drew_gummerson@abctales.com

I read in another review once, don’t waste your time reading this review, go out and buy the book. You should do that now, this book is awesome.
Still here?

Oh well...

The Day of the title is Alfie Day, former RAF sergeant and gunner in a Lancashire bomber. The year is 1949 and Day is back in Germany in an ersatz prison camp as an extra in a prisoner of war film. Probably not a good idea as Day previously was a prisoner of war in a German prisoner of war camp.

Alfie could be said to be suffering from post-traumatic stress, although such terms didn’t exist then. Then, you just got on with it. Or not. Alfie feels like he is floating, not connected to the world. Sometimes he tries to solve this by sitting very quietly, or lying flat on the ground on his back, or by howling. Day loves a good old howl.

There is something of Catch 22 about the camp. Some of the extras are digging a tunnel, escapes, ruses are being plotted. And factions are building up - there are the Good Germans, the Ukrainians, people with pasts they are trying to hide.

Unfortunately for Alfie his past is right there in his head and this past is the story of the novel; the first meetings with his crew, flying bombing raids, going out to London, meeting and falling in love with Joyce, his brutal father and the mother he loves. His life in the bookshop where he worked before going to the film camp.

Kennedy is a short story writer and that perhaps shows. This book is made up of many episodes, a drunken train journey, a night in a shelter, a particular raid. The writing is fabulous, Day a brilliant, confused and mixed up character.

And this is a book about war, about bombing people and being bombed, about what that does to you and them whoever ‘them’ may be.

One of the Costa book judges said that this is a masterpiece. It is. Kennedy said her writing is like anal sex. It’s much, much better than that.

The first thing about this book, it looks nice. Small and hardbacked with a beautiful picture on the cover, and then between each chapter. The second, it’s in verse. That’s right, verse!

If that’s the kind of thing that puts you off then don’t let it! Really!

The Donjong Heights of the title is the tower-block where our protagonist lives. It’s in South London and home to the ethnically diverse. Our hero, unnamed, has a big problem. It’s his ‘lame aorta’ which is not beating ‘as it ought to’. To put it simply, he’s dying.

Dying puts things in perspective. It’s a time when you need to reassess, judge, put things in order. Or as our hero does, decide to have one last fling of the dice by throwing a Christmas party.

And inviting his long lost love.

To the party come Tyrone, his neighbour, and ‘one man, all-night Dub Selecta’, Hylie ‘the fair-skinned Rasta-Queen’ (used to be known as Kylie), Lord Byron ‘governed by his Johnson’, his brother Chester, a pro-wrestler, John J a sozzled former academic and finally Tony, the tailor.

It may all end in disaster.

Oh yes, and don’t forget the omniscient narrator. With a lisp.

‘We find him in the blacketht thtate
Tith truly foul and unpropitioth’

This wonderful novel (in verse!) about the man with the poorly heart truly pulls at the heart strings. Or heart thtringth. It’s both funny and sad and verbally dextrous. It’s the kind of thing you want to read out loud and you should. Cause it’s in verse!

And when you’ve read this one go out and buy Eugene Onegin and The Golden Gate.

They’re in verse too. And as wonderful as this.

Hasn't it sold over a million copies and won a comedy award? I wish!!!

Thought it was great!

I buy Kurkov's books on the day they come out and read them as soon as I can after that.

This book spans 40 years of the Ukranian president's life. Three separate parts of his life are told in parallel stories. I've read elsewhere that this is confusing. It's not, not really.

So.

There is his early life and his relationship with a hermit who lives on an island. There is his middle life, working in government, dealing with a brother who is in care. There is his life as president shortly after suffering a heart attack.

Life is stranger than fiction. No doubt. The Ukraine is currently on its 8th election in 2 years? Russians are being poisoned with nuclear material on UK soil.

So.

Is the president receiving someone else's heart fitted with a special device (I won't reveal what?), being held to ransom by an electric mogul, performing covert operations for the Russians so preposterous?

Probably not.

Yes, it's entertaining no doubt. It's what Hornby is best at, writing about his passions - this time reading.

This book follows the year between 2003 and 2004 when American forces occupied Iraq and the country was under the authority of the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority). The Emerald City of the title is the Green Zone within central Baghdad - the walled central enclave in which Saddam and his nearest cronies had lived.

It was here that the Americans lived and planned to make Iraq into a Western style democracy. Unelected representives were put in charge of each part of Iraqi life, health, traffic, the army, power generation, and so on and they had a year to shape them. This was the neo-con dream. Each member was carefully vetted to make sure they fitted in with Bush's vision.

Of course, it turned into a fiasco.

People who would have been good for the job, people with experience of post-conflict situations were looked over again and again in favour of neo con Republicans.

So, the new health minister arrives. He decides he wants to put money into an anti-smoking campaign. At this stage hospitals have no beds, power, medicines.

New traffic laws are drawn up based on the traffic codes of the state of Maryland. There are no trained police to enforce them. No traffic lights work.

They decide they will privatise all of Iraq's industries despite the fact that it is going against the Geneva convention.

The army is disbanded at the stroke of a pen. This puts 400,000 people out of work in a day. When asked a month later where they've gone. "They're now in the insurgency."

Very quickly things unravel. Staffers are soon unable to leave the Green Zone. All reconstruction work comes to a halt. Only 2% of the 18 billion dollars allocated to Iraq is spent. Civil war breaks out.

Iraq was an American neo-con dream. They didn't take into consideration what Iraqi people wanted. Obviously they believed they were doing good and there are wonderful stories in here too of people doing good - these are usually soldiers.

It was always supreme arrogance. Third party companies were brought in to train the new Iraqi army. They were then sent out with the Americans. Was it any surprise when they mutineed? They didn't want to fight their own people.

The book won this year's Samuel Johnson Prize. Well deserved.

Carver was a genius. I've read all his short stories a number of times. Completely brilliant.

This is a shaggy hare story.

Vatanen is a Finnish journalist. He is fed up with his job, his wife, his life-style. He is approaching middle-age and he wonders what is the point? One evening while returning home with a colleague they hit a hare with their car. The hare runs off into the forest injured.

Vatanen gets out of the car, runs after it. He finds it and so his life changes. He decides he wants to look after the hare. So begins his adventures.

First he has to find a vet, then food, then divorce his wife and get some cash. He and the hare have wild times in their journey around Finland. He gets arrested for attempt burglary, he meets an ex policechief who believes the Finnish president is an imposter, he recovers Nazi armaments, he assaults a dead grandfather, the hare is kidnapped by a Finnish cult leader, then stolen by a foreign diplomat, they chase a bear and get arrested by the Russians for being a spy. He says the hare is an accomplice. The hare is arrested too.

The book is written in a deadpan simple style. But it also has a point. Modern life is corrupt, full of petty rules and regulations. Much better to be in company with a hare, living off the land, doing simple and rewarding tasks.

I liked it.

Yep I agree. Very well written, and I enjoyed it, but not the best novel of the year by any means. Oh dear!