Latest news with #RoomontheSea
The Herald Scotland
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
'One of the most unusual and powerful books I've read'
Allen Lane, £20 One of the most unusual and powerful books I've read in a long time. Chinese Canadian-British writer Alice Mah is Professor of Urban and Environmental Studies at the University of Glasgow. Red Pockets – the red envelopes used in China to give money to family and clan members – describes her return to her ancestral village in South China, and the reverberations of that disturbing visit. In a soul-searching narrative that charts her escalating despair over the global climate emergency, she addresses the ways in which the world's plight is connected with unresolved issues from the past. Drawing on the cultural and economic histories of China, Canada, England, and Scotland, Mah navigates her own fretful response to her family history and her fears for the future. Clear-eyed and sensitive, Red Pockets is a moving and imaginative memoir of facing up to the wrongs of the past, at the same time asking what we owe to previous generations, and to those who will inherit this planet from us. A Granite Silence Nina Allan Riverrun, £20 A Granite Silence by Nina Allan (Image: Rivverrun) The murder in Aberdeen in 1934 of eight-year-old Helen Priestly horrified the nation and had a shattering impact on the overcrowded tenement community where she lived. In this closely researched account, Nina Allan creatively explores the many elements exposed by this dreadful crime. Wild Fictions Amitav Ghosh Faber & Faber, £25 In the run-up to the Iraq War, Indian-born novelist Amitav Ghosh clashed with a well-known American editor, who refused to see the USA as anything but a benign and altruistic force. In the years since, he has produced a drawerful of highly-researched pieces, now brought together in this collection. Covering some of the most pressing subjects in recent decades, from 9/11, the ongoing legacy of imperialism, Hurricane Katrina, the refugee crisis, and disasters such as the 2004 Indonesian tsunami - the natural and the political cannot be separated, he argues - this is an unflinching portrait of our times from a refreshingly original perspective. Room on the Sea André Aciman Faber & Faber, £12.99 Room on the Sea by André Aciman (Image: Faber & Faber) Meeting while awaiting jury selection, New Yorkers Paul and Catherine covertly take stock of each other. She reading Wuthering Heights, he looking every inch the dapper Wall Street type. What starts as nothing more than a brief encounter becomes more serious, and soon a life-changing decision must be faced. André Aciman is a romantic with a melancholy soul and an eye for detail that makes his fiction read as if real. Of Thorn and Briar Paul Lamb Simon & Schuster, £20 "It is during the shortening days of the autumn months, when the September mists return and the morning dew settles on the pastures once more, that the hedger begins his work." So writes Paul Lamb, for 30 years a hedgelayer in the west country, who lives in a converted horse box. An enlightening and beautifully told monthly journal of following an ancient craft, and the benefits it brings to the countryside. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking Our Relationship with the Countryside Patrick Galbraith William Collins, £22 According to popular belief, access to the countryside in England is highly restricted, while in Scotland, with its Right To Roam legislation, the situation is idyllic. In this hard-hitting account, Patrick Galbraith sets out to destroy the clichés surrounding this inflammatory subject. Making a point of talking to "people who are often forgotten" - among them salmon poachers on the Isle of Lewis, grassroots activists, and much-loathed landowners - he shows that land access is much more nuanced than provocative headlines suggest. Not only are things far from perfect here, but in England there is better access than many people realise. Galbraith's informed and passionate analysis of those tussling over the land is essential reading for anyone with opinions on the countryside. Back in the Day Oliver Lovrenski Trans. Nichola Smalley Hamish Hamilton, £14.99 Back in the Day by Oliver Lovrenski (Image: Hamish Hamilton) On publication in Norway in 2023, Oliver Lovrenski's debut novel Back in the Day swiftly became a bestseller. Norway's Trainspotting is a deep dive into the chaos, terror, and black humour of teenagers locked in a cycle of deprivation. Ivor and Marco, who live in Oslo, have been on the downward slope since they were 13 when they started getting high. At 14 they were dealing drugs, and a year later began carrying knives. This bleak tale, told with brio, offers a fresh take on what it is to be young in an environment where a positive future is but a dream. The Einstein Vendetta: Hitler, Mussolini and a Murder That Haunts History Thomas Harding Michael Joseph, £22 Robert Einstein, Albert's cousin, lived with his family in a villa near Florence. One summer's day in 1944, while he was safely in hiding, a unit of soldiers arrived at the villa. When they left, 12 hours later, Robert's wife and children were dead. Their murder has never been solved, but in this scrupulously researched account, Thomas Harding takes on this notorious case, asking who ordered the killings, and why was no-one brought to account? The Eights Joanna Miller Fig Tree, £16.99 In 1920 Oxford University finally admitted female undergraduates. Joanna Miller's debut novel follows a group of young women, all living in rooms on Corridor Eight, who become close friends. From varied backgrounds - privileged, hard-up, politically engaged - all are hopeful of what lies ahead. All, too, are scarred by the recent war. With an influenza pandemic terrorising Europe, their time in Oxford promises to be eventful. Victory '45: The End of the War in Six Surrenders James Holland and Al Murray Bantam, £22 To mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, James Holland and Al Murray have joined forces to illuminate how peace was finally achieved. Between May and September 1945 there were six surrenders: four in Europe, two in Japan. Describing the events leading to each, and telling the stories of the people involved, from generals and political leaders to service men and women and civilians, Victory '45 memorably brings history, and those who made it, to life.
Sydney Morning Herald
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
A Booker winner, a comedy and Hitler's obsession with Einstein
This week's reviews include a satire on the decline of journalism and the people who struggle to make a living from it (ahem), a new love story from Call Me By Your Name author André Aciman, the chilling wartime story of Albert Einstein's cousin Robert and a rags-to-riches sports memoir. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Universality Natasha Brown Faber, $29.99 Human folly is perhaps the only universal in Natasha Brown's mordant satire on the decline of journalism and the people who struggle to make a living from it. The complexity of storytelling and its indeterminate, ever-shifting power dynamics are both at play in this unravelling of fact and fiction, which begins with a 'long read' written by the uninspiring Hannah. Her article is an exposé which goes viral and causes catastrophe for its subject. Can Hannah be trusted, though? And is her delinquency worse than opinion columnist Miriam Leonard, aka 'Lenny'? Lenny has sniffed the wind, and her hack-and-slashery becomes more ideologically promiscuous as she changes mastheads. Universality is a courageous, entertaining and deliciously sardonic indictment of the flaws and failings of contemporary media. Brown delights in brutal social satire and in skewering her hideous characters, and the plot unfolds with a twisting relationship to the truth that reads, in the end, like a black comic thriller. Room on the Sea André Aciman Faber, $26.99 From the author of Call Me By Your Name – adapted into the 2017 film starring Timothée Chalamet – comes a different kind of love story. The lovers in this slender novella aren't brimming with youth like Oliver and Elio. They're grey-haired paramours who meet while waiting to be selected for jury duty in New York. Paul is a retired lawyer, Catherine a psychiatrist and both have partners who aren't meeting their needs. They pursue an affair but must decide the dicier question of whether to turn fleeting pleasure into something more lasting. The matter-of-fact narration in Room on the Sea disguises ephemerality. Where the characters in Call Me By Your Name reflect on future selves that they're too passionately in the process of becoming to fully imagine, this romance is suffused by memory and nostalgia and the regret of roads-not-taken. Delight taken in the present is also a theme, and Aciman achieves a depth of affection – to genuinely like someone is in some ways a more profound and elusive thing than to love them – in this crisp, meditative romance. The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains Sarah Clutton Allen & Unwin, $34.99 A precocious almost 10-year-old boy discovers a family he never knew he had in this quirky charmer from Sarah Clutton. Raised by his mum Emilia, Alfie Bains has only ever known Ireland, but when crisis strikes, he learns his mum has lied to him. It seems Alfie has relatives halfway across the world and – thrust into the small town of Beggars Rock in Tasmania – he's determined to find his father. No one seems keen to talk about this family secret – not his grandmother Penny, nor Cynthia (the woman Alfie suspects of being his other grandma), nor Cynthia's son Noah (who isn't Alfie's dad but could know who is). The story shifts between events that led to Alfie's obscure origin story a decade before, and his adventures trying to sleuth out the truth about where he came from. The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains is a warm and poignant and funny mystery of the self, featuring a loveable, whip-smart kid, and a portrait of a close-knit rural community full of dark secrets and memorable characters. Twelve Post-War Tales Graham Swift Scribner $35 This suite of short fiction from Graham Swift is unified by the shadows and ghosts of World War II, though the stories in it are otherwise immensely various. An elderly woman whose memory is failing muses on a moment she has never recalled – the day her mother died in the Blitz when she was only three years old. A British soldier journeys to Germany in the early 1960s and has a sinister encounter with an official as he tries to find out what happened to a lost Jewish relative. A father is determined for his daughter's wedding to not be derailed by the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a young woman touched by domestic violence meets a black G.I. with affecting consequence. Twelve Post-War Tales is a subtle, empathic collection written with tenderness and gentle humour, offering diverse portraits of ordinary lives touched by the unfeeling hand of history. NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK The Einstein Vendetta Thomas Harding Michael Joseph, $36.99 Just before the liberation of Florence in August 1944, a small unit of German soldiers broke into a villa not far from Florence intending to arrest Robert Einstein (cousin of Albert) who lived there with his family. Sticking to a pre-arranged plan should this happen, Robert hid in the nearby woods, while his non-Jewish wife and two daughters stayed in the villa. The Germans shot them, and Robert heard the shots. Harding, whose family knew the Einsteins, grippingly details events which unfold like a dark thriller. A war crime, it remains a cold case, but this much is clear, the order came from the top. Hitler was obsessed with Albert Einstein and put a price on his head, but Albert was out of reach in the US. And when they couldn't capture Robert, they killed the next best thing – his family. Chilling and sad. Robert took his own life a year later. Saving Dragons Dianne Dempsey Arcadia, $49.95 Russell Goldfield Jack. Not your average middle name, but Russell Jack, who was born into the Bendigo Chinese community in 1935, is not your average person – as this lively, informed biography demonstrates. But it's also a timely case study – running from the gold rush years to the present day – of the Chinese/Australian experience. The White Australia Policy was in place for much of the time, and this is also a record of racism. When Jack married his Catholic-born wife, for instance, there was significant community disapproval of the 'mixed' marriage. But it's also an inspiring tale of adversity and triumph that covers Jack's sporting achievements (he carried the torch in the 1956 Olympics), and, with his wife, his pivotal role in establishing the world-famous Golden Dragon Museum in Bendigo. An uplifting tale that roars. Battle of the Banks Bob Crawshaw Australian Scholarly publishing, $49.95 In August 1947, Prime Minister Ben Chifley issued a 42-word press statement saying the government had set in motion plans to nationalise the banking system. The impact was immediate. It was war. Chifley was convinced that to affect a smooth transition from a wartime economy to a peacetime one, control of the banks was essential. Robert Menzies, who immediately saw his chance to return from the political wilderness, hit the communist/socialist fear button (Chifley was a well-known anti-communist). The battle lines were drawn: the government against an opposition aligned with the banks and wealthy, vested private interests. The campaign was heated, intense and, in the case of Jack Lang and Chifley, got quite personal. A scrupulously detailed study of a big picture moment in Australian politics and the forces it unleashed. Legends and Soles Sonny Vaccaro (with Armen Keteyian) Harper Collins, $22.99 Sonny Vaccaro was once described by a major US sports magazine as 'the man responsible for the most points, rebounds, assists and highlight plays in NBA history'. You might be forgiven for thinking he's the greatest player of all time you've never heard of, but, in fact, he's a marketing guru for shoe companies such as Nike, and had a crucial role in launching some of the greatest basketball players of all time – like Michael Jordon. His memoir is essentially an Italian kid's rags-to-riches tale, beginning in steel town Pennsylvania, incorporating stories of his father's bootlegging days, Sonny's time in gambling, and then cracking a marketing job at Nike and becoming well-known enough for a film, Air, to feature him. It's easy enough reading, but I suspect you've really got to be a big basketball fan to get into it.
The Age
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
A Booker winner, a comedy and Hitler's obsession with Einstein
This week's reviews include a satire on the decline of journalism and the people who struggle to make a living from it (ahem), a new love story from Call Me By Your Name author André Aciman, the chilling wartime story of Albert Einstein's cousin Robert and a rags-to-riches sports memoir. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Universality Natasha Brown Faber, $29.99 Human folly is perhaps the only universal in Natasha Brown's mordant satire on the decline of journalism and the people who struggle to make a living from it. The complexity of storytelling and its indeterminate, ever-shifting power dynamics are both at play in this unravelling of fact and fiction, which begins with a 'long read' written by the uninspiring Hannah. Her article is an exposé which goes viral and causes catastrophe for its subject. Can Hannah be trusted, though? And is her delinquency worse than opinion columnist Miriam Leonard, aka 'Lenny'? Lenny has sniffed the wind, and her hack-and-slashery becomes more ideologically promiscuous as she changes mastheads. Universality is a courageous, entertaining and deliciously sardonic indictment of the flaws and failings of contemporary media. Brown delights in brutal social satire and in skewering her hideous characters, and the plot unfolds with a twisting relationship to the truth that reads, in the end, like a black comic thriller. Room on the Sea André Aciman Faber, $26.99 From the author of Call Me By Your Name – adapted into the 2017 film starring Timothée Chalamet – comes a different kind of love story. The lovers in this slender novella aren't brimming with youth like Oliver and Elio. They're grey-haired paramours who meet while waiting to be selected for jury duty in New York. Paul is a retired lawyer, Catherine a psychiatrist and both have partners who aren't meeting their needs. They pursue an affair but must decide the dicier question of whether to turn fleeting pleasure into something more lasting. The matter-of-fact narration in Room on the Sea disguises ephemerality. Where the characters in Call Me By Your Name reflect on future selves that they're too passionately in the process of becoming to fully imagine, this romance is suffused by memory and nostalgia and the regret of roads-not-taken. Delight taken in the present is also a theme, and Aciman achieves a depth of affection – to genuinely like someone is in some ways a more profound and elusive thing than to love them – in this crisp, meditative romance. The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains Sarah Clutton Allen & Unwin, $34.99 A precocious almost 10-year-old boy discovers a family he never knew he had in this quirky charmer from Sarah Clutton. Raised by his mum Emilia, Alfie Bains has only ever known Ireland, but when crisis strikes, he learns his mum has lied to him. It seems Alfie has relatives halfway across the world and – thrust into the small town of Beggars Rock in Tasmania – he's determined to find his father. No one seems keen to talk about this family secret – not his grandmother Penny, nor Cynthia (the woman Alfie suspects of being his other grandma), nor Cynthia's son Noah (who isn't Alfie's dad but could know who is). The story shifts between events that led to Alfie's obscure origin story a decade before, and his adventures trying to sleuth out the truth about where he came from. The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains is a warm and poignant and funny mystery of the self, featuring a loveable, whip-smart kid, and a portrait of a close-knit rural community full of dark secrets and memorable characters. Twelve Post-War Tales Graham Swift Scribner $35 This suite of short fiction from Graham Swift is unified by the shadows and ghosts of World War II, though the stories in it are otherwise immensely various. An elderly woman whose memory is failing muses on a moment she has never recalled – the day her mother died in the Blitz when she was only three years old. A British soldier journeys to Germany in the early 1960s and has a sinister encounter with an official as he tries to find out what happened to a lost Jewish relative. A father is determined for his daughter's wedding to not be derailed by the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a young woman touched by domestic violence meets a black G.I. with affecting consequence. Twelve Post-War Tales is a subtle, empathic collection written with tenderness and gentle humour, offering diverse portraits of ordinary lives touched by the unfeeling hand of history. NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK The Einstein Vendetta Thomas Harding Michael Joseph, $36.99 Just before the liberation of Florence in August 1944, a small unit of German soldiers broke into a villa not far from Florence intending to arrest Robert Einstein (cousin of Albert) who lived there with his family. Sticking to a pre-arranged plan should this happen, Robert hid in the nearby woods, while his non-Jewish wife and two daughters stayed in the villa. The Germans shot them, and Robert heard the shots. Harding, whose family knew the Einsteins, grippingly details events which unfold like a dark thriller. A war crime, it remains a cold case, but this much is clear, the order came from the top. Hitler was obsessed with Albert Einstein and put a price on his head, but Albert was out of reach in the US. And when they couldn't capture Robert, they killed the next best thing – his family. Chilling and sad. Robert took his own life a year later. Saving Dragons Dianne Dempsey Arcadia, $49.95 Russell Goldfield Jack. Not your average middle name, but Russell Jack, who was born into the Bendigo Chinese community in 1935, is not your average person – as this lively, informed biography demonstrates. But it's also a timely case study – running from the gold rush years to the present day – of the Chinese/Australian experience. The White Australia Policy was in place for much of the time, and this is also a record of racism. When Jack married his Catholic-born wife, for instance, there was significant community disapproval of the 'mixed' marriage. But it's also an inspiring tale of adversity and triumph that covers Jack's sporting achievements (he carried the torch in the 1956 Olympics), and, with his wife, his pivotal role in establishing the world-famous Golden Dragon Museum in Bendigo. An uplifting tale that roars. Battle of the Banks Bob Crawshaw Australian Scholarly publishing, $49.95 In August 1947, Prime Minister Ben Chifley issued a 42-word press statement saying the government had set in motion plans to nationalise the banking system. The impact was immediate. It was war. Chifley was convinced that to affect a smooth transition from a wartime economy to a peacetime one, control of the banks was essential. Robert Menzies, who immediately saw his chance to return from the political wilderness, hit the communist/socialist fear button (Chifley was a well-known anti-communist). The battle lines were drawn: the government against an opposition aligned with the banks and wealthy, vested private interests. The campaign was heated, intense and, in the case of Jack Lang and Chifley, got quite personal. A scrupulously detailed study of a big picture moment in Australian politics and the forces it unleashed. Legends and Soles Sonny Vaccaro (with Armen Keteyian) Harper Collins, $22.99 Sonny Vaccaro was once described by a major US sports magazine as 'the man responsible for the most points, rebounds, assists and highlight plays in NBA history'. You might be forgiven for thinking he's the greatest player of all time you've never heard of, but, in fact, he's a marketing guru for shoe companies such as Nike, and had a crucial role in launching some of the greatest basketball players of all time – like Michael Jordon. His memoir is essentially an Italian kid's rags-to-riches tale, beginning in steel town Pennsylvania, incorporating stories of his father's bootlegging days, Sonny's time in gambling, and then cracking a marketing job at Nike and becoming well-known enough for a film, Air, to feature him. It's easy enough reading, but I suspect you've really got to be a big basketball fan to get into it.
