See Emily play

Week 12: A High Wind in Jamaica – Richard Hughes
Recommended by: Emily Carmichael

Rum, sodomy and the lash. Three things that any story involving pirates could – some may argue should – involve. At least some of the aforementioned events occur during the course of A High Wind in Jamaica, though I'm not going to spoil it for you by telling you which. Following a hurricane, the Thornton children are sent home to England from Jamaica, although they are captured by pirates long before they leave the Caribbean. Part coming of age story, part shipborne adventure, it's definitely more The Lord of the Flies than Five on a Treasure Island, quashing any sentimental ideas of the innocence of children.

This is particularly true of Emily, second eldest of the family of five, and the central character, all ten years of her. She walks a fine line between childish virtue and forming complex relationships with her captors. As she later reflects on her position, "Why must she grow up? Why couldn't leave her life always in other people's keeping, to order as it it was no concern of hers?" And in the end she actually controls the fate of not just the children but also the crew, with enough awareness to understand that she wields this power, if not necessarily to control it.

Certainly there is an element of Stockholm Syndrome at play because the children do form attachments to the pirates, particularly the captain and mate. This is perhaps no surprise as to the younger children they are simply surrogate parents in the absence of any other adults. Perhaps more surprising is the growing fondness the crew show to the children, following the quick realisation that their lifestyle probably isn't very compatible with the young. Maybe it's because the pirates are actually man-children themselves, pursuing a career such as it is, constantly in the shadow of squabbling and violence, that has not allowed them to develop fully adult relationships and patterns of behaviour.

Despite these relationships, unfortunate events certainly do befall the children, some of their own making. As the old adage goes, worse things happen at sea, and it's hard to refute that based on the evidence presented here. I was initially somewhat disappointed that there were no climaxes, no spikes and surges of excitement. It felt like the gunpowder had been primed and the fuse lit but no cannonballs were fired. Instead, I now realise that the quiet sense of menace that pervades the entire narrative is even more powerful. The matter of fact, even offhand manner in which violence is described and dealt with doesn't need a crescendo, is in fact more powerful for the sheer threat of trauma to come. And I generally prefer it this way, a building of atmosphere, a sense of unease, as opposed to shock tactics, leaves me much more gripped at the time and more satisfied in hindsight.

With the heightened sense of fear of Edgar Allan Poe, the brooding violence of Bret Easton Ellis and the careful reflections and unreliable memories of Kazuo Ishiguro, this is a cocktail almost as potent as the Hangman's Blood (rum, gin, brandy and porter) described in the story. The more I reflect on it, the more I find to admire, surpassing my initial disappointment that it wasn't quite the pure high seas adventure yarn I was hoping for. I was also underwhelmed, many years ago now, by Heart of Darkness, a not dissimilar journey into unchartered waters but I've long felt that it would benefit from a second reading. I think the same holds true here, with plenty to admire in hindsight as it is, I think its many fine qualities might shine even brighter.

Unfogging the globe

Week 11: Around the World in 80 Days – Michael Palin
Recommended by: Adam Musgrove

Michael Palin probably has the best job in the world. Already a renowned comedian, actor and writer, he has for the last 25 years been travelling the world and documenting it for the BBC. And on top of all that, he's well known for being a lovely man. So I'm favourably disposed to Mr Palin already. Yet actually until recently I had never actually properly watched one of his travelogues and this was the first time I'd read the book version of any of them.

Around the World in 80 Days is a simple premise – follow in the footsteps of Phileas Fogg and circumnavigate the globe in the aforementioned time limit. Fairly obviously, in order for this to actually be a challenge, flying was out and boats were very much in. The route took Palin and his Passepartouts south-east through Europe, across the Arabian peninsula, through India, around South-East Asia via Japan, before the Pacific, America and the Atlantic.

And as an adventure it did not disappoint. Palin is interesting, entertaining and highly readable, much as I was expecting. There's a mix of observation, insights and he's always willing to try new things and interact with the cultures he encounters. Notable examples being the week-long dhow journey from Dubai to Bombay, a husky ride in Colorado, and the ship-borne sacrificial ritual after crossing the International Date Line.

It's also an interesting historical document in that the world has changed a lot since 1988, this was just before the fall of the Wall and the Iron Curtain, and Bush Senior won the U.S. election during the journey. Dubai was a long way from the space-age supercity it now is and Bombay has been Mumbai for almost two decades.

If there's a criticism, it's that the focus is often on the travelling rather than the places visited, but that is only really a reflection of the nature of the challenge. Besides, as people are fond of saying, the journey is often more important than the destination. The only other problem is that it's just added more fuel to my travel bug fire, though that was already burning pretty hot as it is. Good job that this time next week I will be getting my fix – cheers Michael, see you in the next one.

Heavenly ways to die

Week 10: The Thorn Birds – Colleen McCullough
Recommended by: Emma Wilson

Saga: (noun) [1] a long, involved story, account, or series of incidents. [2] not just for old people. There's no two ways about it, The Thorn Birds is a saga. Or an epic. Possibly even a romance, but a romance in the great storytelling tradition; Mills and Boon it ain't. (Probably. Having never read one I can't legitimately comment but if I were a betting man I'd feel pretty good about the chances of my horse romping home on this one.)

Not a novel I'd ever heard of before, but I gather it's something of an Antipodean classic. I also gather that it became a very successful TV serial and I'd also be willing to bet that the spotlight was primarily focused on Meggie and Ralph and somewhat missed what was, for me at least, the point. Much like I feel the focus on Kathy and Tommy's relationship in the film of Never Let Me Go, one of my all-time favourite books is rather off the mark. It's not a bad film by any means, just not hitting the same high notes or indeed in quite the right key.

But anyway, if a romance it is to be called, then it's something of a misnomer. The story is so much richer for not simply trailing around tediously after our starcrossed lovers but painting in a whole cast of characters, some admittedly more richly drawn than others. This is first and foremost a family story as far as I'm concerned, a big picture, small detail, complex blockbuster in the vein of Jeffrey Eugenides, Zadie Smith, Jonathan Franzen and Jennifer Egan. And if you know what I like in a book, then you'll know that's high praise indeed.

It took me a while to get into, not because I wasn't enjoying it, perhaps more because it's not a book to pick up and put down in ten minute chunks, it's one to live and breathe, and I failed to create the time to do this. It's a window on the past and a totally unfamiliar way of life for a 21st-century city-dweller yet it was easy to feel myself sucked into the laidback pace of life on Drogheda, the suffocation Meggie feels in Dungloe, equal parts climate and circumstance, the glimpses and politicking of Roman corridors of power.

Fleshing out three generations of a family on an isolated farmstead through 60 years of the twentieth century, the ambition is commendable, as is the narrative control, for with so many point-of-view characters it would easy to lose focus or the reader's interest. Ambition and pride are also key features of the book, sins shared by many of the characters. In fact while many have the former, almost all have some form of the latter. This, combined with an almost laughably stereotypically English failure to express any kind of emotion, particularly that of love, is really the heart of the story. And if when coming up for air it all seems melodramatic and daft, a brief moment's thought of the wonderful, diverse and loveably foolish people I know and the far more ridiculous reality of life puts this into sharper perspective.

And it's this failure which makes it so compelling. Any rewards are hard-fought and hard-won, if won at all, for tragedy is part of the warp of the story. Yet the unspoken affection, the myriad familial and created ties, the inexorable pulls of the land and of the family home run throughout the book, tiny streams that come forth together to create a rampaging river of essential humanity, vitality and life.

Selection box

Week 9: Tremendous Trifles – G.K. Chesterton

Recommended by: Brendan Lyth

"Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." So said Forrest Gump in one of the most-quoted film lines from the last twenty years or so. A similar principle applies to Tremendous Trifles, a wonderfully alliterative title which captures a range of Chesterton's journalism taken from The Daily News. A wonderfully gifted figure, Chesterton was poet, philosopher, theologian, author and critic in one.

The writing covers a huge range of subjects, some as trifling as the title suggests, others of greater seriousness, and often going through half a dozen ideas in as many pages. Opening article 'A Piece of Chalk' is a perfect example, starting with a story about the author's literal quest for a piece of chalk to draw with, touches upon the finer points of virtues and vices, and finally reflects on the English landscape and character. Another piece is not dissimilar in theme to J.R.R. Tolkien's famous essay On Fairy-Stories. Other pieces cover travails with taxi drivers, travels around Europe, and a curious dream where he meets both Charles Dickens and Father Christmas.

The style reminds me somewhat of his contemporaries George Orwell and Stefan Zweig, taking very much a personal and anecdotal viewpoint on things in a way that much modern journalism does not. Indeed, as he says in 'A Great Man', "People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always seemed far too impersonal." 

Some may not like the first person viewpoint, the whimsy of certain pieces or the slightly scattergun approach to subject matter, but then it is a collection of articles, it doesn't have a central narrative thread or topic of focus that holds it together. In much the same way that a box of chocolates or a bag of pick 'n' mix is best enjoyed a few at a time, the same principle applies here. Dip in, chew over what you pull out, and repeat a couple of times. Digesting the book in large chunks simply leads to the columns blurring into one and individual flavours being lost. Savour what is here slowly and the experience will be all the sweeter for it.

Apocalypse soon

Week 8: The Forever War – Joe Haldeman
Recommended by: Dan Creed

"War is hell", as the saying goes. I don't think anyone is going to be arguing with that sentiment in a hurry, whichever way you look at it. Haldeman wrote his anti-war tract in response to his time serving in Vietnam, but dressed it in up in the clothes of classic sci fi with an interstellar war with an alien species. And while it's very much a product of its time – America having to look in a mirror and see the hard truths of military conquests that could not be won, economic struggles as a result of the oil crisis, political scandal of the highest level thanks to Watergate – the central message is timeless.

Its focus is not so much the needless loss of life, represented by the deaths of so many characters we never got to know, statistics rather than people. Nor is it the needlessness of the conflict, though that much is clearly spelled out too. Instead its trump card is to focus on the dislocation of soldiers returning from war. This is where the neat concept comes into its own – thanks to the ability to travel enormous distances at the speed of light, when the characters return from duty, far more time has passed than they have experienced. Returning to Earth would always be hard, returning to discover decades or centuries have passed is completely, and this is perhaps an apt choice of word, alien.

The central premise is well-crafted, and the role of Private Mandella as the protagonist is well-defined too. Promoted throughout the war chiefly by virtue of survival, we see him fail to adapt to life back home and then re-enlist.as the story progresses. That said, he is there only to serve this purpose and there is little character development to him. He's an everyman and deliberately so, and we rarely get a sense of a unique person beneath the uniform. His relationship with Marygay seemed to me driven mostly by shared experience, which is in itself no bad thing nor unrealistic, but there's not enough to root for other than hoping somebody might come out of the situation alive if not well.

It's a smart book and it's well enough told, with some interesting ideas thrown in for how the world may change in terms of economics, politics, technology and demographics. Some of these seem a little idiosyncratic, others feel far more pertinent, but it is a trap that sci fi struggles to escape from if viewed purely as a predictor of the future rather than what the best of the genre is, which is a reflection of contemporary fears and feelings. It's by no means a bad story, indeed, it's pretty decent and I liked it, but ultimately I feel it succeeded more as an allegory than a story.