Category Archives: Book Reviews

150-WORD BOOK REVIEW: The Rift by Alex Perry

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rift

The author of The Rift is a white man who knows Africa and who made his living writing for Time magazine.

Alex Perry knows his subject and chronicles the changing times of the continent as well as the extraordinary Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński.

Praise indeed, but deserved. His anger at the way Africa is portrayed, and the aid organisations who almost profiteer from their involvement, is measured and volcanic at the same time. What he offers is an alternative view to the way Western media belittles the land-where-humans-were-created.

There was one personal bum note, however, with The Rift. Two years ago I received the biggest ovation of my life at a conference in Kenya when I derided the so-called Silicon Savannah moniker foisted on Nairobi’s tech hub and told the African audience they had no need to be compared to Silicon Valley.

Unfortunately, it appears that Perry was the person who coined this phrase, so on that subject we shall agree to differ. On the rest of it, we agree completely and this is an important book that should be read by anybody who wants to get a feel on what is happening in Africa. I loved reading it.

A Brief History Of Seven Killings: 150-WORD BOOK REVIEW

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briefA Brief History Of Seven Killings, Marlon James’ extraordinary third novel has received acclaim from the world’s literary critics and last year won the Man Booker Prize, but it is much more important than that.

Filmic (or more likely boxset-ic) from the start, it’s not surprising that HBO have already bought up the options because this book is magnificent. Like an updated War And Peace set in Kingston and New York, not St Petersburg and Moscow, there are more than enough characters to rival Tolstoy’s creations.

Based on an assassination attempt on Bob Marley when the CIA presumed Jamaica would be one of the dominoes that followed Cuba’s socialist revolution, the depiction of poverty and gangsters in Kingston shines new light on that period of history.

This book, however, is a serious commitment. Its 700 pages, some in patois and others in dreamscape, have to be respected and nurtured in a quiet space without distraction. Once that journey begins, so will yours. An awesome book.

10 reasons why you should read City On Fire

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fireThe $2 million that ex-journalist Garth Risk Hallberg received for City On Fire is reputedly the biggest advance ever given to an author for a debut novel.

Some critics aren’t happy about this and the book has received mixed reviews. We, however, loved it and these are ten reasons why you should read it over Christmas, if not before:

* It is 911 pages and that’s a good thing

* It’s nearly the Great American Novel

* It is a much better book on New York than Bonfire Of The Vanities

* The 1976-77 period it covers is a pivotal time in American history

* It makes you question whether London really was the start of punk

* Characterisation is deep and characters easily loved or hated

* It is more Gotham than Gotham City ever tried to be

* It is a much better experience than the inevitable film it will become

* It uses rarely-used words that make your reach, delightedly, for the dictionary

* Any author that has ‘Risk’ in their name deserves to have a chance taken on them

150-WORD BOOK REVIEW: Season Of The Witch – David Talbot

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seasonAs a delegate to many trade shows at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, the name of the venue has always intrigued me… but obviously not to the point that I could be bothered to search online.

Thanks to David Talbot’s uber-wonderful Season Of The Witch, I now know him to be the Major of San Francisco who was assassinated a few minutes before Harvey Milk.

The book itself covers the Dark Ages of San Francisco from the time Summer of Love had turned to the Autumn of Homelessness and the Winter of Smack in 1967 to the relative redemption of the San Francisco 49s winning the Super Bowl in 1982.

From the Zodiac killings to the onset of AIDS, from Jim Jones’ malign political influence (which ended in mass enforced suicide in Guyana) to the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, this book has it all. Once upon a time, before Silicon Valley, there was a mess called San Francisco and this is its story during those turbulent 15 years.

FIVE SUMMER GIFTS… #2 Ridley Road by Jo Bloom

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ridleyAs somebody who has just spent lunchtime starfished in the Sussex sunshine, thoughts have turned to summer and similarly lazy days spent reading beautiful books.

Ridley Road by first-time author Jo Bloom is one book I’d recommend, especially for people who have a love of London and the early 1960s… hairdressers who like both of these things will particularly adore it. But this is not a book about celebrity or fringes.

Bloom’s story focuses on a little-known part of London history and anti-fascist Jewish group the 62 Group. This organisation was set up to combat the rising threat of fascism represented by demagogues such as Oswald Mosley, US Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell and the lesser-known, if no less dangerous, Colin Jordan.

Bloom’s book, however slight in some areas, is the almost-perfect accompaniment and counterfoil to a lazy, lovely summertime lack of blues… and it highlights a part of London history that deserves to be more widely know.