Me and You, Niccolo Ammaniti

Fourteen-year-old Lorenzo Cuni hates people. Having seen a documentary about a type of fly that makes itself look like a wasp in order to protect itself, he has learned how to fit in by appearing to be like those around him. In order to stop his mother in particular by turns nagging at him and worrying about him, he has told her he is off skiing for a week with some classmates. In fact, he heads down to the cellar with his headphones, his Playstation, some tins of tuna, and a fake tan spray. He hasn’t counted on his half sister Olivia turning up  . . .

The setting is ripe for comedy, and there are amusing moments in this short but thoughtful book. However, taken as a whole there is more here that is sad than funny. The larger picture is painted in apparently simple brush strokes but, looked at closely, reveals telling details of a broken family and some damaged people. At times the narrative threatens to veer slightly into soft terrain, but manages to stay the right side of schmaltz.  The ‘me and you’ of the title, for example, becomes a poignant refrain when Olivia recounts an incident from Lorenzo’s childhood that he himself has forgotten, and he is patently struck by the idea that at one moment at least he was not alone:

‘Then the motorboat took off. And me and you, we stayed down in the cabin where it smelled of bilge and everything was shaking and rocking.’

‘Me and you?’

‘Yes.’ She took a drag of her cigarette. ‘Me and you.’

A one-sitting read that will repay a second visit.

The Watch That Ends The Night, Allan Wolf

From the ship’s rat, scurrying between the pages (‘follow the food, follow the food’) to the businessman Bruce Ismay (‘Why clutter a ship’s deck with lifeboats? / First-class passengers would rather see the sunrise’); from Harold Bride, the Spark, overjoyed to be appointed to Titanic’s message room with her new technology (‘For the next six days, we will be Titanic’s only ears / Titanic’s only voice’) to Captain E. J. Smith (‘My career has been uneventful. I am content / to run the straightest line between the two coordinates’), Allan Wolf has conjured twenty-four voices from the Titanic and taken a fresh and very different approach to the events surrounding the sinking of the ship in April 1912. The novel moves back and forth between short monologues, drawing you in from the opening page. The various portraits are sensitively imagined.  The research is here, unobtrusively. (All the people named were actually on board the vessel.  The sources are presented at the back of the book.) Where facts are scarce, Wolf has filled in the outlines plausibly; where they are known, they are presented by the by, discreetly.  Yes, we know what happens in the end. But these pieces with their touching human details bring you on board with the various ‘characters’ and make you hope that somehow it won’t. And throughout the whole thing whispers the most compelling voice of all – that of The Iceberg, a villain of decidedly Shakespearean cast:

‘Within my frozen mass I cannot find / an equal to the heart of humankind. / I’ll have my heart when ship and ice align. . . . The ice will have his pick of human hearts / as soon as fair Titanic plays her part.’

If you’re a Titanic buff, this is a creative new angle on familiar material; if you’re someone who wants a gripping story that happens to be true, it’s a moving, memorable and, yes, respectful piece of work.

The Woman In Black, Susan Hill

Susan Hill was one of the 2011 Booker judges whose priority for prizeworthiness was “readability”. It has to be said that the woman practises what she preaches. The Woman in Black is hugely readable, atmospheric, absorbing and subtle. Read it before the big screen ramps up the melodrama and adds a soundtrack that the eerie stillness of the book really doesn’t require.

The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am, Kjersti A. Skomsvold

Best described as a novella of sorts, this is a quirky piece recounting the life of a woman, Mathea Martinsen, who is pondering her death and the many wasted and lost opportunities that she has missed out on due to her fear of people and living. When she ponders her life to date upon the death of her husband Epsilon, and decides that she has not lived enough, she obtains a box and makes a time capsule which she buries outside her apartment so that when it is found, people will know that she existed.

It is a sad account dealing with issues that we all face in life, regardless of age, such as isolation and loneliness. As the title suggests, the more this frightened and nervous woman tries to engage with life and find meaning, the less relevant she feels. The prose is simple yet very effective and it is truly a heart-wrenching account, though oftentimes peppered with comic moments such as this one -

I talked Epsilon into buying a rabbit, but didn’t tell him it was because I couldn’t be alone in the apartment anymore. He wouldn’t understand. ‘I just love animals,’ I said. ‘Almost as much as Hitler did.’”

River Cottage Veg Every Day, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

When I think of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (which I rarely do), I always picture him out in the wilds catching and dispatching some harmless creature one would never imagine eating unless in the most extreme cases of need. It was therefore with some scepticism that I picked up his latest River Cottage cookbook , Veg Every Day. I opened it idly at first, but then found myself turning the pages avidly as each recipe looked more tasty than the last.  Not only tasty, but simple.  I’ve now attempted about a dozen of the recipes, and though I’m not particularly talented in the kitchen, everything I tried turned out well and was indeed simplicity itself.  All you need to do is to make sure that you have a reasonable range of the usual herbs and spices in your cupboard; beyond that the ingredients are things you’ll either already have to hand, or will have no trouble finding in your local supermarket. At last a vegetarian cookbook that makes vegetarian cooking look mainstream.  I’m off now to have some leftover roasted roots frittata, which Hugh assured me would make ‘perfect lunchbox fare’ . . .

In The Garden Of Beasts, Erik Larson

William E. Dodd was an unassuming history professor from the University of Chicago when, in June 1933, he received a phone call asking him to take up the post of US ambassador in Berlin. He had two hours to decide on his answer. No one else wanted the job at that time and in that place. Overworked in academe, Dodd wanted time and space to write his comprehensive history of the southern US states . . . He accepted the position.

In the Garden of Beasts is a riveting account of Dodd’s time in Berlin during the period when Hitler was coming to power. The book follows him as, at first unable or unwilling to believe what is happening, he slowly begins to accept the enormity and horror of the situation. ‘The Cassandra of American diplomats’, as he is later styled, he speaks his mind, predicts with accuracy what is likely to occur, and is for the most part simply mocked. It doesn’t help his situation that his daughter, Martha, not quite divorced from her American husband back home, is more than able and willing to carry on concurrent affairs with the head of the Gestapo and a Soviet Embassy official among several others.

The book is thoroughly researched and there are pages of references and footnotes tucked away discreetly at the back where they do not interfere with the absolutely crackling pace of the narrative. On occasion it’s easy to imagine that what you’re reading is a thriller; on occasion it’s easy to laugh at the pompousness and ridiculousness of some of the characters – until you stop to remind yourself that these are the insane Hitler and Himmler and Göring.

Even if you think you’ve read all there is to read on this period, this book is so fresh and engaging it will add another dimension. Unreservedly recommended.