Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, $36.99 HarperCollins

King Henry VIII and his famous henchman Thomas Cromwell are both well known characters from British history. 

Hilary Mantel won the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Wolf Hall, in which she gives us a quite different perspective on this period in history.  Would you have wanted to get in the way of either King Henry or Thomas Cromwell?  If Wolf Hall’s characterisations are true, it might well have been a more pleasant experience than one could have anticipated.  Mantel achieves this new perspective by starting her novel a decade or more before Thomas becomes indispensable to the King, a period that most of us are less familiar with.  At this time Cromwell, a lawyer and merchant, is running his own business and also working for Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York and a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. 

Mantel’s style is very descriptive and she observes background events and conversations beautifully.  In this reviewer’s opinion, her style mostly works, although occasionally the pace does slow.  The King is busy denying Queen Katherine of Aragon in accordance with advice from his courtiers.  This advice contrasts with the stern response of the Pope and provides a sense of tension in the story.  Bringing his common sense and legally trained mind to bear on what’s going on, Cromwell gives the King strategic advice, rather than telling the King what he wants to hear.  Consequently the King appreciates that in Cromwell he has found an advisor who is not just out for himself. 

Whether the older Cromwell continues to be so selfless is not in this book’s ambit.  Wolf Hall, by the way, is the home of Jane Seymour’s family.  Her story comes after the specific timeframe of this novel.  However she is there almost from the beginning as lady-in-waiting to the new Queen, Anne Boleyn.  It’s altogether a clever new approach to some important British history.

As a reader one feels privileged to be a fly on the wall as Cromwell's life unfolds with its daily opportunities, tragedies and comic moments.  Warning: as it’s such a whopper, you may choose to skim read Wolf Hall, but the language of many passages is such that it’s well worth slowing down in order to savour it.

Wings by Raymond Huber

Wings by Raymond Huber Walker Books $19.99

We first met Ziggy the bee in Raymond Huber’s book Sting.  Young Ziggy is a bee who gets into lots of adventures, many of them quite risky.  This book was shortlisted for several awards including the NZ Post Book Awards for Children and Adults. 

Ziggy is back in a new adventure called Wings.  Huber has definitely got a thing about honey bees and the important part they play in our lives.  He takes these facts and has Ziggy and his fellow-bees illustrate them for us while they explore and get up to all sorts of hi-jinks.  Learning by stealth?  For sure!

In Wings Ziggy and his friends have been transported to Tokyo by scientist and friend to these bees, Sparkles to him, Sophie to us.  They meet some Japanese bees and their adventures begin with a big hornet as the nasty bad guy.  There is also a mystery danger to all the bees in the world that Sophie is hoping her Japanese friends will help her prevent.

This is a great adventure story that kids can read with wide open imaginations.  Great plots, clear action and strong relationships make for a great story. The main characters just happen to be bees!  Sell it to your young customers as a great adventure story for 8 to 11 year olds and you will be doing them a great favour.

Traitor by Stephen Daisley

Traitor by Stephen Daisley, Text Publishing $39 out now

Ex New Zealand infantryman, now Western Australian husband and father, Stephen Daisley takes us back to Gallipoli in 1915 in his novel Traitor.

 Mahmoud, a British trained Turkish doctor, is in the trenches with Kiwi soldier, David, when a shell bursts overhead injuring them both.  During their convalescence Mahmoud shares his Sufi beliefs and traditions with David, while David is allowed to guard his new close friend.  When it becomes clear that Mahmoud will be treated as an enemy rather than as an ally David engineers an escape attempt.  However in a Sufi-like way, this cataclysmic moment is a long time coming as we share the many private moments of these two men from opposite cultures. 

David’s choice to betray his country for his friend leads to the severest punishment, which is avoided in a very Anzac way.  He is allowed to serve the rest of the war as a stretcher bearer, where a new compassionate David is much valued by those he assists.  However when we meet David as old man sheep farming back in New Zealand, his world is still in tatters from his war experience. The man who returned to heartland New Zealand is not the one who left and his new compassion and quietly whispered about history separate him from the tough society of post war rural New Zealand.

This is definitely a story of mate-ship, but also one of humanity.  The relationships ring true and the story will delight.

Telling Tales, A Life in Writing by William Taylor

Telling Tales, A Life in Writing by William Taylor, $39.99 HarperCollins Published May 2010

William Taylor is well known to many New Zealanders through his more than 30 published novels, most for young people. Blue Lawn and Jerome both captured the angst of being young and gay in this country and, despite some controversy, both have sold well.

In Telling Tales Taylor, now in his early seventies and the recipient of many awards (Taylor was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2004 for his services to children's literature), writes about his own life starting when he was about six or seven and living along with his siblings and mother in Levin – at that time his father was abroad fighting in WWII. A quirky and forthright individual who was also very stylish and hugely competent in matters usually handled by men, his mother was unlike most others to be found in provincial towns of the time. In due course Taylor senior returned from the war and the family moved from pillar to post over the next few years as various business ventures were started and, unfortunately, went on to fail. In this prologue Taylor details his family connections back to England, along with the actual migration of his grandparents and goes on to write about his family’s links to the Hutt Valley. In many ways his was the typical life of a young person of this era, i.e. a member of a family where the parents struggle to make ends meet as they get on with bringing up their children.

Taylor goes on to describe the many parts of New Zealand that he got to know as a child – and later as a schoolteacher and much-esteemed headmaster, and the books he wrote in each of these places.

Telling Tales is a story of a certain generation of New Zealander for whom private matters are kept private. We do learn that as a teenager he was very shy, while he describes his sister as being quite interested in the opposite sex. However, nothing is revealed of Taylor’s private life after his marriage to Delia ends, other than an admission that his ongoing sexual confusion led to his marriage break-up. On the pendulum of sexuality he puts himself somewhere in between heterosexual and homosexual.  And he reflects that his 10-year marriage is the longest intimate relationship he’s ever maintained. Is the reader entitled to know more intimate details than this?  Probably not, but more self-examination and sharing may have made for a more gripping and interesting life story, an actual autobiography. But at the end of the day this story of a writer producing the words that become books is in itself well told. 

Surfer Boys : Gay Erotic Stories edited by Neil Plakcy

Surfer Boys : Gay Erotic Stories edited by Neil Plakcy $33.99

A cover shot of a cute everyman clutching his surfboard attracted me to this book.  Plakcy has collected together an anthology of sexy stories from writers from many parts of the globe.  The common thread to Surfer Boys is the world of surf, wetsuits and board shorts.  The beaches aren’t all the Californian clichés with Texas, Sydney and even Tunisia setting the sexy scenes.  One story questions if a gay guy can be hard enough to surf, another is the story of a man getting over a break up and finding new beginnings on a beach as he rescues a fallen surfer.

Plakcy’s own experience as a writer and as editor of a previous collection of erotica show in his selction of well crafted stories.  And yes you might need a tissue or two to clean up the aftermath, but these are also great stories that celebrate sex, a little romance and the pleasures and potential of guy-love.

There are 19 stories in all from many noted writers.  This is a diverse and yes sexy collection to tide you through until your life next includes your own Mr Sexy Boardshorts.

South of Broad, by Pat Conroy

South of Broad, by Pat Conroy $38.99 - March 2010 

A friend described Pat Conroy’s writing style as one that uses a hundred words where one would normally suffice.  But while this extravagant use of words may slow your entrance into South of Broad, do not let it deter you.  Through the voice of young Leo King, Conroy introduces the reader to Charleston, South Carolina in 1960 - a city with a long history of segregation, by both class and colour.

As a boy Leo discovers the body of his brother in the bathtub and subsequently spends some time in a mental institution. He also gets in trouble with the law, but despite these setbacks Leo seems to be a happy self-contained young man with a caring father and a formidable but fair mother who happens to be the principal at Leo’s high school, where his father also works.  In the early part of the novel Leo shares fascinating details of his city with the reader as he cycles the streets hurling newspapers onto his customers’ front porches. 

There is so much detail in this novel. To just quickly sketch the basics, the novel starts at the beginning of a high school summer when some new arrivals at Leo’s school and neighbourhood form the nucleus of a group of friends that transcends and challenges Charleston’s traditions.  A year of transformation follows; but happenstance has brought them together and will take them forward to when the reader meets them again in 1989. At this time the group undertakes a challenging expedition to San Francisco to track down one of their cohorts, a journey that thrusts them into the midst of the reality of the AIDS epidemic and also the truth of their own pasts.

Beautifully written, South of Broad has humour, lightness and depth.  The extravagant language takes you on a journey that cycles through these people’s lives and loves and will have you laughing and also shedding a quiet tear. Conroy is well known for previous novels, The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides - both some years ago. It has been a bit of a wait for this novel, but well worth it.    

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood, Random House $29.99

Christopher Isherwood was a true twentieth century man.  Born in England in 1904, living in Berlin, China and finally Los Angeles where he died in 1986.  His life reflects the enlarging of the world that had come with the colonization of America.

In his novel A Single Man he chronicles one day in the life of George, a middle aged gay English Professor teaching at a Los Angeles University.  George’s lover has been killed in a car accident some months earlier and George is getting on with his daily life, as illustrated by the first scene of waking and struggling out of bed.  He lives in a high state of self awareness, which redefines his everyday experiences  for you. Take his thoughts during his drive into Los Angeles : As he drives, it is as if some kind of autohypnosis exerts itself.”  And in this state George shares with you his fantasies and thoughts of new realities for his world, with himself in a centre of power.

Isherwood is at his best however when describing George’s awareness and interaction with his neighbours and especially his students.  He nervously balances teaching the meaning of literature with avoiding causing offence to any of the many minority groups in his 1960s Californian classroom.  This anxiety is beautifully contrasted with the comfort he later experiences during his gym workout with people he can be comfortable with. 

This is a very personal novel.  George is exposed to us in all his better and worse qualities.  The language of this intimacy satisfies while leaving a taste for even more.