Authors know everythingIn a week in which the press and politicians displayed their patriotic credentials by turning purple over the design of the St George's cross on the new England football shirt...“I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.”
...so said the late American comedian George Carlin (whose autobiography is called Last Words), in a reminder that the symbol somewhat predates the replica kit industry, that the flag itself is a design of a symbol, and also that St George came from that greenest and most pleasant part of England – Turkey. Buy this book
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Four Shots in the Night by Henry Hemming. Quercus, £22
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The Troubles in Northern Ireland are not generally a period people revisit with nostalgia, but Four Shots in the Night will have you flying through the pages as if there were a £50 note tucked somewhere inside them. The book starts with a murder on a rural Ulster roadside, then both solves the crime and uses it as a key to making the Northern Ireland peace process not just endurable but thrilling. In the seventies, just as the IRA were expanding their range of activities, the British response switched from a military solution to an "intelligence-based" strategy, essentially spying, by recruiting agents within the paramilitary organisations. Several British groups were at it, including the Army and M15, which led to the case of one agent, the poor chap above, being killed by another, the recently headline-dominating "Stakeknife". Few sidelines can ever have been as bad for one's inner tranquility than informing against the IRA from within, yet somehow this nerve-racking back-channel circuit of communication took the dynamite out of republican hands, and let the politicians get on with their significantly less deadly mudslinging. Buy this book
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The Strong Words Hot List Feeling an intense longing for a new historical novel? Try these… |
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5. A Woman of Pleasure by Kiyoko Murata Footnote Press, £12.99
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Hopelessly short of funds in early 20th century Japan, a fisherman and his pearl-diving wife sell their daughter to a high-end brothel. The job of educating Ichi, 15, into the standards demanded by the profession falls to the intimidatingly glamorous Shinonome, the house's highest earner. But first she needs to go to the classroom to soften her countryside ways, and receive a grim induction into the job's practicalities. With time, the strong-willed Ichi becomes a spokeswoman for the workforce, leading to some unexpected industrial action from the much-maligned ladies. Buy this book
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4. The Curse of Pietro Houdini by Derek B. Miller Doubleday, £20
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After the allies bomb Rome in 1943, orphaned Massimo, 14, has to hit the road in search of family in Naples. His journey takes him via the monastery at Monte Cassino, which the Nazis are draining of art treasures in preparation for the forthcoming military confrontation. A charismatic art expert – Pietro Houdini – takes the lad under his wing, and co-opts him into his own art heist, a plan to remove three Titian masterpieces by painting over them. This is going to take some classic Italian guile to pull off. Buy this book
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3. Mrs Gulliver by Valerie Martin Serpent's Tail, £16.99
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In 1954 on tropical – if imaginary – Verona Island, Mrs Gulliver is a decade into a career operating a house of ill repute. This branch of commerce is legal here, and the madame, having grown up in such an establishment, is familiar with the lifestyle and has become a successful entrepreneur. One day, a beautiful blind girl called Caritá appears, in need of employment, but arriving shortly after is the besotted son of a wealthy local, convinced he can extract Caritá from her predicament. Mrs Gulliver is familiar with the ways of men, both lovestruck and criminal, but her new employee has the biggest plans of all. Buy this book
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2. The Tower by Flora Carr Hutchinson, £16.99
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Lochleven castle is a ruin today, but didn't extend a much warmer hand of hospitality in 1567, when Mary, Queen of Scots, 24, was rowed across the water to be jailed in its dank and claustrophobic quarters. Permitted just two chambermaids, and later joined by a scheming childhood friend, she sets about planning an escape, but in the meantime there's plenty of power-struggling to help pass the time, both within her entourage, and against enemies beyond the walls. Buy this book
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1. Clear by Carys Davies Granta, £12.99
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On a godforsaken rock in the North Sea in mid-19th century Scotland, Ivar is the sole inhabitant and the last speaker of its language. On the mainland, the island's landlord has made a commercial decision: he wants the land for sheep, so Ivar will have to be evicted. But who will undertake this perilous task? In need of money, having just split with his church, a minister called John Ferguson has heeded the call, although utterly unsuited to the job. We join the action as he is wading ashore, soaked, ill-equipped and preparing to deliver some very bad news... Buy this book
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A great athletic landmark is the cue to revisit a magnificent photo book
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Congratulations to British ultrarunner Jasmin Paris for being the first ever woman to finish the Barkley Marathons this week. The race, held in rural Tennessee in the grounds of a former prison for the state's worst offenders, is one of the planet's most eccentric athletic events. Competitors are allowed 60 hours to complete five, 20-mile loops (runners claim the circuits are actually much longer) of steep, forested terrain, twice in one direction, twice in the other, and the fifth, for the tiny handful who get that far, in the direction picked by the race leader. Along the way, they have to locate checkpoints and the tear the page from a paperback book hidden there that corresponds with their race number. Only forty runners are accepted for entry each year, for a fee of $1.60. First timers also have to provide the race supremo Gary Cantrell with a carton of cigarettes. On accepting their written plea to be allowed to participate, Cantrell sends a message of condolence. On race day, he gives runners just an hour's warning of when the race is to start (it can begin at any time between midnight and noon). He then signals the off by lighting one of his cigarettes. The race is so demanding, and conditions often so tough, that on several occasions since its inception in 1986 it has concluded with no finishers at all. Jasmin's achievement qualifies as book news because it is a great opportunity to recommend the superb The Finishers, by Frenchmen Alexis Berg and Aurélian Delfosse (Thames & Hudson, £45). It includes exceptional photography, an entertaining history of the race and a collection of interviews with some of the first few people ever to finish. Most startling are the images of runners at the race's end, including pictures of Canada's Gary Robbins who in 2017 completed the course in 60 hours and six seconds. Because he was six seconds past the cut-off, having lost the trail in the fog, they disqualified him. "I did not finish the Barkley Marathons and that is nobody's fault but my own," said the stoic Robbins. Jasmin Paris crossed the line (which in the Barkleys involves touching a gate), with 99 seconds to spare. Buy this book
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A close reader of the Book Club has detected a possible contradiction in Strong Words' arguments...Dear Ed, last week you shared how you were off to the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. You didn't seem very happy that three of the four nominees were over thirty, and thought "young" was too generous a description for them. But as a subscriber, I've often read in the magazine that you think adulthood isn't reached until about age 40 these days. Are you trying to have it both ways? Angela W.Thank you for pointing out this inconsistency Angela, and it's true that what I like to call my "philosophy" still has some way to go to achieve full robustness of argument. However, I would point out that age and maturity are separate concepts and so it is possible to be under 40 and neither young nor "adult", in the sense of being responsible and parent-like. On a related issue, I have noticed as I've got older that fewer people say "the children are our future", perhaps because having seen what a mess the adults who they remember as children have made of things, they've rowed back on that position. EdReaders – have you ever drawn an age/maturity Venn diagram? Please share your findings at info@strong-words.comAnd in literary cuisine mysteries...Ed, I am not a scientist, but on your callout in last week's Sunday Book Club for an explanation as to why anchovies disappear when cooked, I'm sorry to say it's really boring. It's something to do with the salt in the canning process breaking down a muscle protein called myosin, so when you cook them, they "melt". Because they disappear though, but still deliver a non-fishy hit, you can use them as a bit of a magic/emergency ingredient when other sauces and stews have decided to have a flavour-free day. Even anchovy haters can be fooled. Veronique A.Thanks Veronique, I guess I should have guessed that science wasn't the place to look for a romantic explanation of the anchovy's vanishing act. EdReaders – how do you handle anchovy haters? All tips on how to best sidestep their prejudice please, to info@strong-words.com. And also...Years ago my friend in Greece gave me some issues [of Strong Words] to read and subsequently you kindly sent me one for free! Having subscribed to the newsletter for a while now and having suggested it to quite a few friends, I thought I ought finally to pay for what I enjoy! Glynis H.Congratulations on your excellent decision Glynis. Book Club members – if not sure what to do today, please do what Glynis did.
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If you're planning a career in the wine fraud game...
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... there are few fields finer for mixing great wealth with great gullibility. A story in The Times yesterday reported that the finest of fine wine fraudsters, an Indonesian called Rudy Kurniawan, has completed his ten-year sentence in the United States and is once again putting his skills to good effect. Kurniawan was busted in 2012 for selling expensive wines to super-rich collectors. The buyers often didn't have the first clue about their purchase other than it being a desirable status symbol they could show off about to whichever fellow billionaire they were trying to impress. Kurniawan was using his gift of a world class palate to blend other wines in accurate imitation of the real thing, then used authentic seeming corks, labels and foils to bottle them in the Los Angeles home where he lived with his mother. But the key to convincing the billionaires to part with large sums of money? Generosity, apparently. Kurniawan was prepared to open up his five and six- figure "vintages", slosh a little out and let the magnates go through their solemn choreography of swilling it around, holding it up to the light and talking gibberish. This willingness to share was said to have completely disarmed the rich men. And having been thus convinced Kurniawan was a great guy, it was easy for him to win their trust. Fraud fans can read about the original case in Peter Hellman's In Vino Duplicitas (Experiment, £10.99, Kindle), but in the great tradition of swindlers, Kurniawan has not hesitated to put his gifts back into play. According to The Times, guests on something called "the Asian wine circuit" (if anyone knows what a "wine circuit" is, please share) are paying up to $5,000 for Kurniawan to perform his party trick. They tell him what fancy bottle they are bringing up from their cellar, he blends his own imitation, and guests have to pick the real one in a blind taste test. Seemingly thrilled rather than disturbed by their own cluelessness, the moneyed connoisseurs preferred Kurniawan's recipes to the originals each time.
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