One of the benefits of a busy month of travelling is the opportunity it affords for a lot of reading, and with trips to Russia, England and Singapore during October, I seem to have got through a lot of books.
Of these, the best ones included JM Coetzee’s SUMMERTIME. I’m a great admirer of Coetzee’s fiction, the manner in which he can blend pure fiction and fictionalised autobiography, also the methodical manner in which he deconstructs a writer’s psyche. This latest work is a powerful piece of self-analysation, told after ‘his death’ by a number of people who knew him.
Completely different was Nick Hornby’s latest novel JULIET, NAKED, a very funny and clever story about a couple and their relationship to an obscure and reclusive American songwriter. It’s a terrific read, full of unexpected twists; I loved it. Lorrie Moore’s A GATE AT THE STAIRS is receiving a lot of praise, and rightly so. Told in a cold and almost clinical manner, it’s the story of a young student who falls in with a middle-aged couple when she is hired to babysit their adopted daughter. It’s an intriguing and fascinating tale.
Alistair Morgan’s debut novel SLEEPER’S WAKE is a powerful work of fiction, the story of a man who is attempting to recover from the death of his wife and daughter in an automobile accident. It’s a strong piece of work although there are perhaps too many unresolved strands left in the air at the end. William Boyd’s ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS is an intricately plotted thriller that asks serious questions about identity and examines how easy it is to abandon it in the 21st century.
Anyone who knows anything about me knows that my favourite contemporary novelist is John Irving. It was reading THE CIDER HOUSE RULES when I was 17 that convinced me that I wanted to be a writer. So it was with great delight that I read his twelfth novel LAST NIGHT IN TWISTED RIVER, which ranks alongside his best work. The story of a writer and his father, a cook, set over 50 years it’s funny and moving, filled with stylistic flourishes that have set Irving set aside from his peers over the last quarter century. The credibility of the unexpected is one of the key features of Irving’s novels; the appearance of Lady Sky is a moment in fiction that I will not forget in a hurry. A masterful, masterful novel.
I hadn’t read Maurice Sendak’s WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE in many years and returned to it – and enjoyed it – before reading Dave Eggers’ THE WILD THINGS, a novel based on the picture book and screenplay of the movie. The novel is hugely entertaining and appropriately bizarre; life on the island with the beasts is alternately scary and funny. But the opening 60 pages or so, leading up to Max’s escape, is one of the best accounts of childhood loneliness, frustration and isolation that I’ve ever read.
I also read Pat Conroy’s SOUTH OF BROAD, Alan Glynn’s excellent Dublin thriller WINTERLAND (which I reviewed for The Irish Times), James Lever’s ME CHEETA, Penelope Lively’s FAMILY ALBUM, Audrey Niffenegger’s curious and interersting novel HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY, Taichi Yamada’s I HAVEN’T DREAMED OF FLYING FOR A WHILE and re-read Art Spiegelman’s powerful Holocaust graphic novel MAUS.
The Spanish language edition of THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE, entitled 
Today was my last day in Singapore after a very enjoyable festival. I started the day out at Channel News Asia’s morning television programme where I was interviewed alongside fellow writers Edwin Thumboo and Philip Jeyaretnam about the importance of this once-every-2-years festival and how literature transcends geographical boundaries. It’s always interesting to see how television stations operate in different countries. In Ireland and the UK, one is always caked in make-up before being put in front of the cameras. In the States, you’re in and out without so much as glancing in a mirror. Here it was more like that, which suits me just fine.
I took part in 2 events at The Arts House in Singapore yesterday as part of the festival. The first was a public interview and reading from THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE; the second the same but relating to THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS. I have a few more days here before I go home, some interviews, a TV appearance, and a talk on how to write novels on Monday. So I better figure out how to write them between now and then.
The Italian edition of MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY is published this week by my Italian publisher 
Two stand-out novels this month. I’ve always loved Richard Russo’s novels but his last book, BRIDGE OF SPIES, wasn’t my favourite. His new one, however, THAT OLD CAPE MAGIC is a real return to form. A late middle-aged man, Jack Griffin, attends two weddings and while doing so reflects on his relationships with his parents and his wife. It’s very funny at times but also provocative and interesting. Loved it. The other stand-out was Sebastian Faulks’ A WEEK IN DECEMBER, a great story based around the lives of a group of characters whose lives cross each other over the course of a week. Of the others, David Szalay confirmed his status as one of the most interesting young writers out there with his second novel THE INNOCENT. And yes, I read the Dan Brown. Well why not? I read one other book this month, an advance copy of a novel being published next year, which was so spectacularly awful – I mean seriously one of the worst books I’ve ever read in my life – that I decided not to put it in the picture. I’m nice really.