The Human Factor is a fictional story about real spies. They don’t drive sports cars, they’re not irresistible lovers, they don’t wield deadly wristwatches and they don’t crash tackle maniacal millionaires over the edges of cliffs only to miraculously climb back up via fortuitously placed tree roots. They sit behind desks, read reports, love their wives and look forward to retirement. And yet, this novel is as gripping as anything from the pen of Matthew Reilly or Ian Fleming, with more intellectual stimulation than either of them, with all due respect, could ever hope to achieve. Read the rest of this entry »

Hardly a stranger to controversy, DH Lawrence really went to town on some of society’s more sensitive aspects with his largely unheralded later work, The Plumed Serpent. Mixing blasphemy, violence, sensuality and issues of race and gender with a sneering contempt for both developed and third world contemporary cultures, it’s an explosive work even for today’s readers. For the folks back in 1926, it must have seemed an utterly alien piece of literature, which probably helps explain why it was considered a critical failure at the time. Read the rest of this entry »

Another book about the Holocaust? Is there really anything more to say on the subject? Surely we’ve explored that particular episode of human history as far as we need? In truth, the subject matter caused me to leave this one sitting on the shelf for a year or more before deciding finally to pick it up and give it a go. But it turns out I was cheating myself, because Marcus Zusak does indeed have something new to say, and the voice he uses to say it is truly breathtaking. Read the rest of this entry »

Filled with beautiful, florid prose and some magnificent passages of writing. However, as with many Rushdie books, when you step back and consider the whole piece, it is sprawling, chaotic and largely incoherent. I found myself pretty uncaring as to the fate of the main characters: for all their detail, they are still caricatures to me - cartoon characters drawn with fine pen strokes. But I have to admit, there are some really magical moments, like the story of Rosa Diamond, and the first segment centring on Mahound, that make this well worth a read.