awful auntie books 18 1 David Walliams 19 the blood of olympus (Heroes of olympus) 2 Rick Riordan

top five the maze runner children’s books 3 James Dashner

opal plumstead 4 Jacqueline Wilson the scorch trials this week’s bestsellers supplied by waterstones James Dashner 5 THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 26 | 10 | 2014 Powerful look photography he lower photography, he portrays An interplanetary mission valley of the the self-confident Omo at life in limbo Omo River in people, depicting their south-western way of life and their tradi- T Ethiopia is a tions, but also the beauty back to the heart of darkness Unesco World of the valley and its flora Cultural Heritage Site and and fauna. Hermann’s fiction west one of the most beautiful book is a homage to a By Julia Franck regions of Africa. Known region that has for years (Trs by Anthea Bell) fiction the book the Shoot, and as Bea reveals a series of as the cradle of mankind, been threatened by an harvill secker of strange natural and man-made disasters occurring the area is attractive not Ethiopian government £12.99 new things billions of miles away on Earth, Peter grad- the beauty of only for its particular dam project, since this reviewed by By Michel Faber ually begins to feel more and more distant landscape, but also for will permanently alter the lucy popescu the omo valley. canongate £18.99 and alienated from his home on the other the cradle of the diverse culture of its delicate balance of the reviewed by side of the galaxy. humankind inhabitants. The banks of Omo people’s eco-system doug johnstone This creeping sense of otherness and By Ken Hermann the river have for centu- – a last photographic During the Cold War, refu- alienation is something that pervades all edition panorama ries been the homeland image of a fascinating, gees from communist Eastern of The Book of Strange New Things, and £36 of the tribes of the Surma, archaic world. Danish Europe were often sent to the Since the publication of his has been a near constant preoccupation Mursi or Hamar, whose journalist Suzette Frovin Marienfelde transit camp in wonderfully crafted debut in all of Faber’s writing. Everyone in this expressive body-painting provides an introduc- Berlin. There they received novel Under the Skin in 2000, novel feels removed from their environ- (left) and rituals are tion which describes the housing and food while being Michel Faber has proven him- ment and those around them in one way unique. Ken Hermann has history, importance and interviewed by intelligence self, over the course of nine or another, and Faber seems to be saying visited the region several current development of agencies. They might remain books, to be a highly original Michel Faber: Slow and steady prose style that all communication is, by its nature, a times. In his impressive the Omo Valley. there for months, or even years. This is the and deeply thoughtful writer. kind of fatal compromise, doomed to fail- setting for Julia Franck’s powerful novel. From the macabre yet prosaic in Under the Skin of casting a new light on ure from the start. After obtaining a visa, supposedly in order horror of that debut to the Victorian melo- old subject matter. He is asking big ques- It’s to the author’s credit that he plays to marry a West German, Nelly Senff leaves drama of his biggest seller The Crimson Petal tions about the nature of human existence, all of this with a straight bat. It would’ve her fiancé and arrives at Marienfelde with her and the White, Faber has used a wide range of the nature of faith and belief, also questions been very easy to set up Peter’s authen- history the churchill Churchill was dressed, we are told, “like some And just in case we missed the coincidence, two children. She refuses to cooperate with genres and subject matter to peer in minute about the malleable nature of morality. tic Christian beliefs for satire, to ridicule factor: how burly and hungover butler” from Downton Johnson makes a point that Churchill was the CIA agents investigating her past in the detail at what it means to be human. But underneath it all he is examining the him as hopelessly naive and his mission All about one man made Abbey. Other points are driven home with surely entitled to the enormous sums he German Democratic Republic. The agents And that focus is ultra-sharp in this lat- nature of language and communication. as pointless. But Faber does a good job of ­history many cameo scenes from Johnson’s life. was paid for his journalism “because he was are particularly interested in the father of her est absorbing and enthralling novel. The The Oasans have a very different physi- ­depicting Peter’s religion with honesty By Boris Johnson In fact, it becomes increasingly diffi- popular with the public, and helped boost cir- two children, Vassily Batalov, who had appar- premise is simple but ingenious. We spend ognomy to humans, with no discernable and warmth, opening up the story to much reviewed by hodder £25 cult at times to separate Churchill’s story culation”. Yes, our mayor of London is paid a our greatest sonia purnell ently committed suicide three years before. the entirety of The Book of Strange New more interesting questions about how to from Johnson’s. When describing a figure Churchillian £5,000 plus per column; so no One of them, John Bird, becomes erotical- Things in the company of Peter, a Chris- maintain such belief in the face of terri- of obvious appeal to young people today, more criticism of this largesse, please. ly obsessed with Nelly. In the camp, she is tian minister sent on a mission to a far away ble hardship. Johnson refers to an “eccentric” with “his In another paean to his own brand of ­befriended by Krystyna Jablonovska, a Polish planet called Oasis with the sole purpose ‘All communication The book isn’t without a few niggling leader (and The handsome front cover of own special trademark clothes” who was a personality politics, Johnson declares that cellist, who has travelled west to seek medi- of bringing the word of God to the indig- problems though. The vagueness about, Boris Johnson’s new tome is a “thoroughgoing genius”. Who can he mean? “Character is destiny, said the Greeks, and cal help for her brother, and Hans Pischke, an enous population. is, by its nature, a kind and lack of interest in, USIC from all their masterpiece of subliminal mes- We hear how Churchill was considered an I agree”. We already know that Johnson actor who was imprisoned in East Berlin for He is employed by a rather mysterious of fatal compromise’ employees stretches credibility somewhat, a bit about saging. His last book, ostensibly adventurer, reckless, disloyal, untrustwor- ­believes his destiny resides in Downing Street attempting to deface a statue of Lenin. multinational corporation called USIC, especially considering the astronomical on London, was described as the and here are 350 pages on why he should Franck weaves their stories together to who have established a base on Oasis, and expenses surely involved in such an inter- “longest personal manifesto” in the shortly be sent there. There are impressive create a vivid sense of how persecution, dep- Peter shares his time between the engi- planetary colonisation. I was never totally Churchill) capital’s history with every page a passages in this book, where Johnson flexes rivation, and loss leave terrible psychological neers and grunts on the base and the benign mouths or eyes for example, and they convinced by Peter’s backstory of being a “coded plea” for “Boris for Mayor”. ‘He refers to himself his journalistic talent for rendering historical scars. Nelly becomes increasingly paranoid Oasans in their more primitive settlement, struggle to pronounce certain sounds. drunk and a drug addict before being con- This time, you need neither buy nor read The landfill into shiny new consumables. He does in the camp while Hans, who professes to be without electricity and with long, long These sounds are cleverly represented verted to the faith by Bea. And the sub plot Churchill Factor to detect the drumbeat for all some 30 times in the have a certain genius – as displayed in his pre- “incapable of love”, slides into depression. nights to fill. in the text as alien letters or characters, a of Earthly catastrophes being reported by those Conservatives and Ukippers out there in short introduction’ vious The Dream of Rome book – for making Krystyna has sacrificed her career for her Peter isn’t starting completely from technique that lends veracity to the initial Peter’s wife seems to rather fade from view search of a strongman alternative to Camero- history, in that dreaded term, “accessible”. family, works in appalling conditions, and scratch, though, as a previous pastor named struggle Peter has in communicating with as Peter becomes more entrenched in the nian appeasement of those pesky Europeans. But he refers to himself some 30 times in suffers taunts for being “a podge”. Kurtzberg has already educated the Oasans his flock. Oasans’ settlement. Also, Faber’s delib- Just who might have the Churchill Factor now, the short introduction alone, and on many We know it is 1978 because the radio sta- in the “techniques of Jesus” as they put Indeed, it’s not just the language but the erately slow and steady prose style does we are encouraged to ponder by the size of the thy, in possession of “death-defying self more occasions in the following pages. tions are forever playing Boney M’s “By the it, before disappearing and apparently very mindset of the creatures that Peter tend to plod a little when stretched out author’s name in relation to his supposed sub- belief” and consequently “not what people Overall, the book says perhaps less about Rivers of Babylon” and John has just been going native. There is an obvious homage finds so distancing to begin with, but over over nearly 550 pages. ject. And who might again become the “One thought of as a man of principle; he was a Churchill than it does about the ambition and to see The Deer Hunter. But what is most to Heart of Darkness here, and that book time he becomes more accustomed to their But the genuinely inquisitive and search- Man” capable of making history? glory-chasing goal-mouth-hanging oppor- self-image of Boris. In history-book terms, striking about Franck’s novel is how little certainly haunts the pages of The Book of ways of thinking, talking, and behaving. ing story in The Book of Strange New Things Johnson does indeed share certain Churchillian tunist”. And yet this embodiment of unlikely it is an opportunity missed. For Johnson’s has changed for those fleeing repression, Strange New Things, but this novel is very At the same time he is becoming increas- ultimately trumps such minor logistical traits – not least a restless energy and talent for qualities eventually became the saviour of ­career, it will no doubt work wonders. who find themselves just as helpless on much an original and thought-provoking ingly emotionally distanced from his wife, concerns. This is a novel of big ideas by a churning out books while apparently holding down the nation and the hero of the free world. So, the other side. As Nelly observes: “A hand read in its own right. Bea, stuck back on Earth. Peter and Bea can writer of unusual intelligence and lucidity, a government day-job. The mayor’s latest effort are we being subtly induced to believe that Sonia Purnell is the author of Just Boris: comes down from above on each one of In juxtaposing the human with the alien, only communicate through an expensive and it lingers in the mind after the final romps along nicely in places like his better columns, that is what Britain is also in need of now? If A Tale of Blond Ambition. Her book on them, picks them up or waves them on.” Faber here repeats the trick he performed and laborious system of messages called page is turned. and makes no greater claim on a lengthy shelf-life. so, who can Johnson have in mind? Clementine Churchill is out next year. Franck slyly reveals the West’s hypocrisy. The transit camp is effectively an open pris- on with its own laws, prejudices, and pecking order – the Poles are labelled “gypsies” while history the strangest “I have lost my eldest son,” the Earl of Bute, young George envisaged recruited a partner in this noble enterprise, But George’s experiment in moral It’s in the nature of royalty that domestic the children are treated as outsiders at the family: wrote George II upon Prince a monarchy whose central family was not the clever young German princess Charlotte ­domesticity didn’t work as well as he’d matters are played out on a big, public stage, local kindergarten, “strangers who spoke the private lives of Frederick’s death, “but I dysfunctional, profligate or debauched, and of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The new queen ful- hoped. The King never warmed to his sons but for George the yoking together of these george III, Queen differently and used different expressions, Charlotte and the was glad of it.” The prince’s who could thereby – that is, by example filled a part of her role in the domestic project – with the relationship with the Prince of two dimensions was quite deliberate, if ill- didn’t wear snow suits, had different boots hanoverians mother, Queen Caroline, had – lead a country that was moral and socially bravely, going through a debilitating 15 pregnan- Wales (later the Prince Regent, eventually fated. Hadlow’s energetic, richly detailed and school bags from the rest of the class”; reviewed by By Janice Hadlow also fantasised about her un- responsible and functional, too. One of the cies in 15 years – 13 of the children survived to George IV) the most obviously sour and debut combines personal sympathy for her daniel hahn their poverty is treated with contempt. The william collins £17 lucky son’s premature demise. first things he did upon accession was to adulthood. Indeed, one of the many pleasures resentful of the lot. The loss of the Ameri- subjects with a shrewd alertness to wider housing is cramped and the food rationed. Hanover family relations were make peace with his estranged uncle, the of Janice Hadlow’s attempt to understand the can colonies was personally bruising to the significances. She uses well-known court- Franck’s spare prose evokes an at- never uncomplicated … so, when George unpopular Duke of Cumberland; like so dynamics of this strangest of families is the pic- King; the appearance and reappearance of side chroniclers like Fanny Burney, but also mosphere of claustrophobic menace. III came to the throne in 1760, on the death much else, this act was fine symbolism, a ture it paints of a new conception of attitudes his bouts of madness and, alongside this, the mines personal letters, whose intimacy and Her unflinching gaze at lives in limbo, A blueprint of his old grandfather, he determined to statement about what kind of family man he to parenting, childbirth, and childhood itself. queen’s increased isolation and deepening immediacy offer a lively challenge to our seamlessly translated by Anthea Bell, is a change that. Having bought into the lessons meant to be, and what kind of king. (Rousseau’s landmark work Émile was published depression, shook his authority in public as preconceptions of that most stately age, compelling and resonant read. for blue bloods he’d learned from his controversial tutor, A fortnight before the coronation, George the year the couple’s first child arrived.) A James Gillray caricature of George III, from 1792 well as compromising his private world. and the public family at its heart.