Middle England - Jonathan Coe

I only learned that Jonathan Coe’s Middle England is the third book in a series that began in 2001 with The Rotters Cluband continued in 2004 with The Closed Circle after I began reading it. In retrospect, I can see that not being familiar with the backgrounds, relationships, and past experiences of the main characters from the first two books made it considerably more difficult for me to keep all of them straight in Middle England. Although Coe makes a valiant effort to tie the past to the present in Middle England , those readers who have already read the first two Rotters Club books are likely to perceive some of the book’s episodes differently (as in better or more precisely) than those reading Middle England as a standalone. But even as a standalone, this book is brilliant.

Jonathan Coe has written what many in Britain are calling its “state-of-the-nation” novel. Middle England begins with the 2008 financial crash and ends in late 2018 with Britain still unable (or perhaps unwilling) to figure out how to make the Brexit vote a reality. Benjamin Trotter, one of the book’s main characters, is a somewhat failed family man who now finds himself living alone and hoping to get his excessively long manuscript published. Ben spends much of his time as caretaker of his elderly father, a man who constantly complains that the England he remembers so well is being ruined by the outrageously high number of newly arrived immigrants to his country. The book’s other main character is Ben’s niece Sophie, a university lecturer who falls in love with a young man who shares many of the views of Ben’s father – despite vigorously disagreeing with those views herself. Most of the book’s more secondary characters appear in the previous Rotters Club books, but their relationships are largely defined in Middle England by their approval or disapproval of the Brexit vote. The “Remainers” and the “Leavers” only communicate by shouting at each other – and neither side is at all interested in what the other has to say. Long-term friendships are ending; parents, children, and siblings are no longer speaking; and marriages are ending in loudly contested divorces. It’s as if Britain had morphed into two separate countries. Sound familiar, America?

Jonathan Coe

The biggest surprise about Middle England, though, is how funny it is. Picture scenes like the one in which two children’s entertainers (one dressed as a clown, the other as a mad professor of sorts) come to blows and throw F-bombs and fists at each other during a little boy’s birthday party. Or what I consider to be the funniest sexual encounter scene I have ever read, during which two nearly-sixty-year-olds decide to recreate a sexual encounter from their high school days inside a cramped wardrobe. (Let’s just say that the results bear little resemblance to those of forty years earlier.) 

Another striking thing about Middle England is that its author treats both sides of the Pro-Brexit, Anti-Brexit argument with a measure of respect rather than taking a hardline approach in favor of either. He does the same, in fact, with the issue of immigration and national boundaries. Some of Coe’s  main characters feel strongly one way and others feel strongly the other way. Admittedly, the book’s more sympathetic characters all lean in the same liberal direction, but in the end most of them adopt a more moderate approach to those with opposing views than they started with.

Bottom Line: Middle England is a funny and thought-provoking novel in which American readers will see many parallels between life in today’s Britain and today’s America. The novel exposes the absurdity of politics in both countries (and the rest of the world, for that matter) while offering a little hope that more moderate voices will eventually return to some power and influence. Although it will help, an interest in politics is not a prerequisite for reading Middle England because it is an entertaining novel filled with interesting characters for whom the reader will come to care. 

The Night Fire - Michael Connelly (Three Covers for Three Markets)

The twenty-third Harry Bosch novel will be hitting the bookstores on October 22 and I can't wait. But since this is also the second teaming-up of Bosch and his new partner Renée Ballard, Ballard fans might instead be calling The Night Fire the second book in the Renée Ballard series. Call it what you will, this is most definitely a win-win situation for Michael Connelly fans. (Personally,  even though I've already become quite a fan of the new Ballard character, this is a Harry Bosch novel in my eyes.)

Publisher Little, Brown and Company is going with different Night Fire covers for different parts of the world. When this happens, I usually prefer the version targeted toward the U.S. audience, but this time around I find myself preferring the middle cover shown up above, the one aimed at the U.K./Ireland market. What do you think?

Click on the image for a much larger view of the covers.

Knots and Crosses - Ian Rankin

Knots and Crosses is the first book in Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus series, and it most certainly  introduces John Rebus with a bang. Rebus is, in fact,  presented as such a flawed character here  that it is difficult to imagine a more unlikely main character for a series that is now some twenty-two books long and counting. Inspector Rebus is not a likely candidate to live long enough to collect his pension. 

As Knots and Crosses opens, the 41-year-old Rebus is not a happy man. He is divorced and seldom sees his almost-twelve-year-old daughter anymore. He is a loner with almost zero friends who “resents having to play the part of a normal human animal” and he prefers it that way. He has been an Edinburgh cop for fifteen years but is really going nowhere because of his own behavior and because his fellow cops largely resent his presence on the force. The man is a cynic who has somehow retained his faith in God, although he tempers his belief with a sense of humor about it all. During one particularly boring briefing he thinks, “Perhaps if he stopped praying, God would take the hint and stop being such a bastard to one of his few believers on this near-godforesaken planet.” This is John Rebus – and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Ian Rankin

Already overworked and way behind on his present case-load, Rebus is not exactly thrilled to be reassigned to one of the biggest manhunts ever seen in Edinburgh. Little girls are disappearing from around the city without a trace only to have their strangled bodies turn up a few days later. At first, Rebus is just another grunt in the army frantically searching for the killer, but it seems that the killer has something special in mind for the inspector (something that every veteran reader of detective fiction will figure out long before it clicks with Rebus). 

Bottom Line: The mystery part of Knots and Crosses is rather straightforward and reader-solvable but that is not really the point of this one. Instead, Rankin spends more than half the book fully fleshing out the John Rebus character. We learn who Rebus is today and all about how he got to be the way he is. We learn about his family history and his strained relationship with his only brother, a stage-hypnotist who followed in their father’s footsteps. We learn about Rebus’s military career and how that will impact the rest of the man’s life. We learn who John Rebus is, and by the end of the book, we know that we want to see a whole lot more of him.

River Queens - Alexander Watson

Alexander Watson’s River Queens: Saucy boat, stout mates, spotted dog, America is an education. I was already a longtime fan of road trip and long-walk memoirs but had never read one about a similar trip on America’s rivers before picking this one up. And the first thing I learned is that a river trip is more akin to a long walk than it is to a road trip – with many of the same advantages and benefits that traveling relatively slowly offers long distance walkers. There is simply no better way to take the pulse of America and her people than slowly working your way across large swaths of the country, all the while making new friends along the way. 

Alexander Watson

I am no boater, and neither were Alexander Watson and his partner, Dale Harris, until they decided to buy and restore the crippled wooden yacht that they would sail halfway across the country. The fact that Watson and Harris successfully managed to turn their dream into a reality despite their inexperience on the water is astounding. I can’t even imagine doing what these guys did. But they would need a whole lot of help as they made their way from Lake Texoma in Texas to Cincinnati, and luckily for them the river community was always there and eager to help them out.

It all started with a “forgettable” movie, one that failed to satisfy Alexander and Dale to the point that they were ready to head home. Instead, Alexander innocently enough made the suggestion that would define their lives for the next year and change: attending the 2001 Dallas Winter Boat Show. The boat show was a first for both men but it directly led to their purchase of the boat they would soon christen the Betty Jane, a beautiful 1950s-vintage wooden Chris-Craft admired by everyone who saw her on the water.  

Betty Jane

But it was not going to be that easy. Far from being a seaworthy purchase, the Betty Jane was ready to test every skill either of the men had acquired through their combined experiences with antiques and house renovations. As it turns out, getting her back on the water may have been the easy part. Now, Alexander and Dale had to prepare themselves to enter a whole new world, a culture with its own language, rules, expectations, and ways of doing even everyday things. They were going to need a lot of help and patience from their new friends – but would they find enough of either?

Bottom Line: River Queens is fun. But more than that, it is one of those memoirs that leave the reader with the hope that America may just not be as divided as she all too often appears to be. As a gay couple, Alexander and Dale knew that they were about to immerse themselves in a culture that might not welcome them, but not only were they welcomed, there were often tears left behind when they moved on down the river. If you are a fan of travel memoirs, this is a book you are going to love.

Review Copy provided by Author or Publisher

When Old Photos Spring to Life

I realize that black and white photography and black and white movies are considered a distinct art form. And rightly so. But I've also noticed just how much life can be pumped into old black and white photos and films by realistically colorizing them. 

One of my very favorite websites is the Shorpy Historial Photo Archive which makes wonderful old black and white photos from the past available to those who colorize old pictures as a hobby. The results are often stunning; just take a look at these examples:

The first set is from 1905, the second from the 1950s, and the third is from the 1920s.

Don't they just spring to life? The added color makes me feel as if these folks are someone I might just spot walking down the street or at the mall today. I love that feeling.

Clicking on the photos should give you a larger view of them.

More Than One-in-Four People in the U.S. Have Not Read a Book in the Past Year

At first glance, I found the numbers shown in this recent Pew Research Center study to be both astounding and terribly sad. But then it hit me. How many people in this country, I wondered, simply cannot read at all. What I found helped explained why 27% of the people in the U.S. have not read even one book in the past year, but it made me feel even worse about the state this country is in. 

As indicated on the graph shown above, 32% of men and 22% of women have not read a single book in the past twelve months. The percentage of non-readers is further broken down by race, education, and geographic location but there are no real surprises there. For instance, 22% of Whites are nonreaders, and the same can be said for 33% of Blacks and 40% of Hispanics. And the more schooling a person has, the more likely it is that they are a reader - as I would have expected. A little more surprising is that there is such a large gap between residents of urban/suburban areas and rural areas. But even that is at least partially explained by the relative difference between the two areas when it comes to access to educational opportunities and availability of reading material.

No, the real shocker is that 14% of this country's residents are illiterate and couldn't read a book even if they wanted to read one. Just take a look at this eye-opening statement provided by the Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy:

1. 32 million adults can not read in the United States equal to 14% of the population.
2. 21% of US adults read below the 5th grade level.
3. 19% of high school graduates can not read.
4. 85% of juveniles who interact with the juvenile court system are considered functionally illiterate.
5. 70% of inmates in America’s prisons can not read above the fourth grade level.

If that doesn't scare you, nothing will. Illiteracy is the cause of so many of the world's worst problems, including poverty and crime. It shouldn't be this hard to fix the problem - should it?