Gone Girl

I don't normally do thrillers. I don't like nastiness...or creepiness. I don't particularly approve of gratuitous violence (although I'm not squeamish. I can watch wildly violent movies and sleep like a baby, but if I read the lamest ghost story, I'm up all night, red-eyed, clutching my bedsheets and really wishing they still produced smelling salts). Anyway, as far as Gone Girl goes, I'm a late adopter. It's been everywhere, Gillian Flynn (hard 'G' thank you very much) has been giving interviews left, right and centre, you can barely get the door of your average Waterstones branch open without it getting stuck on a stack of copies... I tried to get it from the library (that's my excuse for leaving it so long, anyway) but they still haven't got round to getting a copy. They're worse than me. I really enjoyed Gone Girl. It's a perfect, page-turning holiday read. It's almost impossible to review without moulting spoilers all over the place though, so I'll keep it brief. A woman vanishes. Her husband narrates the story from the start of her disappearance, interspersed with her historical diary entries. Where is she, what happened to her? are the central themes of the book. There are several twists - none of which I saw coming - excellent character development and it's basically a big rollercoaster of a read. Enjoy. But don't expect to fall in love with any of the characters.

My Cousin Rachel

Often overlooked in favour of the earlier 'Rebecca', this is another corker from Daphers that explores some similiar themes and has an equally complex woman at its centre.

Philip Ashley has been brought up by his beloved cousin, Ambrose on an estate in Cornwall. When Ambrose travels to Italy to restore his health in the warm climate, he falls in love and marries another cousin, Rachel. However, after a short, mysterious illness, Ambrose dies and his widow goes to visit his Cornish estate. As Philip starts to fall in love with her himself, his infatuation is tempered by a growing unease that Rachel murdered Ambrose.

The Dud Avocado: Elaine Dundy

I couldn't resist the title and picked it up thinking it would be a surefire Pettigrew Award winner - frustrated wild child leaves America to spend a year in Paris, courtesy of an eccentric uncle, to spread her wings and find out what life has to offer, all told in a witty, intellectualized fashion.

Well, it's entertaining up to a point and I got to the end without too much of a slog but it wasn't what I was expecting. Perhaps I expected a wild, yet naive narrator but found no innocent abroad here - in one of the opening chapters our heroine chats to a male friend at a pretty outdoor Parisian cafe, having accidentally stood up her married lover.

So far, so slightly racy Pettigrew. Then she announces, dear reader, that she's just come under the table. The novel was written in the 1950s so, whilst unabashardly modern and all that, this incongrousness haunts the novel. The unlikely plot twists and turns and a host of unsympathetic characters - including the heroine - all left me rather cold.

The House on the Strand: Daphne du Maurier

The Bandit is a big fan of Daphne du M. Her pretty, ladylike name with a flourise of French can beguile the unwary into thinkking she's a flowery spinster. Those who pick up her books looking for a mistress of the saga genre will be shocked and those who dismiss her as a 'girly author' will miss out on this deliciously dark writer.

So well done to Virago who reissued her cataglogue a few years ago with rather spooky covers that hint at Daphers's gothic style and unisex appeal.

The House on the Strand is a blend of historial science fiction (not too many of those to the pound!) with two equally absorbing plots running in tandem.

Dick Young, husband and stepfather, is offered the use of an ancient house by his old university chum, Magnus, a chemistry professor of extraordinary talent and rather questionable morals. Dick agrees to act as a guinea pig for a drug Magnus has developed and it turns out to give him the trip to end all trips as it transports him back to the early 14th century. In a lesser author's hands, the fantastic plot idea could have clunked along leaving its reader totally unconvinced. Not here: the novel is a spell-binding study of addiction - to drugs, love, escapism - and its devastating consquences.

Sophie Kinsella

You won't find much chick lit on the blog – I don’t despise people who read it, it’s no worse than a lot of the brainless crap I end up watching on TV. But it is generally trite and formulaic. The chick lit plot goes thusly:
Heroine’s life goes to pot, usually thanks to being dumped and or fired, usually there’s a meddlesome mother involved who erodes the heroine’s self-esteem. The heroine mopes about at rock bottom, doing a lot of boozing with friends and undergoing hilariously humiliating incidents, drunk-dialling the ex only to discover he’s dating her supermodel friend or similar and the obligatory tangle with a womanizing ne’er do well. Extreme weight loss from heartbreak follows, as does a glamorous makeover and she is then entitled to hook up with the lovely and handsome man mentioned in the first paragraph but dismissed as just a friend or unobtainable.

But one chick lit author I do have time for is Sophie Kinsella. The Shopaholic series was eked out for far too long, swapping charm andhumour for desperate plot twists and an unlikeable 'mini-Shopaholic'. And don't get me started on the deplorable film that was a brainless, trite, entertainment vaccum that even the delightful Isla Fisher couldn't save. That said, I really enjoyed the first 3 Shopaholic novels, focussed as they were on entertaining characters and humour, with the romance element firmly relegated to a sub-plot. Kinsella's other novels,
Remember Me, Twenties Girl and The Undomestic Goddess all have equally incredulous premises but are great fun, light and fluffy novels perfect if you're recuperating and don't want to tax your brain.

Auntie Mame, An Irreverent Escapade: Patrick Dennis

A hoot. Young Patrick is orphaned abruptly and thrust into the guardianship of his mad-as-a-box-of-frogs, wildly fun Auntie Mame, a sort of prototype Isabella Blow. The book is a farcical adventure from start to finish, a wonderfully humourous cocktail of dry wit, farce, bitchery, style and joie de vivre. Highly recommended.

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day: Winifred Watson

After a mix-up at the job agency, respectable but imminently homeless Miss P arrives at the home of the beautiful, racy Miss La Fosse and finds herself caught up in a world of cheroots, cocaine, glamour and cads. I gave this to a friend who said, 'I finished it on a sigh and smile; what more can you ask for?' What more indeed?


Rescued from out-of print obscurity by Persephone (whose entire list is well worth a read) the illustrated edition is sublime - witty line drawings with a charm all of their own. The benchmark for adorable, witty, love-this-til-the-day-I-die literature. I don't wish to overhype the 'Grew as nothing is more off-putting to a potential reader, but she is special enough to warrant the creation of the Pettigrew Award which the Book Bandit will bestow on books of a similarly gorgeous ilk. So if you love Miss P, simply click on the 'Pettigrew Award' tag at the bottom of this post and it'll take you to a very carefully-screened selection of books that are perfect for curling up with on those days you just want to escape somewhere wonderful for a while.