Book of the Week

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Recommended by Otis Parker

A well known classic, Great Expectations tells the story of orphan Pip, an ordinary country boy brought up by his sister and her blacksmith husband.

At first Pip is content to live the simple life of a blacksmith that he seems destined for, but after a meeting with Miss Havisham and beautiful but icy-hearted Estella, Pip finds himself resentful of his more common status. Corrupted by his love for Estella, Pip leaves his loved ones behind and sets off to London in a quest to become a gentleman, sponsored by a mysterious benefactor.

Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' - still scary after all these years?

In today's post, Sebastian Rodger reassesses a horror classic. 

Dracula is an iconic story. The characters and the story that Bram Stoker created over a century ago have gone on to play a significant role in the shaping of a genre, not only in literature, but also in mediums like television and films.

It was clearly an incredible book upon its release, and has stood the test of time, even now still having an impact on horror stories as it was the first to use many techniques which are still employed in literature today. It is also of course well written. Its epistolary style allows the reader to more effectively empathise with the protagonists and thus can understand the fear they feel. Because of this I feel like attempting to review this novel with its history and position as a ‘classic’ is pointless. It has been done countless times before, and I believe is ultimately of little use to the average reader who is just looking for a new book to enjoy. Instead, I will be reviewing it to see if it still works in the modern day.

Book of the Week

Christine by Stephen King
Recommended by George Lyon

The moment Arnie Cunningham lays eyes upon her, he wants her. She is Christine, a ’58 Plymouth Fury. Blood-red, fat-finned and twenty years old, all her promise lies in her past.

In the midst of Stephen King’s enormous repertoire, Christine goes woefully underappreciated. It is story of possession; 600 pages of uncanny suspense, punctuated by action sequences that are harrowingly believable.

Fist of Five: Five Books about England and Englishness

JMcL

When satirists Flanders and Swann set out to compose an alternative English national anthem, they decided to open with what they described as typical understatement:

'The English, the English, the English are best! I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest!'

Perhaps in today's political climate, with the nastier side of nationalism on display pretty much everywhere, the satirical duo's 'Song of Patriotic Prejudice' is too close to the bone to be funny. But as the UK lumbers unsteadily towards the [Br]exit, this seems as good a time as any to recommend five books exploring some of the strands that make up 'English' (and occasionally British) national identity.

Book of the Week

The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Recommended by Nick Stanger

Apart from the mysterious foreshadowing of tragedy in the title, the most immediately enticing element of this novel for me was the backdrop of 1980s New York. The fast-paced nature of the book combined with its omniscient narrative style packed full of dialogue really fuels the atmosphere of a hectic lifestyle which is established from the onset.

The novel documents just a few months in the life of Sherman McCoy, a successful bond broker at Pierce & Pierce on Wall Street who lives in a flashy two-storey Park Avenue apartment with his wife, to whom he is unfaithful. Whilst navigating the Manhattan highway with his adulteress Maria Ruskin, who is also married, Sherman takes an accidental yet damning turn into the Bronx.

Why read fiction?

Sometimes we read only for pleasure – and that’s enough. Most recently I read The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope for precisely this reason. It’s a brilliant, sometimes scathing, sometimes exuberant satire of polite society. Tongue in cheek, fast and loose, it takes you on a rambunctious ride, and along the way you encounter a morally bankrupt group of high society miscreants. In short, Trollope is like Dickens - but racier.

Book of the Week

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Recommended by Daniel Jourdan

This highly fictionalised autobiography tells the tale of a rebellious heroin addict who, in 1980, escapes an Australian maximum-security prison having served 2 years of a 19-year sentence for armed robbery.

After fleeing to Bombay as a 'brave, hard man without a plan', he swiftly finds lasting companionship in a friendly street guide named Prabaker, who introduces him to the seedy life of the city and insists that he changes his false name Lindsay, to Lin, or Linbaba.