Rose Tremain and Simon Sebag Montefiore bring history alive, in both fiction and fact.
[Books of the Month]
Dear Reader,
âI wonder if people ever stop and think what a drag it is to be criminally handsome,â wrote the inimitable humourist and Marx Brothers scribe S. J. Perelman, born this day in 1904. Reportedly, it was Perelman who helped haul Joseph Hellerâs 1961 novel [Catch-22] from certain literary doom to cult dominance â as a man sparing in his praise, his fervour for Hellerâs debut carried real heft. We have no need of Perelman tonight to fan the flames of success for our February Books of the Month, for each title speaks rather glowingly for itself.
Our Fiction Book of the Month
[The Gustav Sonata]
First up for fiction, we have Rose Tremainâs utterly masterful [The Gustav Sonata], her razor-edged account of friendship in the embers of the Holocaust. Gustav and Anton â two young boys as similar as they are different â form a bond that prickles with the tensions of heritage and entitlement. With the neutralities of Switzerland mirroring the cautious interplay of the novelâs cast, this is Tremain at her measured and insightful best. â[The Gustav Sonata] is a powerful, profound and unexpected love story,â commented Hannah Beckerman in The Observer. âIt is a masterful, meditative novel.â
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Our Non-Fiction Book of the Month
[The Romanovs: 1613-1918]
Our non-fiction offering is something of a spearhead for this yearâs reflections on the 100 years that have passed since the climactic Russian revolutions of 1917. Simon Sebag Montefioreâs [The Romanovs: 1613-1918] is one of those once-in-a-decade texts that manages to bring the past very much into the present, with the authorâs impeccable research and deft skill for story sealing a vast but still intimate chronology of Russiaâs twenty sovereigns. For Antony Beevor, writing for the Financial Times, [The Romanovs] is âepic history on the grandest scale ⦠reading Montefiore's excellent account, it is hard to imagine how the monarchy could ever have survived under their catastrophic leadership.â
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Our Children's Book of the Month
[Who Let the Gods Out]
For our childrenâs choice, we have the pleasures of a debut. The area of publishing we call 9-12 is a tricky beast â it looks easy but it really isnât, with many books failing to make that vital foothold in the market as they are simply not appealing or imaginative enough. Maz Evansâ [Who Let the Gods Out] fits the bill perfectly, a freewheeling and properly-funny fantasy where the deities who so once powerfully presided over the affairs of the world (Zeus, Hermes, Charon and the rest) are now reduced to bumbling, self-obsessed buffoons in the face of contemporary mores. Into the mix is thrown 12-year-old Elliot, a caring but slightly reluctant hero who finds himself at the centre of adventurous chaos as an entombed demon, buried somewhere beneath his home near Stonehenge, is unwittingly set free to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world.
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Our Thriller of the Month
[The Ashes of London]
Finally, our Thriller of the Month needs no introduction after already enjoying a spectacular month as our Thriller choice for January â so spectacular, in fact, we werenât quite ready to let it go just yet. Andrew Taylorâs Restoration-set [The Ashes of London] has been nothing short of a phenomenon, our customers utterly beguiled by the entrance of wily, reluctant government agent James Marwood, a man driven to solve a savage murder in the embers of the Great Fire. Taylorâs Marwood is a simply stunning literary creation â complex, compromised, resourceful â and the authorâs twinning of Marwood with an extraordinarily compelling tale of a corrupt, secret world is simply dazzling stuff. Itâs our pleasure to continue highlighting this superb volume.
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Weâll be back in March of course for our next selection of reading pleasures and we hope you have an entirely rewarding month.
With warmest regards,
Your friends at Waterstones
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