|
What's
new at Mr B's?
*
* *
|
This week Mr B's Book
Monkey is reading.......
"Then
We Came to the End" by
Joshua Ferris
 A
superb and entertaining debut novel set in the gossip-crammed corridors
and cubicle doorways of a Chicago ad agency. From its brilliant first
line, “We were fractious and overpaid”, the novel immerses us into the
tense and hollow world of an office with too little work and even less
enthusiasm.
Ferris introduces us to a bizarre range of
office-workers whose equivalent you could find in any office
environment, and explores their obsession with the mundane even
in the midst of job-cuts and serious personal crises. Even with
a boss apparently battling breast cancer and an associate
grieving a murdered child, the most pressing question is whether
Benny is paying too much to store a totem pole.
Paperback
- Penguin £7.99 -
Click here to buy online
|
*
* *
|
Independent Publisher of the Month - Tindal Street Press
As we're still reeling
from the brilliance of Catherine O'Flynn's debut novel "What was
lost" we decided to bring back our "independent publisher of the
month" feature from its winter holiday by featuring Catherine's
publisher Tindal Street Press.
This tiny publisher
housed in Birmingham's "Custard Factory" seeks out writing talent
from the English regions with remarkable success. Long before the
host of awards gathered by "What was lost", they became the
tiniest press to secure a Booker shortlisting with Clare Morrall's
"Astonishing Splashes of Colour".
2008 is looking like
another great year for them too - we are itching to read the newly
released "Holding my Breath" by Sidura Lucwig and "All the
Dogs" by Daniel Bennett.
|
♦ ♦
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
♦ |
Astonishing Splashes of Colour
by Clare Morrall
A quiet
book exploring relationships with great tenderness and empathy
following Kitty as she tries to piece together her family's
past. Constantly thwarted by the reticence of her painter father
and brothers to divulge information on her mother's death and
why her sister ran away, there is the pain too of the loss of
her own child. Her feeling of isolation is intensified by a
condition she has called synaesthesia, where feelings are
experienced as colour.
The
book's title comes from a line in J.M Barrie's "Peter Pan" -
"For the Neverland is always more or less an island, with
astonishing splashes of colour here and there." For Kitty, life
is a kaleidoscope of messy colour.
Paperback - Tindal Street Press - £7.99 -
Click here to buy online
|
|
|
Country of the Month -
Nigeria
Ever since the 1950s
and the hugely acclaimed novel "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua
Achebe, Nigeria has continued to inspire a wealth of talented
writers in English. Its literature has reflected the struggles of
its citizens undergoing the painful process of transformation from
colonial to independent nation. So come with us as we desert stroll
with such eminent names as Ben Okri, Wole Soykina and Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie.
|
♦ ♦
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
♦ |
Imagine This
by Sade Adeniran
We reviewed this
great debut novel in a newsletter last year and it's since gone
on to win a regional Commonwealth Prize for best first
book - a fantastic achievement for a self-published
book by a young
author.
Lola Ogunwole is
forced to leave behind everything she knows in London to move to
a village with her extended family in Nigeria. Her diary entries
invite us into her pretty harrowing world as she learns to
adjust and deal with tough conditions, physically and
emotionally. It is based in part
on Sade's own
experience of being sent back to Nigeria during her formative
years.
It's great, vibrant
writing with meaty characters and is an amazing achievement for
a debut.
Paperback - SW Books - £7.99 -
Click here to buy online
|
|
♦ ♦
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
♦ |
Icarus Girl
by Helen Oyeyemi
Oyeyemi is a hugely talented young
contemporary writer who was born in Nigeria and moved to the UK when
she was four. Whilst most of us were chewing on pencils and
worrying about essays, she was secretly writing her first novel,
"The Icarus Girl" whilst studying for her A Levels. It came out to
much acclaim and was nominated for the 2006 Commonwealth
Writers' Prize.
It tells of Jessamy,
a young girl
afflicted with unexplained panic attacks and screaming fits who
is taken to meet her mother’s family in Nigeria. She is drawn to
the old servants’ quarters where one day she meets "TillyTilly",
a mysterious girl who isn't visible to anyone else. Is she a
spirit? An extension of Jessamy's personality? Strange,
increasingly sinister events start occurring as Jessamy tries
desperately to escape the girl who has invaded her life and
dreams.
In exploring
themes of loneliness and separation, Helen uses elements from the
Yoruba belief that twins inhabit three separate worlds - the
Bush ("a wilderness for the mind"), the normal world and the
spirit world.
Her latest book
"The Opposite House" is out in paperback in May 2008.
Paperback - Bloomsbury - £7.99 -
Click here to buy online
|
|
♦ ♦
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
♦ |
Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
This is the seminal
African work and one of the first African novels written in
English to receive global critical acclaim. It's a powerful yet
simply told story of the changing face of rural Nigerian life
with the arrival of white missionaries.
Set around the villages of the Igbo ethnic
group, the book follows their leader Okonkwo and his family at
the end of the 18th/early 19th Century. Okonkwo is a brutal,
strong man following to the letter the traditions of the
villages and determined to show he does not have the failings of
his own father. Following years of exile for accidentally killing another clan member,
he returns to years later confronted by the arrival of Christian
English missionaries and to witness the ruining of his people.
Paperback - Penguin Classics - £7.99 -
Click here to buy online
|
|
|
Mr
B's Country of the Month - The Netherlands
In
honour of our own delightful tulip, Caroline, and of the Dutch theme at
the Bath Literature Festival, we have made The Netherlands Mr B's
Country of the Month. Here are a couple of highlights from our full
selection of all things Dutch - so join us as we pedal along the clogged
cycle-path of Dutch writing and get the windmills of your mind
milling.....
 |
Amsterdam: The Brief Life of a City
by Geert Mak
In
On Europe, Mak
traverses the continent in an attempt to define Europe as it
enters the 21st century. In
Amsterdam, he stays
closer to home as he gets under the skin of the city in a way
which might even offer new insight to its own residents.
Mak
explores its social and cultural history in a style both
compelling and accessible, and goes at least some way to
explaining and justifying the disproportionately high profile of
the capital city of such a relatively small country! The reader
is left with a sense of familiarity with a fascinating city
which knows how to punch above its weight!
Paperback - Harvill Press - £8.99 -
Click
here to buy online
|
 |
Nomad's Hotel: Travels in Time and Space by Cees
Nooteboom
The Dutch
author with the unpronounceable name, whose work includes novels
and poetry as well as travel writing, here turns his hand to a
collection of short pieces drawn from his experiences travelling
the world.
He meanders
from Venice to the Sahara and from Munich to Mali, on the quest
for the perfect
Nomad’s Hotel.
Mixing philosophy and observation with poetic description and
insight into different cultures, it is no wonder Mr B’s special
Dutch book monkey chose this book to read!
Paperback - Vintage - £7.99 -
Click here to buy online |
|
|
