Book Review: The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

Title: The Crimson Petal and the White
Author: Michel Faber
Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
ISBN: 978-0857860019
Genre: Literary Fiction
PP: 824 pages
Price: £9.99
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

Add me to the list of people who appreciate Faber’s vividly-detailed writing! The setting of this story is so well-described that, for a few nights, I actually dreamt that I was in London’s streets in 1875. Just that alone gets my 5 stars. This book also leaves a lasting impression of the three main characters, William, Sugar, and Agnes.

Sure, William Rackham is a pathetic man who weakly follows the tide, but I think that’s the point. At the beginning of the novel, he’s so overwhelmed by the pressure to become a great man that his life has become stagnant. Sugar’s fire is what pushes his life into fluidity. He discovers (too late) that he also needs his family to make him a great man. This dichotomy is what the title is all about, the crimson petal, of course, being Sugar and the white petal being Agnes. Both petals make a perfume that is just too dangerous of a mix to solve everything. I found it very interesting that Sugar hates roses and thinks that they stink. Could it be because she views HERSELF as a filthy person?

Sugar is especially captivating to follow because she FIGHTS for a better life rather than simply accepting the revolting career that she was cursed with at an early age. If she has to be a prostitute, she’ll be the most sought-after prostitute in the city damn it! She turns to her vengeful novel as an outlet because she knows that taking it out on her customers in real life will get her nowhere. It’s so admirable to see her go above and beyond her duties as a whore to make each disgusting man leave her room feeling special. This is a character with real hope.

And Agnes’ pristine spirit gives a nice balance to the story. *sigh* If only she had the capability to give William everything he needs. But then there wouldn’t be a story, now would there? Her limitations are what set the plot in motion. This woman is so naïve and optimistic that she thinks her competitor is an angel. A strange woman standing at her gate can’t possibly have an ulterior motive! Agnes is so raw that she’s not ready to be a mother to her own child.

But I must say that the book could have done without the characters of Henry Rackham and Emmeline Fox. The ONLY good thing Henry has to offer is his tragic, ironic death. Although I don’t think he committed suicide, I do think his death is the direct cause of his depressed carelessness over something he didn’t even need to worry about in the first place. This makes his death a delicious one. But, we don’t need to waste so much time getting to know Emmeline Fox. (I skipped the parts that were written from her point-of view.) Sure, there is the nice parallel that both she and her father, Doctor Curlew, are “healers” in this horrible world, but we really don’t need so many pages about her. Instead, I would have liked to see more of a presence from the Rescue Society as a whole. (In case you don’t know, their mission is to “save” prostitutes by introducing them into a workforce that is worse than where they were in the first place.) This would have given an interesting aspect to the story.

As far as the highly-criticized ending, my complaint isn’t the open-ended questions that leave the reader hanging. In fact, I revel in this. There’s a feeling of hope that Sugar and Sophie can start afresh and live nice, uncomplicated lives filled with the love that the rest of the world denied them. Adding to this “clean slate” feeling is the awesome part where Sugar’s and Agnes’ life testaments are spilled onto the street. Just as intriguing is the danger that either Sugar or Sophie just might submit to following in her mother’s footsteps to continue the ugly cycle.

Also, I can hardly call this an “abrupt” ending when it’s a small, three-act story in itself (Sugar receives the dismissal letter, she makes several attempts to appeal to William, she has to sacrifice her dignity to Cheesman to get through the gates….) No, my complaint is that nothing really fueled the ending to make it happen in the first place. If William had such admiration for Sugar that it carried us through a story 800+ pages long, how could he so easily dismiss her? Sure, he’s finding Lady Bridgelow attractive lately. Ok, so Sugar’s been tired lately and is losing her luster (this is another nice irony, by the way: she’s losing her “power” over him because of HIS baby). …And he does have that newfound sense of responsibility for getting a more-qualified governess for Sophie…..But to throw Sugar on the street? It just doesn’t fit! To fix this, my suggestion would be to develop more of an intimacy between William and Lady Bridgelow. Perhaps, if they had actually shared a few genuine moments, the ending might have been plausible.

At any rate, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves being transported to another world and time. Michael Faber is an absolute genius at accomplishing this. If that is what you love in a story, then you won’t regret picking up this “tome”.

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Book Review: The Path of Minor Planets by Andrew Sean Greer

Title: The Path of Minor Planets
Author: Andrew Sean Greer
Publisher: Faber and Faber
ISBN: 978-0571260232
Genre: Literary Fiction
PP: 288 pages
Price: £12.99
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

Path of Minor Planets is Greer’s first novel, coming before Confessions of Max Tivoli, which has garnered more attention and praise. Personally, I preferred Path to Tivoli, finding the writing equally strong but the story even better.

Path opens with a group of astronomers and their students gathering in 1965 to watch the return of Comet Swift (named after the organizer of the gathering). Here we’re introduced to all the major characters at their varying stages of life-established professors, ambitious/nervous grad students, young children, people at the end or beginning of marriages, etc. During the viewing, they all witness the accidental death of a young island boy and the story moves on from there, using the return of the comet to structure the novel.

The time structure works well as we jump ahead in these lives to see how they’ve changed. While the comet’s cycle forms the novel’s backbone, Greer doesn’t hold to it slavishly, allowing himself in each cycle’s section to meander back and forth over the intervening years. Along the way we are treated to the events, both minor and major, in the characters’ lives and the way their lives, like the comet and earth, keep circling each other. Again, due to the difference in ages, there is a lot of variety here, as some characters find first flush of love disappearing, some find their career ambitions thwarted, others move into the twilight of their lives while some into the energetic adolescence. Narrative perspective shifts among the characters and Greer does an excellent job capturing this variety of voice and tone. The characters sound authentic across the spectrum of age and gender and personality, and this authenticity continues throughout the novel as they move into various life stages.

The story is layered and gently, quietly unfolds in the voices of its characters, never lapsing into cliche or predictability. The characters are complex creatures that are likable at times but not at others, admirable one moment, insufferable another. In other words, they’re like real people.

Stylistically, the book is generally strong, though Greer has a noticeable habit of swinging for the fence for too many lines. Metaphors and similes are especially frequent and while some are just wonderful, the sheer quantity of them means others are a bit clumsy or contradictory. And at times, after reading a string of them, you want to yell at him to just say the dress was white, the hat red and move the damn story along, but noticeable as this is, it doesn’t detract much from the book’s pleasures.

There isn’t a lot of action here; some will no doubt find it a bit slow, but give it time. The end effect of the style, structure, and characterization is a moving, affecting work that slowly, smoothly pulls you in and envelops you. In the end, you’re sad to let go of these characters, always a good sign. Very strongly recommended.

Book Review: Sister by Rosamund Lupton

Title: Sister
Author: Rosamund Lupton
Publisher: Piatkus, Hachette Book Group UK
Genre: Suspense, Thriller, Fiction
ISBN: 9780749942014
PP: 358 pages
Price: Rs. 295
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

Sister is an astounding accomplishment as a debut novel and is well worth reading. I was absorbed by Rosamund Lupton’s story of the truths we keep from our families and their desperate search for those truths once we leave them behind.

The bleak snowscape of the cover is fitting for the setting of the story, but on a deeper level it is indicative of the things before us that can remain hidden and the coldness of a search for answers. The young woman walking away from us into the wintry scene brings a splash of bright colour to the image with her read jacket. That vibrant red instinctively makes us think of blood and the chilling possibilities of what may have happened to Tess. My compliments to the design team at Piatkus for an effective cover design.

Sister is told simultaneously in the form of a letter from Beatrice to Tess and in Beatrice’s statement of events to a lawyer. Rather than being haphazard and confusing, this technique allows us to see the facts of Beatrice’s search for her sister while at the same time giving us an insight into their relationship and personalities. Lupton has managed to weave these two separate voices together to produce a coherent narrative that is thought-provoking and engaging.

Some reviewers have commented on the slower pace of Sister when compared to many thrillers. If you are looking for an action-packed thrill ride then Sister is probably not the book for you. But of you are interested in a book that will make you think and stay with you for days after you finish it, then don’t hesitate. While Sister is not your typical thriller it still fits quite comfortably into the genre, but the menace and threat is built up slowly – like an ominous shadow creeping into a bright sunny day. What I most loved about this story was that Lupton’s writing is crisp and intelligent and she has created real people in a situation that I could imagine myself into. Even now, a day after I finished the book, I find myself wondering what I would have done in Beatrice’s place. It’s this connection with the reader that I thing is especially amazing to find in a debut novel.

As Beatrice tells her story to the lawyer and her sister she undergoes a metamorphosis. Beatrice learns what is really important in her life and as her layers are stripped away the reader experiences this growth in her character firsthand. The snippets of memory shared with Tess from their childhood make the bond between them more real. And through these memories and Beatrice’s story Tess becomes as real a character as any of the others – despite the fact that we never meet her.

Sister is an accomplished debut that looks at how relationships affect us and it’s a book that will stay with you days after you finish it. I can’t wait to see what Lupton has in store for me next!

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Book Review: The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland

Title: The Gum Thief
Author: Douglas Coupland
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
ISBN: 978-1596915008
PP: 288 pages
Price: $15.00
Rating: 5/5

Another treat for Coupland fans, the Gum Thief is not as bleak or mean as Jpod, and more life-affirming and occasionally wistful than a lot of his canon – akin to Eleanor Rigby, in tone, perhaps. The device of the seriously bad novel-within-a-novel “Glove Pond” is hilarious and it’s a credit to Coupland’s writing that he manages to give it heart and style while essentially remaining a bad unpublishable novel at heart.

What makes Coupland so relevant is his relentless engagement in the here and now, articulated not in the contrived über-post-modern way that some might expect, but in his generosity of spirit towards his characters and the everydayness of their lives. There’s a richness in everyones experience of the world, he appears to be saying, and we don’t often acknowledge that.

Aside from this, every page throws up a moment of either poignancy or laugh-out-loud embarassment. The Gum Thief also manages to have one of the most moving endings of any book I’ve read this year, despite being the final chapter of the supposedly dire novel Glove Pond.

The Gum Thief is a sweet, heartwarming story of unlikely friendship, and dignity in even the most trying circumstances. It is written mainly as an exchange of letters, notes and diary entries between Roger, a divorced, bitter old soak and Bethany, a 20-something Goth, interspersed with a few other voices and extracts from Glove Pond, Roger’s hilariously bad debut novella. What is initially a rather prickly relationship between Roger and Bethany blossoms into something deeper, as they come to genuinely care for one another. Not a great deal happens – the plot seems more about thoughts, memories and feelings than action and dialogue. But only the hardest hearts could fail to be moved by this lovely tale. So, another treat for Coupland fans, and for those who’ve never read him before, a perfect introduction to the man at his most beguiling.

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Book Review: Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker

Title: Miss Hargreaves
Author: Frank Baker
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
ISBN: 978-1408802823
Genre: Literary Fiction
PP: 336 pages
Price: $14.00
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5

Norman Huntley has always allowed his imagination to run away with him. On a trip to Ireland with his friend Henry, they amuse themselves by inventing an imaginary eighty-three-year-old woman called Constance Hargreaves. They make Miss Hargreaves a poet and a musician; they give her a dog called Sarah and a cockatoo named Dr Pepusch – and Norman writes her a letter inviting her to stay at his home in Cornford, Buckinghamshire.

Never expecting her to accept his invitation (how could she – she doesn’t exist!) Norman is stunned when a little old lady arrives at the train station accompanied by a dog, a cockatoo, a harp – and even her own bath. It seems that Norman’s creation has come to life – and with even Henry convinced it’s all a practical joke, how will he explain Miss Hargreaves to his parents, his sister and his girlfriend Marjorie?

As the story continues, it gets more and more bizarre. I can safely say this is one of the most original and unusual books I’ve read for a long time! Miss Hargreaves is an unforgettable character – endearing and eccentric, yet ever so slightly sinister – and Norman is torn between a fatherly pride in his creation and frustration at the way she’s taking over his life. Somewhere in the middle of the novel, a gradual shift of power from Norman to Miss Hargreaves takes place, resulting in an almost Frankenstein-like situation where the creator begins to lose control of his creation. And yet Miss Hargreaves seems to be aware that there’s something different about her and that some kind of invisible bond exists between herself and Norman.

I was expecting the story to be funny and entertaining – and it is. However, there are also some very moving and poignant scenes, making the book a perfect mixture of dark and light.

There was only one aspect of this book that I could maybe have done without and that was the music. With Norman Huntley’s church organ, Cornelius Huntley’s violin and Miss Hargreaves’ harp, the musical elements of the book became a bit too much for me. However, I’m sure other readers will enjoy the organ playing scenes and they certainly add to the quirkiness and originality of the book.

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Book Review: When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman

Title: When God Was A Rabbit
Author: Sarah Winman
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
ISBN: 9781608195343
Genre: Literary Fiction
Price: $25.00
PP: 296 pages
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

This is the story of Elly and her brother Joe growing up in the 1970s. The book is in two parts and narrated by Elly. The first part begins with her birth in 1968 and follows her ordinary family through a series of extraordinary events – child abuse, cancer scare, sudden wealth, nativity play tragedy, brutal kidnap. You would think such big themes would make for a heavy read but they are dealt with in a light and subtle way.

Winman introduces lots of lovely, quirky characters: Jenny Penny, Nancy, Arthur, Ginger as well as elements of fantasy – god the rabbit, Hollywood stardom, coconuts. I loved the eternal optimism and openness of the parents and that, despite the curveballs thrown at their marriage, they stick together through good times and bad. So much better and more realistic than the usual tendency to break up good marriages for dramatic effect.

The second half of the book starts in 1995 when Elly is 27 and we see the person she has grown up to be. She is bright and successful in her career but she has struggled to make lasting friendships and relationships. The tragedy of 9/11, when Joe is living in New York, is dealt with convincingly and sympathetically and ultimately brings the characters together as they realise their dependency on each other.

This book crept up on me. It is light and easy to read and yet it had me gripped to the end. This is the sort of book I would aspire to if I was ever to sit down and write one. Winman’s use of similies was original and breathtakingly accurate and there were moments where I had to stop to absorb the genius of what I had just read. Some people will hate this book, will wonder how anyone can find humour in such darkness, but I loved it and admire the author’s courage and originality. That she could throw so much into one novel, turning tragedy into comedy whilst moving the reader to tears, demonstrates what an extraordinary book this is.

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Book Review: The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis

Title: The Pregnant Widow
Author: Martin Amis
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 9780099554127
Genre: Literary Fiction
PP: 480 pages
Price: Rs. 325
Source: Publisher
Rating: 3.5/5

Martin Amis is Britain’s most American writer. Plainly, he idolizes Bellow and Roth, and compared to most other British writers, he is as modern and challenging as these greats. This book is both a novel of ideas and a memoir of his youth. The novel of ideas is mostly about the sexual revolution – but from his own point of view and experience. I feel it is his most personal book, that the events in it are ‘real’ compared to those in, say, ‘Money.’

All of the male characters, including Amis’ alter ego Keith, circle around the female characters. The women are charged to be ‘like boys’ by the spirit of the time – that is, to like sex, seek it out, use men for their own purposes. Some succeed better than others at accommodating themselves to the zeitgeist, but some are terrible victims of it, like Keith’s sister Violet and Rita ‘the dog.’ Most of the men are hopeless victims of the women. Adriano the rich dwarf (no kidding) is by far the worst, followed by victims of Gloria (a real exploiter of men), especially the narrator Keith.

This is source of humor and ideas in the book – the reversal of expectations – that it is the changed women who are exploiting men – whether they know how to or not – and the poor men, who are reduced to sexual puppets and worse. Amis writes very well, and the book entertains and surprises in equal measure.

In a way, Amis is also like the Coen Brothers in his lack of sympathy for the humanity of his characters – they often come across as grotesques, not three dimensional people. Pregnant Widow suffers from this a lot of the time, but there is more real feeling in this book than I have experienced from prior efforts. I feel how much Keith desires the beautiful but vacuous Scheherazade, how his relationship with Lily becomes ‘sisterly’, how he identifies his fictional self as an orphan.

There seem to be a lot of demons expunged in this book for Amis, and I’m sure he felt better for writing it. I felt better for reading it. It stands out from his recent output, and would have received full marks from me if he could have made all his characters as three dimensional as Keith.
There’s plenty of Amis’ stylish tics here too. Some work better for me than others. His constant use of repeated phrases works well, while his tendency to give the Latin and Greek derivations of words comes across more as a demonstration of his learning than contributing much to the story. And that’s sometimes a problem with Amis – I have no doubt that he is far more intelligent than me, but I don’t always want it rammed down my throat. Far more forgivable is the frequently stunning unusual metaphors that litter his writing that are a complete joy. Lily for example is said to “sub-edit” her packing. In a stroke, you know what he means and you have an insight to her character.

Again as is common with Amis, it’s not all about plot. It’s his style that is so attractive and interesting. His ideas are also well thought out. The main thrust of the narrative is the changing role of females in their approach to sex – they behave like boys (although he puts it in slightly cruder terms). Thus it’s a stroke of brilliance to have one of his characters, Gloria, reading a book on Joan of Arc and making the point that the crime for which she was burnt was for dressing as a boy. Throughout, Keith is reading classic English novels and musing on the protagonists’ sexual adventures, particularly Jane Austin’s female characters. Comparing their methods of sexual conquest with Keith’s awakening into the post 1960s free love world is thoughtful and works well.

At times, Amis provides acute (male) insight into the sexual revolution, but at others there is a sense of male self-pity. The title itself is a metaphor for bereavement of the old and hope for the new. Few of his characters have much in the way of traits that make them appealing – and those that do, like Lily, tend to fare less well. I found the first half slow moving at times and, with more than usual amounts of dialogue for Amis here, which often jumps around in terms of subject matter, it can be disorientating. The solution is to make sure you read it in sizable chunks. Dipping into it can make for a disjointed read. However, with Gloria’s arrival on the scene, things pick up considerably for the reader, if not for all of the characters.

For me, it’s not in the same league as works such as “Money”, “Time’s Arrow” or “Yellow Dog”, and if you are new to this writer, then I’d suggest starting with those. However, for long time Amis followers, it is something of a return to form. It’s a book I’m glad to have read, but not one that I think that I will pluck of the shelf in a few years with fond recollections. There’s a certain coldness about it but when he soars, Amis writes as well as any British writer today.

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Book Review: Palo Alto by James Franco

Title: Palo Alto: Stories
Author: James Franco
Publisher: Faber and Faber
ISBN: 978-0571273164
PP: 208 pages
Price: £12.99
Source: Publisher
Rating: 3/5

Palo Alto is a collection of short stories concerning teenagers who are your bottom-of-the-barrel type of people. There’s lots of sex, alcohol, drugs, and general life wasting going on. Franco scores a few points with me throughout the course of this book. I’m not so old yet that I can’t appreciate and get some laughs out of some of the childish expressions and subject matter that overwhelmingly permeate this collection. However, Franco also seems to be attempting to bring some more mature dialogue to the table, and in doing this he creates a rather unrealistic and entirely unbelievable narrative throughout much of his writing. The consistently delinquent and simple storytelling is spot-on, but then there will be certain phrases that surface out of nowhere, phrases an adolescent would never use. Some of these are poetics that demonstrate something above and beyond what an adolescent would conjure and some are just poor word choices.

Adolescence is a tough time for everyone, particularly with the cruel restrictions teens place on one another for fitting in. These restrictions on what people should be like and look like are basically an attempt to gain control during a turbulent time. James Franco’s short stories reflect this in the reckless lifestyles and the cruelties the characters impose on one another.

Although the characters don’t have much depth or redemption, it’s the meaning behind the stories that struck me. Each character is hollow and alone, and chemical and sexual stimulation can never fulfill that void of empty teenage existance. In fact, it usually deepens it in the long term. If you’re looking for something that isn’t so blunt and graphic with its depiction of teenage society, go elsewhere. If your looking for cute characters that are lovable and find redemption, go elsewhere. However, if your looking for an authentic depiction of the faceless, conformist teenage society, James Franco nails it with Palo Alto.

Book Review: Saints and Sinners by Edna O’Brien

Title: Saints and Sinners: Stories
Author: Edna O’Brien
Publisher: Faber and Faber
ISBN: 978-0571270316
Genre: Short Stories
PP: 224 Pages
Price: £12.99
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

You’ll never get more black Irish than this, some without much humor, other with very dark and wonderful humor. And I write that as a compliment to the rich voice of this remarkable author. I have to confess that this is the first time I have read anything by Edna O’Brien. I must reform myself and read much more.

The opening story, “Shovel Kings,” takes the reader into the darkness of life both outside–specifically London–and inside Ireland, where life is sustained, if at all, by drink where these characters live in poverty and suffer from abuse, told to the narrator, awaiting an appointment with a psychotherapist, by Rafferty, an exile of sorts whose life could be summarized by this sentence in the story: “Nothing was wrong…but nothing was right, either.” I would say there was much that was wrong. As for the title, well it summarizes the existential lot of the Irish men who came to labor, for naught, in London.

In “Sinners,” aging Delia has “lost that most heartfelt rapport that she once had with God,” her prayers coming only from her lips, not “from deep within anymore.” Delia’s is an abode–that is also a small bed and breakfast–much in need of refreshing: wallpapers, paints, towels…everything. She is the mother of five, one dead, but they are like the wallpapers, faded images only, no longer present in her lonely life. Hers had not been a happy marriage, of course! Few are apparently in Edna O’Brien’s works. Is there any happiness in any Irish households? One wonders when reading these brilliant stories.

In “Madame Cassandra” Millie speaks in first person outside the caravan carrying Madame Cassandra, the gypsy seer, who appears not to wish to met with Millie–and the reader soon learns why. Millie reveals this about her past: “I cannot tell you what a relief it is to be here…to be able to let off a little steam.” A little steam??!! Oh, no, this is a woman filled with wrath. And, of course, the sbuject of her discourse, filled with allusions to various mythologies, is her errant husband.

Okay! When these two sentences soon reveal themselves in “Black Flowers,” “She didn’t know him very well. She had volunteered to give painting lessons in the prison in the Midlands where he was serving a long sentence,” then you know you’re in for a good read.

I could write a lot more about this collection of stories, but hopefully this is enough of a taste so that you will want to order a copy. This is a collection of excellently written short stories from a great author. They are not action packed and there are no car chases, but the writing is good quality and interesting. It is an excellent book to dip in and out of if you have only short bursts of time to spend relaxing with a good book – the short journey to work or even a trip to the bathhroom – come all; we all read on the toilet! I bought the book after listening ton interview with Edna O’Brien on the radio and have loved it. I can fully recommend it to anyone that likes good literature and relaxing.

Book Review: Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

Title: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
Author: Joshua Foer
Publisher: Allen Lane, Penguin Books
ISBN: 978-1846140297
Genre: Non-Fiction
PP: 320 pages
Price: £14.99
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

I wasn’t expecting great things from this book, since I’m the kind of person who tends to abandon popular science titles halfway through. But it gripped me from the start, probably because the facts are assembled along the spine of a well-written and absorbing narrative of self-discovery.

When science journalist Foer covers the US Memory Championship he’s torn between wonder and pity for the socially challenged, geeky competitors. Surely they can’t be normal people? We’ve all heard of savants who can perform superhuman feats of memory, but as he gets talking to these mental athletes (as they prefer to be described), they all say that it’s a skill anyone is capable of learning, given sufficient commitment to practice several hours a week.

When the young English memory champion Ben Cooke offers to tutor him, Foer agrees to test the hypothesis that within a year a regular guy like him can improve his memory sufficiently to compete in the US Memory Championship – and that’s where things get really interesting. Cooke trains him in the “Memory Palace” technique, a time-honoured strategy to make random memories stick by turning them into vivid (sometimes rude) images and locating them in various locations in a building that exists inside the mind. It sounds flaky, but the point behind the device is that we are hard-wired to remember the physical details of our environments better than strings of intellectual information.

And it has a long and venerable history, covered by Foer in one of the book’s most interesting chapters. We have numerous modern devices to store information for us, but that wasn’t always so. At one time, when books were scarce and expensive, humanity’s ability to retain and pass on knowledge depended almost entirely on remembering it by heart, and in the ancient world a person was judged by their ability to be a good memorizer. We’re tapping into an inborn, universal mental ability that has been neglected for generations.

This is a fascinating journey through the arcane circuit of the super-memorizers of the world circuit, a tale of personal determination and triumph, a quest to discover what words like “ordinary” really mean. Foer talks with some interesting people along the way – Tony Buzan (whom he admires but distrusts, without quite knowing why), ‘Brainman’ Daniel Tammett and, most heartbreaking, an elderly American man who can’t remember anything that happened to him since he was twenty years old, and exists in an eternal present. Whilst this isn’t a self-help book that will take you through strategies to improve your own memory (try Tony Buzan for that), it does challenge us to rethink our assumptions and consider how concentrated effort can improve human performance in multiple areas. It worked for Foer (he won the 2006 US Memory Championship) and even for me – I built my own little memory palace and can remember my car registration number at last – I just think of a bee outside my front door, then a kangaroo, then the flat where I used to live…

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