Great classics: Great Expectations

Great Expectations (1861) is a novel by Charles Dickens.

Play: Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar (1623) is a pay by William Shakespeare.

Modern Classics: Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers (1913) is a novel by DH Lawrence.

Play: Hamlet

Hamlet (1600) is a play by William Shakespeare.

Contemporary Reads: The Passion of the New Eve

The Passion of the New Eve (1977) is a novel by Angela Carter.

Modern Classics: The Secret Agent

The Secret Agent (1907) is a novel by Joseph Conrad.

Contemporary Reads: The Buddha of Suburbia

The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) is a novel by Hanif Kureishi.

Contemporary Reads: Possession

Possession (1990) is the Booker prize novel by AS Byatt.

Contemporary Reads: Black Swan Green

Black Swan Green (2006) is the latest novel by David Mitchell. Each of Black Swan Green's thirteen chapters follows a month in Jason's life, from January 1982 when his sprained ankle is bound up by the witchy crone who lives in the House in the Woods one dark frozen night after skating on the village pond, to January 1983 when the crone is revealed as a harmless old woman now the tenant of her son-in-law's granny flat. Following an episodic form rather than a conventionally linear narrative structure, the novel offers a series of vivid snapshots of Jason's life as he passes the milestone of his thirteenth birthday and begins a journey towards a new, hard-earned maturity.

Jason is far from a social pariah but equally far from fitting in to his male classmates' carefully constructed world where difference is derided, weakness cruelly mocked and transgressions of elaborate codes brutally punished. Already suffering the disadvantage of living in a middle-class enclave, Jason knows that discovery of his stammer will result in merciless persecution. He takes evasive action, quickly substituting alternative words when the Hangman threatens to tie his tongue into knots, gaining a rich vocabulary in the process and employing it in writing poetry under the pseudonym Eliot Bolivar for the parish magazine. He's careful not to be seen too often with Dean 'Moron' Moran, although by the end of the year the two are firm friends. Spring is dominated by news of the Falklands War and the death aboard HMS Coventry of Tom Yew, an old boy from Jason's school and the father of Debby Crombie's unborn child. After an unexpected display of cheek, Jason finds himself invited to join the village secret society but despite triumphantly completing the initiation test he is disqualified for acting according to his better nature. Meanwhile his parents are increasingly embroiled in sniping matches and, come the autumn, he finds himself lonelier that he had ever expected when his sister Julia leaves for university. A proposal for a permanent gypsy site has the village up in arms and Jason's encounter with the gypsies leads to another step along the road to maturity. The climax of Jason's year finds him facing down his bullying persecutors and, bathed in glory, experiencing his first kiss at the local disco. The following year begins with Jason saying goodbye to his father and to Black Swan Green as his parents finally part. Jason leaves for Cheltenham with his mother filled with trepidation at being the 'New Kid Whose Parents By The Way Are Getting Divorced', hardly daring to believe Julia's gentle reassurance that 'it'll be all right in the end'.

Contemporary Reads: So Many Ways to Begin

So Many Ways to Begin (2006) is the second novel by Jon McGregor. It is a book about the lives of ordinary people expanding nearly a century although not always told following a strict chronological order. Its main characters are a family and the story is simple enough: David is the adopted son of Dorothy, he is a museum curator; he is married to Eleanor, who comes from a hard-knock working class family from Aberdeen; they have a daughter called Kate.
When he accidentally finds out that he is not Dorothy's child, David will try to find his Irish birth mother. He will never succeed. The fact that Eleanor is bound to depression will lead him to have a brief affair with one of his co-workers at the museum, Anna. All these are perhaps banal dramas which are completely plausible and possibly quite familiar to readers. What McGregor does through his slightly fragmented narrative and his subtle characterisation is to observe the ordinariness of life, as it were, as a way of celebrating the beauty of love, family, home. It is a delightful novel.

Contemporary Reads: The Ghost Road

The Ghost Road (1995) completes the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker. Perhaps more introspective than its predecessors, this novel sees Prior's return to the front in France. We thus get a present tense account of the horrors of war for the first time in the trilogy. His (bi)sexuality is also very explicitly explored. We also get a look into River's work in Melanesia before the war. A very poignant and interesting book, the best one out of a remarkable trilogy.

The other books in the trilogy are: Regeneration and The Eye in the Door.

Rereadings: Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (1985) was Jeanette Winterson's first novel. I have just finished reading it for the second time (I read it the first time as a student). It is such an original powerful book. The story (at least in part autobiographical) was a very daring one to tell at the time of its publication: the novel is about an adopted girl being raised in Lancashire by a self-righteous born-again Christian mother. Its structure is not any less daring as it is original: without being told in strictly chronological order, the story is not hard to follow. The reader (or at least I did) will get a sense of the "madness" Jeanette, for that is the narrator/protagonist's name, was brought up in and also how she will finally be able to find her way out of it. Precisely, in the last chapters there is a parallel fary tale-like narrative that works to help the reader understand the protagonist's progress.

Other novels I have read by the same author: The Passion and Sexy the Cherry.

Contemporary Reads: The Eye in the Door

The Eye in the Door (1993) is the second novel on Pat Barker's trilogy about the Great War. The story this time centres around one of Dr River's patients, Prior, and Charles Manning. Apart from themes of class and anti-war sentiment that were already tackled by her previous novel, Barker also deals with persecution and prejudice.

The Eye in the Door is perhaps a richer novel than Regeneration and I am sure it can be as enjoyable read on its own as as part of the trilogy.

Contemporary Reads: Regeneration

Regeneration (1991) is a novel by Pat Barker. It fictionalises the real-life encounter between army psychologist W.H.R. Rivers and Siegfried Sassoon. Other real life characters, notably poet Wilfred Owen, are part of the narrative.

Pacifism, class, psychology, anthropology or the effect of the Great War on ordinary people are all elements of this important novel.

This novel is the first of the Regeneration Trilogy together with The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road.

Contemporary Reads: The Testament of Gideon Mack

The Testament of Gideon Mack (2006) is the latest novel by Scottish author James Robertson. It tells the unlikely story of atheist Church of Scotland minister Gideon Mack who after having fallen from a cliff-face and gone missing for three days claims to have been rescued and cared for by the Devil. When he confesses this publicly he is discredited and treated as a lunatic until his death soon after.

Another Scottish writer, Irvine Welsh has described this novel as a parable of the relationship organised religion, the supernatural and mental illness. It is indeed a wonderful novel that will have readers asking themselves many a deep question.

Contemporary Reads: The Tenderness of Wolves

The Tenderness of Wolves (2007) is the first novel by Stef Penny. Set in Canada in 1867, much has been made of the fact that Penney has never been to North America. I do not think that is the problem with this novel. The setting is convincing enough. I just found the book a bit long for what it is and was not particularly fond of the style.

If you want to read a more positive review, please click here.

Contemporary Reads: The Wasp Factory

The Wasp Factory (1984) was the controversial debut of Scottish writer Iain Banks. It is the story of sixteen-year-old Frank who lives on a Scottish island with his father, a retired scientist. His brother, Eric, has just escaped from a mental institution and is on the loose. Frank himself is a very unstable character, to say the least. He has killed three children and several animals.

At the end of the book Frank discovers that he is not a man. His father had told him that a dog had bitten off his penis when he was younger, but in truth, Frank is in fact female. His father had been using male hormones to disguise this as part of a sick experiment.

With graphic violence and a disturbing plot this novel received mixed reviews when it was first published in the UK. It has since been hailed as one of the must reads of the 1980s.

Contemporary Reads: In Between the Sheets

In Between the Sheets (1978) was the second book of short stories written by Ian McEwan. As its title suggests, the stories are largely about sex. They are shocking and at times uneasy. As can be expected, they are nowhere near the quality of his most mature works but still worth reading for his fans.

Contemporary Reads: On Chesil Beach

On Chesil Beach (2007) is Ian McEwan's latest novel. It is a short novel largely devoted to Edward and Florence's wedding night in the early 1960s. Through a series of analepsises (flashbacks) and the use of stream of consciousness, we soon understand the importance of that night for a couple of newlyweds who are only 22 y/o at that time. He, a recent history graduate from a rural background; she, a promising violinist from a typically academic and politically conservative Oxford environment.

Britain in the early 1960s was still a country pretty much sexually repressive were most youths would arrive to marriage being very naive about sex. McEwan takes us back to that time brilliantly. Even the likes of me who were born at a much later date very soon into the novel begin to understand what these two characters are going through that night.

Tragedy strikes when Edward comes too quickly and Florence - feeling guilty - runs off to the beach. What ensues is an argument in which she declares herself frigid and even suggests that they should have a sexless marriage. She even says that she would be happy for him to procure sex elsewhere. He finds the idea unbearable and that night they part for good.

On the last few pages we follow Edward's life as a singleton throughout the years and can even guess a certain regret at not having accepted Florence's offer.
Another doubtless triumph by Ian McEwan.
Other books I have read by the same author: The Cement Garden, The Child In Time, Enduring Love, Amsterdam, Saturday and Atonement.

Contemporary Reads: The Child In Time

The Child in Time (1987) is one of the early novels by Ian McEwan. It tells the story about how children's author Stephen and her wife, Julie, had her 3-year old daughter, Kate, kidnapped. How their marriage suffers and they only come to terms with it after their separation and Julie's new pregnancy.

We also learn about Stephen's parents' life in old age and as a young couple. And there is also the storyline about Stephen's first publisher, Charles, who later becomes a government minister and a favourite of the Prime Minister only to resign at the top of his game and retire to the countryside where he'll end up committing suicide.

This is a novel essentially about children and parenting but also a great reflection on Time and its passing.

I'm an inconditional of McEwan's and I am yet to read a book by him that would prove me wrong.

Other books I have read by the same author: The Cement Garden, Enduring Love, Amsterdam, Saturday and Atonement.