Decades: Compiling The Ultimate Library with Jane Isaac

Decades. Every Friday I invite a new guest to join me here at Grab This Book and I ask them to tell me which five unmissable, memorable, remarkable or favourite books I should add to my Decades Library.

The reason we are highlighting five books is to allow me to assemble the Ultimate Library of wonderful books. I started this challenge back in January 2021 and I had no books on the library shelves. I only wanted the very best books to be represented and I knew one person could never possibly hope to remember all the greatest books from down the years so I ask each of my guests to pick their five favourites.

But why Decades? Well just picking five books is far too easy so I ask that each guest only pick one book per decade from five consecutive decades – a fifty year publication span to choose from. This brings double joy – seeing which five books my guests choose and spotting the clever ways they flex the rules.

This week it is my absolute pleasure to welcome Jane Isaac to Grab This Book. Jane has been wonderfully supportive of my blogging down the years and I was utterly thrilled when she agreed to make her Decades choices. I’ve been looking forward to this week so I shall pass over to Jane and stop waffling on…

Jane Isaac is the author of standalone crime novels and three critically acclaimed detective series. Her books have topped the Amazon best-seller charts, been nominated as best mystery in the ‘eFestival of Words Best of the Independent eBook awards’, selected as ‘Thriller of the Month’ by E-thriller.com, and have been translated into several languages including Italian, German, Swedish and Chinese.

One Fatal Secret, her next domestic thriller and twelfth novel, is scheduled for publication in June 2022.

Jane lives in rural Northamptonshire, UK with her husband, a real-life working detective, and her two Labradors, Bollo and Digity. When she is not writing she can be found reading, trudging over the fields with her dogs, travelling, or spending time with her family.

www.janeisaac.co.uk

DECADES

It’s such an honour to be asked to contribute to Decades on the brilliant Grab This Book blog, not least because I’ve been following it for some time! The utter joy in building a library from scratch feels a bit like being a child in a sweet shop. In reality, the process of narrowing down my favourite reads was quite a daunting prospect because there were so many to choose from! So, I haven’t necessarily picked my absolute favourite reads, but all the books I selected have left a lasting impression on me.

Papillon by Henri Charriere – First published in English in 1970

This auto-biographical tale from bank robber, Henri Charriere, nicknamed Papillon, is prison-escape thriller, and an emotional rollercoaster of a ride. Sent to prison for a murder he didn’t commit, he reflects on the decisions he made that shaped his life, and the penal colony where he is kept is a marked reminder of the best and the worst of humanity.

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill – 1983

This gothic ghost story gave me all the creeps when I first read it in the 1990s, so much so that I couldn’t have it in the bedroom when I slept! When young solicitor, Arthur Kipps, is sent to settle the estate of the late Mrs. Alice Drablow, a reclusive widow who lived alone in the desolate Eel Marsh House, he faces the horror of nightmares. Tense, atmospheric and dark, I wouldn’t recommend reading it last thing at night.

Wild Swans by Jung Chang – 1991

I’ve always been fascinated by the Far East and this incredible book is a window into Chinese twentieth century history told through the eyes of three generations of women from the same family. Powerful, moving, and at times harrowing, ultimately the bravery of the women and their endurance shines through.

Tokyo by Mo Hayder (later re-titled The Devil of Nanking) – 2004

The late Mo Hayder possessed the most amazing ability to create evocative characters that pulled you in from the first page, and her stories tackled sometimes difficult issues that stayed with you long after you closed the book. For me, Tokyo was one of her best examples of this. Alone in Tokyo, Grey Hutchins finds herself searching for a piece of film taken during the infamous Nanking massacre of 1937. What follows is a tense, high-octane story where Hutchins faces resistance in her search and struggles to come to terms with the horrors of past events.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens – 2018

This story of Kya, abandoned at a young age and forced to raise herself in the Carolina Marshes, took me through all the emotions! Her ability to focus, connect with nature and keep faith in herself, despite what was thrown at her, showed real strength of character; particularly when the police charged her with murder and she was placed on trial, fighting for her life. A beautiful, and ultimately uplifting book in so many ways.

I have fond memories of Wild Swans releasing back in 1991 when I was working in a bookshop. It’s a real doorstep of a book, absolutely huge, and I remember lugging dozens and dozens of copies of it filling the gaps in the shelves as it flew out the door. Good times! It brings back so many happy memories seeing it again and I am delighted to add it to the Decades Library. The Woman in Black creeped the hell out of me but I’ll make room for that too!!!

Huge thanks to Jane for finding time to make these terrific selections and take on the Decades Challenge.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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April 25

Dark Objects – Simon Toyne

‘Count to three,’ her mother told her, the last words she would ever speak.

An Impossible Crime Scene
A wealthy woman is found brutally murdered in the locked fortress of her London mansion. Surrounding her are four mysterious objects, including a book on forensics by Dr Laughton Rees.

An Inescapable Past
As a teenager, Laughton’s life was destroyed after witnessing her mother’s brutal murder. Now a mother herself and forensic analyst, she is an expert on how to read crime scenes – but never works live cases.

An Uncatchable Killer
Pressured by the lead detective to help with the investigation, Laughton begins to realise that the objects left by the body are not just about the victim, they’re also about her. Her childhood was destroyed by one killer. Now she must catch another before her daughter’s is destroyed too.

I recieved a review copy from the publishers through Netgalley

If a book is really good, a nailed-on five star score and a title I know I am going to be recommending for months to come then I tend to change my normal review style and open with an announcement along the lines of “This is a book you do not want to miss”.

Well folks – Dark Objects by Simon Toyne is all of the above. From the opening chapter to the wholly unexpected conclusion I was gripped, engrossed, entertained and all the other positive adjectives a reader experiences when a thriller is ticking all the right boxes. I bloody loved it and I did not want it to end.

Now I have to try to explain why Dark Objects was so damn gripping. I’m not sure I can do it justice.

Events begin in a large, secluded home in London. The cleaner, Celia Barnes, is arriving at work and as she opens the door to the house of Mr and Mrs Miller she has no idea it will be for the last time. Watching her is a killer who knows Celia will never again deactivate the security system to the Miller house and knows what will happen to her once she gets inside.

It’s a grim opening but it perfectly sets the pace and tone for the rest of the book. A murder has to be investigated, the principle suspect is nowhere to be found and police will be confounded in their attempts to investigate the crime scene. Why will they be confounded? It is thanks to one key piece of evidence which was left at the scene for them to find – a book written by Dr Laughton Rees. And more than that I cannot say here.

Laughton is approached by the police to assist with the investigation. But due to events in her past (which are covered in the blurb) she is reluctant to become involved. Laughton does not work live cases and restricts her forensic analysis to old investigations. But whether she likes it or not, Laughton is going to become a key figure in this particular murder.

The reader is guided through the story by following events where Laughton is involved but we get more than just her POV. We see the investigation with Tannahill Khan, the reporting of the story from less than pleasant journalist Brian Slade (who gets regular scoops on the murder investigation which will keep the police on their toes) and we even drop in on a neighbourhood WhatsApp group who will have their own take on events. There’s plenty to take on and the switching between the key characters keeps everything bubbling along very nicely.

Laughton is juggling the involvement in the murder investigation with a pressing need to find a new school for her daughter. As a single mother Laughton is determined to give her daughter Grace the best opportunities. However, Grace appears to be isolated in class and the school do not seem to be addressing Laughton’s concerns about bullying. This worry is further compounded by the rising knife crime in the capital – a theme which is revisited more than once through the story. Laughton wants Grace in a private school where she feels she will be safer and, hopefully, less isolated. Having Laughton, Tannahill and Brian Slade’s personal lifes opened up and explored as part of the story helped make all the characters more relatable, realistic and it gives readers that insight as to why the key players act as they do.

I am skirting around lots of the bits of Dark Objects which I would really like to discuss in a review; but to dwell on the bits of this book which sang to me would mean disclosing too many spoilers and we don’t do spoilers here. Suffice to say Simon Toyne has woven the clues into his story and I missed them all. I gaped at certain reveals and could not turn those pages fast enough as I reached the end of the story when all the clever story layers started to come together.

In short, Dark Objects is a fantastic murder thriller. We get the police investigation, the analyitical investigation of the crime scenes and the media spinning the story to meet their own agenda. I was hooked from the first pages and all other books were set aside until I reached the last pages – it commanded my full attention. Do not miss Dark Objects!

Dark Objects is published by Harper Collins on 7 July and you can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/dark-objects/simon-toyne/9780007551675

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April 22

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with David F. Ross

Welcome back to Decades. I am on a mission to compile the Ultimate Library, my Decades Library, which only offers readers a choice of the very best books.

I started this mission back in January 2021 when I asked myself the question: If you were to open a new library and had zero books available, which books should be added to the shelves? I knew I would not be able to answer the question alone so each week I am joined by a guest and I ask them to nominate five new books which I should add to the library shelves.

There are only two rules governing the choices my guests make:

1 – Choose ANY Five Books
2 – You May Only Choose One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades

This week it is my pleasure to welcome David F Ross back to Grab This Book. One of the first book-launch events I attended after I started blogging was for David’s debut The Last Days of Disco. I love that David writes characters that sound like the people I am surrounded by each day and his books always hit the mark.

David kindly agreed to take on my Decades challenge after I put him on the spot when I bumped into him one morning as I was out walking my dog. His selections are tremendous so I may need to start using the pooch and a lack of coffee more often when I invite people to take part in Decades! Over to David…

David F. Ross was born in Glasgow in 1964. His debut novel, The Last Days of Disco, was shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, and received exceptional critical acclaim, as did the other two books in the Ayrshire-based Disco Days Trilogy – The Rise & Fall of the Miraculous Vespas and The Man Who Loved Islands. He is a regular contributor to Nutmeg Magazine, and in 2020 he wrote the screenplay for the film Miraculous, based on his own novel.

There’s Only One Danny Garvey is his fifth book. It was shortlisted for Scottish Fiction Book of the Year, 2021. His sixth novel will be published by Orenda Books in December 2022.

Decades

It’s an intriguing idea to select five books from consecutive decades to ‘represent’ me in the ultimate library. If this is a type of literary mixtape, should there be a natural flow to the selection? Should they reflect my ever-changing moods? Will they infer that I’m too narrow-minded? Will my stereotypical choices rule me out of future hypothetical dinner party invitations? Will anyone else ultimately give a fuck?

I may be over-thinking this task.

I didn’t read a lot as a child. Mine wasn’t a family background that encouraged reading. I do not recall there being books in our house and perhaps as a result, I was always occupied by other things: music and football, mainly. These selections are from a period of life where my latent interest in literature developed. From when I forced myself to make time to read because I understood my appreciation of the world around me could be enhanced by more than LPs by The Jam and Morrissey’s lyrics.

These choices are stereotypical. All male writers. All white. I am making up for the narrowness of focus they might imply now that I am a writer myself, but I chose these books because they are the ones that inspired me to write. The ones that persuaded me that I could have something to say that was worth writing about. The capacity to inspire others to create is a very powerful motivation for any artistic endeavour. And despite their flaws and blemishes, you can never forget your first love(s), right?

The 1950s – Billy Liar, by Keith Waterhouse (1959)

Billy Liar paints a monochromatic picture of a country still struggling to come to terms with the end of Empirical power in the wake of two devastating wars. (The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?) Everyone in Billy Fisher’s world is trapped by these circumstances, apart from Liz, the beatnik girl played by Julie Christie in the film adaptation. She represents freedom; an escape from a life of pram-pushing drudgery or factory conditioning. The writing is ahead of it’s time in tackling mental health issues in young men. This book’s influence on The Last Days of Disco is perhaps inevitable given how much of an impact it had on me.

The 1960s – The Blinder, by Barry Hines (1966)

Another typically northern story of a young footballer, Lennie Hawk, whom many supporters considered him to be the reincarnation of a flawed genius from his club’s past. The Blinder was the first book I can remember loving. It’s less well known than A Kestral For A Knave and I’m perhaps the only person in the world who thinks it’s better. I’m still slightly ashamed to admit that I stole this book from a small, local library during an ill-thought out mid-70s break-in. Although, since I still have the stolen copy, and it continues to inspire me now, hopefully the local Council can forgive me.

There’s Only One Danny Garvey owes a massive debt to this brilliant book.

The 1970s – The World According To Garp, by John Irving (1978)

I stumbled on this book almost by accident. A fellow passenger left it on a London train and told me I could have it when I alerted her. Garp is a comic novel full of idiosyncratic characters; the successful writer Garp, his accidental feminist icon mother, a former football player turned transgender activist, and a supporting cast of assassins and suburban seductresses and cult members and unicycling bears and fortune tellers. The book’s scope is vast, and it directly influenced the chaotic, diverse world I imagined in The Rise & Fall of the Miraculous Vespas. It’s an angry novel although that underlying rage is brilliantly obscured by the wit and humour of the writing. That’s a difficult balance to strike. The World According to Garp is still hugely relevant. Sexual intolerance is still all around us.

The 1980s – The New York Trilogy, by Paul Auster (1987)

“The story is not in the words; it’s in the struggle.”

I have this as an epigram for my next book which is due to be published later this year. The New York Trilogy is like the city itself; complex, multi-layered, and full of contradictions. For me, it represents a way of telling a story that doesn’t offer easy answers but simply asks more questions. I like the idea of the reader having to make sense of a book, and ultimately of what its intertextuality means to them alone. I found out late last year that Paul Auster and I share a close mutual friendship. His writing – particularly around serendipitous meetings and coincidental occurrences – has influenced all of my books, so it was a real thrill for me that he read Welcome To The Heady Heights.

The 1990s – Trainspotting, by Irvine Welsh (1993)

I think Irvine Welsh – and Trainspotting especially – has changed the way the Scottish literary voice is appreciated around the world. Trainspotting is something of a Year Zero for Scottish authors from a working-class background. It has blazed a trail for so many brilliant books. In recent years, Shuggie Bain and The Young Team share its DNA. There is so much energy and life and – paradoxically – hope bursting out from the pages that it’s impossible not to get caught up in the exuberance of the writing, and the authenticity of the characters, despite the misery (for the most part) of their situations.

Trainspotting isn’t a period piece, or a point-in-time consequence of the social chaos visited on Scotland by the Thatcher Government. It’s the story of the world we all live in today.

Huge thanks once again to David. I have already ordered a copy of The New York Trilogy and this feature continues to take over my TBR!

DECADES WILL RETURN

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April 10

Hide – Kiersten White

The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don’t get caught.

The prize: enough money to change everything.

Even though everyone is desperate to win – to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts – Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she’s an expert at that.

It’s the reason she’s alive, and her family isn’t.

But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive.

Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

I recieved a review copy through Netgalley

Hide was a great wee read which appealed to the horror fan within me. It centres on Mack, survivor of an extremely traumatic incident has a young child and now firmly of no fixed abode. She survives day to day in a shelter where she has a bed, gets fed and then will be turned out into the streets to fend for herself each day until the shelter opens again and she returns for another night’s sleep. By day Mack hides away in a secret spot where she will be off the streets and out of danger.

At the shelter on the day we join the story Mack is presented with an opportunity to turn her ability to vanish into a money making opportunity. A reality game show – spend a week hiding in a 7 day game of hide and seek against 13 other competitors with a $50k prize to the winner. She really can’t refuse and finds herself pulled along by events and on a long journey heading towards the park where the competition will take place.

The action takes place within an abandoned amusement park. It’s a wild and long-forgotten site where the paths inside twist and turn. The foliage within has taken over and the rides are sprinkled within the mazelike paths which no planner was able to carefully map out for the guests who once attended to enjoy the attractions. The quirk of the amusement park back in the day was that guests would stumble upon the rides, there was no direct lines of sight from one area to the next and only one day per year were the gates flung open for all the local to enjoy the thrills within. Now it will host a competitive game of hide and seek.

Kiersten White introduces the contestants and any viewer of reality TV shows will recognise the quirky characters, the wise heads, the glamour ones and we will pick our favourites. Amusingly the contestants know how these games work too and we see them judging and assessing the competition and even picking out possible romantic partners.

Into the tournament and things start to take a dark turn. Who are the seekers? Are they using animals to assist their hunt? Why is this park so difficult to navigate? Is that blood?

As their numbers start to dwindle (two players eliminated each day) it becomes clear to Mack and her fellow contestants that something is very wrong with the game they are playing but will it be too late for them to raise alarm? You cannot help but be drawn into the thrill and tension of this story and there is much more going on with this game of hide and seek than you will anticpate.

I had a lot of fun with Hide. Some small frustrations, not least the author’s decision to get a bit poetic with language when something unpleasant is happening on the page. I had to re-read one or two passages to try to work out exactly what had happened. But the niggles were far outweighed by the enjoyment at an unexpected series of twists and turns. After a run of so-so reads this shook things up nicely.

Hide is published on 24 May and will be available in Hardback, Digital and Audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09FDYPNK9/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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April 8

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Jamie Mollart

Happy New Year! For all the financial services workers in the UK this week marks the start of a brand new tax year (2022/23 as it turns out). So I thought I’d acknowledge it on the blog for a wee change.

But you’re not here for tax chat, you’re here for the books. Specifically you’re here to see which five books Jamie Mollart has selected when he took on my Decades Challenge.

Quick recap before I hand over to Jamie: Last year I set myself the challenge of filling the shelves of a brand new library with nothing but the very best books represented. I knew I could not take on this epic task alone so each week I invite a guest to select five of their favourite books which they feel should be represented in my new library. When making their selections there are just two rules my guests must follow:

1 – Select ANY five Books
2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades.

Sounds easy? I am assured it takes a while to settle on five and there are rumours of cursing and heartache as favourites don’t fall within the five consecutive decades rule.

This week it is my abolute pleasure to welcome Jamie Mollart to Grab This Book. Jamie’s latest novel, Kings of the Dead World is my #currentlyreading book and has been commuting with me on my train trips back into the office now that I am not exclusively working from home. It is making the trip to work much more manageable.

Over to Jamie…

I’ve written two novels and am about to send my third to my agent. The Zoo was published in 2015 to some pretty good reviews and press. I was made an Amazon Rising Star for that year and spent 2015/16 at some cool literary festivals. My second novel, Kings of a Dead World came out in 2021, was an Amazon bestseller, has a Waterstones edition with very beautiful sprayed green edges and was longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association best novel award.

I am a member of the Climate Fiction Writers League (https://climate-fiction.org/), Nottingham Writers Studio (https://www.nottinghamwritersstudio.co.uk/) , I’m a mentor for Writing East Midlands (https://writingeastmidlands.co.uk/for-writers/mentoring/), I have contributed to the Writers and Artists Yearbook (https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/advice/lessons-i-learned-writing-my-second-novel), and the Bookseller (https://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/cli-fi-time-1262857) and I’m a long standing guest on the webs oldest and most influential writing podcast, Litopia (https://litopia.com/)

If you want to find out more about me the best places are one twitter (@jamiemollart) or on my youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsYzJh4RrSdYkM3e0o2WFOg)

If you want to get a copy of Kings of a Dead World with its lovely green edges you can do so here (https://www.waterstones.com/book/kings-of-a-dead-world/jamie-mollart/9781914518027) there’s also a hardback and audiobook version available here (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kings-Dead-World-Jamie-Mollart/dp/1913207455)

DECADES

1970-1979 – JG Ballard – Crash (1973)

I could have chosen any one of several JG Ballard books from the 70’s because they’re all excellent – The Atrocity Exhibition, Concrete Island, or High Rise – but for me Crash is the one which is the best realised. The fact that it was filmed by one of my all-time favourite directors, David Cronenberg, is the icing on the cake. Ballard is all about high concept and Crash is no exception. He always seemed to be able to predict the future in a way which most authors don’t, and Crash is no exception to this. It also demonstrates Ballard’s ability to compress massive concepts into razor sharp narratives.

The narrator, James Ballard, is involved in a car crash which kills the other driver, and when he begins a relationship with the dead man’s wife the boundaries between the mechanical and the erotic become blurred.

When he meets Robert Vaughan, and is drawn into his sphere of influence, Ballard in turn becomes involved in a group who recreate the fatal car crashes of famous people for sexual pleasure.

The book was controversial at the time of release – ‘This author is beyond psychiatric help. Do Not Publish’ – and still has the power to shock, but in our increasingly Petro-chemical/celebrity obsessed world it seems even more important than when it was written. Not for the feint hearted, but for me essential reading.

1980-1989 – Peter Carey – Oscar and Lucinda (1988)

The Booker winner from 1988 is, in my opinion, the most perfect novel ever written. Populated with rich, flawed, and complex characters, this Victorian epic is weird, daring, romantic and challenging all at the same time. It also contains one of the most bravura set pieces I’ve ever read, which I can’t tell you about here because it’s a massive spoiler, but somehow Carey manages to make one act represent the entirety of not only the lead characters relationship, but the whole narrative. Annoyingly the book’s Wikipedia entry manages to blurt it out, so if you intend to read it don’t visit Wikipedia.

Oscar Hopkins is an Anglican Priest, Lucinda Leplastrier is an heiress to a glass factory, they are both gamblers, and when the meet on a ship they both find the other fascinating. It’s a love story that’s more about friendship than passion, while still managing to be incurably romantic. It’s about religion and fanaticism of all kinds, it’s about technology and the allure of it, it’s about how our childhoods affect us and so much more.

Carey loves a misfit character, and both Oscar and Lucinda fall into that category, but they are so lucidly drawn that I struggle not to think of them as real people. It’s one of the few books that I’ve read multiple times, it’s just not something I normally do, but Oscar and Lucinda calls to me regularly and I can’t help but return to it.

Peter Carey is one of the few writers who can turn his hand to anything and succeed every single time. He’s won the Booker twice and been shortlisted for it 5 times, no mean feat, and utterly deserved. Angela Carter also described Oscar and Lucinda as ‘novel of extraordinary richness, complexity and strength’, so if you don’t believe me, you should definitely believe her.

1990- 1999 Bret Easton-Ellis – American Psycho (1991)

The ultimate dissection of 80’s excess and yuppie culture, American Psycho was banned on release in many places, and gained notoriety because of its aestheticized violence. What was largely missed at the time is that the book is clearly a satire and is actually laugh out loud funny in many places.

Patrick Bateman is a slick, vacuous banker on the Wall Street of the eighties. He’s obsessed with his hair, clothes, fancy restaurants, his sculpted body and making sure his business card is whiter and crisper than his colleagues. Oh, and at night he likes to murder people in increasingly depraved and meticulously described ways, whilst extoling the virtues of albums by people like Huey Lewis and The News and Whiteny Houston. As Bateman’s murder spree escalates and his grip on reality becomes more tenuous it becomes more unclear whether what we’re witnessing is actually happening or whether Bateman’s fractured mind is in fact making him the most unreliable of narrators.

American Psycho is probably the most caustic and damning attack on consumerism ever written, unrelenting in its horror show depiction of the American Dream, it is both difficult to read and impossible to put down. On a sentence level Easton-Ellis is second to none (apart from maybe Zadie Smith, who I really wanted to include on this list too), and the whole book reads as a macabre satirical masterpiece.

2000-2009 China Mieville – Perdido Street Station (2000)

What. A. Book. This. Is.

I put off reading it for a while because of the sheer size of it, but oh my days is it worth it. China Mieville is one of the cleverest, imaginative, and downright weird writers out there. Every single one of his books reaches for the sky, most of the succeed, but this one absolutely smashes through it.

It’s 1000 pages of steam punk craziness set in the world of Bas-Lag (which he revisits in The Scar and Iron Council), where magic is real and considered a science, and New Crobozon is a sleazy, sexy, corrupt city full of weird and wonderful species such as the Falcon like Garudas, and the Khepri, who have human bodies and insects as heads.

Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is a scientist who is approached by one of the Garuda, who has had his wings removed as punishment, to craft a new pair of wings to enable him to fly again. Isaac sends his team out into New Crobozon to bring back as many species with the ability to fly as possible so he can learn the secret of flight. Unknowingly he is brought back a caterpillar which will end up turning into something nasty enough to endanger the whole of the city.

It’s a whole lot more complicated than that and features a massive cast in a wonderfully vivid city. It won the Arthur C Clarke award (he’s won it a record 3 times in total) amongst many others and the legendary Michael Moorcock described Mieville as ‘a writer with a rare descriptive gift, an unusually observant eye for physical detail, for the sensuality and beauty of the ordinarily human as well as the thoroughly alien.’

Mieville has written some brilliant books after Perdido Street Station, not least the amazing The City and The City, but this is his masterpiece.

2010- 2020 – Nobody Told Me – Hollie McNish (2016)

Hollie McNish is so forthright and honest and open and fearless as a writer that she ought to be compulsory reading. Her view of the world is hilarious and disarmingly honest. In this amazing book, which is part diary, part poetry and part essay, she turns her unflinching gaze onto motherhood as she narrates the first year of her daughter’s life.

My wife suffered horrendous post-natal depression with our first daughter, in no small part I believe due to the facile and fake way in which motherhood is portrayed in our modern culture. The awkward, unpleasant bits are whitewashed and hidden from view, and we’re presented with an unrealistic portrayal which is damaging to both mother and child.

Hollie McNish does no whitewashing. With Nobody Told Me she sets out to give an honest, personal, and deeply moving account of what it means to be a new mother, and in doing so goes some way to busting the harmful myths. She covers everything from morning sickness, to what it actually feels like to not sleep properly for months, the first public tantrum, mum guilt, leaky boobs, the changes a woman’s body goes through, but also the amazing gift that is having a child. It’s funny, touching, and profoundly moving.

I love the way Hollie McNish looks at the world and I love the way her words describe it. She’s a rare and genuine talent and should be considered a national treasure.

I have mentioned this before but, for me, the perfect five Decades selections are when I know one or two of the books and have read them before and then there are three books which I don’t know. A blend of new and familiar. Jamie has hit that perfect balance this week and I have already been checking out the books which were new to me.

My thanks to Jamie for finding time to make his selections. Decades continues entirely because of the kindness of my guests who all devote some of their precious time towards sharing the booklove.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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April 4

Shattered Bones (Audiobook) – Kate Bendelow

SOCO Maya Barton is called to a canal where a heavily decomposed male body has been discovered. A bank card belonging to Trevor Dawlish is found in the cadaver’s pocket, and the name matches that of a missing person. All seems straightforward – until Trevor’s wife phones the police to say that Trevor has returned home, leaving Maya and the team wondering who the unknown male is.

When it’s revealed that the male was dead before he entered the water, Maya finds herself with a murder on her hands. But when another body is discovered, the case becomes further complicated. The hope is that facial reconstruction of the first victim will help solve the mystery – but it may lead Maya and her team down an even darker path.

I received a copy of the audiobook from ISIS Audio which allowed me to take part in this audiobook blog tour. My thanks to @DanielleLouis_ for the opportunity to join the Shattered Bones tour.

A body hauled out of the water which is too decomposed to get a clear identification. Who is poor unfortunate? That’s the first challenge which will face SOCO Maya Barton and her colleagues. Once they know who he is they will then have the unenviable task of working out who killed him.

There can be no doubt that the man in the water was murdered then dumped, post-mortem investigation shows he was strangled before entering the water. But cause of death seems to be all Maya and colleagues do know, their mystery man isn’t giving up many clues to his identity.

It could have been so much more simple. The body had a bank card in a pocket of his sodden clothes. Unfortunately the card belonged to Trevor Dawlish and Trevor has gone missing. His wife has seen him just once in the past fortnight when he briefly popped home but the body has been in the water for most, if not all of that two week period so the potential victim becomes a prime suspect. But Trevor is keeping well off the radar, much to the dispair of his wife.

For Maya the complexity of this challenging case is only one of the problems she is facing. Her estranged father is due to be released from prison. He has contacted Maya’s mother to assure her he is a new man and that he poses no threat to Maya or her mother but Maya isn’t convinced. As the story progresses and her father released Maya becomes increasingly concerned her father is lurking and plotting to come after her – is she right?

Shattered Bones was my introduction to Maya Barton but the second story in the series. It works well as a standalone story though and I didn’t feel I wasn’t following any of the plot threads in Shattered Bones because I had missed earlier events. Maya is a fascinating lead character and definitely one I would revisit – the fact she is a SOCO was a welcome change to the usual police procedural too.

I listened to Shattered Bones through an audiobook and, as I have come to expect from ISIS Audio, it was a quality production. The narrator did a fabulous job making Maya and colleagues relatable and engaging. I am a fan of shorter chapters in audiobooks too as it makes it easier to jump in and out of the story and fit in some listening around the school runs and dog walks, Shattered Bones very much ticked this box too.

The story did feel it took a little time to pick up the pace while the characters were introduced and slotted into their respective places. But in terms of a slow burn there came a point when events suddenly ignited and it all kicked off. I was blindsided by where events eventually ended up and was very pleasantly surprised as to how easily I had missed clues. Great fun.

Shattered Bones is available as an audiobook and also in digital and paperback format. You can order a copy here: Shattered Bones (Audio Download): Kate Bendelow, Annabelle Indge, Isis Publishing Ltd: Amazon.co.uk: Audible Books & Originals

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April 1

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with David Monteath

The second quarter of 2022 is upon us. As this latest Decades selection goes live it will be April and Decades will be in its sixteenth month of guests. I am grateful to each and every contributor and to you for returning, week on week, to see the latest books which are being added to my Decades Library.

The Decades Library I hear you ask? I am compiling a list of the very best books which my guests think would deserve a place in the Ulitmate Library. I started this project in January 2021 with zero books and each week I ask a guest to nominate five new books which they would want to see included in a collection of the finest writing.

When making their selections my guests are asked to follow two rules.

1 – Choose Any Five Books
2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades.

This week I am delighted to be joined my someone who reads my books for me. Or is that to me? David Monteath (@joxvox) will be a familiar voice to many audiobook fans and I am always fascinated to know which books stand out to someone who spends most of his waking hours focused entirely on the written word.

One of Scotland’s most popular voiceovers, David Monteath was born in Glasgow and started acting while at high school, he trained as an actor at Webber Douglas in London and has been an actor and voiceover for 25 years.

David’s early life was split between homes on the outskirts of Glasgow and the beautiful Spey Valley in the Highlands of Scotland. He also lived in central Perthshire near the popular tourist destination of Pitlochry with its world-famous Festival Theatre.

While training at the prestigious Webber Douglas Academy in London, David met his future wife Lindsay. They have three children and all five of them have worked as voiceovers for clients across Europe, Asia, North America and the Middle East.

David has put his voice to good use over the years and has vast experience of most aspects of being a voiceover from advertising for television and radio, ADR and dubbing on film and television, language tapes for learners of English, telephony and on-hold messages, character animation through to narration, commentary and audiobooks.

He has also produced and co-presented a weekly request show on Stoke Mandeville Hospital Radio

DECADES

Most of my choices are made from books I have read for work, one of the downside of being an audiobook narrator is that I rarely have time now to read for pleasure, so in many ways my reading choices are dictated by my clients. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, this work has introduced me to many writers I would never have found otherwise.

The High Girders – John Prebble – 1956

This is an absolute classic and the first John Prebble I have read. It follows the story of the building of the Tay Railway bridge and its eventual collapse on 28^th December 1879. The story follows in detail the events of the night, and wherever the blame is felt to lie for the errors which caused the disaster and 75 deaths, Prebble’s book is a fascinating account of a terrible night and a compassionate recounting of so many very human losses.

The Game of Kings (The Lymond Chronicles) Dorothy Dunnett – 1961

Ok, there is a tale behind this one…where else would tails be?…I was recording a quiet story of a country doctor when the producer asked if I would be interested in narrating another book for him, ‘it’s a bit longer than this one’ he said. ‘Of course I would.’ Now cut forward a few days and I was sent the pdf, most audiobook narrators work from iPads, it makes it much quieter as you don’t hear the dreaded page-turn noises that audio editors hate. Also making notes on character and scene etc are simpler on a screen. So, I opened the pdf and found a place at random a good few pages in. I read a rather lovely scene between our hero Lymond and a very young Mary Queen of Scots, set on an island in the middle of the Lake of Menteith, my area of Scotland…but more importantly where I was married. Of course I was completely drawn in and contacted the producer who said…’Um, this has changed slightly, you might have noticed that the book is a biggie, we think it’ll be around 26 hours when you’ve finished recording. Is that still ok?’. Oh definitely good for me. Then he muttered quietly as the phone was going down…’just one more thing…there are six of them, all pretty much the same length!!’ So, this quiet chat turned into 1.3 million words read, 146 hours of finished audiobooks and over 300 hours recording in my tiny studio during the very hot summer of 2018…it was HUGE…and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

I’m not going to try to precis the book or the series, if you’ve read or listened to them you know why…if you haven’t, the please, please do, you absolutely wont regret it. They are glorious.

The General Danced at Dawn – George MacDonald Fraser – 1970

IN the early 1990s, when I was on tour with the Oscar Wilde play ‘A Woman of No Importance’, I shared dressing rooms around the country with an actor called Stuart Hutchison, who was also a regular face on Westward Television in the Plymouth area. Stuart and I spent hours talking about books, art, music and pretty much anything but football which we both dislike. He bought me a copy of The General Danced at Dawn as I’d never read the stories and he wanted someone else to be able to laugh at them and love them as much as he did. I’ve been very fortunte in my career to work with some really kind, generous people and that was Stuart.

The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco – 1980

Hmmm, I’m beginning to sense a bit of a history theme in my reading. This book sort of crosses all of my working genres, history (albeit fictional) and crime. It’s a complicated disturbing romp through murders in a 16^th Century monastry in middle Europe, probably modern day Germany. The descriptions of ecclesiastical life and the conflicts in the church at that time are great, although if you saw the film first, I defy you not to hear Sean Connery every time Brother William speaks.

Iain Banks – Complicity – 1993

Right then, back to me again…this is a revenge story, brilliantly written by the always brilliant Iain Banks. Someone once asked me, if given a choice what books would you like to have narrated? Any of the Iain Banks would have been my choice. It’s even more annoying that the reader is a friend and a very good reader.

I worked in a bookshop in the early 1990’s and without exception all these authors were selling in great numbers in Inverness bookshops – I know this as I was selling them. Pure nostalgia for me and I loved these choices.

And not just those choices as David gave me two extras. I have taken an executive decision to move Montrose out of the 1970s and Morningstar out of the 1990s selections. I don’t mind the fact Montrose was originally written in the 1920s but it would mean dropping George MacDonald Fraser so rather than flex the rules I opted for the clear cut entry. I am being hard on David Gemmell by moving him to the subs bench but only one book per decade is the rule so I flipped a coin!

But I don’t hide the alternates so here are David’s thoughts:

Montrose – John Buchan – 1979 (from 1928)?

This might be a bit of a cheeky one as the book was originally published in 1928, but reissued in 1979. This was another audiobook project, but one far closer to my heart. My clan are the Graham from Stirlingshire and this book tells the story of the first James Graham, 1^st Duke of Montrose. My father was passionately interested in Scottish history, so this exploration of a turbulent time in Scotland was a particular favourite of his.

Morningstar – David Gemmell – 1992

OK, yes, actually I just like a good historical epic, this one was a thumping good read, glorious descriptions and a suitably complicated fantasy world. Its beautifully written and a great adventure.

A country in desperate need of heroes . . .

Angostin invaders surge through the Highlands, laying waste to everything in their path. Darkness follows in their wake as a mad necromancer resurrects the eons-dead Vampyre Kings.

Only the bandit Jarek Mace, and the magicker and bard Owen Odell, have the courage to fight the Angostins and the undead. Whispers soon spread that Mace is the legendary Morningstar, a saviour who will protect his country in its hour of need. Yet Mace seems nothing more than a thief and a liar.

As the final battle approaches, Odell wonders which of the two Maces will triumph: the self-serving rogue or the saviour of his people, the Morningstar.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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