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Title 'Angela's Ashes - A Memoir of Childhood' Author Frank McCourt Review "When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived" is how Frank McCourt begins his story. That he did survive his "miserable Catholic Irish childhood" to write this remarkable memoir, winner of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize and gain international acclaim, is testimony to the resilience of the poor Irish in this extraordinary story of Ireland in the 1930's and 40's. He is the first-born son of Angela from the Limerick slums and Malachy, born in County Antrim. He sees his father as like the Holy Trinity, with three people in him, the first a great storyteller, the second a great patriot and third a wastrel, drinking away the family's meagre income. He loves the first, his "real father". Many of his family do not survive, his sister and the twins die as do member after member of other families with "galloping consumption". Moving back to Ireland from a New York tenement block, the McCourts settle in Limerick, a life of cold, wet, dirt and desperation. It is a tale of almost unbelievable poverty and hunger, with rats, fleas, lice, flies and life-threatening diseases. Diet is bread and tea; life, begging; nappies, rags; luxury, a toilet with a seat and a door to shut. We are led through a harrowing childhood and adolescence by Frank, with intelligence and a great will to survive, his sights set on "a suit and shoes and a warm place to live" in America. He heeds his headmaster's lesson, "You might be poor, your shoes might be broke, but your mind is a palace". This could have been an unbearably harrowing read, this "Irish version...of early years"; the poverty; the shiftless, loquacious father; the pious, defeated mother, moaning by the fire; the pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters. Instead it is a triumphant tale of survival and growth, told with notes of humour tempering grim reality, and no sense of bitterness. Desperately pulling down wallboards for firewood, the fearless mother and Grandma tell the astounded rentman "Wall, what missing wall?" Told through the eyes and voice of a child, vivid mental images are conjured of the stench of relentless poverty. Such strength of detail and a tale so immediate, so gripping could only come from a great storyteller. Its origin can clearly be traced to a background of tales and songs presented in the Irish bars of Manhatten by the now retired English teacher. A very moving story, in which the reader is urged on until Frank's ultimate arrival at the threshold of manhood. Title 'The God of Small Things' Author Arundhati Roy Review Winner of the 1997 Booker Prize, 'The God of Small Things' is the first novel of Arundhati Roy, a trained architect and screenplay writer. Widely classed as a masterpiece, exceptional in every way, it has gained high critical acclaim internationally, become an Number One best-seller, been translated into 27 languages and published in 31 national editions. Set in Southern India at a time of political upheaval, it is a compelling tale of love and loss, of a family who crossed into forbidden territory, "which tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how". In particular, we follow the inseparable twins Ester and Rahel who learn "how history negotiates its terms and collects its dues from those who break its laws". Living next to the Paradise Pickles and Preserves factory in Grandmother Mammach's house are the twins, their lonely mother Ammu; Oxford-educated Uncle Chacko dubbed "spoiled princeling playing Comrade" and Grand Aunt Baby Kacharma who is determined to spread her own misery to the 'twin co-unfortunates'. From its intriguing first chapter, the interwoven themes of love, animosity, treachery, spite and guilt are explored as the story is skilfully constructed, its threads intricately woven together. The tragic fate of the family is not clear until the very end and yet we are led subtlety through carefully crafted movement back and forth in the present and to the past. A gripping story with vivid descriptions of Indian culture, society and landscape, Arundhati Roy's lyrical prose and wry humour dominate her narration. Her extremely inventive use of language captures and reveals a childhood with all its fears and contradictions. Readers will be enthralled to the very end. Title 'Notes from a Small Island' Author Bill Bryson Review When Bill Bryson made the decision to move back to America after a two-decade stay in Britain, he resolved to say goodbye properly: "One last look at Britain - a kind of valedictory tour around the green and kindly land that has so long been my home". 'Notes from a Small Island' reflects his observation of 'small-scale' Britain's glory, "packed with incident and interest, a landscape packed with centuries of busy, productive attainment, where relics of genius and enterprise confront you at every step". Analysing precisely his great fondness for this "snug and homey" little isle, he celebrates a people who like their "pleasures small" and their humour ironic, 'Gardeners' Question Time' and place names like "Hellious Bumptead and Shallow Bowells". From Dover to John o'Groats by public transport and on foot, criss-crossing East and West, Bryson's story teems with tours of town and city, scenic beauty spots, great worthies and their achievements, splendours, both ancient and modern, characters past and people met. Little-known Roman villa mosaics in situ and bizarre underground mansions are visited. All are packed with detail, painstaking research, and abundant facts about local history, from Titus Salt's 'Saltaire' to the Ashington Pitman Painters. The British "have more heritage than is good for them", he declares passionately, the horrors of square glass boxes and mosaic tiles loved by 1970's architects and planners destroying "the ambience of their setting". Muddled government policy on heritage preservation, hedgerows, National Parks, public transport all incur his wrath. Nothing misses his shrewd summing up: the horrors of "train-talkers", old ladies in Llandudno "having a Parkinson Convention" to the Illuminations, "tacky and inadequate on a rather grand scale, like Blackpool itself". From his first sight of England on a foggy March night in 1973, Bryson shares his strange and varied journalistic experiences here and the great changes he humorously notes have occurred to the place and the people since then. A delight to read, full of interest, with an easy style and gentle humorous tone, the reader is left at the end of the tour, echoing Bryson's comment on Britain, "I like it here...and know that I will be back." Title The Genius of Shakespeare Author Jonathan Bate Review I can warmly recommend this book to teachers and also to A-Level students. The paperback edition comes garlanded with high praise on the cover - and justly so. Just less than half of the book is an examination of Shakespeare's life. Bate provides a fine rebuttal of the many alternative authorship claims and an account of the literary and historical context in which Shakespeare wrote which give valuable insights into the special qualities of both the times and the man. All along the way, numerous details shed fresh light on aspects of the plays - and of the sonnets, which are dealt with at some length. In the second half, Jonathan Bate explores the growth of Shakespeare's reputation since his death. His continual re-invention is considered with a sharp eye for some of the absurder attempts to invoke Shakespeare in support of one approach or another. In the process, he recounts the well-established practice of using Shakespeare as the central pillar for a national culture that will defend an English society in some way under threat, whether from France in 1749, Germany in 1916 or from 'social disorder' (in a speech by Michael Portillo in 1994). He balances this, however, with an account of the revolutionary impact that Shakespeare's works have had, whether on Goethe and Keats or on Cesaire in Martinique in 1968. All the time the writing is informed by an accessible but detailed scholarship which demonstrates itself more by close attention to the plays themselves than to academic material. The final chapter, dealing with twentieth-century re-interpretations in the light of Freud, quantum, Empson and Wittgenstein, is demanding but dazzling. In it, Bate comes back to as an actor, member of a theatre company and writer for performance: "All the world's a stage And all the men and women merely players." Reviewed by: Tom Rank Picador (hardback 1997; paperback 1998) ISBN 0-330-37101-0 Price 8.99 ukp 386 pages, 20 black and white plates

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