FOAL
BOOK ORDER MARCH 2016
NON
FICTION
The
Outsider : My life in intrigue Frederick
Forsyth
By
the author of The Day of the Jackal, the story of a happy boy who wanted an
adventurous life and got it
Stop
the Clocks ** see poem below Joan
Bakewell
A memoir which is not Bakewell’s goodbye. She isn’t
ill; hopefully, she has more time yet. But it is, perhaps, a preparation for
goodbye, being a kind of reckoning up, a wry analysis of the world she will
leave behind
Gimson’s
Kings and Queens Andrew
Gimson
An
entertaining romp through England’s monarchs
How
the French think : an affectionate portrait of an intellectual people by Sudhir Hasareesingh
In
this nation of arrogant intellectuals, even the beggars make eloquent speeches
– but why are the French like this ? Why do they think differently ?
The French like to construct a theory and then use it to explain facts ;
the British and others like to examine the facts and then construct theories.
FICTION
The
Man without a shadow Joyce
Carol Oates
Psychological
thriller, a meloncholic examination of the ways in which we define ourselves in
terms of our work and relationships.
The
Improbability of Love Hannah
Rothschild
A
novel set in the art world. « I don’t know why everyone doesn’t set their
novel in the art world » Ms Rothschild said. « It’s got
everything : extremes of wealth, goodies, baddies, the intangibility of
beauty and desire, history, scholorship.. you name it »
The
Neopolitan Novels Elsa
Ferrante (4 volumes)
The series follows the lives of two perceptive and
intelligent girls, Elena Greco and Raffaella Cerullo, from childhood to
adulthood as they try to create lives for themselves amidst the violent and
stultifying culture of their home– a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples
Exposure Helen
Dunmore
A
fine addition to the shelves of cold war literature, an unconventional spy
thriller
Numero
Zero Umberto
Eco
This
wry, witty novel about the skulduggery of the Clean Hands scandal
The
Noise of Time Julian
Barnes
A
fictional biography, Barnes gives himself the narratorial freedom to enter the
workings of the composer’s (Shostakovich) mind while also offering outside
context for the reader.
Blood,
Salt, Water Denise
Mina
Her
12th book and Denise Mina is showing no signs of losing her power to draw
readers into a shadowy world of crime.
Rogue
Lawyer John
Grisham
Grisham
is debuting what looks to be a series featuring a so-called street lawyer named
Sebastian Rudd. Rogue Laywer is so cleverly plotted, it could be used as a
how-to manual in fiction-writing courses
The
Moor’s Account Laila
Lalami
Long
listed for the Man Booker 2015 The story of an ill-fated expedition to the New
World which sets of in 1527. The reader is gripped as the expedition lurches
from disaster to disaster
High
Dive Jonathan
Lee
A hauntingly atmospheric
tale of the 1980s. A Provisional IRA bomb explodes in the Grand Hotel, Brighton, as
it hosted senior delegates at the Tory party conference. This shocking event
becomes the focus of Jonathan Lee’s third novel, though its surprises are
truly unexpected
Broken
Harbour Tana
French
A
tale about the different facets of obsession and insanity. Tana French is a
very popular author at the moment
**The title of
Joan Bakewell’s memoir probably comes from the first line of a W H Auden poem
which I find very moving and which was recited in the burial scene in 4
Weddings and a Funeral
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
