A Review By Zoe Boulton  

“Nothing to Envy” is the 2010 winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. I have been intending to read this for over a year now, I have no idea why I put it off for so long. I am also reading another fantastic book about North Korea called- “Under the Loving Care of the Heavenly Father” by Bradley K. Martin, but this is a much more weighty, academic work, which is quoted several times in Demick’s book. “Nothing to Envy” is less in depth about why and how North Korea has become the only total dicatorship in the world, but it is quicker and easier to read, and as a piece of journalism, it is excellent.
 
Demick follows the personal stories of several North Korean defectors from Chongjin- a city far in the North, several days train journey away from the show-case capital of Pyongyang. She begins with the reasonably prosperous times of the 1980s, when food was still distributed and factories were able to manufacture goods, through the terrible famine of the 1990s which killed 20% of Chongjin’s population, and right up to the present day. The most interesting person documented, in my opinion, was the quietly brave Mrs. Song. For much of her life Mrs. Song didn’t believe that the regime she lived under was opressive, and was utterly devout in her love of the Great Leader. In the midst of harrowing starvation and terrible deaths within her family, she began to doubt her country, but she still had no desire to leave. Her transformation by the end of the book was wonderful.
 
This was a book that I couldn’t put down. My only fault with it is a couple of editing issues which grated a little considering this is a book by a Pulitzer Prize finalist, surely it should have been proof read more thoroughly. That quibble aside, the stories of the individuals is what is important. I have read much about North Korea, often in terms of atrocities and statistics, and from the point of view of Westerners in Pyongyang. This is the first time I have read such detailed personal accounts of every day life. I highly recommend this book, I think North Korea is somewhere that we, in the West, should have a greater understanding of.

A Review By Keith Smith

I must say I really enjoyed this book, but then who wouldn’t enjoy Jeremy Paxman in full flow! He certainly doesn’t answer the question, makes very little attempt to do so, but what he does do is give us a very lively, sardonic, amusing potted history of the British Empire which never flags and gives us some highly intriguing sometimes hilarious anecdotes . It’s not exactly a balanced account…he errs on the very critical side…but he does give acknowledgement from time to time of the many high-minded aspects of colonial expansion and control, the abolition of the slave trade, the work of the Evangelists, the ethos of responsibility and fair play that underlay the life of many a District Officer. We learn very little of the Empire now in our schools, and it is perhaps regarded as politically incorrect to even mention it….in my opinion that is very very shortsighted indeed. It’s about time we took notice of all our past, good and bad. You can never read too much History..it holds lessons for us all!

Highly recommended.

A Review By Keith Smith

We heard Frank talking about his new book at our Christmas Show. This takes place every year in the Banqueting Suite at Windsor Racecourse, and it is where we make our personal selections of what we are going to sell at Christmas. Frank’s talk was hilarious, and I decided as a result to read the book. I wasn’t disappointed.

The story revolves around the Tooting family who acquire a very old camper van and do it up. Unbeknownst to them the engine they put in the van was what was originally in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang , and it soon takes control of their lives, driving and flying them all over the place in its own search for other parts of Chitty. But there are sinister forces at work too. When it comes to a car as special as Chitty, everybody wants a piece of her …

The story is an enticing one, we get to know and love all the family members, and we cheer the campervan/turbocharged car extraordinaire on. Great fun.

A Review By Keith Smith

This is a book to be read easily in one sitting. And it will certainly reward you for doing so. It is set in and around Coventry ( Warwick Castle even gets featured ), but reveals a side of city life we do not know much about…the put-upon immigrant. In essence it is a coming-of-age novel, but it is unique in so many ways. I particularly found intriguing the way it is formulated like an extended ode. In some circumstances such wilful trickery by the author would annoy….here it seems somehow entirely appropriate…we are after all being taken to other worlds.

Life is lonely for Kasienka, the main character. At home her mother’s heart is breaking as she continues to sand at school friends are scarce. But when someone special swims into her life, Kasienka learns that there might be more than one way for her to stay afloat.

A Review By Keith Smith

I fairly recently returned to some of the original James Bond novels, and only then remembered how good a writer Fleming was. They are really rather good. Taut writing, exciting plots, page turners. So, it was with interest that I turned to Jeffery Deaver’s version of Bond. Obviously Deaver is a much acclaimed thriller writer in his own right, and one might expect a novel that stands on its own. But this is so disappointing. The writing is not taunt, the plot is convoluted, and I ended up not really caring whether Bond solved the big plot, and sorted out his love life or not. Deaver tries to be better than Fleming…unfortunately he is not a patch on him. It’s quite a long book, I persevered, and wished I had not.