shock. A masterclass in taut writing.

Bereft – Chris Womersley – a solid Australian thriller that mostly held my attention apart from when it drifted into the, perhaps, paranormal. However, as descriptions of London seances in 1919, returning diggers to Oz after the horrors of the trenches and Gallipoli, small town corruption in rural Australia go, it’s a good read.

Grub – Elise Blackwell – just released on Kindle in 2011 so I only just discovered this modern reworking of Gissing’s Grub Street. The depression and obsession of people silly enough to want to be professional writers. Cringingly accurate in its depiction of the money deprived, contract deprived world of wanna-be authors who refuse to give up and get proper jobs.

The Pulps

Luther: The Calling – Neil Cross – quite simple really – if you liked the TV show you’ll love this book which has Idris Alba all over it. Cross is a man who goes down into the sewers of human activity but what could just be shock is saved by the modern urban Gothic nature of his London and its warped and twisted inhabitants. More please!

Secondhand Daylight – DJ Taylor – I liked Taylor’s previous 1930s novel At The Chime of a City Clock and this is in the same vein and features the intersting character of James Ross – man about town, a bit literary, a bit gun for hire, a bit of a drifter through 1930s London. Taylor has a tendency to rather over-egg the pudding with research and you find yourself screaming “less is more” now and again but it’s fun – Soho, the BUF, working girls, seances and loads and loads of detail for the train spotters.

Choke Hold and Money Shot – Crista Faust – Last year I really got into Megan Abbott and her noir writing and this year I discovered Crista Faust. Abbott’s noirs are set in the 1930s and 1940s, Faust is contemporary. She writes well and the plots crack on among the slime of the LA porno industry and her heroine Angel Dare. They’re a lot of fun, hard as nails and with some funny touches.

Angle of Investigation & Suicide Run – Michael Connelly – I’m an avid Harry Bosch fan and can take all the Bosch that can Connelly can throw at me. I’m also finding myself enjoying short stories more these days (it’s a Kindle thing I think). So these two collections of Harry Bosch shorts that really advertise the new novel, The Drop, are terrific reading. So that’s 6 Bosch shorts and I still wanted more, so obviously I bought The Drop!! Connelly’s plan worked.

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