PREMISE: a novel that follows the interconnected lives of nine individuals, all deeply connected to trees, as they grapple with the destruction of forests and the impact on the environment. The story unfolds through multiple generations, exploring themes of environmental activism, the interconnectedness of living things, and humanity’s relationship with nature.
I would like to refer to my blog Home Page here; there’s a good reason why I’ve got that disclaimer in early about not reviewing books. How does a simpleton like me review a Richard Powers book? To me, his books are half fiction, half non-fiction due to the sheer amount of stuff I learn while reading them. In a way, Richard Powers is the world’s finest writer; he takes hefty subjects and weaves them into stories that are equal parts intelligent and beautifully written. I actually feel grateful that I discovered his books and I still have a few of his back-catalogue to read.
Right, enough of the Powers-noshing. This book is fantastic and you should read it.
PREMISE: In June 2021, a senseless event upends the lives of hundreds of men and women, all passengers on a flight from Paris to New York. Among them: Blake, a respectable family man, though he works as a contract killer; Slimboy, a Nigerian pop star tired of living a lie; Joanna, a formidable lawyer whose flaws have caught up with her; and Victor Miesel, a critically acclaimed yet commercially unsuccessful writer who suddenly becomes a cult hit. All of them believed they had double lives. None imagined just how true that was.
Or: A plane lands once, and then the exact same plane lands again 3 months later.
Yesss. Novels like this are right up my particular alley, tickle my particular sweet spot, caress my metaphorical love handles. I was going to say that I’m amazed nobody has come up with this premise before, but someone probably has. My level of research for this blog doesn’t go that far. I’m just going to assume that it’s never been done until someone tells me otherwise. This book was fascinating and thought-provoking, along with it being a cracking read. Which, for my money, ticks all the boxes.
PREMISE: Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby’s glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis is running an international Ponzi scheme, moving imaginary sums of money through clients’ accounts. When the financial empire collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan’s wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.
I had no idea what this book was about going into it. I read it because I’ve read Station Eleven and Sea Of Tranquility and I adore those books. Like listening to Led Zeppelin II because you’ve previously heard IV and Physical Graffiti.
To keep the musical analogy going, some writers are like Michael Bublé’s vocals; silkily smooth, it all just works effortlessly. And then others are like that guy in the B52’s. ESJM’s writing is Bublé-smooth…SO good…
PREMISE: Who is Yahya Bas? Revolutionary poet, notorious jihadist, misbegotten son, self-styled idiot-boy. When the enigmatic Yahya finds himself languishing in a detention center after fleeing the conflict in Syria, he has many questions to face.
What was he doing in the desert? Why did he betray his home country? What led him to write the incendiary verses that launched him into international infamy? Mister, his interrogator, wants answers. So Yahya resolves to tell his own story, in his own words, and on his own terms.
Wow. This fucker hits home and gets you thinking. The book, that is. Well, the author as well, I guess, as he wrote it but I wasn’t referring to him as a fucker. But fair to say that fucker has written another fantastic book.
PREMISE: Authors Juniper Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena is a literary darling while June is a nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls?, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse, stealing Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.
But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
I’m back on Goodreads for this one as I knew this caused some debate and where there’s debate, there’s bellends. Some colossal twat called Clive Williamstein wrote this elloquent diatribe:
“There are no people in this book. There are only “white people” “Asian people” and “cis-het people”. Because you know how everyone fits neatly into those categories and it tells you everything you need to know about them? When referencing or thinking about another human being, their race is the only real important thing to consider.
I hate the protagonist, and not for the reasons I’m supposed to. We are supposed to accept that this person believes in actual literal ghosts and makes decisions accordingly. Fuck off.
I’ll save you some time… white people are all bad, successful people are all women, dumb people are all men, Asian people are all awesome and hard done by. Feeling slightly guilty about being a piece of shit makes people believe in ghosts and attempt murder. The end”
Now, I’m all for people having their own opinions. As I’ve said in other reviews, all books are either liked or disliked…that’s okay…that’s how it works. But Clive then signed off his review with this beauty:
“Fuck this book and everyone who gave it 2 stars or more”
Which, for me, lends a completely different slant to his review. Whereas he might have come across as being someone who was trying to make a point about race (and this book certainly encourages people to do that), with that last sentence he now just comes across as an old, white, grumpy, argumentative, racist prick.
As for the book itself, I really enjoyed it and absolutely flew through it. It’s an entertaining story and fantastically, addictively well-written and that’s all I’m after from a book.
PREMISE: In the first decades of the 21st century, the world is convulsing, its governments mired in gridlock while a patient but unrelenting ecological crisis looms. America is in upheaval, battered by violent weather and extreme politics. In California in 2013, Tony Pietrus, a scientist studying deposits of undersea methane, receives a death threat. His fate will become bound to a stunning cast of characters—a broken drug addict, a star advertising strategist, a neurodivergent mathematician, a cunning eco-terrorist, an actor turned religious zealot, and a brazen young activist named Kate Morris, who, in the mountains of Wyoming, begins a project that will alter the course of the decades to come.
From the Gulf Coast to Los Angeles, the Midwest to Washington, DC, their intertwined odysseys unfold against a stark backdrop of accelerating chaos as they summon courage, galvanize a nation, fall to their own fear, and find wild hope in the face of staggering odds. As their stories hurtle toward a spectacular climax, each faces a reckoning: what will they sacrifice to salvage humanity’s last chance at a future?
This is probably up there in my top 5 favourite books of all time. Scarily, eerily, worryingly-as-fuck accurate in terms of (a) what’s likely to happen with climate change and the planet and (b) what can happen when people as stupid and as stupidly dangerous as Trump continue to get into power. An absolute must-read.
PREMISE: Constantinople, 1453: An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.
Idaho, 2020: An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?
Unknown, Sometime in the Future: With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.
Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself.
Weirdly (or not…I don’t know) I’ve not read All The Light We Cannot See and went straight to this as I liked the sound of it. Man, Anthony Doerr can write. Got absolutely lost in this and that’s exactly why I read. Fantastic book.
PREMISE: By placing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, Adjei-Brenyah reveals the violence, injustice, and painful absurdities that Black men and women contend with every day in this country.
These stories explore urgent instances of racism and cultural unrest, and the ways we fight for humanity in an unforgiving world. In “The Finkelstein Five,” Adjei-Brenyah reckons with the brutal prejudice of our justice system. In “Zimmer Land,” we see a far-too-easy-to-believe imagining of racism as sport. And “Friday Black” and “How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing” show the horrors of consumerism and the toll it takes on us all.
My second book of 2024, which I picked up after reading the jaw-droppingly great Chain-Gang All Stars. A collection of dark-as-fuck stories which are well worth reading. Top notch.
Portable Wonderland 