Swisher, Kara (2024) Burn Book: A Tech Love Story. Piatkus.
Renowned tech-business journalist and podcaster, Kara Swisher, in her memoir-history, takes down the US giants of big tech. She claims it is a love story that has gone wrong. As well as telling her own story she focuses on the tech titans, including calling out Mark Zuckerberg for the spread of dangerous misinformation and challenging Elon Musk in having gone from promising to disappointing. This is a tale of disillusionment, rampant greed and power, casual hypocrisy, toxicity, excesses and general weirdness in the tech industry by a thirty-year stalwart. A real ‘burn’ book with a call to do better in the AI era.
Rating: 4/5
Condie, Ally (2024) The Unwedding. Grand Central.
Broken-hearted Ellery finds herself alone at the luxurious Broken Point Resort, in Big Sur, after the failure of her twenty-year marriage. There is a grand wedding scheduled at the remote resort during her stay but all goes wrong when Ellery discovers the body of the groom in the pool one rainy night. Things go from bad to worse when a second member of the wedding party is found dead, but before the police can arrive a mudslide traps the resort guests. A ‘closed-house’ mystery with shady characters. Everyone is harbouring a secret (shadow) and there is a murderer in their midst. A whodunit that started with promise but fizzled later on. Lacked authenticity and a coherent plot. Overall an unsatisfactory mess!
Rating: 2/5
Baston, Lewis (2024) Borderlines: A History of Europe, Told from the Edges. Hodder Press.
Political analyst Lewis Baston takes us on a journey to twenty-nine key historical European borders. In his travels he explores how Europe has been redrawn, with today’s map largely the work of the victors of the twentieth-century world wars. He brings to light the history of the border zones; some that have changed many times, some scarred by conquest, ethic cleansing and barbed wire but many just forgotten, unexpected or with an unusual mix of cultures and people. Fascinating secret history of the fringes of Europe.
Rating: 5/5
Grisham, John (2024) Camino Ghosts. Hodder & Stoughton.
In Grisham’s third Camino Island story we find our heroes fighting greedy developers for a haunted island off the Florida coast. Dark Island was once the home of escaped slaves and the last survivor, reclusive Lovely Jackson, claims to be its legal owner. With the assistance of Steven Mahon, a pro bono environmental lawyer, and author Mercer Mann, how can justice for the legacy of Dark Island not prevail? Good escapist yarn.
Rating: 3/5
Clark, Nicola (2024) The Waiting Game: The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
The Waiting Game explores Henry VIII’s reign, and his marriage intrigues, through the daily lives of his queens’ ladies-in-waiting. The ladies-in-waiting of Tudor queens were not only confidantes, and chaperones, but also super-influencers, witnesses, and spies. Historian Nicola Clark’s narrative has given voice to the untold stories of these dynastically astute women. Using historical records and sources we get a new insight into women’s careers and the treacherous politics of the English court in the sixteenth century. A fresh perspective on Tudor life.
Rating: 4/5
Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd (2024) The Cleopatras: The Forgotten Queens of Egypt. Wildfire.
Cleopatra is remembered as an iconic ruler of ancient Egypt but in fact she was one of a long line of Egyptian Cleopatras. Professor in Ancient History, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, tells the dramatic story of the seven Cleopatras, tracing the world of Hellenistic Egypt in the centuries before its fall to Rome. The Cleopatras were all blood relatives, descendants of Ptolemy, Alexander the Great’s conquering general, and destined to be Queens of Egypt. They were all-powerful “goddess-queens”. This collective story shows how these talented and astute royal women were celebrated and revered in the ancient pharaonic patriarchy. Readable history of ruthless ambitions and intrigues.
Rating: 4/5
Campbell, Lucy (2023) Lowbridge. Ultimo Press.
After the devastating loss of their teenage daughter Katherine, and her husband Jamie, move to Jamie’s rural hometown of Lowbridge. As she starts to pick up the pieces of her life Katherine joins the local historical society where she becomes obsessed with the disappearance of a 17-year-old girl. After decades of silence this unsolved mystery is embedded in the town’s memory. Told in alternating chapters we witness the friendships and the small town tensions and secrets of 1987, alongside Katherine’s painstaking research unfolding in 2018. This slow-burning tale, which picks up suddenly towards the end, is a warm and well-rendered mystery.
Rating: 4/5
O’Neill, Megan (2024) The Mess We Made. Moa Press.
The lives of twins Josh, Quin and next-door neighbour Henry have been entwined since childhood, but now their relationship is very ‘messy’. Henry and Josh were best friends, and Quin and Henry high-school sweethearts, but one night something bad happens to Quin, Henry leaves town, Josh is expelled from school and Quin spirals downward. On top of that the twins are dealing with a hereditary degenerative disease. The story begins nine years later when Henry returns wanting to repair the old friendships, but both Quin and Josh are still facing their own demons. Compelling read. Fine debut.
Rating: 4/5
Williams, Pip (2023) The Book Binder of Jericho. Affirm Press.
It is 1914 and the young men of Britain are off to war. Women must step up. Twin sisters Peggy and Maude live on a narrow boat and work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy has ambitions to go to Oxford University but responsibility for her vulnerable sister, and her station in a class-driven society (“town” and “gown”), make the achievement of this ambition but a pipe dream. As the war drags on, the refugees arrive, the influenza pandemic hits and women continue to strive for the vote Peggy’s dream takes on a new shape. A story of knowledge, who creates it, who gets to access it, and who loses if it is withheld, set within the realm of women. A companion volume to The Dictionary of Lost Words, but far more engaging. Fine work of research and imagination.
Rating: 4/5
7:30 Bookclub 