Book Reviews Archives | Page 2 of 8

Reykjavík | Tom Maremaa

Reykjavík is a novel of the Cold War and its aftermath which takes as its starting point the Reykjavík summit in October 1986 between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.

Dylan Rose, aged 24, is the foreign correspondent for a New York paper. While in Iceland to cover the summit, he unexpectedly encounters Professor Nathalie Campbell, his former teacher of Russian at Berkeley, who herself meets and falls in love with Russian scientist Andrei Heilemann. Over subsequent decades, their lives criss-cross against the backdrop of the dissolution of the Soviet Empire and the rise of oligarch mobsterism in the new Russia. Andrei’s brother Mikhail is one such oligarch, and his personal/political vendetta with Andrei leads to espionage, danger, persecution and murder.

Crowd of One | Filip Severin

October 22, 2018 / Jack Messenger author blog / 0 Comments

In Someone Else’s Conspiracy: a book review of Crowd of One, a novel by Filip Severin

The epigraph to Crowd of One is taken from Edward Bernays, one of the least-known and most influential figures of the modern era: ‘Men are rarely aware of the real reasons which motivate their actions.’ Bernays pioneered what eventually became known as public relations (aka propaganda) by applying crowd psychology to control the ‘herd instincts’ of the ‘irrational masses’. What he termed the ‘crystallizing’ of public opinion rapidly evolved over the course of the twentieth century into the manufacturing of consent to the political and commercial imperatives of society’s managers and elites. Like it or not, we all live in Bernays’ world.

Apocalypse Chow | David Julian Wightman

October 16, 2018 / Jack Messenger author blog / 0 Comments

‘Mistah Kurtz – he dead’: a book review of Apocalypse Chow, a novel by David Julian Wightman

The subtitle to Apocalypse Chow describes it as a ‘remix of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness’. Pastiche, parody, or whatever we wish to call it is a difficult art, made more difficult if the original is a pillar of the western literary canon of which many people have heard, but few have read. Conrad’s prose is too dense and allusive for contemporary tastes, the novel was written a long time ago, and one has to be prepared to work hard to get to grips with it.

72 Raisins | Nikki Nash

October 9, 2018 / Jack Messenger author blog / 0 Comments

**Monkey on a Wire: a book review of 72 Raisins by Nikki Nash**

72 Raisins tells the story of Scott Mullan, a Los Angeles-based comedy writer for The Late Enough Show, whose star is the diminutive Dylan Flynn. Scott is fifty and married to Rebecca. They have two children, both of whom are due to start college and are busy choosing – along with Rebecca – where to go. Scott is hoping for promotion to head writer on the show, but his ambitions and his marriage are thrown into turmoil when his agent asks him to read the typescript of a book called Seven Mythic Doorways to Freedom by Ben Doss, with a view to editing it, a suggestion that Scott fears indicates he will never get the job he covets.

Do the Wrong Thing | Malcolm van Delst

September 3, 2018 / Jack Messenger author blog / 0 Comments

Ribbon of Memories: a book review of Do the Wrong Thing, a novel by Malcolm van Delst

On several occasions, I was fortunate to hear Malcolm van Delst, a writer based in Vancouver, Canada, read aloud from a work-in-progress called Do the Wrong Thing. The extracts she read left me puzzled and intrigued: I was unable to grasp exactly what the book was meant to be about, and exactly what she aimed to achieve. Do the Wrong Thing seemed to consist principally of details and fragments – often, details of fragments – set down more or less at random, from the life of a young woman whom I took to be the author herself. Now that I have read book one of Do the Wrong Thing (others are yet to be published), I am still puzzled, but the mists have cleared enough for me to relish the journey even while the destination remains obscure.

A Thing of the Moment | Bruno Noble

August 20, 2018 / Jack Messenger author blog / 0 Comments

Painted Ladies: A book review of A Thing of the Moment, a novel by Bruno Noble

The power ‘to see ourselves as others see us’ is described as a gift by Robert Burns, but it is easy also to imagine it a curse. Self-identity is an elusive and shifting construct; anyone with a penchant for introspection quickly finds themselves in a hall of mirrors that reflect different versions of who they are, depending on time and circumstance. Besides, are other people’s perceptions of ourselves any more accurate or any less imposed than our own? Perhaps it is better to be misunderstood from the inside than it is to be misperceived from the outside.

A Body’s Just as Dead | Cathy Adams

July 31, 2018 / Jack Messenger author blog / 4 Comments

Rights and Wrongs: A book review of A Body’s Just as Dead, a novel by Cathy Adams

At the current dismal juncture of US social and political history, it is dismaying to witness the ignorance and prejudice, the violence and demagoguery, the greed and stupidity worn as a badge of honour by so many politicians and their supporters. Whence comes their rejection of truth, science and rationality? Why such disdain for intelligence, compassion and empathy? Why the obsession with guns?