In Cold Blood
Truman Capote
I am embarrassed to admit that it has taken me until this year to track down and read Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. It is an absorbing read, made all the more interesting for knowing the story behind the story; it was as interesting to pick the author inserting himself in the third person as it was to follow his ‘factionalised’ version of the crime and its aftermath. I recommend it both for its importance to journalism and as a literary pleasure in its own right; if it weren’t true, you would have to make it up.
Galilleo’s Dream
Kim Stanley Robinson
In Galileo’s Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson takes a metaphorical leaf out of Neil Stevenson’s book, blending historical fact and sci-fi speculation together into a novel that educates as it entertains. I started this novel just after listening to last year’s Galileo lectures, and was fascinated to learn in more detail about the political, religious and scientific politics at the turn of the 17th Century. Although I was less interested in the future into which Galileo finds himself periodically transported, I came away from the novel well satisfied and more informed than when I started.
Burnt Shadows
Kamila Shamsie
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie follows the fortunes of three interlinked families across years and generations, from the bombing of Hiroshima to the post 9/11 war in Afghanistan. The title comes from the way that the atomic blast burned the patterns from women’s kimonos into their skin, branding them with a permanent reminder of the world they had lost. The rest of the narrative is as startling and evocative as this titular image and deals with themes as universal as the morality of war and as personal as the loyalties and betrayals that define a friendship. The shadows of this novel still haunt me.
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