Fernhill Bookworm

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo

2007-08-13T12:54:00.000Z

Both my Grandfathers fought in the Great War of 1914-1918; one died from the prolonged effects of mustard gas poisoning, when my own father was still only a boy; the other never spoke of the actions for which he was awarded the Military Medal, a medal which he kept in a shoebox his whole life, but which is now proudly on display in the Regimental Museum of the Queen’s Own Highlanders at Fort George near Inverness.

Perhaps because its horrors were so without precedent, the Great War has always held a morbid fascination for me. As a teenager I read lots of books about the subject and tried to imagine what the trenches must have been like - an impossible task. The experiences described in Edmund Blunden's Undertones of War and Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That are so truly shocking that the reader reels under the effect of their words as if being punched or kicked by them. Writers like Sebastian Faulks (in Birdsong) or Pat Barker (in the excellent Regeneration trilogy) do their best to imagine the carnage and bloody chaos in all its gruesome glory, but again the effect is strangely numbing. Morpurgo takes a gentler approach which is all the more effective for it.

The story of Tommy Peacful and his brother Charlie, the book unfolds in a series of flashbacks. We learn early on that Tommy has a dark secret, which not even his own brother knows, and this shapes some of his feeling s about events. The brothers grow up together, make an enemy of the local squire, fall in love with - and out with each other over - the same girl, before eventually joining up together to fight in 'the war to end all wars'.

The story unfolds at a gentle pace, but with a quickening dread as the horror of the trenches draws closer and closer. Morpurgo finishes the book with a flourish (even though if you read the novel closely enough you will work out the twist in time for the end) and creates a book of such rare warmth and depth that you'll want (as I did) to turn back to the first page and read it all over again!

Mr Mudd

Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce

2007-07-14T16:25:00.000Z

Mrs Voyce recommended this book to me - it was her Book of the Month for June - and it did not disappoint. I'm normally quite a slow reader but I whizzed through its 200+ pages in a couple of days. Millions is about a young boy called Damian Cunningham, who lives with his older brother Anthony and their father. Damian is obsessed with facts about saints and frequently has visions. He also finds a bag stuffed with money, which he takes as a sign from God that he needs to help the poor. Of course, his brother has other ideas ...

The book is set at a time when Britain is about to join the Euro, meaning the boys must spend the money quickly before it becomes worthless. Damian is sensitive and genuinely wants to do 'the right thing'; Anthony has a shrewd business mind and is all for investing the money across a 'balanced portfolio of stocks and real estate'. Of course, things don't go quite according to plan for either of the boys.

The book is lucidly written and extremely entertaining. The characters are well-drawn and the action punchy and comic. There are also some unexpectedly creepy moments along the way. Frank Cotterell Boyce has written extensively for television and his ear for the way young children speak rings true. It is a book with a conscience and it manages to be thought-provoking without being all preachy and obvious. Millions is well worth checking out over the summer.

Mr Mudd

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John Le Carre

2007-06-12T18:53:00.000Z

Although quite a few novels have passed under the bridge since I last posted anything, I recently discovered this classic Cold War thriller. Written by one of the most under-rated of modern novelists (a couple of years ago, I was given a copy of his The Constant Gardener for Christmas and had read it by my birthday four days later!), the book is set in Berlin (one of my favourite cities) and features one of the great twists in modern spy fiction. Ian Fleming - the man behind Bond - reckoned Le Carre was the real deal. You can see why here.

Passed over Berlin operative, Alec Leamas (think a shabby, clinically depressed Alex Rider) faces some tough questioning when his East German spy network is first betrayed and then systematically murdered. He takes up drinking and his life seems to fall apart. Sacked from MI6 for petty thievery, humiliated into working in a decrepit library and finally banged up for assaulting a greengrocer, Leamas seems intent on self-destruction. Consolation comes in the form of Liz, who works alongside him at the library. Might this shy and lonely young woman point the way to some kind of redemption for Leamas? When Leamas defects to his opposite numbers in the Eastern block, it seems unlikely.

However, this being a spy novel, things are not what they seem. There are plenty of red herrings and blind alleys before the Iron Curtain finally descends - trapping both Leamas and Liz. It is easy to sense the fear and paranoia of the very different times described in the novel. A frantic chase ends things. Having visited the remnants of the Wall when in Berlin, the desperation and tension of these closing chapters really catches in the throat.

I really recommend you check out this brilliant book - especially if you're amongst the Year 10 students visiting Berlin for the first time in the New Year. It has everything you would expect from a spy thriller - and then some!

Mr Mudd

Trivial Pursuit The book features an early appearance by Le Carre's great spycatcher George Smiley (as immortalized in the best-selling Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy).

Goodbye Mickey Mouse and Yesterday's Spy by Len Deighton

2007-05-20T09:31:00.000Z

I'm going through a bit of a Len Deighton phase at the moment. He writes with great knowledge and authority and researches his stories in enormous depth - Goodbye Mickey Mouse took six years alone. Like James Ellroy (with whom he shares absolutley nothing else in common), Deighton builds up compelling narratives which effortlessly blend fact and fiction.

Goodbye Mickey Mouse is the mixed bag of the two reviewed here. If you want great war storytelling, check out Deighton's earlier and far superior novel, Bomber. As an insider take on the American fighter pilot experience of the second world war, Goodbye Mickey Mouse packs in its fair share of thrills (the combat scenes are fantastic - vividly drawn and genuinely terrifying) and unexpected twists. But it is in the novel's clumsy attempts at providing a romance that the book fails miserably - cliched and turgid and melodramatic. As a Len Deighton novel goes, it is only half worth reading.

Something which cannot be said of Yesterday's Spy which turns in an absolutely bravura work of fiction. Deighton's spies have always been the real deal over Fleming's Bond, sharing much more in common with hard boiled detectives like Philip Marlowe or Mickey Spillane. Seemingly without a conscience in his genetic make-up, the book's anti-hero Charlie has to infiltrate his old friend's gang to prevent a nuclear warhead being passed onto the wrong people. Trouble is, everyone seems to be 'the wrong people' as Charlie is crossed and double-crossed, beaten up and tortured, half-killed and left for dead on more than one occasion. To reveal its blistering ending would be a betrayal too far, but it is harsh and unexpected when it finally comes.

Deighton has written other great spy stories: you could track down The Ipcress File or Funeral in Berlin. Alternatively, have a go with John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came In From the Cold or Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. If you must start with James Bond, try Casino Royale - it's shorter and more like the Bond that Fleming intended before the films turned him into a suave, sophisticated killer in a tux.

Mr Mudd

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

2007-04-11T22:03:00.000Z

I make no apologies for including this wonderful book. I know that few of you are likely to pick it up and read it in your lifetime at school, but there are those among you who have already bitten the bullet of adult fiction. There are some great novels in the Extended Reader section of the LRC - this one amongst them. Go on - challenge your prejudices!

Behind the Scenes at the Museum is a triumph: an often hilarious and sprawling account of one Yorkshire family told in a fragmented, hugely accessible style by newest addition, Ruby. It is an ambitious novel - one which traces a line from the last hurrah of Empire through to the dog days of the 20th century - but it is so easy to read that the pages just fly by. Peopled with a huge, shifting cast of characters, the narrative leaps backwards and forwards in time with breakneck abandon, and Atkinson manages that most difficult of balancing acts namely the one between laughter and tragedy (the retelling of 'The Great Pet Shop Fire' being a case in point). The book is so rich and inventive that I was genuinely put out when I finished the final page.

I know we set up this blog to push reading and trust me, I'll get onto some children's books again soon. Meanwhile, if you do get round to reading this one and enjoy it, try Andrea Levy's Small Island or Pat Barker's The Ghost Road. The same writer has also written a hugely entertaining crime novel called Case Studies.

Mr Mudd

Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman

2007-03-26T20:42:00.000Z

The sequel to ‘Noughts and Crosses’ doesn’t fall short of the action and drama of the first! I loved ‘Noughts and Crosses’ with its tangled web of relationships and race issues and this one offers even more. The shocking ending of the first book is matched by an even more disturbing ending to the second. I literally cannot wait to read the third!

‘Knife Edge’ is written in a combination of voices; Sephy (a 'cross'), Jude (an inferior 'nought') and Jude’s mum. Sephy has had Callum’s baby against everyone’s wishes. She is a 'cross', living in a 'nought' ladies' house, when she falsely learns that Callum, the love of her life who died for her, did not even love her. This story is the struggle of a young girl to bring up her child, single-handedly, against all odds in a society which hates her simply for bringing a mixed race child into their segregated world.

A must read!!!

Miss Robinson

Cherub: The Recruit by Robert Muchamore

2007-03-26T20:34:00.000Z

Firstly, I need to admit that this was another of those audio books which have turned me into a geek who loves driving her car simply in order to listen to books! I wanted to drive for 5 hours straight with this one, as I could instantly tell that it was going to be one of my favourite series of books (along with Malorie Blackman’s trilogy).

‘The Recruit’ is about James, an ordinary boy, who leads an ordinary life with his mum and sister; until his mum has a heart attack and dies, and he is taken into care. James’ care workers realise that his naughty-boy behaviour might be used to his advantage, so they place him in ‘Cherub’; an organization for kid spies. After all, who would suspect a child?

The 100 day induction is tough… but James has Kerry as his partner and the book tracks both of their successes at training as well as on their first ‘jobs’. An interesting twist adds a bitter sweet touch at the end!

This is a must read for anyone who, like me, would quite like to be a spy or a secret agent!!!

Miss Robinson

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

2007-03-20T10:21:00.000Z

Jeff Lindsay's serial killer with a twist has already spawned a successful television series in the States where they clearly can't get enough of the stuff. Taking as its central character a serial killer who only kills other serial killers, the book opens on a grisly business with a child-killing priest.

As the narrator, Dexter is all chilly ease until a new serial killer in town catches his imagination. Body parts are drained of blood and carefully gift-wrapped before being left in ceremonial piles. Dexter is intrigued and on the case. You see, in the book's other twist, Dexter works for the police as a forensic investigator. His sister, Debs, is also a cop with an eye on a detective's badge, (if only she can get out of vice). Unluckily for her, the detective in charge of the case, La Guerta, is as thick as a whale omelette, and has already arrested the wrong man.

And so it goes on, twist following turn following twist, and with one plot turn too many by the end. Darkly Dreaming Dexter is a book with a genius idea behind it, a likeable anti-hero and a couple of well-executed (forgive the pun) murders, but as a complete narrative it just gets sillier and sillier by the page.

It'll be interesting to see how the television version fares when it finally hits our terrestrial screens. Judging by the daftness of this book, it's a cinch for Channel 5.

Mr Mudd

Children of Men (Alfonzo Cuaron, 2006, UK / USA)

2007-03-11T11:32:00.000Z

Bleak vision of a near future Britain in which women can no longer conceive and illegal immigrants are hunted down and deported Nazi-style.

Owing much to 28 Days Later in terms of its visual pallette - London is a smoggy drained heartland - Children of Men follows cynical Theo (Clive Owen on cracking, disshevelled form) as he is dragged into a desperate plot to transport to safety the last pregnant female on the planet. Crossed and double-crossed along the way, the journey is anything but easy. Theo has to overcome his own feelings of loss (his son died young) as well as cope with his re-emerging political conscience.

Featuring great supporting performances from Michael Caine (virtually unrecognisable as a long-haired, skunk-toting political cartoonist), Julianne Moore (as Theo's terrorist ex-wife) and Clare-Hope Ashitey (as Theo's terrified charge Kee), Children of Men is a compelling film in a world gone insane. While echoes of the Greatest Story Ever Told (TM) can be found by those who seek them, Cuaron tackles today's pressing issues head-on; the environment is trashed, the Government is run by extremists, immigrants are victims of a new Holocaust, and the police have run amok.

Filmed in fluid long takes to maintain a documentary feel, the action scenes are quite amazing. The film is the bleakest vision of the future I've seen onscreen since Ridley Scott's Bladerunner. The scene where Theo and Kee hole up in a deserted primary school is perhaps one of the eeriest moments in the film: this is a world where there are no children to go to school afterall.

Children of Men is not an easy film to watch, but one which rewards the effort. It is a brave attempt to tackle real issues in an intelligent way and for this it is worth more than all of last year's empty-hearted blockbusters put together.

Mr Mudd

Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, 2006, USA)

2007-03-10T21:59:00.000Z

Nobody does 'road trip' movies better than the Americans and Little Miss Sunshine doesn't disappoint. Winner of both the audience and critics' awards at last year's Sundance Festival, the film follows the dysfunctional Hoover family on a journey from Alberquerque to California for the eponymous Little Miss Sunshine competition.

Driving their clapped out Beetle van, is head of the Hoover clan, Richard, a motivational speaker whose nine-step program nobody wants. Also along for the ride are Mom (memorably played by Toni Collette), her suicidal brother, Frank, teenage son and Nietszche-obssessive Dwayne, gangly, awkward daughter Olive - whose success in the regional heats of the strange, only-in-America pre-teen beauty pageant prompts the journey in the first place - and Grandpa, a potty-mouthed, heroin-snorting OAP with attitude played brilliantly by Alan Arkin.

Beautifully filmed and edited, Little Miss Sunshine is a wonderful piece of film-making, poignant and achingly sad without being cloying. It is also laugh out loud funny in places and deals sympathetically with its characters. The film is a journey in every sense - the road trip has always been something of a metaphor for American audiences from the early westerns through to films like Two Lane Blacktop in the 70s via the Beats - and I am not giving too much away to say that we're with the Hoovers right through to the end.

Little Miss Sunshine is a film that restores your faith in the intelligence of American film-making.

Mr Mudd

Silverfin by Charlie Higson

2007-03-09T16:11:00.000Z

Before the name became a legend
Before the boy became the man
Meet James Bond

‘Silverfin’ is the story of James Bond and his childhood. A childhood of tragedy; his parents die in a mountaineering accident and James is left to fend for himself at Eton school in the 1930s. James meets bullies… but not just ordinary bullies. He meets an older boy who is threatened by James' strength and speed, on and off the sports field.

James returns home one summer, to his aunt’s house in Scotland, and embarks on his first great adventure, with a local Laird, who happens to be the father of one of the bullies. The Laird is conducting horrific scientific experiments, to design the ‘perfect’ human being; he is clearly crazy and a threat to society, so James must defeat him! Before the quest is over, James must meet with some killer eels.

This book is an adventure story for both the boys and girls, especially those of you who are fans of the films! I was on edge the entire time, hoping that James would survive against all odds…

Miss Robinson

Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007, UK)

2007-02-24T12:07:00.000Z

Okay, so Shaun of the Dead is probably the best British romantic zombie comedy ever and therefore a tough act to follow. The team behind that particular triumph has a good go with its latest, a kick-ass action cop buddy flick set in a typically English rural backwater. If it doesn't entirely succeed, it certainly isn't for want of trying.

Simon Pegg (Shaun in SOTD) plays Nick Angel, a tough city supercop reassigned by London's finest to the sleepy village of Sandford (actually the director's hometown of Wells in Somerset) with only his Peace Lily for company. Here, thanks to cooperation between the police and the local neighbourhood watch (the brilliantly monikered NWA) there hasn't been a reported crime for nearly 20 years. Angel finds the pace of life too slow and yearns to return to the city; his yokel colleagues - including two fantastically bone-idle, anti-social CID officers - yearn for the same. All except Danny (played by slob everyman Nick Frost, Pegg's sidekick in SOTD), who befriends Nick, solely on the basis that he has fired his 'lethal weapon' in anger! Then a series of bloody murders start to occur, intially passed off by the locals as 'curious accidents'.

Riffing on the creepiness that can be rustic England, the film veers off from fish out of water cosiness to Straw Dogs type menace, whilst finally alighting on Scream-like dice and slice mayhem. The film is not for the faint-hearted, but if you're not averse to a bit of chop-choppy, you'll love it! Film references come thick and fast, the afore-mentioned Lethal Weapon, Straw Dogs and Scream are added to by in-jokes from amongst others, Point Break, Bad Boys II, The Wicker Man, Shaun of the Dead, and even Cannon and Ball's tosh masterwerk The Boys in Blue. There is also an impressive cast list - a who's who of British comedy including Bill Bailey, Steve Coogan, Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy, Stephen Merchant, as well as big leaguers like Timothy Dalton, Billie Whitelaw and Paul Freeman and a sinister Edward Woodward.

The film looks brilliant and there is the trademark mad-rush editing of Wright's cult TV show Spaced (also with Pegg and Frost) and Shaun of the Dead. There are some great jokes and thankfully not that many misfires. Hell, there's even a Bullitt like car chase (albeit between a pair of Vauxhall Astras). Great fun and definitely one for the DVD collection when it surfaces later on in the year. It even reclaims Point Break from rubbish cop flick hell - and that's some achievement.

Mr Mudd

A Winter Book by Tove Jansson

2007-02-24T11:46:00.000Z

Better known as the creator and writer of the Moomin stories, Tove Jansson also wove stories around a lifetime of summers spent on her beloved island home, nestled deep in the Finnish archipelago, off the coast of Helsinki. A few years ago, these were lovingly reissued as The Summer Book - a beautiful and haunting collection of thematically linked short stories - and now more recently, A Winter Book, which sadly doesn't bare out the comparison.

Sure there are some quirky and offbeat moments to be had - a child discovers a rock made of silver and tries to take it home with her only to have it explode into a thousand fragments at the last minute; a woman declares war on her island's only other living inhabitant: a squirrel with attitude; a traveller with a phobia about other people fails to read the small print on her ticket reservation and winds up sharing a cabin with an overly friendly businessman - but unlike The Summer Book, these moments fail to come together into a satisfying whole. I found myself reading it out of affection for the earlier book rather than any real enthusiasm which is a shame.

Jansson has an unusual voice, one which is genuinely entertaining and captures the Baltic sense of humour well. Read the early Moomin stories if you don't believe me. The Summer Book is simply lovely, perhaps best enjoyed as the end of summer skirts into view. A Winter Book has its place, but check out the earlier recommendations first.

Mr Mudd

Crash by Andrew Fusek Peters & Polly Peters

2007-02-20T11:47:00.000Z

Mrs Voyce recommended this book to me - she described it as 'original'; a book of poetry that we might finally get students interested in.

Well, Mrs Voyce was right! This story is a quick read. It only took me an hour or so... because it is uniquely told in poems. A selection of voices: a girl and her boyfriend, his best friend, his parents and a policewoman.

It is a powerful tale which explores the story often behind a bouquet of flowers tied to a tree on the side of the road.... Carl is driving Nat to see Kate; his first love, when Billy, a drunken driver, causes their car to veer off the road.

This story is an emotional roller-coaster, as it follows the lives of the young people, both before and after the event. We learn of first love, of friendship, and of suffering, but most of all about moving on after mourning our loss.

Another tear-jerker I'm afraid, and weird to read a selection of poems written consecutively as a story, but brilliant!

Miss Robinson

Massive by Julia Bell

2007-02-18T17:14:00.000Z

'Massive' is an intriguing story which takes the reader on the journey of Carmen's crazy and deeply sad life.

Carmen's mother forces her to suddenly move from Yorkshire to Birmingham, whilst her step father is away on business; she leaves her school and friends behind and enters a world focused entirely on weight loss. Carmen is forced into an acute awareness of her mother's illness; a life-long battle with eating disorders. As the reader, you dislike her mother for her constant 'fat' and 'piggy' comments aimed at her daughter. It isn't until Carmen herself begins to consciously fast or make herself sick ,that you realise how deeply such an illness affects others around the sufferer.

I read this story having seen the picture of the weighing scales on the cover. 'Massive' takes a frightening look at bulimia, an issue which troubled one of my own close friends whilst at college. This sensitive portrayal of a life-changing issue is well-worth a read; I couldn't put the book down, reading it in its entirety over a weekend!

Aside from the bulimia, this story touches on the realities of teenage life; under-age drinking and sex, a bitter parental divorce, truancy, bullying and family feuds. 'Massive' covers each of these issues sensitively through the eyes of the teenager.

Miss Robinson

Brick (Rian Johnson, 2005, USA)

2007-02-10T10:21:00.000Z

This brilliant neo-noir movie is not going to be to everyone's taste, but for those of you who crack it, you're going to absolutely love it!

A hybrid affair which mixes the effortless cool of the high school teen movie with the cruel sadism of film noir, the story focuses on Brendan and his search for AWOL ex-, Emily. That he will find her brutally murdered in a drainage ditch, we already know from the film's opening moments. But it is the story of Brendan's search and subsequent trail of vengeance that glues the story together and keeps you watching.

Peopled with some wonderful characters, all with monosyllabic names like Brain, Tug and The Pin, what really marks this film out as something special is the way in which it is told. Despite being set in modern day California, the characters speak in a kind of hard-boiled detective fictional slang. It's like Napoleon Dynamite got mixed up with Philip Marlowe and works to place you in the film's world (rather like the teen speak of the Droogs in A Clockwork Orange).

Plotwise you'll really need to keep on your toes. Miss one important clue and you'll be lost forever. This film makes no concessions and expects you to work hard for your pay-off. Not since The Usual Suspects has a film played with its audience and demanded so much of them.

If you liked the original cut of Donnie Darko or you've discovered the twisted world of David Lynch (Twin Peaks is clearly an influence here) or you're a bit tired of the same old, same old, I recommend you give this one a try.

Mr Mudd

What A Carve Up by Jonathan Coe (audio book)

2007-02-08T10:36:00.000Z

Pinching an idea from Miss Robinson, I recently bought the audio book of What A Carve Up to fill the morning and evening drive-times in the car. I read the book years ago when it originally came out and have read it again a couple of times since. It is one of my absolute favourite novels.

I was first drawn to it because it shares its title with an obscure British comedy of the early 1960s with which I am obsessed. (As well as a copy of the film on DVD, I've got a set of lobby cards and an extremely rare Belgian cinema poster). The events in the book intersect with the original movie in all kinds of unusual ways - there is a particularly hilarious imagined moment involving one of the book's characters and the very real Sid James. The book blends fact and fiction effortlessly.

A satirical swipe at that cruel decade the 1980s, What A Carve Up is a funny, sad, cynical and ultimately sympathetic novel. Its narrator is a writer, Michael, who is hired to write a family history of the ghastly Winshaw dynasty. But the more he finds out about them, the less worthy they appear. Newspaper columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it isn't; Henry's turning hospitals into carparks; Roddy's selling art in return for sex; down on the farm, Dorothy's squeezing every last pound from her livestock; Thomas is making a killing on the stock-exchange; and Mark is selling arms to dictators.

This cruel and loathsome family do eventually get their come-uppance, but it comes at a high and improbable price. I'm hoping the BBC will repeat their excellent radio adaptation of a few years back, but until then I'll be interested to see how the audio version compares.

Mr Mudd

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

2007-02-08T10:10:00.000Z

There aren’t many books that I’ve read that have affected me quite as deeply as this one. I haven’t stopped thinking about the horrific events and I’ve recommended it to people over and over again.

This book is set in Berlin, 1942. Bruno is a nine year old boy who loves his life. After The Fury has dinner with his family, Bruno returns home from school one day to discover that his belongings are being packed into crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do; Bruno reluctantly leaves his beloved home, his three best friends and his grandparents. But, he suddenly realises that he doesn’t even know what his father's job is. He simply knows that it is very very important.

When Bruno looks out of his new bedroom window he can see what he assumes is a ‘summer’ camp; a tall barbed wire fence running alongside his house which stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the vast group of people, all dressed the same, in striped pyjamas!

The innocence of Bruno’s character, which exists within the most terrible evil, is what makes this story so difficult to put down.

I listened to the audio-book whilst driving and twice had to pull over because Bruno’s tragic friendship, with a boy on the other side of the fence, is so bitter sweet; and the consequences of that friendship are so horrendous.

Expect to sob deeply!

Miss Robinson

The Last King of Scotland (Kevin McDonald, 2007, UK)

2007-02-08T10:02:00.000Z

Based on Giles Foden’s novel, The Last King of Scotland is amazing! It is a powerful thriller that recreates on screen the world of Uganda under the mad dictatorship of Idi Amin (played by Forest Whitaker) in the 1970s.

In an incredible twist of fate, a young and newly qualified doctor, Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) becomes irreversibly entangled with one of the world’s most prolific and barbarous dictators (Amin was responsible for at least 300 thousand deaths during his reign).

The naive doctor becomes Amin’s personal physician and closest advisor. Most of the murders are ‘hidden’ in that they are not at first shown on screen, until the doctor has a love affair with one of Amin’s many wives... When she becomes pregnant with the doctor's baby, she goes to a back-street abortion clinic where Amin makes a spectacle of her infidelity. His butchery of her is hideous. I actually felt physically sick, and I cried so that I had to look away from the screen.

Amin’s treatment of those who cross him is shocking. The scenes where he orders the torture of the doctor are not for the faint hearted. Again I had to turn from the screen with tears in my eyes.

This was brilliantly filmed. You actually hate Forest Whitaker for his portrayal of the mad-man, and I don’t think I’ll ever watch him in another film without thinking of Amin. I am not good with gory films, but this is one that you must see in order to truly recognize the extent of the terror and misery that this man caused.

Miss Robinson

Mokee Joe is Coming and Mokee Joe Recharged by Peter J. Murray

2007-02-08T09:59:00.000Z

Hudson isn’t any ordinary boy… He has no memory of his life before he was left on the door step of his parents home at the age of 7.

But the voice in his head that of his Uncle / Guardian Angel, informs him that he is from another planet! Also, that the evil, electrifying Mokee Joe is out to kill him.

A spooky adventure story of a boy and his two best friends, Molly and Ash, which will stop you getting to sleep with its heart-thumping stuff!

Definitely worth a read, especially one for the boys.

Miss Robinson

Footsteps by Katherine McMahon

2007-02-08T09:57:00.000Z

I usually prefer to read children’s books but this book was a one-off find - bought for 20p whilst on a course! Perhaps only appropriate for our 14-19 readers…

‘Footsteps’ is a love story set in Edwardian Suffolk. When Helena Mayrick is asked to research a book on her grandfather, the painter Hubert Donaldson, she hesitates to agree, not only because the relationship between Donaldson and her grandmother is shrouded in mystery, but also because she is mourning her husband's tragic death during a hiking accident on a school trip.

As the two mysterious stories slowly unravel together, it is uncertain whether the happy family life that Helena thought that she, her husband and daughter enjoyed was all a lie, as another woman appears in the shadows…

This story is a sad realization that things are not always as they seem, and that mourning can lead to devastating events, previously well-hidden, to become uncovered.

Miss Robinson

Merrow by Louise Cooper

2007-02-08T09:53:00.000Z

This book was one of the finalists for the Hampshire Book Award that myself and Mrs Voyce participate in with year 8 students. Many of our readers placed it sixth out of six, so it wasn’t that popular; but, having spent time in the Falmouth and Newquay area myself, whilst at university, I loved this book!

It is a sinister tale of surfing, shattered friendships, sexual awakening...and ghosts. Kiran, Jay and Robyn have been best mates for years, hanging out together in their idyllic hometown on the Cornish coast. Now that they've turned sixteen, they have one last summer before they have to get serious about the rest of their lives. But their lives change for ever when Kiran attempts to save a stranger from drowning and fails. Robyn is determined to help Kiran over his apparent 'breakdown', but soon both she and Jay are having their doubts as to whether the ghost girl, the Merrow, as they call her, exists after all, and all three are drawn into a sinister and nightmarish search for the truth...

Perhaps it was the references to places I know, or maybe it was the clever love triangle that I liked about it, but this story is definitely worth a read.

Miss Robinson

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

2007-02-08T09:34:00.000Z

This one is a bit of a cheat, as I haven’t read it recently. It was in fact the first book I read at Fernhill. But it has to be included as it’s a must-read.

This is perhaps one the first children’s books to shock me into realizing just how lucky we are to live the life we do and not be subjected to things that others in this world are and have been in the past. It is a story which leaves the reader shocked; a story of race inequality, of teenage love, family life and its problems, a story with a deeply disturbing ending. You’ve been warned!

Sephy and Callum have been best friends since childhood, and now they are older, they realise they want more from each other. But the harsh realities of lives lived in a segregated society are beginning to take their toll: Callum is a nought-a second-class citizen in a world dominated by the Crosses-and Sephy is a Cross, and the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the country. The barriers they would have to cross to be together at first seem little more than minor obstacles to the two idealistic teenagers, but soon those barriers threaten not only their friendship but their lives.

This book holds a message; about the past, present and the future. Blackman has cleverly turned the preconceived ideas of racial prejudice around, to make the white people, the noughts of society.

Well worth a read, and afterwards why not try ‘Checkmate’ and ‘Knife Edge’ too, the second and third books in the trilogy.

Miss Robinson

Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner

2007-02-06T20:27:00.000Z

This is a delightful and charming book. When his mother packs him off to visit his Aunts in Berlin, school boy Emil Tischbein is given an envelope containing money. Promising to look after it and keep it safe, the first thing that happens of course is that he is robbed whilst asleep on his train journey. The robber is a sinister stranger in a bowler hat, but he reckons without the indignant Emil who sets off in hot pursuit. Whilst following the man, Emil comes across Gustav and his friends who vow to help him get back his money.

First published in 1929, the book is a sort of easy going detective story in which the wide-eyed and innocent Emil soon learns that Berlin is a city of many surprises. The chase is exciting and the boys Emil encounters are all suitably eccentric: there is the Professor who likes to think of himself as the brains of the outfit and then there is Gustav who communicates via a car horm which he blows at every opportunity. Even Emil's annoying cousin Pony makes a brief appearance on her new bicycle. It is not difficult to see why Disney has turned this into a movie not once but twice.

The ending when it comes is very satisfying. It all ends happily of course and there is even a moral to be had. I missed this book when I was young, but I'm glad I've caught up with it now. If you're in the market for a quick, heart-warming adventure set in a realistic Berlin (all the places mentioned still exist: go check them out) then you could do far worse than read this book. You could switch on Hollyoaks.

Mr Mudd

Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson

2007-02-02T19:47:00.000Z

An account of the fast disappearing rural landscape of late nineteenth century Northamptonshire probably doesn't sound like anyone's idea of a 'reet riveting read'. But wait, there is much to enjoy here ...

Lovingly written, the book follows its protagonist Laura's journey from girl into early womanhood. It is through Laura's eyes that we witness the rapid changes affecting ordinary people in the latter days of Queen Victoria's reign; a time when Britain was Great Britain, two-thirds of the planet was bathed a dusky pink and absolutley everything seemed to cost one penny.

The book features some surprises: Laura complains of disruptive and rude pupils in her class at school. Sound suspiciously familiar? This is 1886 remember! Children (remember there were no teenagers in those days) annoy their parents with the accusation 'I didn't ask to be born, did I?' Perhaps most spooky is the references to unseasonably hot weather. Is this one of English literature's earliest references to global warming?

Shot through with a wry sense of humour, this is a fascinating book. It will not suit everybody's taste - there are no guns or unnatural deaths and the height of the school year is a visit from a travelling German oompah band. However, if you're interested in what life was like for ordinary working people in less media saturated days, then this is well worth a few hours of your attention. At least it will make you think twice before you dismiss your Grandparents' stories next time they try to tell you how lucky you are!

Mr Mudd

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

2007-01-28T21:16:00.000Z

A bit of a cheat to include this book here I suppose because I read it over the Christmas holidays and not too recently. However, it is a wonderful novel and I noticed that we had a copy in the LRC. It's definitely well worth checking out.

Set in the close-knit island community of Amity in the aftermath of the Second World War, this is a compelling courtroom drama. As the murder trial of Japanese fisherman, Kabuo Miyamoto, unfolds, the lives of those affected is told through a series of beautifully written flashbacks. David Guterson has assembled a strong cast of characters: there is journalist and war veteran, Ishmael Chambers, who might just have personal reasons of his own for wanting the jury to return a guilty verdict; then there is the accused's wife, Hatsue, who also has much to conceal. The townspeople are a curious assortment who express racist bigotry on the one hand and prove surprisingly liberal minded on the other. As a reader, you cannot help but feel a part of this small, exposed world clinging to the edge of the Pacific.

The story unfolds at a leisurely pace and works at a number of levels - as a murder mystery, as a forbidden love story, as a work of philosophy and as a riveting examination of the shameful ineptitude with which the USA dealt with its own Japanese citizens following Pearl Habour.

I cannot praise this beautiful, brilliantly engaging book highly enough. If you enjoy it, you should also seek out Peter Hoeg's, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, or - on a slightly different tack - Andrea Levy's, Small Island.

Mr Mudd

The Colour of Memory by Geoff Dyer (The Observer, Summer 2005)

2007-01-28T18:07:00.001Z

Click the image to read a review I sent into The Observer newspaper and which was published. The book, by the way, is fantastic, but you really need to have grown up with your friends in a city in the 1980s to fully appreciate it. I just like the review and wanted to share it with you.

Mr Mudd

Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce

2007-01-21T18:21:00.000Z

I recently found a paperback copy of this book in a local second-hand bookshop. I remember seeing it as a rickety old BBC televison children's drama when I was a kid and recalled it had something to do with time travel and clocks striking thirteen!

The main character is a boy called Tom who winds up for the summer holidays in a flat in an old dull house, in a town near the Fens. Not much of a story to be had from this unpromising set-up you might think, but you'd be wrong. Longing for a garden to play in and someone to share it with, he is dismayed to find that there isn't another child for miles and only a dusty yard out back.

However, when the clock strikes thirteen one evening, Tom is amazed to find the back door suddenly opens out onto the garden he longs for, wide and rambling, with trees to climb. And there is a friend to play with too, adventurous, lonely Hatty, an orphan girl who has come to live with cousins. Yet all is not what it first seems.

Why is Hatty sometimes Tom's own age, sometimes older, once a very small weeping child in black? Why can only Hatty appear to see him? Can a garden itself be a ghost? Can you enter someone else's dreams?

This book first appeared in 1958 and won the Carnegie Medal for that year. I must admit I really enjoyed it. The writer manages to keep the mystery going right to the end and as for the final twist in the plot. Well, I'm hardly likely to reveal that am I?

Mr Mudd