Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson

This is an enjoyable adventure yarn, written in the late Nineteenth Century but set 150 years earlier in the aftermath of the failed Scottish rebellion. The core of the book is the relationship between two characters who are on opposite sides politically but come to depend on each other.

As a confirmed Caledoniophile, I really enjoyed the descriptions of the highlands and the Scottish vernacular, even if it sometimes comes over as a little bit Rambling Syd Rumpo:

ye have a fine, hang-dog, rag-and-tatter, clappermaclaw kind of a look to ye, as if ye had stolen the coat from a potato-bogle.

Milk and Honey - Elizabeth Jolley

The plot suggests a gender inversion of Jane Eyre: a young man lives with a family that has Dark Secrets, a mad boy is hidden in the attic, and a catastrophic fire leads to the finale. he mood is appropriately Gothic, which I always enjoy, although some of the more extravagant passages felt a little bit like the product of a Writer's Workshop.

The Club of Queer Trades - G.K. Chesterton

Preposterous, entertaining, epigrammatic and dubiously right-wing short stories from Chesterton, the master of the genre. The tales are also a spoof of Sherlock Holmes - the logical brother attempts Holmesian deduction but misses the point, whereas Our Hero uses intuition and moral judgement to successfully solve the mysteries. It's all lots of fun.

Peter Jackson; A Film-Maker's Journey - Brian Sibley

I don't really read authorised biographies, but this was a gift so I gave it a go.

It's a very interesting story not very well told. It was probably rushed into production because there is some really shoddy writing and editing on display. However, Jackson is an unusual figure and this book does answer the key question: How the hell did he get the "Lord of the Rings" gig?

The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells

We all know the story, but it is rewarding to go back to the source novel. Wells’ obsessive focus on Englishness and the specific locations west of London is striking, cf these two quotes:

“I came through Ockham (for that was the way I returned, not through Send and Old Woking)”

“the tale he told and his appearance were so wild--his hat had fallen off in the pit--that the man simply drove on.”

No hat? Clearly a madman.

The effect is initially comical when contrasted with the catastrophic events being described, but as the horror of the situation increases the local focus pays off.

It’s great fun, and remarkable in its influence, given that it was written in 1899.

The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith

This is a fairly amusing, gentle comedy about the tribulations of a family with ideas above their station. Much fun is made of the gap between people’s stated principles and the actuality of their actions. Calamity upon calamity besets the family before all is resolved in the preposterously neat finale.

The Invisible Man - H.G. Wells

The story is OK, but most of the fun here comes from the juxtaposition of the crazed scientist archetype with the rather more phlegmatic English rustics with whom he has run-ins. Mrs Hall the landlady and Mr Marvel the tramp are both rather endearing.

The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

As I was reading this novel, three people told me either that it's their favourite novel or that it's the favourite novel of a friend. In each case the devotee was a woman, to which I attach no particular significance.

Its a romp of a book written and set in Stalin's Moscow, with interludes in Pontius Pilate's Jerusalem. A charming and entertaining Satan stalks through both worlds, usually in the company of a motley band of cronies, including a giant tomcat. Atrocities are committed, human foibles are exposed and love conquers all...kind of.

Had I not known otherwise I could have taken Bulgakov as a contemporary of Rushdie, Kundera and Marquez such is the "magical realist" mood of the novel.

(Incidentally, I picked up a copy from the ace "Penguin Red" range of classics. Excellent translation, nicely produced object, only $9.95 in Australia. They are real bargains.)