thought-provoking

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

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PREMISE: A resident of the fictional Los Angeles suburb of Dickens, the narrating character, Me, a black man with an impoverished upbringing, is hauled before the Supreme Court of the United States for attempting to re-segregate a local school and bring back slavery. What follows is a biting attack on racism in America.

What a premise for a book. Obviously difficult for a white man to pull off, but in the hands of someone as naturally funny and gifted as Paul Beatty, it’s a belter. I would imagine there’s a thousand-odd reviews of this book on the net that use the term ‘biting satire’. In fact, any book blogger worth his salt would research this and find out exactly how many, but I just can’t be arsed. My time would be better spent contacting Mr. Beatty to ask him for another book (this being his last one, published in 2015). In fact, I’m going to do that right now. Although with that said, I don’t seem to have his contact details in my phone. Any book blogger worth his salt would research this and find out how to contact him or his publisher, but I just can’t be arsed. Mr. Beatty…if you’re reading this (??!!!!) please give us another one…

2019 Portland Award winner, don’t you know.

Zero Zero Zero by Roberto Saviano

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PREMISE: In many countries, ‘zero zero’ or double zero flour is the finest, best flour on the market. Among narco-traffickers, then, ‘zero zero zero’ is the nickname for the very purest, highest quality grade of cocaine. From Mexican cartels to Milanese financiers, Guatemalan mercenaries to Ukrainian warlords, Calabrian traffickers to the traders in Wall Street and London who wash the money clean, this is an unforgettable story that goes around the globe and through every level of society to show the extent to which the drug trade affects us all.

Weaving together stories, interviews, wiretaps and his own experience of the criminal underworld, Saviano reveals an international narco-state, which, in the wake of the financial crisis, is now the pillar of our global economy.

I found Roberto Saviano through Mogwai. An Italian journalist taking on organised crime in Italy and the worldwide cocaine trade by way of a Scottish post-rock band. Naturally.

Mogwai, of course, wrote the soundtrack to the TV adaptation of this book, which I watched, loved and then devoured Saviano’s Gomorrah, the book, associated TV series and then this book.

It’s an eye-opening look at how the cocaine trade works and who is involved at each stage of the process before it reaches my dealer.

Just kidding…I wouldn’t touch the stuff but I find the subject fascinating and thanks to ridiculously brave people like Saviano (who has lived under Police protection since 2006!) we get to learn about it and be dumbstruck by every single aspect of cocaine.

The Overstory by Richard Powers

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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.

The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier

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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.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

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PREMISE: Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it.Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it’s only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is.

Man, this one is a lingerer. I’m reading an old Carl Hiaasen novel at the moment (always fantastic) but this baby keeps popping into my head. Another book where you can’t help wondering whether something like it will eventually happen. Let’s hope not. A great read.

Under The Eye Of The Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami

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PREMISE: In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of “Mothers.” Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants. The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings–but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world.

If I was being tortured and my life depended upon me being able to elucidate the type of book I like best, I’d just refer to this one. And hope that that would be sufficient enough explanation for my torturers to then let me go so that I can hunt out more books like this. Intelligent, thought-provoking, ‘man-this-shit-could-actually-happen’ type books. Fantastic.

How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

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PREMISE: Dr. Cliff Miyashiro arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue his recently deceased daughter’s research, only to discover a virus, newly unearthed from melting permafrost. The plague unleashed reshapes life on earth for generations. The story follows a cast of intricately linked characters spanning hundreds of years as humanity endeavours to restore the delicate balance of the world.

On Goodreads, some bellend called Henk writes a review of this book that says something like ‘Great ideas but lacking execution’. Well, fuck off Henk. Sorry, I must have missed your Booker Prize-winning novel. You judgemental twat. Anyway, this is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time with a heart and emotional punch that is pretty breathtaking. Absolutely loved it, which is reflected in the fact that it’s the 2024 Portland Award winner.

Mister, Mister by Guy Gunaratne

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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.

The Deluge by Stephen Markley

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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.

2023 Portland Award winner.

Unruly by David Mitchell

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PREMISE: A rollicking history of England’s earliest kings and queens, a story of narcissists, excessive beheadings, middle-management insurrection, uncivil wars, and more, from award-winning British actor and comedian David Mitchell

Think you know the kings and queens of England? Think again.

In Unruly , David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects’ destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear to us today in their portraits.

Either we let/make David Mitchell write every history book from now or we bring in a law that says that every author has to copy him. This is how history books should be written. Informative whilst being funny as fuck. Loved it.