I’ve had a few requests from readers to link this blog to some of my reviews, on Goodreads, of various books. Hence this article (now updated).
There’s nothing consistent about my various reviews of books. They reflect an eclectic range of genres, styles, and contexts: whatever happens to capture my attention from time to time. While I have a particular passion for international crime fiction on the one hand, and for South African prose on the other, from time to time I find myself engrossed in something entirely different.
For now, I’ll add to my earlier reviews this link to my recent comments on Goodreads about R.R. Reno’s comprehensive and incisive Return of the Strong Gods, sub-titled ‘Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West‘. I think this is a profoundly important book, which interrogates the ‘post-war liberal consensus’ after the Second World War that gave rise to ‘open society’ thinking and a concomitant rejection of traditional values, philosophies, historiography, and practices that were believed, by that consensus, to have caused the catastrophes that gave rise to the war. Reno argues that such rejection threw out the baby with the bathwater, as it were, and that a restoration of balance is required. I found the audiobook utterly enthralling and listened to it a few times.
I recently wrote a review of Anthony Akerman’s Lucky Bastard memoir, in which he looks back on the earth-shattering moment when, as a ten-year old, he discovered that his parents were not his biological parents, his sister was not his sister, his grandparents were not his ‘real’ grandparents, and he was not the person he had assumed he was. After decades of deep concern about his origin and background, Akerman then eventually, not unlike Oedipus, set out to find who he was. I found the writing subtly and beautifully textured and – not to put too fine a point on it – page-turningly absorbing.
A while back I reviewed Jeremiah Mofokeng wa Makhetha’s I Am A Man: a memoir. The book is a literate and brutally honest interrogation by the author of his journey through life, career and identity. It is written with humour and deep affection by a man who has achieved enormous heights in the world of stage, film and television. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Mamotladi Matloga’s Madness in Duggart, a rich tapestry of life in an African village, I thought was perceptive, unsentimental, and illustrative of some profound insights into aspects of mental health in relation to political context. Also on an African theme, I thought Sarah Key’s debut novel Tangled Weeds entirely original and compelling and suggested that it would grip the imagination of ‘anyone interested in exploring a richly-textured new vision of southern Africa’s tangled weeds and the potential for disentanglement.’ Prior to that I reviewed Heinrich Böhmke’s Sarie, thinking long and hard before writing my sentence describing it as ‘one of the most intelligent and robustly entertaining pieces of post-1994 South African fiction I have read’ and then offering some (hopefully helpful) criticisms of it. In an entirely different genre I enthused about Humphrey Carpenter’s J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography which I found to be, among other things, a ‘thought-provoking perspective on the various roles and responsibilities of the author in the writing of fiction.’ Before that, again in a completely different field, I enthused about Neil Sheehan’s A Bright, Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam – because I have long had a passion for not only military history but the sociological and political tentacles that weave their way into our understanding of geo-political events. In Sheehan’s book, particularly, I found his narrative to be ‘epic in its proportions, dramatic in its consequences, and lyrical in its delicate depiction of distraught and confused human beings who are struggling day by day to find wisdom and understanding in a world of tragic conflict.’
These are a few of the books I have found compelling and to which I have reacted positively and affirmatively. There are many more that I have read and a few more that I have reviewed. In some cases, where I have felt less enthusiastic, I have written privately to authors in response to their requests and offered some critical suggestions, all graciously received. We’re sensitive creatures, we writers: some critical suggestions are best offered privately. In my own case, I am enormously grateful to my own beta readers, friends, and readers who have offered sensitive and carefully-considered constructive criticism (if you will pardon the unintended alliteration of those words).
More reviews, please. You are helping my own reading plans very much. They are analytical without being academic or pompous. Thank you.
These are good reviews. The latest – Akerman’s book – seems very tantalising. I have experience of adopting pain. I’ll read it.
Thanks, everyone. I greatly appreciate your comments.
Very nice reviews. Very literate, too! Thanks.
These are very good reviews, thanks so much. It’s good to see someone take the time to do considered reviews on Goodreads. Too many are just quick comments. Goodreads should be a platform for in-depth reviews, and you sure deliver.
Nice reviews you’ve written. I’m afraid my own review of your book Gun Dealing is not as thoughtful, but I liked it, anyway. I’ll read your other stuff too, now.
This is very helpful. I like these review, too. I feel bad, now, that my own review of your book Devil Dealing was so cursory (but as I said in my review, I loved it, anyway!) I’ll read more of your books.
Thanks, Beatrice. ANY review is welcome, however brief, so thank you.
Great reviews. Thanks for this link.