Contemporary Reads: Mr Pip

Mr Pip (2006) is a novel by New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones.

Contemporary Reads: Vernon God Little

Vernon God Little (2003) by DBC Pierre is a laugh-out-loud satire of modern day media-obsessed America.

Vernon Gregory Little finds himself as the prime suspect of a high school masacre in Martirio, Texas. The perpetrator, Jesús Navarro, killed himself leaving Vernon to be apprehended as accessory to murder.

Vernon travels to Mexico but is betrayed by the girl who loves, Taylor Figeroa, who helps media man Eulalio Ledesma Gutierrez to set him up.

After a farcical court case, Vernon ends up in the Death Row although a last minute pardon will see him 'back to normal' at home at the end of the novel.

Using J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye as a template, DBC Pierre's comedy in his first novel comes mainly in the form of malapropisms (powerdime for paradigm, nancies for nuances, etc), an acute ear for the vernacular, and plenty of adsurd situations.

Contemporary Reads: Jack Maggs

Jack Maggs (1997) is a novel by Australian author Peter Carey. Set in 1987 London when Australia was a British penal colony where even petty thieves were sent to. Jack Maggs is one of such characters who, after being betrayed and sent to Australia comes back to England. Pretending to be a footman, he moves into Percy Buckle's house in London. His neighbour, novelist and mesmeriser Tobias Oates will soon reveal Magg's secrets and starts writing about him. Jack Magg has come back to London looking for a gentleman called Henry Phipps whom he regards as his son.

This is a worthy homage to Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. An exciting historical novel and literary fantasy. Guilt, shame for crimes real or imagined and the two main themes of this masterly book.