The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

When a troubled model falls to her death from a snow-covered Mayfair balcony, it is assumed that she has committed suicide. However, her brother has his doubts, and calls in private investigator Cormoran Strike to look into the case. Strike is a war veteran - wounded both physically and psychologically - and his life is in disarray. The case gives him a financial lifeline, but it comes at a personal cost: the more he delves into the young model's complex world, the darker things get - and the closer he gets to terrible danger ...

When Robert Galbraith’s debut novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling, was released it received excellent reviews for a first-time writer, including a stellar quote from Scottish crime queen Val McDermid. Just the result, I reckon, that JK Rowling was looking for when she first decided to write her new crime series under a pseudonym in an attempt to be judged honestly, with Potter set aside for one moment. 

Sadly the secret came out too early for me to read it without knowing it was JK who had penned it, and arguably yes, it may not have read it if her name wasn’t attached, but I enjoyed it so there. There aren’t any gimmicks here, just good classic crime with a troubled crime-fighting protagonist in the brilliantly named Cormoran Strike and his trusty red-headed (had to throw that in, obvs) sidekick, Robin.

As a Londoner, I loved the setting. The novel taps into both London’s seedy underbelly and the glitz and glamour of its celebrity elite. It walks you from Strike’s dingy Denmark Street office through the sounds and smells of Chinatown to the wide streets and beautiful homes of Mayfair.

In the celebrity-obsessed world we live in these days, the idea of a famous model falling dramatically from her balcony doesn’t seem that unlikely... I can almost see the tabloid headline now. Rowling isn’t rubbing it in our faces by any means – she isn’t saying, ‘hey, look how ridiculous we all are’ but I sensed some satire here, which I like whether it was deliberate or not. It’s there for the taking if that is how you choose to read it but either way it’s a good story.

I’m not going to say that this is the most exciting, genre-busting novel of the 21st century but it’s not supposed to be. All in all, this is going to be a fun series to get involved in. Like the best crime novels, this can be consumed quickly and leave you with an appetite for the next one.

As ever with JK Rowling, she doesn’t let waffle get in the way of a great plot and solid characters. In her central female character, she has created that perfect combination of intelligence and heart, strength and vulnerability… but I’m going to restrain myself from comparing her to any other of Rowling’s strong female characters… In short, I’d get into these now before there are 100 of them – next stop, The Silkworm!

7/10

Where'd You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple

Bernadette Fox is notorious.

To Elgie Branch, a Microsoft wunderkind, she's his hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled wife.

To fellow mothers at the school gate, she's a menace.

To design experts, she's a revolutionary architect.

And to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, quite simply, mum.

Then Bernadette disappears. And Bee must take a trip to the end of the earth to find her.

For me, I have to be really in the mood for comedy for me to enjoy it. Arguably you could say that about any other genre but it’s particularly the case with humour. As a result, this novel has been started and restarted a number of times but I can now tell you I have finished it. I know you’ve been waiting for that piece of news and you feel SO great right now that you can read this review.

If someone asked me whether they would enjoy this novel, I would ask ‘Did you enjoy Paul Torday’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen?' The book that is, not the film. If you were one of those people that absolutely hated that book DON’T PICK THIS UP.

What do I mean by that? Well it’s true that the plot couldn’t be more different. Where Yemen has a distinct lack of water, Seattle has its fair share, there’s no real romance in this – the main relationship you’re interested in is that between mother and daughter. Where'd You Go Bernadette? for me, however, had a very similar tone and sense of humour. Slightly wacky and off the wall while remaining brilliantly observant and it has that scrapbook quality where we gather the plot from a series of different perspectives and through a variety of different mediums – newspaper cuttings, emails, post-it notes, log books etc.

I did enjoy it and I would recommend it to people. If you don’t enjoy embracing the quirky (I made the mistake of recommending When God Was a Rabbit to a friend thinking it was a gentle tale only to be told how VERY WEIRD it was…), don't read this but if you fancy something a little different to break up your usual reading habits, do give it a go – I think you’ll appreciate it. I generally think that our favourite novels are rarely comedies because the ‘heart’ is so often sacrificed. I think that happens here too. It does all get a bit silly by the end and, as the Observer describes ‘[the book] is constructed from a collection of self-absorbed perspectives’, but the heart is there somewhere and if you were feeling particularly hormonal, you may even well up a bit at the bonds made and broken and the dreams surrendered… I wasn’t feeling emotional so that didn’t happen for me but it’s a laugh, easily above average and worth a read: 6.5/10.

Other reviews:
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday

Virginia Woolf: Art, Life and Vision at the NPG

I’m always trying to find fun ‘cultural’ things to do, be it an exhibition, a gig or concert, some literary event etc. I do enjoy them and deep down somewhere I probably think that they are a necessary part of my self-improvement. They’re also great small-talk fillers. Problem is, that when summer hits, the requirements of small-talk often goes up as everyone becomes more sociable when the sun comes out, but the number of cultural conversation pieces goes down because I stop looking for cool things to do. The one drawback of actually having a British summer this year is that I’ve done almost nothing but sit outside, eat a lot and do a hell of a lot of people watching. So this weekend I decided to try to fill the void at least a little and headed off to see Boyhood (incidentally people watching for the cinema-goer) and went to the Virginia Woolf exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery (hoorah, I finally got to the subject of this post).

Love a bit of Virginia Woolf and I know that there is a Woody Allen sequel to Midnight in Paris (which will be aptly named Midnight in London) waiting for me to snatch the lead role from Owen Wilson so that I can hang out with the Bloomsbury set for 90 minutes. I mean seriously, these are the people that started up their own publishers and printed TS Eliot’s The Wasteland. The Woolfs got to hang out with Sigmund Freud, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, EM Forster and Lady Ottoline Morrell. Can you imagine having so many and such an eclectic group of intellectual minds – writers, artists, economists, psychologists, poets.

Such life envy, with the exception of the whole going mad and killing yourself bit… not so great.

The exhibition is a must for anyone vaguely interested in this time period. It included photos of the Woolf’s home in Tavistock Square before and after the bombing that destroyed all but its end wall the mural Virginia’s sister, Vanessa Bell, designed for the couple.

Vanessa’s artwork was dotted about the exhibition and the front covers of early editions of Woolf’s work were on display, each designed by Vanessa Bell.

There were handwritten love letters (including one from Leonard Woolf to Virginia which did nothing for my futile belief that he would make a great husband… for me… I told you it was futile), personal photographs, extracts from Virginia’s family newsletter that she wrote with her brothers.

It is perhaps unsurprising that Virginia Woolf became, like so many, very interested in the Spanish Civil War but I didn’t know that she had been so heavily involved in an event at London’s Royal Albert Hall that was started to raise money for the Basque children. She was also a patron for the campaign to bring Picasso’s epic anti-war painting Guernica (1937) to Britain (the exhibition leaflet was included in the exhibition) and her nephew, Quentin Bell, apparently tried to get Picasso to come along himself. While he didn’t turn up, the exhibition included one of his drawings ‘The Weeping Woman’ which Picasso was said to have donated to the cause in lieu of his own attendance.

Anyway, I’ve written a ridiculously long post but there’s so much to see and learn. Even if you don’t really care about Viriginia Woolf, it’s a wonderfully detailed snapshot into a very interesting group of people at a pivotal moment in modern history. It’s only £7… You can even drop in at the BP Portrait Award for free at the same time.

Relevant Posts:

Virginia Woolf at Tavistock Square

Introducing… Virginia Woolf

Monk’s House

Charleston Bulletin (The Woolf family newsletter)