Authors know everything
In a week when the House of Commons reacted to the situation in the Middle East by taking the wording of an amendment on the subject as the cue to display its own capacity for spiteful feuding...
“There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.”
...were once the thoughts of novelist Gertrude Stein, whose own contribution to sapping the will to live included The Making of Americans, 926 pages that “rely heavily on repetition.”
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Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst. Chatto & Windus £18.99
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This is a book that will stay with you for even longer than this Derbyshire couple spent adrift at sea in little more than two paddling pools. And it is also a tantalising hint of how much adventure awaits even the most cautious of people if they'll just take a step into the unknown. Maurice Bailey was that most cautious of people, a Derby typesetter who assumed life had little in store for him until, when standing in for a friend at a motor rally, he met Maralyn. She found his taste for hiking and camping a liberation from her own dreary family and they married. From their bungalow, she then persuaded him to sell up and build a boat, in which they would sail the oceans and one day settle in New Zealand. There, Maurice could realise the traveller's dream: he could be someone else. Mid-Pacific in 1973, nature revealed it's own views on their plan, when a whale turned their yacht to driftwood. Grabbing a few supplies they leapt overboard into a tiny rubber dinghy and an even smaller inflatable life raft. For the next 117 days, dour Derbyshire determination turned out to be quite an asset when faced with the many head-spinning challenges of staying alive in this new home. Buy this book
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The Strong Words Hot List Keep an eye on crime with five new reports of true-life transgression... |
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5. The Bulldog Detective by Jeffrey D. Simon Prometheus, £25
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Before the FBI, there was the BI, the Bureau of Investigation, headed by William “Bulldog” Flynn. This is the history of his dogged response to organised crime in early twentieth century America, including his dismantling of a powerful mafia clan of the day and thwarting a German sabotage plot just as the US was contemplating entry into WWI. Brought down by failure to solve the notorious 1920 Wall Street bombing, he moved into the noblest profession: magazine publishing, with Flynn's Detective Fiction. But not before hiring an ambitious library clerk to monitor the weirdos: J. Edgar Hoover. Buy this book
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4. The Last Yakuza by Jake Adelstein Corsair, £25
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The Japanese yakuza fit uncomfortably into western perceptions of gangsters, with their fondness for taking to the streets in their funny underpants, the better to display their majestic tattoos, and what appear to be open and friendly dealings with corporate and political power. Jake Adelstein covered their antics for years as a crime reporter at a leading Tokyo daily, and even took a former high-ranking yakuza on as a chauffeur and bodyguard. That chap, keen for his son to learn how high dad had risen in the underworld, was happy to share details of the life. (*Contains details of how to remove one's own finger at home). Buy this book
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3. The Darkroom by A.J. Hewitt Seven Dials, £9.99
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There has been quite a glut of titles by forensic specialists recently. This one is by “a Scotland Yard forensic photographer”, often the first person into the hazmat gear and onto the crime scene to take close-ups of scenarios most people would recoil from hand over mouth. Yes, she has seen some truly gruesome sights, but one thing that never fails to shock “weary” cops putting out the evidence markers is discovering that the photographer is female. Buy this book
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2. We All Go Into The Dark by Francisco Garcia Mudlark, £10.99
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One of Britain's canonical unsolveds – the murders of three women out dancing in Glasgow in 1968 and '69 by “Bible John” – receives a thorough revision. Here journalist Garcia reviews the anxious state of the Glasgow of the day – goodbye slum, hello high-rise – considers the role played by the lurid-leaning press in constructing the story, and casts doubt on whether there even was a serial killer at work. Buy this book
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1. American Mother by Colum McCann and Diane Foley Bloomsbury, £20
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In November 2012, American journalist James Foley was travelling through Syria by taxi when he fell into the sadistic hands of ISIS. After almost two years of captivity he was publicly beheaded, with the involvement of the British militants known as “the Beatles”. In 2021, following a murder trial in the US, James' mother Diane met one of her son's executioners. American Mother describes how she pressed for her son's release from captivity and learnt of his death, and her efforts since to change US government response in international hostage situations. Buy this book
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An old and barely readable classic is causing havoc in Russia.
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The biggest hit in Russian cinemas currently is testament to the occasional magnificent ability of books to take on the qualities of wild animals escaped from a zoo. The Master and Margarita, written by Mikhail Bulgakov in the 1930s but not published in Russia until the 1960s, long after his death, is a story so mad it could be about anything, but begins with the Devil arriving in Stalin's Moscow with an entourage that includes a sarcastic vodka-and-chess-loving cat. If pushed, plenty of people would agree that it is at least partly about censorship and Stalinist persecution of the intelligentsia, and although Stalin was said to like Bulgakov's work, he also banned it, effectively preventing him from earning a living. Bulgakov once received a particularly terrifying phone call – from Stalin himself. Long thought unfilmable, an adapation of the novel has been successfully made by an American-Russian director called Michael Lockshin. Commissioned before the invasion of Ukraine and financed in part by the Russian government's own film fund, the movie is considered worthy of the original masterpiece, but can also be seen as inherently critical of the Putin regime. Putin's leadership group in Moscow has managed to keep its emotions firmly under control when confronted with the cruel human cost of the “special military operation” in Ukraine, yet does occasionally show its sensitive side – such as confusion over cinema audiences delivering standing ovations at the end of showings of The M and M in what could be interpreted as anti-Putin applause. Enraged by this unpatriotic clapping, Pro-Kremlin spokesfolk and other lunatics have denounced Lockshin as a terrorist and have even disseminated what they believe to be his address (in Los Angeles). Their information is apparently incorrect – does this mean some other innocent Californian family has been threatened with the Gulag? If so, such an unfortunate turn of events would at least give them time to peruse the most-read book in Russian prisons: The Master and Margarita. And also consider the heads-you-win, tails-I-lose plight of the writer himself. Bulgakov once wrote a letter to Stalin attempting to find a solution to his not being allowed to write, in which he said, “On looking through my collection of newspaper cuttings I have discovered that, during the 10 years of my career as a writer, there have been 301 reviews of my work in the Soviet press. Three of these reviews were complimentary, and 298 hostile and abusive.” Other careers are available. Buy this book
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In response to the call out for instances of poetry ever serving a practical purpose...
Ed, re: the uses of poetry, or otherwise. Did you see this image on the internet this week? Sighted “on a post in Barnsley”.
Graham J.
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(Picture courtesy Ian McMillan @IMcMillan)
People of Yorkshire, it is no secret that you take inordinate pride in all the “plain speaking” that goes on within the borders of your fine county, but where does that leave poetry, with its very different approach to “telling it how it is”? Enlightenment please, to info@strong-words.co.uk. Ed
And back on to the topic of blurbs...
Dear Ed, I quite agree with the woman who wrote in last week about feeling tricked by blurbs – they persuade you to buy the book, for which I feel grateful at the time for helping me make a decision. But then when you realise they have lied to you and the person blurbing has possibly never even read the book themselves before describing it as “the most powerful, cliff-hanging, life-changing etc. etc.”, you go back and look who said it, and see that you have no idea who they are. Why did I listen to them? It is like I've been fooled by a complete stranger, and I genuinely fear for my older self on the day when people turn up offering to tarmac the drive. (I love the newsletter, by the way.)
Jane D.
Sunday Book Club – where do you stand on blurbs? Are they useful information about a book's ingredients or more of a three card monte? All spittle-flecked rants please, to info@strong-words.co.uk.
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Great news for jobseekers in the north east...
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At a card table this month, I learnt from an actor's agent about a corner of the thespian field where there is currently particularly high demand for talent: the ability to read out – clearly and fast – the small print for radio advertisements for products such as credit cards. Then, in Miranda Pountney's new novel How To Be Somebody Else, about an English woman in advertising having an affair with a neighbour in New York, I learn that in this situation, a Geordie accent is the best. The woman's American lover doesn't know what she means by “Geordie”, so she explains: “From Newcastle. Always comes out top in testing. If you have a sketchy offer, or a shitload of terms and conditions, you go with a fast talking Geordie.” Which is nothing if not an invitation to try out your own clear and fast Geordie accent, perhaps using this comment from Tom Waits, possibly the wisest thing anyone has ever said: “The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.” Buy this book
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