Boudica: Dreaming the Bull (2004): Manda Scott

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★★★★

Boudica: Book II

Naturally it didn’t take long for me to plunge into the second of Manda Scott’s Boudica books after my admiration for the first volume, Dreaming the Eagle. It is just as magisterial and sensitive as its predecessor, with an epic sweep that now opens out far beyond the tribes of Britannia. Rome is, both culturally and geographically, a more significant player here. Perhaps it lacks a little of the tightly-forged focus of that first book, but this is often the case with second instalments, which both open and close mid-action, as it were. But if that’s a flaw, it’s small and scarcely visible in the finely-crafted whole. Weaving between her two protagonists with elegance, and a fine feeling for the grey areas of the soul, Scott creates yet another gripping glimpse of a lost history.

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Exhibitionism: The Rolling Stones Exhibition (2016)

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Exhibitionism_Poster

(The Saatchi Gallery, London, 5 April-4 September 2016)

There’s plenty of satisfaction to be got at the Saatchi Gallery’s latest show on the Rolling Stones.* When my parents came to stay for a long weekend, I decided it was the ideal way for us to spend a morning and all three of us were blown away. The tickets aren’t cheap at £22 a head – Exhibitionism is an international touring show and very much a commercial venture – but it’s worth it if you have even the slightest interest in the Stones. Filling almost the whole Gallery, the show displays costumes, set designs, album covers, ephemera and the band’s own instruments, alongside video footage from the 1960s to the present day. This is less of an exhibition than an experience, not just for long-time fans but also for those (like me) who are only just beginning to discover their music.

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The Double Tongue (1995): William Golding

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★★★

When William Golding died in 1993, he was in the middle of working on a new novel, which was left unfinished. At an advanced draft stage, it told the story of a young woman plucked from her miserable family life and offered the chance of a new existence at the ritual site of Delphi, where she becomes a servant of the god Apollo and, later, the mouthpiece for his words. The story was in good shape and so Golding’s editors and executors decided to publish it – and it became The Double Tongue. That title is apparently only one of those which Golding had tried out on the top of the manuscript, but it’s a very fitting name for a book which is all about the duplicity and sleight-of-hand that accompany the act of prophecy.

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La Clemenza di Tito (1791): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Mozart: La Clemenza di Tito (Met 2012)

★★★★

(Metropolitan Opera, New York, 2012)

Since launching the new website, I’ve been busily spring cleaning my blog and, you know what? It’s amazing what you find at the bottom of the drafts folder. As a result, there will be several extremely belated posts cropping up over the next few weeks, starting with some Mozart, in the form of La Clemenza di Tito. As you may remember, I first encountered this opera via the modern, rather conceptual Salzburg version and was keen to compare that with a more traditional production. Enter the Met, stage left, with their legendary, ultra-conservative version. It may not be the most cutting-edge production in the book, but it gave me a visual feast of fine gowns, billowing cloaks and fabulous wigs.

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Across the Nightingale Floor (2002): Lian Hearn

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★★★★

Tales of the Otori: Book I

I’ve wanted to read this for years. Although I only visited Tokyo last year, I’ve long been interested in certain aspects of Japanese history: the samurai, especially, and the codes of honour and nobility that governed their society. I was intrigued by Hearn’s world, which is inspired by medieval Japan and promised to be refreshingly different from the pseudo-European fantasy norm. And yet, when I began reading yesterday morning, it was with some trepidation. After all, when you’ve looked forward to reading something for so long, there’s always a fear that it might not be as good as you expected. Fortunately that fear was unwarranted. The book lived up to its reputation and dragged me, wide-eyed and wondering, into a thrilling tale of revenge, intrigue and forbidden love.

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Fool’s Quest (2015): Robin Hobb

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Robin Hobb © Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

★★★½

Fitz and the Fool: Book II

Some of you may remember that I had difficulty with the first book in Robin Hobb’s new series. Having been a devoted fan of her Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, I felt that some of the tight-knit drama of those books had faded, and that Fitz’s story in the new trilogy had come to be governed by the meandering pace of her more recent Rain Wild novels. But I seem to be the only one who wasn’t convinced. There are many glowing reviews on Goodreads, Amazon and in the press. More than any of those, I give weight to Heloise’s opinion and I know that she enjoyed both the first book and this sequel. So I wanted, very much, for this second instalment in the series to show me how wrong I was. Did it? Well, not quite. But something picked up in the final pages and I’m now cautiously looking forward to the third and final (?) novel, which promises to fire on all four cylinders again.

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The Last Days of Summer (2016): Vanessa Ronan

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★★★★

And now for something completely different. This book arrived in the post a few weeks ago, unsolicited and unheralded, and I was a little perplexed at first because it’s so very unlike anything that I normally read. On the other hand, I am not the kind of girl to turn down a free book and so I dutifully plunged in. It has been a strange experience. Lyrical but not poetic, violent yet gentle, it’s the kind of book you can’t quite shake off. Its mood clings to you like the scent of the diner in its pages, or like the thick, draining heat that blankets the Texan prairie on which the story unfolds.

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Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle (2002): Manda Scott

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★★★★★

Boudica: Book I

Three years ago, just after finishing the last novel in Dorothy Dunnett’s Niccolò series, I asked for recommendations of similar books to fill the gap. Although Manda Scott’s Boudica novels were mentioned several times, I didn’t follow them up. I think I shamefully leapt to the conclusion, without any evidence whatsoever, that Boudica was just another identikit sword-and-shield historical series. How wrong I was. When I recently found the first book in a second-hand sale, I decided to see what I made of it. And it’s stunning.

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Henry VI: Parts 1, 2 and 3 (1591): William Shakespeare

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The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses

Shakespeare fans rejoice! As part of the Bard’s 400th birthday celebrations, the BBC have embarked on the second cycle of their dramatisations of the history plays. Back in 2012 we had Henry IV and Henry V with Jeremy Irons and Tom Hiddleston at the helm and now we embark on the most tumultuous and bloody period of British history: the Wars of the Roses. With three parts of the lesser-known Henry VI condensed into two episodes, the present cycle will round off in style with Richard III. As I did last time with Henry IV, I’ll write about both parts of Henry VI here and Richard will get his own post. And so, to steal shamelessly from another play, once more unto the breach…

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595/96): William Shakespeare

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Titania (Meow Meow) on her flowery bed

★★★★

(Shakespeare’s Globe, 30 April-11 September 2016)

This Midsummer Night’s Dream had its work cut out to create the appropriate ambiance. The skies of London were weighed down with white clouds, biting winds swept down the streets and, all in all, the mood was more fit for Twelfth Night. Wrapped up against the cold, I came with some trepidation, and not only because of the weather. I’d been wondering what Emma Rice’s tenure as Globe Director would bring.

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