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Books
New books reviewed by Simon Ounsworth,
Matt Chittock and Stephen Drennan
Book
of the month
Stargazy Pie
by Laura Lockington
arrow, £6.99 pbk
| A
deftly plotted narrative of immense charm, not in
the simpering, Shirley Temple sense of the word, but
as in enchantment. As in, works like a charm. As in,
forget your self-help books, if you want to soothe
a breaking heart or weary spirits, turn to this delicious
romance, wander enchanted in its pages, and emerge
refreshed from the last chapter. |
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Stargazy
Pie offers laughs, insight and tear-splashed moments in
turn. Last year the Hove-based author's first novel Capers
In The Sauce confirmed her comic abilities. Her second
offering is an assured tale with a bright gleam in its
thoroughbred flanks. Stargazy Pie is the story of mousy
shop assistant Poppy Hazleton, who receives an invitation
from her generous, gay boss Davey Stanton to spend Christmas
with his family in Cornwall. Their crumbling pile, the
gargoyle-bedecked Abbey, is as much a character as any
of the people in the book. And what people they are. Poppy
undergoes a transformation, and finds herself in the riotous
company of Davey's eccentric family, his sexy brother,
bluff dad, arty mum and complexed sister - all under the
misrule of their glorious housekeeper Odessa, and the
unerring sixth sense with which she is blessed. Laura
Lockington has found a happy hunting ground for her fiction
in a Cornish setting whose dialect and way of life provide
a salty counterpoint to the mad machinations of the Stanton
family. She has created an enchanting fictional world,
a thoroughly enjoyable escape. Utterly ravishing. PM
Fabulous
Brighton -
An Anthology of Short Stories
by Various Authors
Shrew Press £4.99 pbk
| Twelve
local writers come together charged with the task
of setting a short story here in Brighton, but unconstrained
by any other rules - least of all those which govern
our everyday reality. Indeed, flights of fancy, time
and dimension slips, and mystical creatures loom large
in each of these fantastical Brightons, where local
geography and landmarks are only a way-point to something
more outlandish. |
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It's
a task which some rise to with more aplomb and originality
than others, but none of these writers will let you down
with the poor prose or shoddy grammar that you might associate
with anthologies of local work. MT
Pushkin
- A Biography
by T J Binyon
Harper Collins £30 hbk (but shop around)
| Not
exactly cheap - but if you find yourself weighed down
with tokens come January and in the market for an
enormous literary biography, this is undoubtedly the
one to go for. Binyon's meticulous scholarship and
flawlessly clear prose do long-overdue justice to
the short, turbulent life of the man who is to Russian
poetry what Shakespeare is to English drama. |
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But
even to his legions of non-readers, Pushkin's will read
as a fascinating life lived in a fascinating era. Its
final chapter, meanwhile, serves as a reminder that when
it comes to sorting out marital problems, duelling has
little to recommend it over Relate. Especially if your
opponent's going to cheat. SO
See
The World
ed. Jim Heimann
Taschen pbk £5
| A
multitude of post-WW2 graphics, gleaned from air,
road, rail and sea-travel brochures. Conjuring up
an era when globe-traversing was still headily exciting,
the top-notch illustrations show idyllic scenes -
this is advertising, after all. Skies eternally blue,
palm trees luscious green, big white hotels, luxurious
Greyhounds and airplanes - and scarcely a black face
in sight. |
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It's
a very particular, superficially seductive side of Forties/Fifties
America - moneyed, clean, safe - but it's only a fragment
of the overall picture. No prizes for context for this
purely pictorial book, then, but the excellent artwork'll
make you stick a pin in that big map and GOGOGO. SD
Gullhanger
by Mike Ward
Mainstream, £9.99 pbk
| Wrong
side of forty bloke tries to recapture irrational
passion of youth by jumping on local football bandwagon.
Writes diary of surprisingly successful season - missing
no opportunity to remind readers of how pathetic his
motivations are. As USPs go, I suppose self-accusatory
shamelessness is a new twist - but fairweather Seagull
Mike Ward doesn't really pull this off. |
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Working
as a TV columnist for the Daily Star really hasn't done
anything for his prose style, and Gullhanger's relentless,
self-deprecatory jokiness does rather come to grate. As
escapism for Albion fans struggling to come to terms with
a disastrous season, however, the book has a probably
unique appeal. SO
copyright The Insight 2002
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