The Crimson Rooms by Katherine MacMahon

First of all this is a great story. The plot keeps you guessing until the very end. The story opens just after the end of the 1st World War, is set in north London, and visits Middlesex and Buckinghamshire - country areas being enjoyed by working people for the cost of a railway ticket. There is quite a bit of bus travel too in London. But that is just my own personal slant on the story.

The writer shows what the professional life of a female lawyer/ solicitor must have been like in this narrow-minded profession at the time: dominated by the patronising male lawyers and their archaic style.
This may not strike you as a promising source of general interest but with the other layers of life revealed by the writer it provides a dramatic background.

The author brings some interesting characters into conflict in this period of repressed sexual and social habits. The senseless loss of  life in the war of the young men of  a generation and the effect on the lives of those who survived and on the lives of the women left needing to be loved is another strong factor in the story.

Under these layers what emerges is a great detective story, and a great love story, albeit short. That makes three times I have used the word 'great' about it - so draw your own conclusions. ( 9/10)

Blog of Katherine MacMahon ( http://katharinemcmahon.blogspot.com/)

John Masters and his books

Have you heard of the film Bhowani Junction, made in 1956, starring Ava Gardner? The story was from a book by John Masters. There is a review of a biography of Masters by John Clay referred to on this blog http://www.bookride.com/search/label/biography. (Look for a piece dated June, 207)

Masters' books were popular in the 1950s and 1960s which was when I read several of them. He wrote a series of 7 books dealing with one family through the period of the British rule in India:

Coromandel; The Deceivers; Nightrunners of Bengal; The Lotus and the Wind; Far,far the Mountain Peak; Bhowani Junction; To the Coral Strand

- a set of interesting titles. I still remember with dread the Thuggees who preyed on travellers in India, described in the second book. It is a strong warning against accepting help from seemingly sympathetic people when you are in unfamiliar areas.

In 1984-5 there was an 18-part serial based on this writer's stories on Radio 4.

For a full list of his books, and details of his life ....read 

Deaf Sentence by David Lodge, c. 2008, pub Penguin Books

Desmond Bates, a university teacher of Linguistics (about describing languages rather than learning them) retires early because of deafness. The story is mainly about his relationships with three people. First, with his wife who with a female friend developed an interior design business. Secondly, with his father living alone in the former family home and getting increasingly frail and cantankerous. Thirdly with an American post-graduate female student who gets in touch with him for help with her thesis on the structure of notes left by people who committed suicide.

These characters provide the main background for plausible situations in which his deafness leads him into uncertainty and inevitable comedy. Alex, the American woman provides some sexual excitement and threatens a quiet life. In his relationship with his father he is compassionate in dealing with a spiky oldie, including the funeral. On a visit to Poland during a British Council sponsored lecture tour Bates visits Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau, the latter the extermination site. Compared to the horrors that took place there, the threats and difficulties of life with deafness must seem easy to endure. Perhaps that was why the author included the visit in his story.

The Fight by Norman Mailer - Penguin, copyright 1975

In 1975 at Kinshasa in Zaire, Mohammed Ali met champion George Foreman in a fight for the World Heavyweight Championship. Could Ali regain the title against the undefeated Foreman?

I had forgotten who won this fight in the heart of the continent of Africa - where most of America's black people have their roots. Mailer, very often referring to himself as Norm, shows an insight into boxing and the outlook of the boxers and all those others involved in the sport at the highest level. Together with the racial politics, the equatorial climate, the poverty of most of the population compared to Mobutu's garnered wealth -the fight itself has a complex background which Mailer vividly explains.

A gem of a book. Mailer knows he is dealing with magnificent characters. He also understands their excellence despite the brutal nature of the sport. I am not going to remind you who won 'the Rumble in the Jungle' but in any case it is much more than sports reporting. Just get hold of a copy!

Over Summer ...........

It is a great method of finding authors I would not otherwise choose or even come across. Summer visitors bring their holiday reading and then leave it behind for me to read. Thanks to Nick and Pippa for the following enjoyment.

• Captured by Neil Cross.       
• Where is it going? So you read on! Gets worse.
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• Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel          
• Why doesn't Brodeck get a proper job? you ask. Creepy.
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• Land of Marvels by Barry Unsworth             
• He's from Durham, bound to be good. An archaelogist is fulfilling his dream of directing an excavation in Mesopotamia. The characters in the story feel that war is near (1914), and you just know that Somerville the archaeologist is going to have to cut it fine or lose. 

I have been in Mesopotamia before in this blog with Georgina Howell's inspiring hagiography of Gertrude Bell.

http://non-newbookreview.blogspot.com/2009/11/daughter-of-desert-by-georgina-howell.html

• One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson              
• Phew! She can tell tales.
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• The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam            
• What a writer! Afghanistan from inside. Mericans, Moslems, Russians and a Brit. Full marks.
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• A Reliable Wife by Robert Goodrick            
• Rural Wisconsin. Heavy stuff. I cried in the end. A bit.
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• The Sidmouth Letters by Jane Gardam                 
• Short stories. Beautiful to read.

And finally when everyone had gone home I found this: My Trade by Andrew Marr. (A Short History of British Journalism). I opened it without much enthusiasm, and find now that I must have started near the middle. I went back to the beginning to finish an enjoyable read about the craft of television interviewing and of newspaper reporting. Plus a short guide to good writing, a hilarious interview for his first job, and much more.
Summer reading with the 6 bears ......last year.
http://non-newbookreview.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html