The Guardian's Blog, page 229
October 16, 2012
Tips, links and suggestions: Our review list and what you are reading
Your space to tell us what you are reading and what you'd like to see covered on the books site, plus our review list
The bright, fresh opening to this week's TLS is thanks to Justine Gordon. She posted her lovely snap to our Flickr group in answer to our persistent – and probably, by now, downright nosy – question: what you are reading today? Judging from Justine's photo, it seems only books with a yellow cover make her reading list this week, which doesn't seem a bad idea to me. If you'd like to add your photo to the group, you can find all you need to know on our group page.
Here's a selection of some of the other books you've been reading recently, and what you thought of them.
Scientists who want to prove the existence of a multiple universe should put Hilary Mantel's imagination under a bell jar and stare at it. Imagine that the same author conceived and wrote Wolf Hall and Fludd! That A Change of Climate and Bring Up the Bodies came from the one mind, the one pen.
Never mind the Booker. It's the Nobel that honours a body of work. In Mantel's case, they can bring up her bodies of work and behold the fact that the styles and concepts are distinct and that each is brilliant in its own right. Add to that her fine journalism and literary criticism and I'm left to wonder if her writers' DNA is fashioned out of string theory strands.
Yay, Aggie! I'm supposed to be concentrating my energies on being a good hostess, but have been compelled to respond to your superb summation of the works of the blessed Hilary. You've encapsulated my thoughts exactly. I hug my signed copy of Greater Safety close to my heart and never let it out of my sight.
If you're thinking of lobbying the Nobel committee, count me in. Now I must tear myself away and tend to my visitor.
War and Peace, I kid you not! My wife just got it from the Auckland city library for me. She's Polish and to the Poles old Boney is a hero. Will keep me out of trouble for a while. My previous book was The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and I have the latest Jo Nesbo Harry Hole on order.
And here's great suggestion from atrixo:
I see the music section has started doing a "soundtrack of my life" feature. Would it be feasible to do a "books that defined my life" series here? A show that I am absolutely daft about when it's on during World Book Night week is the BBC's My Life in Books, presented by Anne Robinson, which is part literature and part psychiatry.
We really like this idea and think we might run it as a series over the Christmas period, but I'll let you know nearer the time. Many thanks for posting.
So now, here's our review list for this week – subject to last-minute changes, of course.
Non-fiction reviews• 1922: The Birth of Modernism, by Kevin Jackson
• Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients, by Ben Goldacre
• Future Perfect: the Case for Progress in a Networked Age, by Steven Johnson
• The Missing Ink: the Lost Art of Handwriting, and Why it Still Matters, by Philip Hensher
• Waging Heavy Peace: a Hippie Dream, by Neil Young
• On the Map, by Simon Garfield
• Leonardo and the Last Supper, by Ross King
• Governing the World: the History of an Idea, by Mark Mazower
• The Small Hours, by Susie Boyt
• May We Be Forgiven, by AM Homes
• Dolly, by Susan Hill
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October 15, 2012
Twitter fiction: your 140 character stories
Ian Rankin and Helen Fielding got your vote in our Twitter fiction special. Then it was your turn to tweet. Here's a wee anthology of your small stories
Last Saturday, Weekend magazine invited 21 authors to try their hand at writing Twitter fiction. As many of our book site regulars will remember, we've experimented with Flash Fiction fiction in the past and discovered that writing a complete story in just 140 characters is no mean feat.
The general consensus on Twitter seems to be that your favourite was Ian Rankin's story of betrayal and brutal revenge:
I opened the door to our flat and you were standing there, cleaver raised. Somehow you'd found out about the photos. My jaw hit the floor
That said, Helen Fielding's piece also got a lot of Twitter support:
OK. Should not have logged on to your email but suggest if going on marriedaffair.com don't use our children's names as password.
This wasn't a competition - we'll not be launching a new prize for brief literature any time soon, but it is interesting to see which stories you enjoyed. Many people mentioned Hemingway's famous short story: Baby Shoes. For sale. Never Worn. And dinosaurio quoted this by Augusto Monterroso:
Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba ahí.
In English: "When he(/she/it) woke up, the dinosaur was still there.
Inspired by the author's Twitter fiction, many of you composed your own stories and shared them via Twitter. We've collected together a few below, but there just wasn't enough room to include them all, so I urge you to read them all by searching for the tag #140novel on Twitter.
It's also not too late for you to add your own tale to the growing library, but please do remember to include the hashtag #140novel to ensure we don't miss your tweet, or post it in the comment thread under the article.
Eric saw flashing lights as he drove through the fog. Next thing he knew, long bony fingers prodding him under bright lights #140Novel
— PARTIALLY COLLIDED® (@McTheMac) October 15, 2012
"You know what Mr Grey?" she said smiling. "I'd rather go home, have a cup of tea and watch Corrie". She lived happily ever after. #140novel
— Victoria Wright (@VictoriaMWright) October 13, 2012
I held the mirror up to her lips. No cloud of breath. She smiled & I realised the oddest thing. Her face was perfectly symmetrical.#140novel
— Moose Allain (@MooseAllain) October 15, 2012
@crickchris :) #140novel She ran away to join the circus. Greasepaint, sawdust and after being wooed by the plate spinner, a daughter.
— Charlie Plunkett (@charlieplunkett) October 15, 2012
Barry's hand gripped the staple gun. He knew it had a full clip. One more word from Doris's mouth about the weather, just one more #140novel
— David Bishop (@broadfordbrewer) October 15, 2012
"Get a life!" you said, slamming the door. I was not sure what you meant. I already had 7 extra lives and was only at level 3. #140novel
— Börkur Sigurbjörn... (@borkurdotnet) October 15, 2012
Short storiesTwitterGuardian readersHannah Freeman#140novel There once was a very decisive ant, not caring about a thing besides the one crumb it has on its back.Poor thing tripped and died
— H (@Hag_Ghamdi) October 15, 2012
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Can journalists write novels?
Some people assume that Will Self's prodigious output as a journalist means his novels can't be any good. But that's faulty reading
This the time of the year when that peculiar character once known as "the common reader" has plenty of fiction to talk about. As well as the Booker shortlist, there's always the announcement of the latest Nobel laureate, who is more often than not a novelist. As I write, literary agents and publishers across the world will be closing deals for the translation of Mo Yan's work from Chinese.
Closer to home, and apropos Booker, a friend of mine, discussing the shortlist, dismissed Will Self with the interesting line that he had never bothered to pay much attention to Self's fiction because "he's really just a journalist".
This comment began to ring alarm bells in my mind, not least because it's the kind of line I've heard myself trot out in the past. There are a number of contemporary journalist-novelists whose fiction seems less interesting to me, if I'm honest, because their journalism is so highly visible in the press.
But will this do? I think not. To cite some obvious examples from the past, Dr Johnson was a brilliant literary journalist, and so was Joseph Addison. Charles Dickens began his career as a parliamentary shorthand reporter. PG Wodehouse was a journalist with the now defunct Globe newspaper until his mid-30s. Graham Greene's first job was as a sub-editor on the Times. George Orwell was reporting for the Observer while writing Animal Farm, and gathering his thoughts for 1984. And so on.
No doubt there are countless other examples I've neglected. In our own time, the writers who have also had good careers as journalists include David Hare, Martin Amis, AN Wilson, John Lanchester – and Will Self, of course. In the USA, Tom Wolfe was a rock-star journalist before he wrote The Bonfire of the Vanities.
Does it make sense to dismiss their fiction because they write for newspapers and magazines ? On reflection, of course not. But there it is: we somehow want our hacks to be hacks, and our storytellers to be… masters of the fiction universe.
What lies behind this prejudice, of course, is the idea that fiction (and poetry) is a higher calling. Journalism is hack writing (it doesn't have to be) and novelists dwell closer to the top of Mount Parnassus (well, occasionally).
In the UK, the overlap between novels and newspapers derives from the local economy. Here, where very few writers can make a living from their creative work, it's common for novelists, and especially poets, to have day jobs. Journalism can sometimes, though not always, fit that need, and help to pay the bills.
Actually, this is now more true than ever, and certainly truer than it was in recent memory. With the end of the long boom (1979-2009) in books and publishing that saw writers being rewarded on a hitherto unprecedented scale, the literary life has reverted to more a traditional modus operandi. The garret is back, at least metaphorically.
If Will Self wins the Booker prize, as he deserves to do, he'll be able to turn his back on journalism. Somehow, I think he'll find it hard to give it up.
FictionWill SelfRobert McCrumguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
October 12, 2012
Reader reviews roundup
The last week of Not the Booker prize voting brought a flurry of reviews for shortlisted titles, while the other Booker prize drove reviewers to tear up the rule book
The approach of the Not the Booker deadline saw a flurry of reviews, including RachaelKerr on Tales from the Mall and mjwri1 on The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder.
But a spirit of subversion has reigned this week, with the approach of the Booker prize – the other Booker prize – putting reviewers in playful mood.
After reading Nicola Barker's Burley Cross Postbox Theft, Donniek was moved to write a "letter of complaint" to the literary director of the Man Booker prize, Ion Trewin. "Unbelievably," he or she writes, "it wasn't even on the long list" for the 2010 award.
Burley Cross Postbox Theft, he continues is "an epistolary novel (which I'm sure you're aware is one that is comprised entirely of letters)" constructed from the correspondence between the residents of the eponymous village. "If that sounds complicated, it is a testament to the quality of Barker's writing that it's both simple and hilarious."
Donniek admits the novel "is not without its flaws", not least the problematic nature of such correspondence, which can feel "a little contrived" in "the modern age". The epistolary novel also brings unavoidable problems in structure:
"As the letters have been sent by individual members of the community, one finds oneself 'tracking back' to remind oneself if the character has been introduced before. More often though here, a joke started in one letter finds the punch line delivered in another – demonstrating the authors mastery of comic timing."
After demonstrating the "complete foul up" made in omitting Burley Cross Postbox Theft from the Booker longlist, Donniek finishes by hoping the judges "make a better fist of it next time".
Any judge still wondering how to avoid botching the selection of this year's winner might want to cast an eye over Simon92's review of Will Self's "Ambitious" Umbrella. Though it may have moved Simon92 to verse, it seems that ambition isn't quite enough:
"It may seem churlish – for I've been asking
These books for heave – but modernism
Happened for a reason then, & isn't
For a reason now"
"Learnt, 'tis too relaxing," he continues, suggesting that while Homer and Gododdin haunted the depths of the early modernist imagination, Self's "popular songs" are "overly neat".
Many thanks to all this week's reviewers. As ever, if we've mentioned your review, drop Claire Armitstead a line and we'll send you a book from our cupboards!
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October 11, 2012
Nobel prize in literature 2012: Mo Yan wins - live blog
The 2012 Nobel prize in literature will be announced today at 1pm CET (that's midday in the UK). Follow the build up and the announcement itself here
Mo Yan's storytelling is as surreal as China
The Nobel prize winner's mix of realism and the uncanny is closely attuned to how life works in his tumultuous nation
"On the third day after Birdman Han was taken away, Third Sister got up off the kang, barefoot, shamelessly tore open her blouse, and went outside, where she jumped into the pomegranate tree, bending the pliant branch into a deep curve … Mother, I want you to make an altar for me [she said]. I am now a Bird Fairy."
So begins the transformation of the key female character in Mo Yan's novel, Big Breasts and Wide Hips. In it Mo documents a whole century of war, hunger and crushing inhumanity through the eyes of a dirt-poor peasant family, alternating between harsh realism and surrealism, much as life under Japanese occupation and Communist rule did.
I first came across Mo's work when researching worker unrest in China. His short story collection, Shifu: You'll Do Anything For a Laugh, contains a brilliant portrayal of the "old" industrial working class of communist China: their privileges and culture and humour familiar to anyone who met the British miners, printers and dockers who suffered the same fate.
At the start of Big Breasts and Wide Hips, the peasants try to bury some corpses in a mass grave. But a flock of crows overwhelms them: so little strength and so few tools do the peasants possess that they cannot even perform the basic human function of burial. Once you've read Mo Yan, you can understand the terrible weight of history and hostile nature that lies across the path of all those attempting social progress in China.
Mo is not the only "magic realist" in modern Chinese literature; but his handling of the slippage between reality and surreality is the most deft, the most painful. He is more like a Chinese Pynchon than a Chinese Marquez – and in the end he is unlike any of the great living authors.
Mo YanNobel prize for literatureAwards and prizesFictionChinese literaturePaul Masonguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Nobel prize in literature: who will win?
How good are you at reading the Swedish Academy runes? Share your Nobel predictions here and shame us for our ignorance
This year's Nobel prize for literature - arguably (in fact, inarguably) the most prestigious literary award in existence, will be announced today at 1pm CET (that's midday in the UK). The announcement will be live-streamed from the Swedish academy, but for those of you who are at work/don't speak Swedish, we'll be live-blogging the announcement here. Meanwhile, though, in the absence of any actual news, let the speculation begin.
Haruki Murakami is favourite according to Ladbrokes at 6/4, but does he have the heft to take the laureateship? Is the academy more – or less – likely to favour Syrian author and perennial Nobel bridesmaid Adonis in light of the ongoing conflict in his country? William Trevor's and Alice Munro's odds have both shortened considerably in the last few days – signs of insider knowledge? Who knows? Not us, for certain: the books desk's track record on spotting Nobel winners is abysmal (so far, we've been right a grand total of never).
So, basically, we're hoping you can do better. Tell us: who's going to win?
Nobel prize for literatureHaruki MurakamiAlice MunroAdonisWilliam TrevorSarah Crownguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
October 10, 2012
Tips, links and suggestions: Our review list and what you are reading
Your space to tell us what you are reading and what you'd like to see covered on the books site, plus our review list
Hello all. I'm back. Thank you Claire for stepping into the breach while I was holiday. Here's a roundup of what you were reading last week and what you thought of your choices:
the royal society's package of their 2012 shortlisted winton prize science books just arrived an hour ago, which means i'll have plenty of excellent science-y books to read & review over the next month!
I've been rereading one of my college favourites, Milan Kundera's Immortality. Funny how, at the time it came out, I was disappointed that it didn't live up to The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but reading it now it has a depth and emotional intensity that feels completely lacking in the latter
David Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress. Remarkably uncommon novel that tells the story of the last woman on earth. Uncommon in that a book built out of such a simple, spare and affectless style manages to bring a character to life so fully that one is disconcerted to be among another's thoughts. And probably the most effective 'philosophical' novel I've come across.
I am just reading like I always do and usually in an indiscriminate way.
However, I would recommend "The Translations of Bones"- Francesca Kay.
Beautiful, lyrical prose-and a story too that makes you think and wonder; contemplate.
I'm rather looking forward to John Williams's Stoner, which is expected to arrive by post in a few hours. Books on my bedside: The Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald; The Professor's House, Willa Cather; Stoner, Saul Bellow.
I hate the feeling when you feel like you're spending time on the wrong book. Lately it's been the opposite, thanks to: 1) Gaddis' Carpenter's Gothic, some of the best dialogue you'll ever find [apart from those other Gaddis' gems] 2) Cosmopolitanism [Appiah doing really incisive...pop moral philosophy...recommended for all as[s]piring Cosmopolitans]
About 50 pages into my reunion with The Sportswriter, I felt smugly happy. Such a wonderful book. Such an intelligent portrayal of the contemporary US and the challenges facing its middle-class Everyman.
About 250 pages into it, I tiptoed up to the shelf and slid it silently back. I did leave a bookmark in, but only to save its blushes in case the other books were watching. There is brilliance, yes. But I became first bored, then exasperated with the emotionally overwrought and overthought nature of supposedly everyday exchanges between Frank Bascombe and his friends, his colleagues, his ex-father-in-law, his everyone.
In the course of a simple telephone conversation or a quick after-work pint, the man articulated his deepest thoughts and emotions at more naked length than most men would at their mother's funeral. And not just in inner monologues or dramatic situations, but in supposedly day-to-day dialogue.
I ceased to believe that this was an insightful portrayal of a real North American everyman. Believing doesn't matter, really, when the writing is good (which it clearly is) and the book has something to say. But I also, fatally, ceased to care.
20 years after I first read The Sportswriter, one of us has clearly changed. Perhaps it's me. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it's the Great American Novel that got small.
Here's our list of some of the books we'll be writing about this week, but do tell us what we have missed and which book is currently holding your attention, or not as the case maybe.
Non-fiction reviews• Country Girl by Edna O'Brien
• Patrick Leigh Fermor by Artemis Cooper
• Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by D Quammen
• The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies and What They Did to Us by David Thomson
• Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream by Neil Young
• The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M Banks
• San Miguel by TC Boyle
• Silent House by Orhan Pamuk
• A Chinese Life by Li Kunwu and Philippe Otie
• The Finno-Ugrian Vampire by Noemi Szecsi
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October 9, 2012
La rentrée litteraire redux
The French books world's demented annual commercial knockout context shows little sign of going away
Much ink was expended, earlier this year, on the subject of parenting in France. For better or worse — usually the former — it was deemed far less "child-centric" than across the Channel. There is, however, at least one area where French kids set the agenda: the agenda (French for "diary") itself.
Although nominally in December, the end of the year really occurs in early summer, when schools break up for a two-month hiatus. By August, Paris feels eerily empty, in a way that London, for instance, never does. At times, it almost looks like the local population has been wiped out by a neutron bomb, leaving hordes of tourists roaming around a ghost town. Most of those who cannot afford to go away are relegated — out of sight, out of mind and out of work — to the infamous banlieues, which, owing to some strange optical illusion, only become visible when they disappear in flames.
By the same token, it is September, and not January, which marks the true beginning of the year; a beginning that spells eternal recurrence rather than renaissance. "La rentrée" — the back-to-school season extended to the entire populace — never fails to remind me of Joey Kowalski, the narrator of Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke, who, despite being 30 years old, is marched off to school as though he had been caught playing truant. "La rentrée" is the bell that signals the end of playtime; the restoration that follows revolution. In an annual re-enactment of the "retour à la normale after the carnival of May 1968, everybody returns to the old "train-train quotidien": the daily grind of "métro, boulot, dodo" (commute, work, bed — an expression derived from a poem by Pierre Béarn). A vague sense that real life is elsewhere (as Rimbaud never quite put it) lingers a while, before fading like suntans and memories of holiday romances.
The start of the new school year ("la rentrée scolaire") coincides, give or take a few weeks, with the opening of the publishing season ("la rentrée littéraire"). In fact, both rentrées go together like cheese and wine, Alsace and Lorraine, or Deleuze and Guattari. This is not purely coincidental, since publishers are largely dependent upon education for the grooming of future generations of book buyers. The "rentrée littéraire" is the equivalent of cramming for your finals — a tome-intensive blitzkrieg geared towards the autumn literary prizes and subsequent Christmas sales. The season kicks off mid-August, really kicks in mid-October, and climaxes in November, when most book prizes are awarded: the illustrious Prix Goncourt (hot on the heels of the Grand Prix de l'Académie française in October) but also the Prix Décembre, Femina, Flore, Interallié, Médicis, Renaudot, and a few others besides. The major publishing houses tend to carpet bomb, chucking as many titles at these awards as they can, while the indies have no other choice but to go for surgical hits, on a wing and a press release.
So far, this year's vintage has been pretty much business as usual, apart from the growing popularity of ebooks. At season's close, 646 novels will have been released (compared with 654 in 2011 and 701 in 2010). If French fiction is down a little, the number of foreign titles remains constant (220 against 219 last year). As a result of the uncertain economic climate, there are fewer debuts (69 against 74) and more mass-market print runs (including Fifty Shades of Grey and the new JK Rowling). Pursuing a trend observed over the past few years, many of the heavyweights (Jean Echenoz, Patrick Modiano, Philippe Sollers et al) have been held over until mid-October in order to heighten anticipation and maximize impact upon November's book prizes.
Some of this season's most hotly touted titles have a distinct whiff of déjà vu. There's the new Houellebecq (Aurélien Bellenger, whose first book was an essay on the old Houellebecq). There's the presidential campaign, which is fast becoming a sub-genre, with no less than seven books devoted to the latest instalment (including a non-fiction novelisation by HHhH author Laurent Binet). And then there's the obligatory scandal which, this year, comes courtesy of Richard Millet ("l'affaire Millet"!) and his "literary praise" of mass murderer Anders Breivik.
The best take on the "rentrée littéraire" appears in Ecclesiastes: "of making many books there is no end". In no other country is so much fiction published in such a short period of time. With hundreds of novels competing for a dozen prizes or so, most are destined to sink without trace — unsold and unread. Industry observers claim that if a debut novel has not caused a buzz by mid-September, it's (French) toast. The result is a book glut comparable to Europe's wine lakes and butter mountains.
David Meulemans, who heads indie press Aux Forges de Vulcain, made a few waves recently by announcing that he would not be taking part in this year's rentrée. He described the publishing season as "mass commercial suicide": a launch pad for prizes virtually no one stands a chance of ever winning. Sylvain Bourmeau — who praises the extraordinary diversity of publications on offer (belying, in his view, the French literati's reputation for navel-gazing) — acknowledges, in Libération, that the rentrée is indeed a "weird national lottery". For the past decade, Pierre Astier has been one of its most vocal critics. This former indie publisher, who went on to launch one of France's first literary agencies, highlights the hypocrisy of a system — controlled by an old boys' network — that fosters cut-throat competition without establishing a level playing field. Conflicts of interest abound; nepotism is rife. Being life members, the Goncourt judges are endowed with godly powers. Four of them even have books in the running for this year's awards, which are usually carved up among the major publishing houses anyway. Astier also criticises the lack of openness to francophone writers, which he interprets as a sign that decolonisation has not gone far enough.
Although its quaint customs are often parodied (as in Patrick Besson's Ma rentrée littéraire), the publishing season, is still widely seen as an instance of France's cultural exceptionalism; its "droit à la différence" — or even différance.
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October 5, 2012
Reader reviews roundup
This week: arguments rage of the merits of The Casual Vacancy, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Alan Garner's Boneland
Reviews for JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy continued to flood in this week: eight days after its release and those first, stand-alone opinions are forming part of an exciting debate. Any knee-jerk reactions offered up to cyber space are now being given the once-over by readers seeking the ever-powerful last word.
Considered praise from NickVirk describes Rowling as a true spell-caster who has woven together a real-world novel that still retains a dash of magic. The book, he said, threw light on both social issues and the human condition; the novel
"is a character study, one that examines a large breadth of people from different walks of life and how they fit into the jigsaw that is contemporary British society."
But, in what seems to be a direct response, entitled 'Huh?', an incredulous ThirdConcession called the book's depiction of Britain and the British people unconvincing, knocking holes in the constructed reality offered by Rowling. "Incredible that the Casual Vacancy represents *real* Britain, by contrast to HP *magic* Britain," s/he said.
Just for starters nobody in CV has interests (other than an obsession with the Parish Council). I agree that the human race is divided into those who have interests and those who have not, but in my experience (I'm 76) those who have interests are sprinkled throughout humanity, just like currants in a currant cake
In fact, sparking debate was something many of this week's reviews were very good at. Commenting on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, alanwskinner admits he's now embarrassed to think that the book had such a strong impact on him in his youth:
"Reading it the second time round, its shortcomings were painfully obvious. First, the prose is often dull and pedestrian. I know that old George's words of wisdom on writing are often paraded before us, mostly as an antidote to over-writing, but apart from the fact that his most used (and abused) admonitions are aimed at journalistic and not literary writing his imagination and vision were streets ahead of his style."
But springing to Orwell's defence, LakerFan said that dismissing his prose as pedestrian points to a superficial reading of the book. The author's vision and style, he suggested, were inextricably linked; "Orwell was not only prescient, but precisely perceptive in capturing not only his world, but any near future world."
Finally, TomConoboy, writing on Boneland by Alan Garner, expresses conflicting opinions in his review. While commending Garner as a great writer for using the universal to explain the personal in his sequel, he points to the shortcoming in his dialogue. These failings, nevertheless, do not detract from the books' truthful and successful approach to myth, he says.
As ever, if we've mentioned your review, drop Sarah Crown (sarah.crown@guardian.co.uk) a line and we'll send you a book from our cupboards!
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