July 25

Decades: Compiling The Ultimate Library with Helen FitzGerald

My Decades Library grows. Each week I am joined by a booklover (authors, pubishers, bloggers or journalists) and I ask them to nominate five new books which they think should be included in my Ultimate Library. I started this challenge back in January 2021 and since then over 70 guest curators have joined me and selected some of their favourite reads which they feel the very best library should have available for readers to enjoy.

My guests don’t quite get to choose their five “favourite” books as I impose a couple of rules on their selections which means some books just don’t get to be included – I am told this can cause a bit of heartache and I do sometimes feel bad about this.

The reason I describe my Library as the Decades Library is beacuse of the rules governing selections:

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

So it’s selections from a fifty year publication span and means the fans of Tom Clancy can’t just pick all the Jack Ryan books – I initially hoped these rules would bring a broader range of reads to choose from and this seems to have been the case.  Incidentally – in 18 months of Decades selections I haven’t had a single Tom Clancy book nominated.

Today I am delighted to be joined by Helen FitzGerald. Helen’s latest book, Keep Her Sweet, is published by Orenda Books (who also made five Decades selections). You can order a copy of Keep Her Sweet here:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keep-Her-Sweet-Helen-FitzGerald/dp/1914585100/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1650564375&sr=8-1

 

 

Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of ten adult and young adult thrillers, including The Donor (2011) and The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and adapted for a major BBC drama. Her 2019 dark-comedy thriller Worst Case Scenario was a Book of the Year in the Literary Review, Herald Scotland, Guardian and Daily Telegraph, shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and won the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award. Helen worked as a criminal justice social worker for over fifteen years. She grew up in Victoria, Australia, and now lives in Glasgow with her husband. Follow Helen on Twitter @FitzHelen

 

DECADES

Published 1979 – Flowers in the Attic, V.C Andrews (smuggled this into the house!)

Up in the attic, four secrets are hidden. Four blonde, beautiful, innocent little secrets, struggling to stay alive…

Chris, Cathy, Cory and Carrie have perfect lives – until a tragic accident changes everything. Now they must wait, hidden from view in their grandparents’ attic, as their mother tries to figure out what to do next. But as days turn into weeks and weeks into months, the siblings endure unspeakable horrors and face the terrifying realisation that they might not be let out of the attic after all.

 

Helen shared with me that she read this when she was 13 (which may explain why she smuggled the book into the house). It’s definately a book which resonates with Decades Curators, Susi Holliday also made this choice when she picked her five and also suggested that she read it at an impressionable age.

Twice adapted for film, Flowers in the Attic was the first in a series which saw seven sequels follow over the years.

 

Published 1980 – The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco

The year is 1327.

Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate.

When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the over of night.

A spectacular popular and critical success, The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.

 

Selling over 50 million copies worldwide, no doubt boosted by the film of the same name which starred Sean Connery and Christian Slater, this biblical crime thriller was ranked 14 in Le Monde’s top 100 books of the century.

 

 

Published 1997 – Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey

 

Peter Carey’s novel of the undeclared love between clergyman Oscar Hopkins and the heiress Lucinda Leplastrier is both a moving and beautiful love story and a historical tour de force set in Victorian times.

Made for each other, the two are gamblers – one obsessive, the other compulsive – incapable of winning at the game of love.

 

Winner of the 1998 Booker Prize the book was also adapted into a film which starred Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett.

 

 

Published 2008 – The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas

At a suburban barbecue one afternoon, a man slaps an unruly boy.

The boy is not his son.

It is a single act of violence, but the slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen.

Christos Tsiolkas presents the impact of this apparently minor domestic incident through the eyes of eight of those who witness it. The result is an unflinching interrogation of the life of the modern family, a deeply thought-provoking novel about boundaries and their limits…

 

The story is told through the voices of eight characters, in third person and each in a chapter of their own. Events after the incident are outlined chronologically through each character’s story.

The Slap won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2009 and has twice been adapted into a mini-series.

 

 

 

Published 2016 –  A Dark Matter (The Skelfs), Doug Johnstone

Three generations of women from the Skelfs family take over the family funeral home and PI businesses in the first book of a taut, gripping page-turning and darkly funny new series.

Meet the Skelfs: well-known Edinburgh family, proprietors of a long-established funeral-home business, and private investigators…

When patriarch Jim dies, it’s left to his wife Dorothy, daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah to take charge of both businesses, kicking off an unexpected series of events. Dorothy discovers mysterious payments to another woman, suggesting that Jim wasn’t the husband she thought he was. Hannah’s best friend Mel has vanished from university, and the simple adultery case that Jenny takes on leads to something stranger and far darker than any of them could have imagined.

As the women struggle to come to terms with their grief, and the demands of the business threaten to overwhelm them, secrets from the past emerge, which change everything…

 

Shotlisted for the 2020 McIlvanney Prize (Scottish Crime Book of the Year) A Dark Matter introduced readers to The Skelfs – a much loved Edinburgh Family who have subsequently appeared in two further novels and will return later this year for a fourth outing in Black Hearts.

 

 

HONORARY MENTION: Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner (1894, watched on TV 1973). I was the second youngest of 13; Mum was step-mum to the older eight children; dad was a strict ex military man; we lived in rural Victoria – so this really hit home. The only time we were ever allowed to miss mass was to watch the final episode when it was adapted for television.
My thanks to Helen for these wonderful selections. I can only include the five official selections in the Library but I do love an honorary mention as it lets me see which books almost made the cut.

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

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July 4

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Anne Coates

I am in awe of bloggers who are able to juggle their reading, their personal lives and still keep their blog ticking over. Sometimes that IS me, recently it has NOT been me. Over the last few weeks my day job has become overwheming and has taken far too much of my time; becoming something of a “whole-day” job. Something had to give and unfortunately that was Decades. My apologies to my guests who have been waiting patiently, also to those who have indicated they would like to join in but I have not yet been in contact with them. And my apologies to everyone who as asked me “where is Decades?”

Today Decades is back.

Since January 2021 I have been inviting guests to join me and I ask them to nominate their five favourite books which they would like to see included in the Ultimate Library. This Ultimate Library is my Decades Library, I started with zero books and wanted to curate a library which contained only the very best reads – the ones booklovers read and want everyone else to enjoy too.

Each guest is asked to follow just two rules when nominating their favourite books to the Decades Library:

1 – You May Select ANY Five Books

2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades. Selections are to be made from any fifty-year publication span.

 

It sounds easy but I am often told that nailing down a final five can lead to some frustrating internal soul searching. And cussing.

Today I am delighted to bring Decades back and introduce the wonderful Anne Coates. As Decades is not about me but about my guests I am now taking a step back and leaving you in Anne’s care…

 

It only took one tap dancing class (and some coaching from her mother who had been a dancer) for Anne Coates to realise that she would never be a Ginger Rogers but being a journalist/editor and writing fiction has allowed her to explore all manner of careers and situations with far less embarrassment. Anne has worked as a journalist and editor for newspapers, magazines and publishers and has published seven non-fiction books as well as short stories. Born in Clapham and now living a few miles away in East Dulwich, Anne’s Hannah Weybridge series, amzn.to/38egdOO published by Red Dog press, is set in 1990s London. The first book, ‘Dancers in the Wind’, was inspired by interviews she did for a national newspaper and the latest, ‘Stage Call’ begins and ends in one of the capital’s most iconic theatres, The Old Vic – a favourite with the Coates family.

 

 

 

DECADES

 

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (1865)

 

Alice is the book made unforgettable by my mother reading it to me. I adored listening to her as she brought everything alive with different “voices”. I love the sheer madness of these books and although I never sought out rabbit holes, I have certainly spent time staring into mirrors and hoping to be absorbed into another world! I continued the tradition by reading it to my daughter and quoting passages on the walk to school (she was not impressed).

 

 

 

Middlemarch by George Elliot (1871)

 

What a perfect novel! And how irritated I was with Dorothea when I read this as a teenager. Middlemarch followed me from school to my degree and I still have my battered Penguin edition. It encompasses so much social history especially the status of women, issues about marriage and inheritance, beautifully written and plotted. Much later in life I abridged Middlemarch for a compact edition and nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to cut parts of a favourite tome!

 

 

 

 

The Strange Case of Dr Jekell and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)

 

From an early age I have been fascinated by the occult and the supernatural (in theory not practice!). Although I wasn’t a fan of Treasure Island or Kidnapped, Stevenson’s Jekell and Hyde captured my imagination with a struggle between good and evil in one character with two lives.

 

 

 

 

 

New Grub Street by George Gissing (1891)

 

A book I have reread since university, about writing and authors, their trials and tribulations. Written well over a century ago, Gissing depicts a society in which literature has become a commodity, which could very much sum up the case in publishing now especially in the snobbism associated with literary as opposed to genre fiction. New Grub Street is a “three volume novel” which one of the main characters, Reardon, struggles to write. It was a book, which resonated with me long before I became a published author.

 

 

 

 

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (1901)

 

What’s not to love about Sherlock Holmes stories? Holmes intrigued me and I found his legendary powers of deduction utterly beguiling – the ultimate in detectives. Plus of course there was often the possibility of a supernatural agency at work. Doyle uses a favourite Holmes ruse of being too busy to attend the scene in Dartmoor and sending Dr Watson in his stead. Of course Holmes is there in disguise conducting his own enquiry into the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. Greed as ever was the motivation for the death, which was not the result of a family curse. Perfect reading.

 

 

 

 

My huge thanks to Anne for five wonderful selections. If you knew how much trouble we had behind the scenes to actually get Anne’s book recommendations to my inbox then you would know why I am feeling particularly thrilled to bring these five new Decades books to you today.

To everyone who has enjoyed Decades – thanks for the love and support. To new readers, welcome – I hope you find some new books to love.

I will aim to bring a new Decades post to you every Monday as we go forward. If you feel you have five unmissable books (pubished over five consecutive Decades) then please do get in touch with me @GrabThisBook and together we can hopefully share the booklove and introduce new readers to those titles.

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

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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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March 4

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Paul Gadsby

Welcome to March 2022, we are now in the fifteenth month of the Decades Library. Decades is a feature which I expected to run for five or six posts back in January and February 2021 and then believed it would slip into the background maybe to be revisited for another brief outing later in the year.

What actually happened is that Decades became a weekly feature and over 200 books have been recommended by authors, bloggers, journalists and publishers. People look foward to seeing the latest reading recommendations from my guests each week and if I don’t share a new Decades post on a Friday morning then I get letters (OK I get Twitter DMs but the principle is the same).

I also have to find new ways to introduce the Decades Library each week…how I wish I had standardised my introduction.

The Decades Library is my quest to populate a brand new library from the ground up. I started with zero books and I invite guests to nominate five of their favourite reads to be added to the shelves of the Decades Library.  I only want the best books to be represented, books someone loved and would love other people to enjoy too.

Why the Decades Library?  Well although my guests get to choose five favourite books they can only select one book per decade from five consecutive decades.

This week I am delighted to welcome another indy published author to the Decades Library: Paul Gadsby. I have had a sneaky look at the books Paul has selected and damn they sound good. So it’s enough from me for the moment, let me hand you over to Paul.

 

Paul Gadsby is the author of the crime novels ‘Back Door to Hell’ and ‘Turbulence’, both published by Fahrenheit Press, as well as ‘Chasing the Game’. His short stories have appeared in Mystery Tribune, Rock and a Hard Place magazine, Beat to a Pulp, Close to the Bone, and the ‘Noirville’ anthology. Having spent many years working in London as a sports and trade journalist, he is now a copywriter (when he’s not writing fiction) in his native Northamptonshire, where he lives with his wife and young son. His love of reading started with Michael Hardcastle’s football books for children and Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole series, before discovering a passion for crime and noir novels through the works of Ian Rankin, Ted Lewis, Megan Abbott and James Sallis among many others. You can read more about Paul’s work and his articles on literature at his website, paulgadsbyauthor.co.uk, while he can be found on Twitter @PaulJGadsby

 

 

 

DECADES

 

Ripley Under Ground, by Patricia Highsmith (1970)

I often tend to prefer the first book in a series, but this is a fine example of a stunning follow-up. Highsmith’s collection of Tom Ripley psychological thrillers begins with the spellbinding ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’, and ‘Ripley Under Ground’ is the second instalment, set six years later. The titular anti-hero, now in his thirties, is enjoying an affluent lifestyle in rural France, supported by his heiress wife, Héloïse, and the fortune he furtively acquired from Dickie Greenleaf. Naturally drawn to the shadows and all things clandestine, Ripley is also running an art forgery scheme, playing a key sales role within a consortium that is producing and selling fake paintings lauded as works by the now deceased artist Philip Derwatt. But when Bernard Tufts, a gifted young painter who is fabricating the works and who idolised Derwatt, becomes tormented by guilt, the scheme unravels. Ripley is forced to act fast — and not to mention lethally — in order to save his skin and the elevated social status he’s worked so hard to create for himself. Slotting Ripley into a counterfeiting world where, as a natural imitator and con artist, he thrives so compellingly was a masterstroke by Highsmith as she deftly plots this riveting tale.

 

The Eye of the Beholder, by Marc Behm (1980)

This hardboiled and surreal PI novel, later adapted into a film starring Ewan McGregor and Ashley Judd, is an eclectic and experimental triumph. The protagonist, known only as ‘The Eye’, is a field operative for a corporate private investigation firm in Virginia. His latest assignment is to keep tabs on college graduate Paul Hugo, whose wealthy parents are concerned about a deviant young woman their son is romantically involved with. The Eye, long separated from his daughter who he only sees in sporadic illusions, is mentally unstable and finds himself fixated with the woman. When he watches her calmly kill Paul one evening, The Eye becomes infatuated. He soon discovers that the woman has plenty of aliases and wigs as she criss-crosses the nation getting her hooks into one well-heeled victim after another – sometimes playing the bride for an inheritance payout, sometimes just helping herself to a quick score. The Eye researches her true identity, Joanna Eris, and uncovers a tragic past that explains her emotional detachment to the murders she carries out with such a callous flair. Despite being a slender book, ‘The Eye of the Beholder’ spans 30 years and covers nearly 100 killings. It’s an extraordinary nihilistic descent into hell; brutal yet tender, rapid yet epic, and viciously bleak. Few books have explored themes of manic desire and sociopathic behaviour with such heartbreaking lyricism and relentless intensity.

 

The Hackman Blues, by Ken Bruen (1997)

I love the verve and vengeance which Irish noir novelist Bruen injects into his prose. Creator of the Jack Taylor series, Bruen’s long-nurtured edgy writing style and black humour lends itself particularly well to his standalone books, with ‘The Hackman Blues’ a personal favourite. Brady, a gay, bipolar junkie, is tasked with finding a girl in Brixton but his objective is complicated by a lethal ex-con and an Irish builder obsessed with Hollywood legend Gene Hackman. A powerful, gritty tale laced with urban blues and psychotic yet genuine characters, this is Bruen at his haunted best. Like most of his novels, the intensity rarely dips with his chapters short, his sentences rapid, and his narratives wonderfully original. Also, his habit of defining his protagonists by their cultural tastes — often declared through listing their favourite music, films, books, clothes or cuisine — wins me over every time.

 

 

The Long Suit, by Philip Davison (2003)

Following a chequered recent past, MI5 operative Harry Fielding is brought in from the cold to investigate the mysterious and complex case of a bullet-ridden corpse found on a Long Island golf course. Never one to fit in with the stiff procedures and hierarchical posturing of the British secret service, Harry struggles with the mental imbalance of returning to the cloak-and-dagger world of intelligence work that he hates so much yet performs so well. Keeping his troublemaker apprentice Johnny in check is difficult enough, let alone interpreting the instructions from head office which don’t appear to make the purpose of his job any clearer. Harry must consider if he is being set up, and to what end. Aside from the intriguing story and Davison’s delightfully polished writing style, what sets this book apart is the vivid and touching interplay that takes place in the visits Harry makes to his ailing father, Cecil, now confined to a retirement home as his amnesia worsens. The unsaid becomes mightily powerful in these passages. When I first read this book, having come across it by accident rather than design, I was captivated by its sharp and intelligent prose; the depth and vision of Davison’s writing compares with the likes of Graham Greene, John le Carré and James Sallis. The character of Harry features in some of Davison’s other books, but this for me is his finest work.

 

Dodgers, by Bill Beverly (2016)

This debut novel seemed to come out of nowhere and blew me — and many others — away. With its slick writing, gripping story and well-drawn characters, the convincing world created in this book overpowers you and stays with you long after the final page. We follow the journey of 15-year-old LA ghetto soldier East in what is both a crime caper road trip and a coming-of-age saga. East works for a drug peddling crew, just like pretty much everyone else he knows on the streets of the bleak African-American suburban landscape he has been raised, where the prospect of a violent death is constant. The crew’s boss, Fin, needs a Wisconsin-based witness killed before the guy can testify against his nephew in an upcoming trial. Fin tasks East, his trigger-happy 13-year-old half-brother Ty, and two other young crew members – the overweight Walter and the cocky Michael – with travelling across America to carry out the hit. Things don’t go to plan. The four of them have to improvise under pressure as things fall apart amidst a backdrop of the Midwest heartland rusting to a slow death. The van is vandalised and spray-painted with a racial slur. The mission flips. East and Michael have a vicious punch-up, and the group splits in stages. These impoverished characters don’t have many choices at their disposal, if any. The plot is taut and tense; there is no need for coincidences or twists. The observations Beverly draws are insightful and relevant, while the images he paints in your mind feel startlingly real.

 

 

And there we go, five books which sound amazing and I have only read one of them this week (Dodgers, don’t you know?).  Thanks to Paul for taking the time to make his choices, it is always very much appreciated when someone takes on the Curator’s Hat for the Decades Library and I know people look forward to finding new books each week.

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

 

 

Category: From The Bookshelf | Comments Off on Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Paul Gadsby
January 28

Decades – Compiling the Ultimate Library with Anne Cater

Time for another trip to the Decades Library. As you may know by now; each week I invite a booklover to join me and aid my ongoing quest to assemble the Ulitmate Library. It all began with the question: If you had to assemble the best collection of books for a new library but had exactly zero books to put on the shelves, which books would you choose?

Every week a guest Library Curator is asked to add some of their favourite books to the shelves of the Decades Library.

Why do I call it a Decades Library? Well there are just two rules governing the selection of books they can make:

1 – Nominate ANY five books
2 – You may only select one book per decade from five consecutive decades.

 

This week I am delighted to welcome one of my best blogging pals to Grab This Book. Anne Cater will be a familiar name for many in the bookish world and will likely need no introduction…but I asked her to write one anyway…

Fifty-something, living in rural Lincolnshire, surrounded by books, a husband and a cat.

I’ve been blogging at Random Things Through My Letterbox for around eleven years.

I review ‘commercial women’s fiction’ for the Express, and my reviews are usually featured in their S Magazine on a Sunday.

I’ve been a judge for the Crime Writer’s Association Dagger Awards – International Dagger (translated fiction) for the past three years, and was a judge for the British Book Awards (Pageturners category) in 2021.

As well as reading and writing about books, I organise Blog Tours on the behalf of publishers and directly for authors. I now do this full time after a long career in the NHS and the voluntary sector.

I have presented training sessions for Road Scholar in the US, for students at Lincoln University and spoken at the Conference for Self Published Authors.

When I am not reading, I am eating, or planning my next holiday.

Twitter @annecater

https://randomthingsthroughmyletterbox.blogspot.com/

 

DECADES

A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor-Bradford (1979)

I don’t really remember moving up from children’s fiction to adult fiction. I don’t remember Young Adult fiction being around when I was in my teens. I seemed to be reading The Famous Five one day and then, all of a sudden, I was in the middle of sweeping sagas and bonkbusters!

I still have my original paperback copies of The Woman of Substance trilogy of books. They are battered and torn and so well-loved. Recent interviews have shown me that I probably wouldn’t actually get along with this author as a person, but by God she can write a story!

The rags-to-riches story of Emma Hart is one that myself, my Mum and my Nana all read and all loved. Set in the North and featuring a strong willed woman, determined to succeed at all costs. Unlucky in love and betrayed many times, Emma was my ultimate heroine.

 

 

The Handmaid’s Tale by Maragaret Atwood (1985)

I was nineteen years old and my reading diet comprised bonkbusters, crime fiction and lots of romance. I spotted the cover of this one as I browsed in the Library on my lunch break and thought I’d give it a go.
This was so far out of my comfort zone and took me ages to read. I think I had to renew my loan at least twice. However, I was totally compelled and utterly horrified by the story. It’s not easy to read, the style is complex and the themes are emotionally draining.

I have never ever forgotten it and recently re-read it. It is still a masterpiece, but it felt like a totally different book, reading it with my years of experience, instead of a fairly innocent young girl.

Our greatest living author. No doubt.

 

 

Lady Boss by Jackie Collins (1990)

This is the third book in the Lucky Santangelo series, the sequel to ‘Chances’ and ‘Lucky’, and only just sneaks into the 90s.  However, I have to include Jackie ‘The Boss’ Collins.

Most women of my age will have devoured these books too. Lucky Santangelo is a ball-breaker business woman, on her fourth marriage by the time Lady Boss is out.

What a woman!  For a young woman who lived in a tiny village in the middle of England, this was totally and utterly eye-opening ….. and eye-watering in parts.
The glamour, the fashion, the parties, the sex!
Truly magnificent.

 

 

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (2007)

By this time, my choice of reading had expanded dramatically. I was reading more literary fiction, more fiction set in other countries and I was learning more.

I’d read Hossieni’s first novel, The Kite Runner and had been blown away by it. I was desperate to get my hands on this one.

What is so very special about this book is that Hosseini tells the story from a female viewpoint. Maybe this would be frowned upon today, I don’t know, but what I do know is that it is heartfelt and beautifully done. I was very ignorant of what was happening in Afghanistan then, I knew little about the Taliban or how women were treated.

There’s a scene in this story that still haunts me, all these years later. I see the news this year and I think of Mariam; the lead character, and it chills me. Hauntingly beautiful and just as relevant today as it was then.

 

 

Breakers by Doug Johnstone (2016)

I had read Doug Johnstone before I read this one. I’d always enjoyed his books, but Breakers, for me, took his writing to another level.

It is probably one of the hardest hitting, contemporary stories that I’ve ever read. At its heart, it is a crime novel, but it is also an expressive and insightful story about modern family life. With a mixture of humour, violence and community spirit, it is a book that totally encapsulates what it is to be different and how hard it is to overcome the constraints of your natural environment.

Beautifully and perfectly crafted.

 

 

 

When I started my blog back in 2014 I don’t think I ever envisaged a time when Barbara Taylor Bradford would appear on these pages. But in the context of a library of the best books out there then it is absolutely right BTB appears – I sold barrowloads of her books back when I was a baby-faced bookseller.  My thanks to Anne for finding time away from her spreadsheets to make her Decades choices.

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

 

Category: From The Bookshelf | Comments Off on Decades – Compiling the Ultimate Library with Anne Cater
January 21

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Reshma Ruia

On 20 January 2021 the very first Decades selections were shared here at Grab This Book. I would like to welcome everyone to the Decades Year Two – I can hardly believe it. My heartfelt thanks to all the readers and contributors who have made this weekly reading temptation such a joy to be part of.

A very quick recap. The Decades Library is intended to be a collection of the very best books which a reader may wish to browse. Every week a new guest curator joins me and they add new books to the shelves of the Decades Library. When making their selections I ask they follow two simple rules:

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

Taking us into year two is Reshma Ruia who kindly volunteered to take on challenge of selecting five favourite books and didn’t grumble about my rules being too difficult or randomly flex the rules….Hello to certain Year One curators – you know who you are!

 

Reshma Ruia is an award winning author and poet. The Sunday Times described her first novel, Something Black in the Lentil Soup, as ‘a gem of straight-faced comedy.’ Her second novel manuscript, A Mouthful of Silence, was shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize. It will be published as Still Lives in June 2022. Still Lives is a novel about betrayal, belonging and love and is set in Manchester.

Her short stories and poems have appeared in British and International anthologies and magazines and commissioned for BBC Radio 4. Her poetry collection, A Dinner Party in the Home Counties, won the 2019 Debut Word Masala Award. A poem from the collection, Mrs Basu leaves town, will feature in the Edexcel A Level syllabus. Her short story collection, Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness came out in October 2021. The collection has received praise from Colm Toibin, Irenson Okojie and Catherine Menon among others.

Reshma has a PhD and Masters in Creative Writing from Manchester University (Distinction) as well as a Bachelor, and Masters’ Degree with Distinction from the London School of Economics. She is the co-founder of The Whole Kahani-a writers’ collective of British South Asian writers, fiction editor of Jaggery magazine and book reviewer for Words of Colour. Born in India, brought up in Italy and now living in England, her writing explores the preoccupations of those who possess a multiple sense of belonging.

Website: www.reshmaruia.com

Twitter: @RESHMARUIA

Her books are available on her website, on Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles and Daunt bookshops. Better still, you can order them directly from the publisher.

A Dinner Party in the Home Counties can be ordered on https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dinner-Party-Home-Counties/dp/0956084060/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2E2Y2LM695OBU&keywords=A+Dinner+party+in+the+Home+Counties&qid=1641667365&sprefix=a+dinner+party+in+the+home+counties%2Caps%2C78&sr=8-

Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness can be ordered from:   http://dahlia-books.kong365.com/en-gb/collections/our-books/products/mrs-pinto-drives-to-happiness

Still Lives will be out in June 2022. It can be pre-ordered on: https://renardpress.com/books/still-lives/

 

DECADES

 

I was born in a small town in India on the border with Nepal called Motihari; incidentally, George Orwell’s birthplace. I spent my early years in Bihar, then Delhi and moved to Rome, Italy when I was eleven. I have lived, studied and worked in London, Paris and now Manchester. My book choices reflect my peripatetic and multicultural upbringing.

 

1950s: Mrs Bridge, the debut novel by American author Evan S. Connell, published in 1959. The novel, set between the two world wars is a searing exploration of suburban domesticity and marriage. Written in pared back language with brief chapters that seem like contemporary vignettes, Connell explores the prejudices and strait-laced morals of a middle class Kentucky housewife. Mrs Bridge’s failure to connect with her husband or her children, and her private anguish at not fulfilling her potential are described without judgement. Ten years later Connell published Mr. Bridge (1969), which relates the same story from the point of view of the husband.

“some people go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all it may contain..’’

― Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge

 

 

 

1960s: Stoner, written by another American writer, John Williams, sank into relative obscurity before being re-discovered some years back. The novel is set in a small campus town where Stoner, the eponymous main protagonist of the novel, overcomes his rural, impoverished roots to carve an academic career in a mid-league University. Stoner is quietly dignified in the pursuit of his love of literature and rises above the petty squabbling and rivalries of his colleagues. He marries badly, is estranged from his daughter, experiences love briefly in an extra marital affair and dies, unrecognised and yet his life feels like a Greek tragedy.  It is a deeply melancholic novel.

“You must remember what you are and what you have chosen to become, and the significance of what you are doing. There are wars and defeats and victories of the human race that are not military and that are not recorded in the annals of history.’’

_ John Williams, Stoner

 

1970s: One Hundred Years of Solitude published in English in 1970. Written by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, it is a multi-generational novel about the Buendía family whose trials and tribulations echo the turbulent history of Latin America. The book is set in the mythical town of Macondo. Over the course of a century, Macondo is the scene of natural catastrophes, civil wars, and magical events; it is ultimately destroyed after the last Buendía is born with a pig’s tail, as prophesied by a manuscript that generations of Buendías tried to decipher. The book is an exciting blend of political satire with magic realism, fantasy and comic interludes.

“…time was not passing…it was turning in a circle…”

― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

 

 

1980S: Midnight’s Children written by Salman Rushdie and published in 1981. The book is an allegorical novel set in post-colonial India centring on the inextricably linked fates of those who were born in 1947 within the first hour of independence from Great Britain. Saleem Sinai, the central protagonist, is a character with many unusual powers, especially a psychic connection to all the other children born as he was, at the very moment of modern India’s birth. Saleem’s life is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirror the course of modern India. The novel experiments with the English language, using Indian idioms and vernacular and combining socio-political critique of India with flashes of absurdist magic realism. It went on to win the Booker Prize in 1981 and the Booker of the Booker subsequently.

“I learned: the first lesson of my life: nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time.”

― Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children

 

 

1990s: Interpreter of Maladies is a collection of nine short stories by the Indian/America author of Jhumpa Lahiri published in 1999. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, these short stories explore the diasporic life of the Indian immigrant in America as they negotiate ways to assimilate and belong without letting go of the past. Lahiri writes eloquently about the immigrant experience and about the divide between cultures, examining both the difficulties and joys of assimilation. The title story describes an unlikely rapport between an Indian tour guide and an American born Indian woman who is visiting India as a tourist. Each story is a sensitive exploration of loneliness, isolation and loss, set during the Seventies and Eighties- a period when India and Indians were still regarded as ‘exotic’ by mainstream America.

 

“Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have travelled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. ‘’

― Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies

 

I love the sound of Mrs Bridge, particularly in light of the author returning to the story to revisit from a second viewpoint. I’d like to thank Reshma for these brilliant recommendations – discovering new authors, not previously on my radar, has been one of my favourite parts of the Decades Library.

The prospect of someone discovering new books to love keeps this feature running week after week. Before I even publish this post I have achieved my goal – I have made a purchase this morning.

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

 

 

 

Category: Decades | Comments Off on Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Reshma Ruia
October 23

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Steph Mullin and Nicole Mabry

A first for Decades this week as I am going to need two Curator Hats.

Each week I invite a guest to join me in my ongoing quest to add books to my Decades Library. In January 2021 I asked myself the question: If you were to fill the shelves of a brand new library but had no books, which books should you add to make sure the very best publications were represented?

Now that was far too difficult a question to answer alone so I am enlisting the assistance of booklovers (authors, publishers, journalists and bloggers) and I ask them which five books they would put into my library. However, I added an extra rule – my guests may only select one book per decade and they must select their five books from five consecutive decades. So they have any fifty year publication span to select from. Apparently this makes it harder to choose than it may sound!

Earlier this year I read a wonderful serial killer thriller: The Family Tree – it is the first novel co-authored by Steph Mullin and Nicole Mabry. The book reminded me of a discussion I had been having with my wife around DNA testing and the unforeseen outcomes which may arise from trying to trace your ancestry. In The Family Tree the protagonist (Liz) discovers she may be related to a serial killer.  For clarity, I am not related to a serial killer (to my knowledge). My discussion with my wife was around charities who are helping people to cope with the trauma some people can experience when they learn their family are not their blood family.

The Family Tree was one of my favourite reads this year and as it was recently released into paperback I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to ask Nicole or Steph if they fancied taking on the Decades challenge. To my delight they were both keen to make their selections so, for the first time, I have co-authors to welcome to Grab This Book and we have ten new titles to add to the Library.

 

Steph Mullin and Nicole Mabry met as co-workers in New York City in 2012, discovering a shared passion for writing and true crime. After Steph relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina in 2018, they continued to collaborate creatively. Separated by five states, they spend countless hours scheming via FaceTime and editing each other’s typos in real time on live Google Docs. Steph’s dream of becoming a writer started at age six, followed by winning scholastic writing awards and crafting articles for her university literary magazine. She currently works as Creative Director for a Media, Entertainment and Digital Marketing Solutions company. Nicole works in television as Senior Manager of Post Production in the photography department. She is the author of Past This Point (2019), an award-winning apocalyptic women’s fiction novel. Past This Point was chosen as Best Book of the Year by Indies Today and won first place in the Global Thriller division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards. The Family Tree is the writing duo’s first co-authored crime novel.

 

 

DECADES

 

My co-author and I are 18 years apart in age, so we loved the idea of doing a list like this separately, knowing our different generations would surely affect our lists.  

 

NICOLE MABRY 

I started my list in the 60’s, the decade before I was born, because it was responsible for some of the most incredible literary works of our time.  

 1960s: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (1969) 

I was introduced to this autobiography in my college African American History class in 1997 and could not put it down. I read it start to finish in one sitting and those hours brought a range of emotions. It impacted me on so many levels, not just because of the important racial subject matter that I wasn’t fully aware of before this class, but also as a woman and a writer. Angelou’s writing is so beautifully elegant and lyrical that it makes the tough subject matter so much more compelling. I cried multiple times and then undoubtably sighed at the exquisite words Angelou put down on the page. I remember sitting in my dingy college apartment on my unmade bed after reading the last page and just staring off into space, my head filled with Angelou’s life and words. My only regret is that I didn’t read this book sooner. It is a book that has stayed with me over the years and the first I recommend. 

 

 

 

1970s: Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks {as Anonymous} (1971) 

I was raised by a busy, full time working mom who was brilliant at finding ways to impart parental wisdom without actually having difficult conversations. For example, instead of exasperatingly telling me for the 100th time not to wander off in stores, she had me watch the made-for-tv movie Adam, the true story of Adam Walsh’s kidnapping from a shopping center. And it worked. I never left her side at stores again. When I entered my teens, even though she never needed to worry about me taking drugs as I didn’t even drink at parties, my mom gave me the book, Go Ask Alice. The book is in diary entry form and is written by an anonymous fifteen-year-old girl who falls headfirst into drug addiction. I was glued to the page, flipping them rapidly as I devoured a first-hand account of a drug fueled journey of a girl my own age–the good and the bad. To my naïve teenage self, it felt real, as though I was doing drugs alongside her, experiencing the highs and the lows that come with such a life. As I followed her through her addiction and into a more hopeful future, the epilogue delivered a gut punch that left me sitting stunned in my bedroom, anxiously looking for another chapter. Needless to say, it scared the bejeezus out of me and did the superfluous job my mother had hoped it would. But to this day, the final words of this book still haunt me.  

 

1980’s: Misery by Stephen King (1987) 

 

I’m a horror movie lover so King is one of my go-to authors. But Misery is without a doubt my favorite of his. I had watched the movie before I read the book and was certain the book could not be better. James Caan and Kathy Bates gave such incredible, unforgettable performances, I couldn’t fathom that King could top that. I was so wrong. King’s writing in this book is so visceral and each character’s reactions are so perfectly laid out that Caan and Bates had a very detailed map of what to do at each step. And even though I knew what happened, I was glued to every page. Now when I watch the movie, I can see King’s words in my head like a script for the movie. 

 

 

1990’s: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (1999) 

 

A friend recommended this book to me and when I first got it, I looked at the slim volume skeptically. How could such a small book fully tell the story of an awkward teen navigating life and learning who he is? But within a few pages I was hooked and fully immersed in Charlie’s world. The concept and formatting were unique and drew me in. Once I got to the poem that’s deep into the book, I cried openly. I read that poem about ten times before moving on. The book is perfect, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it. I still read it once a year.   

 

 

2000s: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (2006) 

During the 2000’s I really dug into the thriller/suspense/mystery genre that eventually led me to choose the same genre for my own writing. But I didn’t know about this book until everyone was raving about Gone Girl years later. While I liked Gone Girl, I decided to search out more by Flynn and found Sharp Objects. This has to be my favorite debut from any thriller author. Flynn created such a devious and emotional plot, and to top that off with a deliciously flawed main character just sweetened the pot. Full of twists and turns, complex, well-developed characters and an ending that will leave you gasping, this was an easy pick for the 2000s. 

 

 

 

STEPH MULLIN

1970s: The Shining by Stephen King (1977) 

The Shining was my first Stephen King novel and really showed me what it was like to be a master of suspense. I didn’t read this book until my teen years, but it played a huge role in influencing the types of books I love to read…and what areas of writing I enjoy the most. Part of what I love so much about this book is the way King is able to turn the atmosphere and setting into a character in itself – the hotel playing such an integral role in the story and the torment of the characters. It so expertly blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, using masterful character development to bring out the horror and mystery woven through the pages. Now, as a writer, developing characters and atmosphere are the two areas I enjoy the most, and as a reader I love to seek out stories that execute them expertly like Stephen King. 

 

 

1980s: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood 

As I was born in 1990, The Handmaid’s Tale was a story I didn’t become familiar with until a bit later in life – however, what’s so brilliant about Atwood’s masterpiece is its uncanny ability to be relatable even decades later. Every woman who reads The Handmaid’s Tale can place themselves into the shoes of these women, feeling the terror at how close society feels at times to turning into Atwood’s world. The Handmaid’s Tale really made me take note of the political policies in today’s society as it relates to women’s rights, and to also realize that this is a timeless concern that we all feel in our bones. I normally read fiction for the entertainment and escapist value in it, but this thought-provoking book is one that sticks with me for entirely different reasons.

 

 

 

1990s: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling (1997) 

 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the first book I have a distinctive memory of reading. I was only seven years old when it came out, and I remember another girl in my elementary school had a copy and leant it to me – and I was hooked. Over the years, I aged alongside the characters as each book came out and it was something that really shaped my childhood years. I remember convincing my parents to take me to midnight book releases, staying up all night at sleepovers with friends reading through the night and refusing to sleep until we finished the book. I owe a lot of my love of reading, and ability to read quickly, to when I picked up that first Harry Potter book in the late 90s. It was the first time I really felt what it was like to escape into another world through fiction. 

 

2000-2010: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (2002) 

 

The Lovely Bones was one of the first books I read growing up that was of “darker” subject matter. It was also the first book I read that was told through a unique format, the narrator being that of the young Susie Salmon, after she was murdered. Susie watches as her loved ones try to solve her murder and figure out how to move on in life without her. I was only a teenager when this book came out, and the haunting and heartbreaking narrative really struck a chord with me, paving the way for me to continue seeking out books that explored crimes and mysteries. That path The Lovely Bones sent me down is what now has manifested into a love for thrillers and true crime, and ultimately, becoming a thriller writer where one of my favorite things to consider – is unique format and storytelling perspectives. 

 

2010-2020: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (2019) 

As an avid thriller reader and writer that takes in a lot of true crime media, it’s very hard to surprise me in a book. I’m constantly playing detective as I read, subconsciously trying to solve the mystery before the author reveals it. The Silent Patient was one of the first books in a long time to actually surprise me in the end. Masterfully crafted so that the twist reveal was unraveled by the story’s format and unreliable characters (that you didn’t even realize at first were unreliable), I delightfully didn’t guess everything Michaelides had up his sleeve and enjoyed every page-turning moment. As both a reader and a writer, this book really made me think about the way we reveal our own inner truths and I hope to one day pull off an ending with such finesse.  

 

 

 

My thanks to Nicole and Steph for the longest Decades span I have shared (while still keeping within the rules).  But we’re not quite done as Nicole added a bonus recommendation which I will also share now. As the publication was in the 1920’s it doesn’t qualify for Library inclusion but as a booklover it is in my blood to pass on a recommended title!

BONUS 1920s: The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner 

When I was 6, I was a very hyperactive child. My single mom didn’t know how to occupy my curious mind. My teacher had given us a vocabulary workbook for homework assignments for the entire year. I misunderstood the instructions because, being hyperactive also meant I rarely paid attention to adults, and I completed the whole workbook in one night. My exasperated teacher didn’t have any other homework for me so she said I should start reading a book a week instead. So, my mom took me to the library and told me I had to pick a book that was over 100 pages. I chose The Boxcar Children and my mom sat me down on the living room floor with a thick dictionary and my chosen book. I had to read at least 20 pages a night and if I didn’t know a word, I had the dictionary to look it up. The story, about four orphaned kids who make a home in an abandoned boxcar, captivated me instantly. This sparked a passion for stories very early on I never looked back. I became a voracious reader and a regular at the local library. 

 

 

The Family Tree is published by Avon and is available in Digital and paperback formats now.  Nicole and Steph have also just revealed the cover of their next thriller – When She Disappeared – which will release next year.

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

 

 

Category: Decades | Comments Off on Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Steph Mullin and Nicole Mabry
October 15

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Ayo Onatade

My Decades challenge began in January. I had been contemplating the joy of entering a new library for the first time and tried to imagine the overwhelming situation a librarian may face if they were asked to fill the shelves of a brand new library.

Starting with zero books, how could you possibly hope to decide which titles you needed to order to make sure the very best books would be available for readers? I knew this was a question that demanded an answer and I knew I couldn’t do it alone.

Each week I invite a booklover to join me and I ask them to nominate five new books to be added to my Ultimate Library. Although they can choose ANY five books I do add a second rule which governs their selections…only one book per decade over five consecutive decades. So my guests can choose five books from a fifty year publication span. Easy!

I don’t want to add much more as I want to hand over to Ayo. During my 8 year life as Grab This Book I have been constantly in awe of Ayo who champions crime writing, books and authors in a way I could only ever dream of matching. It is a huge honour to have Ayo taking part in my Decades challenge and, of course, she has selected five terrific books which I am delighted to add to my Library.

 

Ayo Onatade is a freelance crime fiction critic/commentator and blogger. She has written a number of articles on different aspects of crime fiction and has also given papers on the subject as well. She was a contributor to British Crime Writing: An Encyclopaedia (2008) edited by Barry Forshaw and The American Thriller (Critical Insights) (2014) edited by Gary Hoppenstand. She wrote the chapter on Legal Thrillers. She is co-editor with Len Tyler of the anthology Bodies in the Bookshop (2014). She is a former Chair of the CWA Short Story Dagger and former judge of the Ngaio Marsh Award. She is current Chair of HWA (Historical Writers Association) Debut Crown and a Judge for the Strand Magazine Critics Award. She is an Associate Member and a Committee Member of the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain (CWA).

She has an eclectic taste in crime fiction, which runs the gamut from historical crime fiction to hardboiled and short stories. Her research interests include historical fiction especially crime fiction and crime fiction literary criticism. She can be found blogging at Shotsmag Confidential and Tweets @shotsblog.

DECADES

 

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1930)

Dashiell Hammett stole half my heart with Sam Spade. This is one of two books that changed my reading tastes for ever.  It was originally serialised in Black Mask Magazine and was an instant bestseller on publication.  For me Sam Spade (along with Philip Marlowe) encapsulated what it  was to be a private eye. He (that is Dashiell Hammett) according to Raymond Chandler took murder out of the drawing room and put it back in the gutter where it belonged.  As someone who before reading The Maltese Falcon had been reading Agatha Christie and other Golden Age mystery novels this was a revelation.  Sam Spade was  allegedly no one’s hero but to me he was and in The Maltese Falcon he clearly showed how ruthless he could be.   It is a story of double and triple crosses, femme fatale’s and a statue that was worth committing murder for.

 

 

Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler (1940)

Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe stole the other half of my heart.   Farewell My Lovely is the second book to feature the iconic Philip Marlowe and despite being filled with murder and corruption is essentially a love story.  Farewell My Lovely is a cannibalisation of a number of previous  short stories. Famous for its metaphors and allusions it also in my opinion contains some of the most grotesque characters going. I have always said that reading crime fiction is the best way of opening your mind to social history and social policy and in Farewell My Lovely, Raymond Chandler’s implied social critique can be seen.

Both Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe have often been imitated but never bettered. They are the  archetypal private eyes, more iconic and more enduring than we have at the moment.

 

 

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958)

It depicts pre-colonial life in the southeastern part of Nigeria and the arrival of Europeans during the late 19th century.  The first book of a trilogy by Chinua Achebe it has gone on not only to be a bestseller but also it is a chronicle of African history and indeed a classic study of cross-cultural misunderstanding and the consequences.  Things Fall Apart was described by Wole Soyinka as being “the first novel in English which spoke from the interior of the African character, rather than portraying the African as an exotic, as the white man would see him” and this certainly was the case. For me it was also the first book by an African author that I read that stuck with me and through a historical lesson as well showed how colonialism impacted on Africans and that violence and pride can bring down an individual.  Also that despite Europeans’ claims of bringing “civilization” to Africa, there was already a complex and varied culture on the continent.  I read it over 40 years ago and it is now considered to be a classic. Chinua Achebe writes beautifully and honestly about Nigeria warts and all. There is a reason that this book became an international bestseller and there is a reason why it considered to be one of the most foremost African novels. Once read never forgotten.

 

I know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (1969)

Maya Angelou’s seminal novel was published 4 years after I was born (here’s me showing my age) but despite the fact that this book is over 50 years old it is still a classic. It describes her life from when she was 3 until her becoming a young mother at 16 and is the first of seven autobiographies. All her autobiographies deal with issues that a lot of black people (especially women) are still dealing with today. From identity and rape to racism and literacy and also the way in which women and their lives are seen and dealt with in a male dominated society.

The symbolism in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is very revealing.  Think oppression in all its forms including slavery, race based segregation and the still pervasive and insidious forms of oppression that is still rife in black communities today. Maya Angelou was at the forefront of the launch of African American women writers and her importance cannot be ignored. When you think of Black writers whether male or female Maya Angelou will always be talked about. My only disapoointment is that she is no longer alive to inspire future generations.

 

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carré (1974)

Whether you have read the 1974 John Le Carré spy novel featuring George Smiley or have only seen the brilliant Alec Guinness as Simley in the BBC box set or Gary Oldman playing him in the 2011 film one cannot ignore the importance of the series or the character.  John Le Carré is one of our modern day spy writers and the  nuances in relation to complex social commentary at the time in Tink Tailor Soldier Spy was relevant as it had a lot of relevance in the light of Kim Philby’s deflection.

Why Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy as opposed to any other? The vivid characters and sketches  of secret agents felt so true to life. The realism mad you feel that you were seeing what was going on from the inside. Whilst I was introduced to spy thrillers via Ian Fleming and I will always be a fan of the original Bond books.  It was John Le Carré and specfically his Smiley series that made me appreciate the genre a lot more and seek out other authors. The books that made up the Karla Trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley’s People (1979) are amongst the best spy novels written.   The icy atmosphere of the Cold War is brought brilliantly to life via a cast of memorable and characters who all have their own deep motivations for acts of loyalty, friendship, daring… and betrayal.  It is really exceptional and the writing is superb and engrossing. If you want to read a spy novel without all the glamour then pick up Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

 

I made a conscious effort in my selection not to be solely crime fiction related. Despite what my family think I do read other books. Also some of the crime books that I would have wanted to include were published in the same decade. For example Casino Royale by Ian Fleming which was published in 1953. I had to make a choice. It could have easily have been the case that all five books were crime fiction but looking back on my selections I am pleased that I have included Chinua Achebe and Maya Angelou as they are both books that any self-respecting reader who wants to expand their reading to include black writers should have on their bookshelves. All the books that I have chosen hold important memories for me (aside from the fact that they should be read) and I can honestly say that if I am asked this question again it is likely that my suggestions would change especially if I am looking at a different decade.

I would be very much surprised if some of these have not already been suggested.  If not hurrah! If they have then thank goodness as it clearly means that a lot of the books really do have a significance.

 

Thank you Ayo!  Five exceptional selections and I am once again reminded I really must read Raymond Chandler one day soon.

If you want to visit the Library and see the titles which have been selected by previous guests then this handy wee link will take you there: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/GrabThisBookDecades

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

Category: Decades, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off on Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Ayo Onatade
October 11

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Rachel Amphlett

Rachel Amphlett has a new book out today (11th October) and I am opening the blog tour for The Lost Boy – my review is here.  In addition to reviewing The Lost Boy, Rachel is also on my blog today making her Decades selections. You are probably thinking that this was great planning but, if you knew me, you’d know that was highly improbable.

As as much as I would like to claim it was all planned out, I had asked Rachel if she could become my Decades Curator a few weeks before I was given the opportunity to host a leg of the blog tour for The Lost Boy. I have been a fan of Rachel’s writing for a few years now and was keen to see which titles she would select when faced with my Decades challenge.

If you haven’t encountered Decades before today let me quickly explain what’s about to happen: I am trying to assemble a brand new library of unmissable books. Each week I invite a guest to join me and I ask them to nominate five books which should be added to my Library. However, publication dates are important as my guests can only choose one book per decade and they must select from five consecutive decades – so a fifty year publication span of their choosing.

If you want to see which books have previously been selected here is a handy link: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/GrabThisBookDecades

 

Let me now hand over to Rachel Amphlett to guide you through five exciting new Decades recommendations.

Before turning to writing, USA Today bestselling crime author Rachel Amphlett played guitar in bands, worked as a TV and film extra, dabbled in radio as a presenter and freelance producer for the BBC, and worked in publishing as an editorial assistant.

She now wields a pen instead of a plectrum and writes crime fiction and spy novels, because that’s what she grew up reading. When she was 11 years old, her grandad gave her his copy of The Eagle Has Landed, and she’s been an avid fan of the genre ever since.

Her debut thriller, White Gold was released in July 2011 and features British secret agent Dan Taylor. The series established Rachel as an author to watch and spurned three more novels before Rachel turned her attention to a new character, Detective Kay Hunter.

The Kay Hunter crime thrillers are based in Kent and feature a tight-knit team of detectives. Praised by experts for their attention to detail, the books are also much loved by readers for their page-turning plots and devious twists with comparisons to TV shows NCIS and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

More recently, Rachel created a new crime thriller series based around the central character Mark Turpin, an Oxfordshire-based detective. The first book, None the Wiser, received critical acclaim from Adrian McKinty (The Chain) and Jo Spain (With Our Blessing, The Confession), with the follow-up book, Her Final Hour being praised by the creator of the DCI Banks series, Peter Robinson.

In addition to her detective stories, Rachel also writes the English Assassins series featuring female assassin Eva Delacourt, and a number of standalone crime thrillers, psychological thrillers and conspiracy thrillers.

A keen traveller, Rachel has both Australian and British citizenship.

 

You can find out more about Rachel and her books at www.rachelamphlett.com

Contact details: Email: info@rachelamphlett.com

Website: www.rachelamphlett.com

Twitter: @RachelAmphlett

Instagram: @RachelAmphlett

DECADES

The Eagle Has Landed, Jack Higgins (1976)

 

This is how I discovered “proper” thrillers when I was 11 years old. My grandad had a secondhand copy of it from 1976 and one rainy weekend when I was bored, he took The Eagle Has Landed off the shelf and said “Go and read this – I think you’ll enjoy it”. I’ve re-read it every decade since.

 

 

 

The Talisman, Stephen King and Peter Straub (1984)

 

This is one of my favourite Stephen King books. I think I’m on my fourth or fifth copy now because when I first discovered it, I kept loaning it out to friends saying “read this!” and then never seeing it again. I love Stephen King, and he’s one of the few writers I’ll willingly read even though some of his work is from the horror genre – I just can’t resist speculative fiction.

 

 

 

The Pelican Brief, John Grisham (1992)

 

When this was published, I was playing lead guitar in bands around Oxfordshire so I think I picked it up one Saturday afternoon in Blackwell’s or somewhere like that. I’d already read A Time to Kill and The Firm, but it was The Pelican Brief that resonated with me the most because the characters were so well developed. There’s so much depth to the writing as well so you’re completely immersed within the first couple of pages. It’s a masterclass in getting a hold of a reader and not letting them come up for air. Again, The Pelican Brief is a book I’ll re-read every few years or so.

 

 

 

The Lincoln Lawyer, Michael Connelly (2005)

 

I first discovered Michael Connelly’s writing in my early thirties while living in Australia and quickly devoured everything from the backlist in the space of about three months. It got to the point where I’d read everything in the bookshop I used to go in on my way home from work so they were ordering in copies for me. I wanted to include Angel’s Flight here too but I already have a 90s book, so I’m picking The Lincoln Lawyer because I love how Connelly approached introducing a new character to readers while remaining in Harry Bosch’s world. As with all his books, the scene-setting is so good, I feel like I know LA even though I haven’t been there yet.

 

 

 

I Am Pilgrim, Terry Hayes (2014)

 

I was instantly drawn to this book when it was published based on Hayes’ screenwriting credits, all of them part of my teenage years including Mad Max 2 and 3, Dead Calm, and Hotel Bangkok. It just doesn’t let up from the first page, and is an absolute masterclass in thriller writing. I’ve lost count how many people I’ve recommended this to over the years!

The Talisman is one of the few Stephen King books I have yet to read so I really *must* get around to recitfying that soon. This feature really does make my TBR pile grow each week. But as a booklover I don’t see that as a problem! My thanks to Rachel for five brand new books to add to my Library.

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

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September 17

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Russel D McLean

We are back. Decades time. And boy oh boy, there sure are some great new books about to wing their way to my Decades Library!

But wait – what’s Decades?

At the tail end of 2020 a “real world” incident happened which I should really tell you about one day. That incident got me thinking…if you had a brand new library and were tasked with filling the shelves; which books would you pick?  I knew this was not a question I could answer alone so I decided to ask booklovers to help me.  Each week I am joined by writers, bloggers, journalists and publishers and I ask them to pick five books they want me to add to the Decades Library.

Picking five books is easy and does not result in your guests calling you a swine. So I added a wee twist and made the selection process a bit more of a challenge. My guests are asked to add five books to my library but they may only select one book per decade from five consecutive decades. Imogen Church said it was “easy”, RJ Barker called me a “monster” and Russel D McLean…well Russel told me he had fun but there was a bit of name calling.

I leave you in the capable hands of Russel who wants to take us back to 1946 where his selections commence:

 

DECADES

First up – Gordon, you’re a swine, making me do this! A swine! How can I choose only five books, and one per decade? I mean, my initial list is something like twenty or thirty per decade… how can I narrow it down? How?

At least I know where I’m starting because I think any library worth its salt should have my 1940s choice…

So You Want to Be an Actor by Hugh McDermott, with sketches by Michael Gough (1946)

An odd choice, perhaps, to start my decades; a guide to acting by a Scot who made a decent enough career in movies such as Mrs Minniver, No Orchids for Ms Blandish and the sublime Scottish B-movie, Devil Girl from Mars.

But there’s method in my madness. For Hugh McDermott is my great, great, great (too many greats? Too little? It’s not terribly clear; the McLean family tree is rather overgrown in places) uncle.

I never met him, but upon discovering his filmography, and our family connection, I wanted to know more about him. Especially when I found out about his leading man turn in Devil Girl From Mars. but Uncle Hugh also starred in one of the most controversial movies of its era (controversial for its violence, although the US accents by the all-British cast are… well… controversial in their own way), No Orchids for Ms Blandish (based on the novel by James Hadley Chase)

Hugh’s one and only book, So You Want to be an Actor, is a compact wee hardback volume, full of ever so slightly sarcastic advice for actors of stage and screen… such as this little gem on how to avoid being a ham (after witnessing a particular actor in a play):

The villain on making his entrance… pushed his face through the door, well ahead of his body, and held it there, awaiting a burst of applause that didn’t come. That, my dear Watson, is “Ham” with an of gravy around it.

Naturally, then, given that he also wrote a book, I feel the need to include this in Gordon’s ultimate library (even if it is long out of print, although copies crop up here and there!) finally giving Uncle Hugh his due!

 

Psycho by Robert Bloch (1959)

In of those pieces of received wisdom I never want to check in case its untrue, someone once told me that Alfred Hitchock bought up the entire print of Robert Bloch’s novel when he decided to make a move from it in order that no one would spoil the surprise twists in the plot. Whether its true or not, it sounds like it should be – after all, Hitchock’s film followed the main thrust of the novel pretty closely, but the book goes into far more twisted detail about the way in which Norman Bates’s mind works, and deepens his relationship to “mother”.

It’s a short, sharp, shocker of a novel (my edition is 151 pages long) that is so tightly constructed you’re always in fear that the springs are about to come loose. But they never do. If you know the movie, then the book provides a different viewpoint and a few unexpected variations that you can see would never have made into the movie. And if you don’t know the movie… hooo boy, are you in for a dark, disturbing treat when you check in at the Bates Motel…

 

Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes (1965)

Honestly, I could have chosen almost any one of Chester Himes’s brilliant Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones books (thank goodness they spanned a few decades!) but this is the first one I think I read, and it’s a humdinger of a thriller that starts with $87,000 being stolen from a Back to Africa rally, and ends up with cops, criminals and more chasing after a bale of cotton that may contain the missing money.

Himes is one of my favourite US writers – his serious, earlier novel, If He Hollers, Let Him Go, is a chilling account of racism in the USA, but his crime novels deserve to be talked about in the same breath as Chandler, Hammet, et al – and Cotton Comes to Harlem is one of his paciest and most gripping books. If you haven’t read Himes before, you should start here.

 

 

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick (1977)

Once, during a live event, the magnificent modern author of British Noir, Ray Banks (an author who should be far better known, and whose books deserve to be rediscovered by a huge audience) asked me if I was a Dickhead. After a sharp gasp from the audience, we had to clarify that he was asking if I was a fan of the science fiction author Philip K Dick.

And the answer yes is a massive yes: I am indeed a Dickhead.

A Scanner Darkly is one of Dick’s most personal novels. As his career went on, many of his novels would take and explore aspects of his personal life, including his religious beliefs, and what some might terms as his delusions that he had made contact with a higher power. But 1977’s A Scanner Darkly is personal in a deeply affecting way, talking about the highs and lows of drug use through the medium of a near future thriller. No doubt there are biographical aspects in this story of an undercover cop investigating users and deals of Substance D (D for Death, of course). The cop himself wears a scramble suit when on duty so no one can identify him. Even his superiors don’t know who he is. But his latest target is someone who’s a bit too close to home: himself.

The book is at its best chronicling the everyday life of the protagonist and his group of friends, all of whom are, in one way or another, addicted to or affected by D. The book doesn’t shy away from the seductive allure of drug use either, or the joy of shared experiences, but it doesn’t sugarcoat the tragedies, either. In many ways it’s a better exploration of the drug lifestyle than, say, Trainspotting, because it feels almost too natural in places.

But the SF work here is excellent as well, and the exploration of how it must feel to be investigating yourself is superbly done. Dick was never a master of the science side of science fiction, but his insight into people was second to none, and A Scanner Darkly is his most affecting novel, ending on a sobering reminder of the reality Dick was writing about.

 

Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky (1982)

No library is complete without at least one book by Sara Paretsky. Into the eighties and beyond, a new generation of women crime writers reshaped and reformed the discussion around crime fiction, and Paretsky is one of the first and best of them. Without VI Warshawski, her brilliantly rounded PI, who makes her debut here; employed to find her client’s son’s missing girlfriend.

Of course, things get complicated fast, and VI needs to employ all of her skills to unravel the complex and dangerous investigation. VI is, even early on, a fully formed character, and Paretsky’s pacy writing style, even in her debut, is gripping and confident.

It cannot be underestimated what an impact Paretsky – along with other writers such as Sue Grafton – had on crime novel in the eighties and beyond (her latest VI novel, Dead Land, was released in 2020).

VI was a realistic and convincing step away from the old, two-fisted and very male PI of the past, using the form to explore more complex themes of class, feminism and so much more, while still creating a thrilling mystery that entertains and grips the reader.

While Paretsky’s proceeded to build her craft since this first novel, deepening her characters and their world, this is where it all began, meaning the book absolutely deserves a place in any decent library (and it remains an absolute belter of a read!).

 

Russel D McLean is the author of seven crime novels, one short story collection, and a whole bundle of other uncollected shorts. His first five novels, focussed on a PI working out of the Scottish city of Dundee, are currently being re-released in new digital and print editions, with the final book in the series, Cry Uncle being re-released soon. His latest standalone novel – published by the brilliant Saraband – is Ed’s Dead, which was described by Martina Cole as “a really authentic and remarkable read!”

When not writing novels, Russel works as a freelance development editor for several publishers, and is currently working on projects in other forms that he’s looking forward to talking about when he’s allowed!

In the past, he’s been a bookseller, a freelance book reviewer, a roving events chairperson, and a general miscreant.

Find out more about Russel at www.russeldmcleanbooks.com, or follow him on Twitter @russeldmclean, where he talks about the books he’s reading (#russelreads), the movies he’s loving (#russelwatches), the three cats that allow him and his wife to share their flat, and anything else that falls into his brain.

 

 

This week I am heading to Stirling where I hope to meet some old friends at Bloody Scotland. Despite my shyness I am really looking forward to finally meeting some of my previous Decades guests and thanking them in person for helping to grow my Library. I also hope to meet some future Decades guests – watch this space!

DECADES WILL RETURN

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