A Common Reader is . . . . . . written by Tom Cunliffe, of East Sussex, England (to read more about me see my About page). It consists of book reviews and more general articles about reading and currently receives over 10,000 unique visitors each month. So far 290 book reviews have been published.
My currently-reading shelf:
This website is archived for posterity in the British Library's UK Web Archive
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 A new book by by Russian giant of literature Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) seems like a throwback to the 1960s and 70s when the Soviet Empire was threatening the world with nuclear holocaust and American politicians spent their days worrying about the spread of communism. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, Cancer Ward, the majestic Gulag Archipelago – all these titles were huge publishing events when they first came out, providing as they did a revelatory insight into daily life into the labour camps of the Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 leading to his deportation from Russia in 1974.
In 1976, Solzhenitsyn moved to the USA where after an initial period of adulation, the opinion of many turned against him as they became aware of his contempt for American society and his support for Russian nationalism and the Russian Orthodox Church – “..the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits … by TV stupor and by intolerable music”. While offending many, Solzhenitsyn’s “reactionary” views increased Solzhenitsyn’s popularity with more conservative commentators such as Malcolm Muggeridge who wrote in 1978,
The pack is after him because what he says is unbearable: that the answer to dictatorship is not liberalism, but Christianity. I mean, that is an unbearable proposition from their point of view, and it is where he stands . . . It has been something wonderful to watch and, to more people than you might think, enormously heartening: that that is what this man should have to say instead of a lot of claptrap . . . They started off by never mentioning that he was a Christian. I mean, for a long time, he was made a hero of the cause for freedom, but it was never mentioned that an integral and essential part of it was his Christian belief.
Click here to continue reading Review: Apricot Jam and Other Stories – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Guardian has started a new series called Writers Desktops in which various literary folk talk about the environment they spend most of their working lives in – their computer screen. So following the same theme, I now present:
A Book Blogger’s Desktop:
I like to take a minimalist approach to my desktop – I like clarity, and not for me, those distracting holiday snaps or family photographs. I like to see what I need to do without having to search for it.
So, when I turn the computer on in the morning it looks something like this (you can click on these images to see them in larger size):
I like the Stonehenge photograph as it has lots of calm sky. The colours are nice too and I could get all philosophical and say that it speaks of timelessness and longevity. The grass is covered with frost and I love cold clear mornings when you step outside and feel the freshness of the air.
Click here to continue reading My Desktop
 A new book from Giles Milton is always welcome – he is a fine writer of what might be called “narrative non-fiction” – often telling the story of forgotten episodes in history, such as in Nathaniels Nutmeg, about the battle between the Dutch and the English for control of the nutmeg trade, or Paradise Lost, a harrowing account of the the sacking of the Turkish port of Smyrna in 1922. I think if I were a writer I would very much enjoy taking Giles Milton’s approach – selecting an episode which no-one else has written about in recent years, conducting in-depth research in libraries across the world and then compiling a wholly well-written and readable book which is more or less certain to be well-received.
In the case of Wolfram: The Boy Who Went to War (Kindle edition here), Giles Milton was able to work closer to home for it tells the story of his father in law, Wolfram Aïchele, who managed to become a successful Paris-based artist after defiantly surviving several years in the German Army during the Russian Campaign and the Allied invasion of Normandy.
Click here to continue reading Review: Wolfram: The Boy Who Went To War – Giles Milton
 I have read many books which have been translated from other languages and have often wondered about the translation process. Its almost impossible for the average reader to judge the accuracy of the translation or whether it corresponds to the original style of the author.
Even the current Education Secretary (our Government Minister for Education) Michael Gove went public in The Times a few years ago with the statement that “subtlety of language and precision of thought would inevitably be lost in translation, making B-list Brit novelists a better bet than front-rank foreigners” (something he later recanted after a number of intelligently worded protests).
A translation can sometimes achieve transcendence and stand as a major work in its own right – the King James Bible, for example. Or sometimes a new translation can reinvigorate a work: it is widely accepted that Edith Grossman’s translation of Don Quixote has effectively relaunched the work and enabled new generations to see its importance as “the first modern novel”. Many have said the same for Lydia Davis’ new translation of Madame Bovary.
Click here to continue reading Review: Is that a Fish in Your Ear? – David Bellos
I’ve just been to Bruges for a couple of days, in perfect autumn weather. We had a tour of the Half Moon Brewery, visited a model railway café and had some fantastic Flemish beef stew. Plus, of course, sampling a few of the 1500 varieties of Belgian beers. Its such a good trip from Britain because its only 1 hour and 20 minutes from the Eurotunnel terminal at Calais yet presents you with somewhere totally different from anywhere in England.
Amazon have started an ebook daily deal for the Kindle, the books usually being discounted to 99p. Its worth checking every day, but for anyone like me with an already full reading schedule its easy to be tempted away from your reading plans by some of the books on offer. This week I was tempted by The Land of Later on by Anthony Weller which turned out to be a very enjoyable read. I’m not sure its worth its current price of £5.19 but for 99p it was a bargain and filled in the gaps on my Bruges trip when it wasn’t so easy to concentrate on anything heavier.
Click here to continue reading Review: The Land of Later On – Anthony Weller
 The act of painting the same thing many times over a period of three years compels a level of observation which few of us have experienced, perhaps a meditation on the nature of “tree”, leading to rare insights denied to those who merely pass by on their daily walk. In his book, Oak, One Tree, Three Years, Fifty Paintings, Stephen Taylor demonstrates the results of his determined art, resulting in a unique record of his time spent in a field in North Essex in various weathers and seasons.
We see the 250 years-old oak tree in every possible condition whether in sunshine, snow, summer, winter, morning, night-time, from a distance and in close detail. From his stained fingers and messy palette we see leaves and twigs emerging, not unlike the way that the debris of winter gives way to green shoots.
 Initially, the tree stood in a field of rape, the pods a “lurid pale green” and the early paintings contrast this sickly, fleshy plant with the statuesque oak rising above it in powerful contrast. A few months pass and we see the tree having partly shed its autumn leaves, its branchy skeleton now showing through the brown foliage. Stephen was by this time noticing that when he placed his tree portraits next to each other, “they appeared to be different trees”. He found that as he looked at each iteration of the oak tree he observed a creation so different from the last that it was like looking at a different tree, his detailed observation stripping away preconceived ideas of “oak tree” and replacing them with a wholly new discovery each time he painted.
Each painting has a different title. We see “Flints” when the new sown crop of winter wheat allows flints to be seen in the foreground field. “Elm Sapling” shows little competing trees growing close to the familiar oak. “Oak and Crows” shows a wintry scene with a branchy, twiggy tree with black crows flying over it. In “Oak after Snow” we see patches of snow adhering to the trunk and a white covering of snow over the muddy field (and what a mastery of sky Stephen demonstrates from perfectly executed graduated blue washes, to complex cloud formations which take as much painting as any area of land. He sometimes paints complex foregrounds with countless wheat stalks ready for harvest (tedious work surely?). At other times the foreground is impressionistic, merely suggested by rough strokes of the brush.
Click here to continue reading Review: Oak, One Tree, Three Years, Fifty Paintings – Stephen Taylor
 I have wasted far too much time on Haruki Murakami’s new three volume 1Q84. Its one of those books which is just good enough to make you want to carry on reading, but not quite good enough to make you feel pleased to be reading it. Its of vast length, and I reached the end of book one and have now put it back on the shelf (well, in my “pending” folder on the Kindle), to be returned to when I’m languishing in solitary confinement in a prison cell.
Book bloggers can’t afford to get bogged down in a mediocre book for they end up with nothing to write about. And I don’t feel inspired to write anything at all about 1Q84 – plenty of other people have had a go at it (“once again Murakami has produced something that is truly magical. . .”) and I don’t want to spoil their party.
On the other hand, After Midnight, but Irmgard Keun really is worth reading and manages to say more in 160 pages than Murakami does in 900.
Set in 1930′s Frankfurt, After Midnight tells the story of Sanna, a young woman who finds herself embroiled in controversy among friends and relatives who have very mixed opinions about the new Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. Sanna is not political, but at a time when politics is forcing its way into every aspect of life, even a love-lorn young woman finds herself having to be careful what she says. Even close relatives can betray you if you seem half-hearted about the Nazi party.
Click here to continue reading Review: After Midnight – Irmgard Keun
 London Review of Books
As a book reviewer I like to read plenty of other reviews. This lets me keep in touch with what’s being published, and also to learn how other people approach the task of book reviewing. Earlier in the year I took out a trial subscription to the London Review of Books – 12 issues for £12 which is fantastic value. I let this lapse when it ran out and contacted them this week to ask what they could do for me if I wanted to continue their subscription. They replied saying that I could take advantage of their current offers so I’ve signed up for a year’s subscription as 61% off – which also works out at £1 a copy which seems almost too good to be true.
The great benefit of taking out a subscription is that it gives you access to their website which contains a fully serachable archive containing “every piece ever published in the magazine: over 12,000 articles by more than 2000 contributors from the past 30 years”.
Is That a Fish in Your Ear?
I’m not going to be able to produce a second review this week because I’m reading two lengthy books, both of which deserve some time. Is That a Fish in Your Ear by David Bellos is about the art of translation – a fascinating read for anyone who reads translated fiction. David Bellos is a prolific translator himself and has translated works by Romain Gary and George Perec. He has some fascinating things to say on the value of translated books.
Click here to continue reading Miscellaneous Thursday
 When I worked in I.T. I would occasionally be approached by recruitment agencies who wanted to put me forward for different jobs in the industry. But they were never as classy as the private head-hunting company Alfa run by Roger Brown in Jo Nesbo’s latest book, Headhunters. Alfa is located in a twenty-five room building in the centre of Oslo and finds chief executives and other key staff for prestigious corporations. It does not advertise these positions but uses its intelligence and contacts in order to make approaches to likely candidates.
The book opens with Roger Brown (does this work as a Scandinavian name? Apparently it does!), interviewing a candidate for a Chief Executive role of a company which makes GPS equipment. We learn that Roger uses the FBI interrogation technique as published by Inbau, Reid and Buckley. The candidate for the job, Jeremias Lander, doesn’t stand a chance under the “machine gun in a world of pea-shooters” of the FBI processes, and Roger tells him that while he’s not suitable for the post in question he will be able to place him in a couple of years time. For Roger’s reputation is based on getting things right. One duff candidate offered to a blue-chip company and his own job will be on the slide.
We soon learn that Roger has more than one string to his bow however. He has learned that the successful executives who pass through his office tend to be art-collectors. During the softer parts of the interview he chats about art and usually discovers that the candidate are quite pleased to be able to talk about something more close to home like their art collection. They don’t realise that Roger is a determined art-thief as well as a head-hunter. He has a network of contacts who help him in his criminal activities and makes good use of them. Not only this, his stunningly beautiful wife Diana (she had to be stunningly beautiful didn’t she) runs an art gallery in the best part of Oslo which provides Roger with many useful contacts.
 The scene moves to a private view evening at Diana’s gallery. The gallery is full of “rich, successful financiers, celebrities of the right sort, actresses, writers and politicians”. Diana introduces Roger to one of the guests, Clas Greve, the co-owner of a company which has just been bought out, leaving him with a considerable fortune but also with unwelcome time on his hands. Roger sees him as an ideal candidate for the job he has just been interviewing for and arranges to meet him and exchanges business cards.
Clas Greve turns out to be perfectly capable of surviving the FBI interview techniques, and during the interview reveals his interest in expensive art – letting slip that he has a Peter Paul Reubens painting which was lost during the Second World War. Roger rapidly realises that he has not only a prime candidate for the post he is trying to fill, but also a painting of incalculable value waiting to be stolen.
The scene is set for one of the most intriguing stories I have read in a long time. Needless to say, not all is as it seems with Clas Greve, but the same could also be said about Roger. Roger seems to have met his match in Greve, but Jo Nesbo, being a crime-writer in the classic mould, provides subtle clues to guide his readers through this breathless romp via episodes of theft, murder and intrigue – with plenty of cross and double-cross to go with it.
 This is a stylish read, in the best traditions of crime-writing which is as you might expect from a writer like Jo Nesbo who has won many so many prizes for his earlier books, particularly the “Harry Hole” series of detective novels. He does not shrink from graphic detail of the more violent incidents but is a master of restraint when it comes to providing clues to guide the reader through his complex plotting – you have to be alert to find out what is really going on.
Nesbo is an interesting man – not only a writer but a musician too. His website has a short Q&A section on it and one of the answer says much about the benefits of coming from a bookish family:
“What were your favourite books as a child? Were your parents keen readers?”
I come from a reading, story-telling family. My mother was a librarian and my father used to spend every afternoon reading in the sitting room. He told stories too, long, familiar narratives told so well that we wanted to hear them again and again. The first novel my father read to me was Lord of the Flies, by William Golding.
And isn’t story telling the essence of good writing? I read plenty of books where “story” takes second place to style or even more nebulous characteristics. Its good sometimes to return to a book where story is all, particularly when its told by a master like Jo Nesbo.
 Despite stealing the byline for this website from her (“he reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others”), I am not generally a great fan of Virginia Woolf’s writings. But living where I do in East Sussex, we are surrounded by Woolf places, including only a few miles from here the village of Rodmell where she ended her life by drowning herself in the River Ouse and where you can go and visit the National Trust property Monks House, the Woolf’s country retreat.
However, I am interested in the Bloomsbury set as a whole and any new biography is worth a look. This new one by Elizabeth Wright is an ideal introduction to Woolf’s life, while also providing some interesting discussion of her relationships with her fellow-Bloomsburys. It also acts as a useful literary history because it covers her personal circumstances as she wrote each of her books and articles – including references to her many breakdowns and times of “mania”. And at 112 pages, its not going to take very long to read.
Click here to continue reading Review: Brief Lives: Virginia Woolf – Elizabeth Wright
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