Material Witness

London 2012: Let the Games begin!

Over my 40 years I have been feverish with excitement about any number of sporting events. The ones I recall best now - in chronological order - are: West Ham's 1980 FA Cup Final appearance; my first five-for and 50 for my school on the same day at King's College, Taunton just four days before I left after a largely undistinguised cricketing career.

There was my first visit to Foxborough to see the New England Patriots in 1989; England's 1990 World Cup semi-final against Germany; England's 2003 Rugby World Cup Final in Sydney (after which I danced on the press desk I had at the Telstra Stadium - to the horror of my more professional colleague Huw Richards; Wasps' first Heineken Cup triumph in 2004; the first day of the Oval Ashes test in 2005; My maiden century in 2008 at Thy Gumley Top.

But I have never been more excited about a sporting event as I am now about tonight's opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games - and I have never before watched any opening ceremony for any event, anywere, ever. But this is different.

For most people the Games journey began in July 2005, when London was awarded the Games.

For me, it started two years earlier at the Hilton Hotel in Prague where as the Financial Times' new Sports Correspondent (even now that job seems surreal) I was covering the International Olympic Committee's voting process for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, as well as catching up on London's nascent bid for 2012.

The general consensus among experienced Olympic watchers in the UK media that week - who were amassed in Prague to meet new bid chief Barbara Cassani - was that London had no chance. For a great many reasons: we were late to the party; our program was incomplete and uninspiring; the IOC is a political organization where we had too little influence. Paris, the favourite, was sure to win.

But then the day after I met Cassani at a short media roundtable (and the Korean prime minister - a bizarre story for another time) the most extraordinary thing happened: the IOC came within six votes of awarding the winter games (with, you know, skiing) to a city that its own experts had warned against on account of it not having alpine facilities (i.e. ski slopes).

In the end sense prevailed although the IOC did send its ski-fest to a city that turned out not to have any snow: Vancouver.

But this IOC bidding process was clearly an unpredictably business. If a city without a mountain could come so close to winning the skiing, surely a city without a reliable trasnport system could win the running?

A year later I was in Lausanne when London was short-listed alongisde New York, Moscow, Madrid and Paris (still the favourite) for 2012. The media attitude had changed somewhat. Yes, London was still behind, its bid was far from convincing, but the noises from "sources" in the IOC, was that London was gaining momentum.

My one regret about relatively short 18-month holiday career as a sports writer was that by the time London was awarded the games in Singapore I was back on the tech and telco beat. But I do remember exactly where I was when London was awared the games: standing outside a bank in Queen Street in the City watching a live news feed through the window. I shed a few tears. (And the following day, 7/7; these two events will always be inter-linked in my memory: the terribly short journey from joy to despair).

I will shed a few more tonight, I daresay, because this is genuinely special. A home Olympic Games (for which I have tickets) and which I believe will be a fortnight of tremendous drama and fun, and those who love sport will surely embrace it.

The build-up has been great. We had the Olympic flame here in the village (although I was in Munich and missed it).  But I have been in and out of Heathrow the last couple of weeks ad have seen athletes from Peru, Ukraine, Chile, Russia, Argentina and Guatemala arriving. They all looked delighted to have arrived in London for an event that for most will be the highlight of their sporting careers.

And my kids - and their friends - are beyond excited, talking of little else in recent days.

There is no cynicism from them. They are simply delighted to be able to watch, visit and enjoy a festival of sport.

I understand why there is cynicism out there. That people are fed up with some of the restrictions, the Olympic lanes, the security shambles, the flag screw-up, the naked commercialism of some aspects ofthe Games.

I get all that, but I don't care. Perhaps I should, but to be honest, for me, it's all about the sport and the people watching it. Athletes who have trained for years to reach this sporting pinnacle, and people who will remember their achievements for the rest of their lives.

I remember Allan Wells in 1980, the hockey boys in 1988, Sally Gunnell in 1992 and staying up all night to watch Roger Black finish second to Michael Johnson in 1996. I remember Jason Queally in 2000, starting the cycling revolution. Kelly Holmes (twice!) in 2004.And I remember the Searles, and Redgrave and Holmes, Redgrave and Pinsent; Redgrave and Pinsent and Foster and Cracknell. And Leslie Law, and Ben Ainslie and Denise Lewis, Bradley Wiggins, Shirley Robertson. And Derek Redmond being carried over the line by his father in Barcelona (this one the IOC showed in the Prague Hilton in 2003 exemplifying the Olympic spirit - as it did).

And then there was 2008, which seemed like a miracle at the time. Nicole Cook cycling to road race victory on the first day and setting off an unlikely avalanche of gold medals: Victoria Pendleton, Rebecca Romero, Chris Hoy (thrice!!), Christine Ohurougu, Tim Brabants, James DeGale and a seemingly endless parade of cyclists, sailors and rowers.

I cheered them all hoarse and enjoyed every last medal.

But most of all, there was Rebecca Adlington and her twin gold medals. A girl from Mansfield who lifted us all and seemed genuinely bemused by where she found herself. Adlington is about as far away from sporting cynicism as I can imagine. And those golden moments are what I really remember about those games and captured the spirit perfectly.

So tonight we'll all be parked in front of a TV that suddenly doesn't seem big enough, enjoying the show and anticipating the sport to come. Next Friday night we'll be in the Olympic stadium to cheer on Jessica Ennis and all the other athletes irrespective of their nationality.

And I can't wait.

 

REVIEW: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Four pages from the end of Gone Girl, I could only marvel at the ability of Gillian Flynn to maintain an electric level of tension and mystery throughout a 400-pls page novel. Four pages from the end, I still had no idea how this mesmerising book would end, and was every bit as gripped as I had been from the very first page.

A day earlier, at 1.30am in a hotel room in Germany, I was torn between two competing and mutually exclusive demands. I had to know how Gone Girl finished, and therefore read the final 150 pages, but I had to try and get some sleep.

Gillian Flynn has that effect on me, and many many others. In the six years I have been writing Material Witness, no author has delivered a three card trick as powerful as Sharp Objects, Dark Places and now Gone Girl.

In my review of Dark Places, I wrote that Flynn's greatest strength is her ability to put the reader "inside the story, having them live every twist and turn", with her characters.

And she repeats the trick here, in a very clever story in which nothing is quite what it seems and nobody quite who people think they are.

Nick and Amy Dunne are celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary when Amy disappears from their home amidst signs of a struggle. The ensuing investigation - in which Nick, who has no alibi for the critical period, inevitably becomes the focus of suspicion - begins to chip away at the facade of their marriage. In parallel we learn their history through Amy's diaries, which detail the souring of the perfect love story as both lose their jobs and they move back from New York City to Nick's childhood home town on the Mississippi in Missouri.

Seeing the story in alternate chapters from twin perspectives - the present through Nick's eyes, history through Amy's words - is a simple device that immediately ratchets up the tension, lifting the lid on the private institution of marriage and putting husband and wife at loggerheads.  

Even if most married couples do not experience the extremes of Amy and Nick, every one will recongise the telltale signs of the stresses and strains of relationships, the petty resentments and irritations that, if allowed to fester, infect everything very quickly. This makes the story both disturbing and compulsive, like a motorway pile-up, and sustains it for 400 pages.

All the hallmarks of success from Flynn's first two books are here: a pacey, emotional narrative; characterisation of the highest order and first class writing.  

Gone Girl is a strong candidate for thriller of the year - it's certainly the best I've read in 2012 and it should add to the reputation of Gillian Flynn, who surely now ranks in the highest echelons of the thriller writer world.

 

REVIEW: Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

Death and the Penguin has proved to be the iced gem of last year's Christmas offerings (yes this review is a little late) - a book that is warm, witty, intelligent and sufficiently unusual to be genuinely compelling.

Consider this. Your local zoo can no longer afford to feed all of its animals and asks concerned local citizens to adopt smaller animals that they can look after. What do you take? A meerkat, perhaps? (Very trendy). A snake? A monkey?

Viktor Zolotaryov plumps for a penguin, MIsha, that lives in a gap behind his sofa and feeds on frozen fish provided by his new owner.

Its an odd sort of decision to make, not least because Viktor later proves not to be the decisive type. He is lost in the new Ukraine - the story was first published in 1996, just as the former Soviet republic was making its way as a free state - and Misha the penguin, a true fish out of water, is a mirror to Viktor.

In addition to his new role as penguin-keeper, Viktor also finds himself in a new job, writing obituaries for a local newspaper, a turn that brings even more strangeness into his life than having an Antarctic bird living behind the sofa. Viktor rapidly discovers that his writing of obituaries heralds death on its subjects, rather than the other way round.

The obituary writing heralds other changes in Viktor's life. First he finds himself the inadvertant guardian of Sonya, a young girl left on his doorstep by a mysterious "friend" Misha, known as Misha-non-Penguin. And when he hires a nanny to help with Sonya, he finds himself at that centre of an accidental family.

And while this brings the illusion of normalcy - penguin notwithstanding - Viktor's life takes on an increasingly surreal quality. He is paid to attend funerals with his increasingly depressed penguin,  in the role of chief mourner just as his own blameless, if directionless, life begins to converge with Ukraine's burgeoning organised industry.

Death and the Penguin is a strange book, a satirical novel that shouldn't really work, but does and does so brilliantly that the ending is merely a visual prompt to the immediate ordering of its sequel, Penguin Lost. It works because Viktor and Misha (penguin) offer such a perfect perspective on the emerging Ukraine and the bewildering changes to personal and public lives ushered in by ideological change. And it does so because Kurkov untethers himself from both convention and reality and uses his freedom to offer a series of profound, philosophical observations on the human (and penguin condition) bound together by a charming narrative, laced with wit and insight. Just brilliant.

Review: Beastly Things by Donna Leon

A Guido Brunetti novel from Donna Leon is the literary equivalent of comfort food. They are familiar, reassuring, utterly reliable and always welcome.

Food, of course, is a constant theme throughout the Brunetti series, which has become beloved of readers as much for the tastes and aromas of Paola Brunetti's kitchen as it is for her husband's cases. In Beastly Things, Leon takes the food theme one step further, placing Brunetti at the centre of a murder investigation that involves the processing of beef cattle for human consumption.

Recent novels in this wonderful series have addressed a number of philosophical, political and ethical themes that have broadened out beyond the analysis of the chaotic and corrupt state of Italian public and commercial life - although this inevitably plays a role in most affairs. 

In Beastly Things, the main subject of debate is the rearing and consumption of meat. The discourse is played out in dialogues between Brunetti and Paola, or with his two closest colleagues, the enigmatic Signorina Elettra or the principled, taciturn Vianello, and it is these that provide the emotional centre of the of the book and much of the enjoyment.

Brunetti, an equable and likable character, is often cast in the role of ingenue, surprised by the complexity of the world and by the depth and ferocity of his companions' thinking and opinions. He too, however, is quietly principled and a man whose moral compass determines the direction of his investigations, a necessity in Italy where nothing, including justice, is straightforward.

This is an unusual Brunetti novel in one sense, in that the crime becomes apparent immediately rather than after 100 pages or so of reflections on life and society as has been the case in recent books.

A murder victim fished out of a canal leads Brunetti and Vianello through a murky trail of sexual politics, profiteering, political intrigue and finally to the gates of a slaughterhouse where the dead man worked.

Despite the gruesome nature of the investigation, and the diseased world it unveils, Beastly Things is a joy. I usually take these books on holiday as a special treat for the beach. I'll miss it this year.

Susan Hill - Too much talent for one writer

Driving home last night from a long day at the office, I was kept awake and alert on a succession of motorways by an audio recording of The Pure in Heart, the second book in Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler police procedural series.

Actually, awake and alert, does not even come close. I was transfixed by the power of Hill's writing and her extraordinary ability to bring raw emotion alive with the written word. And nor does "police procedural" do justice to the depth of these books. Yes, there's a crime, and yes a detective - the enigmatic DCI Serrailler investigates. But the stories roll across a broad canvas of life, love and death portraying the human condition with such piercing insight it can be alternately exhilarating and terrifying.

The Pure in Heart is my third Susan Hill audio book this year, after the first Serrailler novel, The Various Haunts of Men, and the classic, gothic ghost story The Woman In Black, which has just been made into a film starring Daniel Radcliffe.

Driving back late from Heathrow a couple of months ago, I actually had to turn The Woman in Black off as I turned down one particularly dark and narrow country lane. Writing convincing ghost stories is not easy, and I find myself consistently disappointed by them. Not this. By the time Mr Kipps made his way to Eel Marsh house and saw the lady I was all but convinced she was hiding behind every other tree I drove past, in every shadow. The suspense was spell-binding throughout, the story-telling taut and spare, and with a terrible momentum of inevtiability that made it near unbearable in parts. But, during daylight, impossible to stop listening to.

Last night's moment of breathtaking power was found in the heart-rending anguish of the mother of a kidnapped child. For a parent it made some of the most difficult listening/reading I've ever come across. Of course I never fail to empathise with any parent who suffers that kind of loss - parents on television making appeals, or in newspaper reports describing their grief. But Susan Hill's writing delivered the scenario with such pathos for just a moment it was my grief, my child. Extraordinary.

If you haven't discovered Susan Hill yet, she comes with the highest recommendation I have to offer. I have no doubt that by the time 2012 is out, I'll have listened to (or read) the rest of the Serrailler series and whatever else I can lay my hands on. But if you do follow the recommendation, I suggest making sure the sun's up before you try The Woman in Black.

 

          

In praise of the bookstore

On Saturday afternoon, at the end of a whistlestop tour around the glories of Georgian Bath, I spied a bookstore. I'd been pretty well disciplined over the holiday period - with no need for new books (I had an unusually good Christmas haul), I had spurned many opportunities to visit stores.

But this was one temptation too many. We crossed the street, and in I went.

The fundamental difference between a good bookstore and a bad one, I think, is the degree to which the bookseller loves books. Somehow it's easy to tell: it can be seen in the presentation; it can be seen in the organization (just how many books can you cram into a sqaure metre of floor space?); it can be seen in the disposition of the staff. And so many of the books were wrapped. I loved that. "These documents are precious", it said. "Look after them."

A love of books was written all over Topping and Co. From the immaculately designed window, to an interior so crammed with books that it was all but impossible not to bump into a table and knock the end pile on to the floor (as I did, followed swiftly by a staff member who was too deep engrossed in a phone call trying to organize the visit of a SciFi writer).

Reacting favourably to a bookstore is dependent to some extent on finding books within it that you like - as I did. But I am also fairly certain I was predisposed to spend money the second I walked into the place. In the end I bought four - two from authors I'd never heard of, a great treat - and it could have been four times that. Partly I think that is because Topping's had so many book faces on display, rather than the usual anonymous row-upon-row of spines. It simply meant that more titles caught my attention.  (Many of these were piled precariously on tables).

It was partly, I suspect, because the ambience of the place lent itself rather well to browsing. The overall atmosphere was welcoming; the staff helpful but discreet; the lighting rather good; and then over the speakers they were playing Ludovico Einauldi, including the marvellous I Giorno. There was really no incentive to leave.

If that all sounds a bit dewey-eyed and romantic, well, that's pretty much how it made me feel. I should cherish books more! I should read more! Write more! And, yes, blog again.

The timing was perfect. Earlier in the weekend, I read that more than one million of us received e-readers for Christmas this year. Close friends in the village - bookworms both - have been glued to their Kindles since 25/12. But books are beautiful things, rather more than just 0s and 1s in a software file.

It's good to be reminded of that once in a while. Thanks Topping's!!

(For the record, I bought:  The London Train by Tessa Hadley; Girl Reading by Katie Ward; Hornblower and the Hotspur by CS Forrester; The Terror of St.Trinian's and other drawings by Ronald Searle)

So long, and thanks for all the books...

On World Book Night, in March, I travelled to Coalville public library to listen to RJ Ellory talk about his work. Roger very kindly gave me 30 minutes of his time after a lively and enjoyable discussion to interview him about his writing and his life. Five months later, to my shame, the tape of the interview is half transcribed and the interview not written.

I feel pretty bad about this. But the truth is, I really don't have time for Material Witness right now.

In 2007 I read 103 books. In 2008 it was 77, in 2009 just 40. Last year it was 51 and so far in 2011 it is just 29. I have reviewed just 12 of those.

And every week at least half a dozen new books arrive through the post. I get excited about them, read the synopses, put them on the shelves, and most of them stay there untouched. And that doesn't feel right.

So today I have reached a big decision. I am mothballing Material Witness. I will continue paying my subscription to Typepad and keep the content alive, but I don't have time to write a regular blog, and so for now I will stop. I hope to come back to it soon.

I've been writing Material Witness since April 2006, and have written 390 posts (which is really not a lot compared to some of the terrific prolific bloggers out there). I started as writing therapy, having packed in journalism for PR, and to fill what I saw as a gap in the market for reviews of crime fiction. You can read the first post here.

I've thoroughly enjoyed it. In that first year the blog attracted an average of about 3 readers a day (most of them related to me). But gradually as social media and blogs became more accepted, dare I say even reached the mainstream, that has risen dramatically, particularly in the last two years to peaks of 170-200 per day when I've been very active.

I know that a lot of people have taken recommendations from Material Witness, and I hope I've helped some authors to find a market that may otherwise have eluded them.

I've enjoyed getting to know a number of writers, a great many hard-working, charming and incredibly helpful people in publishing and a number of other crime fiction bloggers - Maxine, Dorte, Rhian among others - whose virtual company I have always enjoyed.

I would like to offer thanks to a handful of people. Firstly to Gaby Young at Orion who supported the blog with review copies when it started. Orion authors have been something of a mainstay since. Second to Sam Eades at Headline, who more than anyone else has made a huge effort to harness the blogosphere for her authors. To all the other publishers and writers who have supported the site: sincere thanks.

When the rest of life calms down just a little bit and affords me time to read and write, I really hope to back. But for now, so long, and thanks for all the books.

REVIEW: The Roots of Betrayal by James Forrester

What is it about pirates that so enthralls us? In other criminals the murder, mayhem and misogyny would be regarded as repulsive. But pirates are increasingly romanticised in fiction - from The Pirates of Penzance to Jack Sparrow, they are no longer the terrifying villains of old but now are viewed as swashbuckling heroes.

William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms, the herald at the centre of James Forrester's excellent series, confronts this question of pirates himself. Clarenceux (as he is known), now in his second Elizabethan conspiracy-thriller The Roots Of Betrayal, is thrust into the pirate life when he finds himself in the company of the wonderfully named Raw Carew, a privateer prowling the English channel in search of "Catholic treasure".

Clarenceux too is seeking the same treasure, although he understands that it is not gold, but a document whose content is so explosive it threatens not just Elizabeth's legitimacy on the throne but also the lives of those who have it in their possession and even those who see it. 

As their twin quests collide, so do their very different world views. Clarenceux is essentially an academic, a researcher who travels the land documenting the heraldic claims of the landed gentry. He has had adventure forced on him by his protection of, and subsequent loss of, said document. (For back story, see Sacred Treason).  Carew, by contrast, is the bastard son of a nobleman who fled a life of poverty in Calais - where he had been abandoned to his fate with his prostitute mother - for a life of crime on the high seas. Carew is a charismatic man of action, governed only by his desire to make a living for himself in his chosen profession and his Robin Hoodesque credo of looking after the poor and oppressed.

Despite witnessing Carew's violence, philandering and piracy - and indeed being its victim - Clarenceux, a religious man, cannot help but be drawn to the man, and ultimately they end up allies of sorts, drawn together by a mutual quest for survival.

The relationship between the two men and their adventures is the heart of an enjoyable novel that moves along at a good enough pace, with action and intrigue balanced by Forrester's natural inclination towards detail - political, social, historical. (In real life, Forrester is historian Ian Mortimer).  

Both men have also been betrayed. Carew has been betrayed by his father; but Clarenceux is not entirely sure by whom he has been betrayed. The document, much sought after both by crown loyalists and rebellious Catholics alike has been stolen from him, placing his life in danger. The Queen's attack dog Francis Walsingham - still smarting at being out-manoeuvered by Clarenceux in the original quest for the document - seeks to pin treason on Clarenceux, who is left without a soul to trust until he runs painfully into Carew.

If on occasion Forrester gets bogged down in period detail, he can be forgiven because ultimately the vivid Tudor canvass he paints enriches a lively story. And if the plot is perhaps just a little too reminscent of Sacred Treason, it doesn't matter too much as Carew arrives to give it a steroidal shot in the arm.

This is a fine historical novel, full of intrigue and drama and I look forward to the promised third part of the trilogy, The Final Sacrament, when it is published next year.  

 

REVIEW: Purge by Sofi Oksanen

Shortly before I read Purge, I heard an academic on the radio talking about how, for all its dangers and privations, the 1939-45 war was "straightforward" for Britain and its people. This remark was made in the context of a former Ukrainian soldier and UK immigrant, who had essentially survived the war only because he had chosen, when captured, to fight for the German army rather than go to a camp.

"At least the British always knew who the enemy was," the academic said, and I paraphrase, "for many Europeans on the ever-moving front line between Germany and Russia, life was much more complicated."

I kept this thought in mind throughout Sofi Oksanen's Purge, a clever, subtle psychological thriller which tells the story of two women trapped between nations and ideologies, forced into compromise and crime in the desperate battle for survival. The first, Aliide, is an Estonian peasant who spends the latter part of the war and then the Cold War locked in a loveless marriage with a Party official as she seeks to hide a secret past and present that represents imminent danger to her. The second, Zara, is a young Russian woman who leaves poverty and boredom in the east for freedom in the west only to find that her freedom holds its own awful price - sexual slavery.

The story evolves in parallel with the relationship between the two women, after Zara arrives on Aliide's doorstep bloodied and beaten, fleeing for her life. As the two women spar their way through a suspicious and largely silent introduction, their stories unfold through trips back to their earlier lives. Zara has her head turned by a flashy friend returning to their hometown, dripping with gold, telling stories of the riches within her reach.

Meanwhile Aliide journeys through Estonia's painful past and the transition from German occupation to Soviet state to fledgling democracy. Each regime demands its own sacrifice for personal survival, and throw Aliide into conflict either with the state, her neighbours even her family. The Soviet era is particularly fraught with danger as petty jealousies and ancient grudges are pursued through insidious betrayal to the secret police.

The banality and pointlessness of so much of the surveillance and snitching is in direct contrast to the devastating impact it has on lives and families. The climate of fear and suspicion reduces individuals either to party clones or to shells of their former selves - terrified of everyone and everything, even their own thoughts.

And so this is not just the story of Aliide and Zara, of course, it is the story of Estonia and countless other nations caught in the frontline between conflicting ideologies and eras.

Purge has a sort of stealthy brilliance that crept up on me and took an iron grip that I didn't notice until I neared its breathless finale. But brilliant it undoutedly is, seamlessly combining the agonising struggling of the individual with the crushing weight of important themes.

Inevitably, given that the writer - a young woman of Finnish/Estonian extraction - is from the Nordic region, she will be lumped in with the great Scandinavian crime wave currently taking over the globe. And while that might well help build Sofi Oksanen's profile and sales, on the evidence of this book she does not fit into this category (just as Finland is not part of Scandinavia). And that's not a value judgement, just a warning: don't come here expecting the new Larsson or Nesbo. Oksanen has a fresh voice, one that I look forward to hearing more from.

 

 

 

Flipbacks - Paper fights back...

Despite owning both a Sony Reader and an iPad with Kindle app - and enjoying both - I do not subscribe to the notion that the traditional paper-based book is doomed. People will likely always want books whether that is for the smell, the touch and feel or the decorative qualities. I can't quite describe why I care about owning real books. Just because. The fact that it is indescribable, however, does not make those feelings any less real. I feel it acutely and deeply.

That said, it is likely that fewer people will want books as other means of distribution of the core content become available. It also seems likely therefore that publishers will need to adapt to survive. And so I was delighted to receive m first "Flipback" - a pocket-sized and portable but full-length rendition of Peter Robinson's excellent Alan Banks novel, Piece of My Heart (review).

As you can see from the photo above, the flipback - a concept launched in the Netherlands 18 monhts ago and already popular on the continent - fits into the palm of the hand. The paper is very thin and the text obviously pretty small, although not noticably smaller than a regulation paperback. It is just about possible - although not easy - to read one-handed, and the book opens north to south rather than west to east. It took a while to think through how to describe that, so there's a picture (left to) help. Despite being 700 pages, the flipack will easily fit in the back pocket of my jeans. It will never run out of battery and I won't have to turn it off for landing and take-off. Perfect.

As I have already read Piece of My Heart - and despite enjoying it have no intention of reading it again - this review does not come with the full experience of reading the book. But I love the concept and applaud the creativity and innovation of Flipback and Hodder, who have published 12 titles today, including Charles Frazier's beuatiful civil war novel, Cold Mountain, Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker and Misery by Stephen King.

More titles are promised for the autumn.