Guardian First Books

The shortlist for the Guardian First Book Award includes two titles Goldsboro Books stock. This is our take on them.

The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larson

If these are only the selected works of T. S. Spivet then I am very keen to read the entire collection. This book is a delight.

We follow twelve-year-old, mapping genius, T. S. Spivet across country, from Montana to DC, to claim his place as the adult winner of prestigious museum the Smithsonian's Baird Award. But being twelve, and keeping the journey a secret from his family, at the same time as keeping his age a secret from the Smithsonian, makes this journey an adventure, and a perilous one at that.

The story would be enjoyable if you only had the text in a word document, however, you can not separate this narrative from the beautiful production and illustration of the book. I was totally transported to T. S's world, a world of mapping, loss, adventure and bravery. Through his mature, yet naive, twelve-year-old eyes I became a more considerate reader, absorbing every piece of information even hinted at, studying every diagram, and then getting carried away with the plot so turning back to read any asides I might have missed.

This book was not just a purchase but a gift from me to me. And, just to let you know, you have no idea what a map really is until you read this book!

The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey

This is a truly unique novel. For the first time, that I know of, Samantha Harvey has written a novel from the point of view of an Alzheimer's sufferer. And she pulls it off with incredible skill and style.

As Jake, her protagonist, slowly succumbs to the disease, so his memories fracture and his fact becomes fiction and his memories bleed into each other. But this novel is not a depressing one. It is a life affirming novel.

This wonderful and outstanding novel is one of the most thought-provoking novels of 2009.

November book of the month

A Kurdish boy, Reza, is orphaned at the age of ten after a battle between the Kurds and the Shah of Iran's military forces in the early 1900's. The policy at this time is to conscript the male orphans in to the Shah's army, so Reza trades his old life and becomes Iranian, after witnessing the brutal death of all of this male relatives, including his father who is kicked to death in front of him. Though Reza is the main character, his life unfolds through a series of storytellers, each with their own view point. The Age of Orphans unleashes a tapestry of untold horrors and pleasures, of blood and smoke, hopes and dreams. This is a profoundly moving story of a land sewn together under the ambitious imagining of a nation, and of the life of a boy whose identity does not and can not unite with this vision. This is the first of a trilogy and the debut by a skillful writer.

The CWA Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award 2009

Congratulations to Philip Kerr for winning this years CWA Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award for his novel If The Dead Rise Not.

REVIEW

This sophisticated thriller is set in Berlin 1934, a city on the brink of cataclysmic change, Bernie Gunther is now a house detective at the famous Adlon Hotel having been forced to resign as a homicide detective. The discovery of two bodies - a Jewish boxer and a Jewish businessman - involves Bernie in the lives of two hotel guests. One is a beautiful journalist intent on persuading America to avoid the upcoming 1936 Olympics in Berlin and the other is a German-Jewish gangster who plans to use the Olympics as a way to make money for him and the Chicago mob. Bernie uncovers a vast labour and construction racket designed to take advantage of the huge amounts the Nazi's are willing to spend showcasing the new Germany to the world. The conclusion is found 20 years later in pre-revolution Cuba to where Bernie finds himself twenty years later. Kerr's skill is in the believable detail of both changing countries; Of war and it's aftermath and of a man who is changed and who also stays the same over twenty years. A brilliant novel that deserved the Ellis Peters award.

We've been very clever here at Goldsboro Books and have stocked all 6 of the wonderful novels on the shortlist. And we've been lucky too; they are all signed by the authors.

New Agatha Christie Stories

I am one of the lucky few to have already read two previously unpublished stories by Agatha Christie which will be published for the first time, along with notes and exceptional other material which was lain undiscovered for decades, on the 2nd September this year.

John Curran came across the notebooks after being invited to examine Dame Agatha's papers at Greenway, her holiday retreat in Devon. When the notebooks were found and analysed by him, the draft of an unknown and unpublished Hercule Poirot story emerged. As a lifelong Christie fan, for many years he edited the official Agatha Christie Newsletter and he acted as a consultant to the National Trust during the restoration of Greenway House, Dame Agatha’s Devon home, he said this was 'like dying and going to heaven'.

Curran has painstakingly threaded together the secret handwritten notes. The jottings were scattered with other notes throughout some of 73 exercise copybooks.
Mr Curran's four-year labour of love means that from beyond the grave, one of the nation's best-loved and all time best-selling authors has effectively rekindled the wily Belgian sleuth's career.

Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks is published on the 2nd September by HarperCollins.

Read more about this book at http://www.johncurran.info/

Booker Promotion - Well done him!

Graham Fudger, a book lover, has used his time on Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth to celebrate the longlist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.
Mr Fudger, is one of the 2,400 people chosen to participate in Anthony Gormley's One & Other Project which allows them to stand on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London for one hour.


Mr Fudger said his favourite of the longlisted books was James Lever's Me Cheeta - the purported autobiography of the chimpanzee Cheeta, who gained Hollywood stardom in the Tarzan movies.

Other books on the long-list include The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, Brooklyn by Colm Tobin, Summertime by JM Coetzee and The Children's Book by AS Byatt.

Apparently, Mr Fudger decided how to spend his hour on the plinth after meeting three of the Booker judges. Good for him, I say. Any way to promote books is good in my opinion. I just wish that I had the idea!

The shortlist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be announced on 8 September.
The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced on Tuesday 6 October at London's Guildhall.

And This Is True by Emily Mackie

Hardcover: 320 Pages

Publisher: Sceptre (4 March 2010)

'Everything must start with a BANG' so begins this remarkable and brilliant debut by Emily Mackie. Nevis Gow loves his Dad. No. He is in love with his Dad. Nevis is 15 years old and for the last 11 years he has lived in a van with his dad travelling around the country. Until one day Marshall, his Dad, crashes the van and everything changes. Stranded on a remote Highland farm amid a family overshadowed by grief, Marshall tries to steer them back to normality while Nevis fights to keep things the way they were. Soon, though, he comes to realise that nothing about his lost life in the van was quite as it seemed. Nevis meticulously details his 'true' record of events for the last 11 years living with his Dad, but lines blur between love and obsession, reality and wish-fulfilment, dreams and memory. The plot is raw and shocking, the writing funny, poignant, and strikingly accomplished. This is a debut novel by a young writer of remarkable talent.

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Acts of Violence by Ryan David Jahn

Hardcover: 250 pages
Publisher: Macmillan New Writing (6 Nov 2009)

Order a SIGNED FIRST EDITION



This is one of the best crime novels I have read this year and possibly 2009’s most unnerving literary thriller, based on 1964’s most notorious real-life murder, this is the debut novel from an L. A. Screenwriter, Ryan David Jahn. Katrina Marino is about to become America's most infamous murder victim. This novel is about her, and the story of her murderer. It is also the story of Katrina's neighbours, those who witnessed her murder and did nothing: the terrified Vietnam draftee; the woman who thinks she's killed a child, and her husband who will risk everything for the truth; the former soldier planning suicide and the man who saves him. And others whose lives are touched by the crime: the elderly teacher whose past is catching up with him; the amateur blackmailer who's about to find out just what sort of people he's been threatening; the corrupt cop who believes he is God's 'red right hand'. From the very first page this is a shocking and gripping novel and a cinematic tour-de-force, a terrifying crime novel unlike any other. More please!

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