It takes one to know one

Stuart: A Life Backwards

By Alexander Masters

One reason why the life of Stuart Shorter is so remarkable is down to the way it is told in this excellent biography. An apparently reluctant biographer, Alexander Masters tells Stuart’s life story in a self-reflexive style, in which the subject criticises the manuscript, and in a zigzagging chronology, as the subtitle suggests.

The form therefore sidles up to the content and seems to say, “I know what it’s like to be this messy, this discombobulated, this uncertain.” It’s a refreshing take on the biography and exercised perfectly by Masters.

I don’t think I’ll ever look at a homeless person in the same way again after reading this book, which does so much to show all the reasons why people end up on the streets and in prison. Masters performs a neat trick of explaining that there is not just one stereotypical route to the streets. The journey is neither absolute, nor for one time only. Taking in crime, drugs and violence, and many more themes from the underworld, Masters shines a light on the dispossessed. In fact, he shows how it’s not an underworld at all – it’s part of our ‘life on top’, with allegiances and cultural trappings. Only, through Stuart’s eyes it is fresh and depressingly complex at the same time.

A year at the zoo

Zoo Station

By David Downing

I haven’t read much from war-time Berlin, and I think this was a good introduction. Not because of the story, but because of Downing’s vivid evocation of the time and place.

Three-dimensional problem

One-Dimensional Woman

By Nina Power

Nina Power isn’t one to mince her words. In this provocative polemic, she’s assertive, combative and as sharp as a scalpel. Power’s slim book can be classed as an analysis of where feminism stands today. And it isn’t pretty. She is drawn again and again into how capitalism’s gains are equality’s losses.

Dreamy and trampy

Rafts and Dreams / Outside the Whale

By Robert Holman

I recently heard Holman described as a playwright’s playwright, so I wanted him. If only one could become a great writer just by reading the work of others. That is one trick, of course, but there are many more. Nevertheless, I can see why wannabe playwrights are recommended to read Holman. He is able to tell several sides of the same story without seeming to.

Hairy, natch

Greybeard

By Brian Aldiss

Some writers build complex worlds and populate them with countless philosophies and cultures. That is the Tolkien school of storytelling. Other writers take a single, original idea and tell a straightforward story that hints at the big ideas someone like Tolkien would focus on. As a proper sci-fi writer, Aldiss is one of the latter kind. Greybeard is an exemplar of Aldiss’s school of thought: a lean, controlled, character-driven story with an easy idea at its heart.

Flying high

The Last Kestrel

By Jill McGivering

It would be easy to dismiss McGivering’s debut novel as ‘me-too lit’. She and her publishers spotted the success of The Kite Runner and, driven by McGivering’s personal experiences as a frontline war correspondent, hatched a plan to produce another book about Afghanistan for Western readers. This approach may indeed be what happened. But the product nevertheless surpasses any cynical design the audience may wish to infer.

Lines of beauty

The Line of Beauty

By Alan Hollinghurst

Hollinghurst splits his novel into three parts. Each follows Nick Guest as a twentysomething in London for the first time. It’s the 80s. Nick lodges with the family of a Tory MP and bonks blokes in the nearby keyholder-only garden. His story is a kind of Great Expectations: social mobility, the obstacles thereof, and how a young man grows up.

In Courtney’s man’s world, this cannot be a feminist’s book

It’s a Man’s World

By Polly Courtney

Some would say that an author’s decision to ditch her publisher over charges of sexism just as she needs publicity for her new novel are cynical. Having read It’s a Man’s World, in which shrewd capitalist nous rules, I can see why Polly Courtney did it. She’s a smart businesswoman. And while I don’t doubt her good feminist intentions, I cannot help but question her methods.

At risk of being second-rate

At Risk by Stella Rimington

Somewhere, real Islamists are laughing. It would give too much away to say why, but trust me: if an Islamist has read this book, he’ll be in hysterics. (Do Islamists laugh?)

How to write an excellent feminist book

How To Be A Woman

By Caitlin Moran

Caitlin Moran keeps it real – that’s a trite phrase these days, but I can’t think of more apt praise for Moran’s writing. Having never read any of her columns or articles, I went into this book cold, albeit receptive to what its marketers described as an irreverent take on feminism. For once, the marketers were right. Eschewing academic discourse and sociological analysis, Moran has nevertheless managed to write a book that penetrates and subverts patriarchy.

Her style is personal and direct. Many would describe her as shouty or ranty. Indeed, several female friends of mine have criticised Moran’s approach for these reasons. But I don’t have such a problem. On the contrary, I think that in 2011, Moran’s style works really well – maybe I say this because I generally agree with her, or maybe because I think she retains her reason despite being so personal about things. The fact is that however shouty she may be, she always brings her argument back to biscuits or Time Team. She has the passion one needs to challenge patriarchy, but the humility and good humour to not be a dick about it. She’s Richard Dawkins in a Teletubby suit. How much more persuasive would his arguments against God be if he didn’t sound like such a spoilt git? If he didn’t take himself so seriously? I think it’s brilliant – a major achievement – that Moran doesn’t have to take herself so seriously as a feminist in 2011. The movement must march onward with as much vigour as yesterday, but Moran shows that today it’s possible to march with a spring in your step.

But the fact that a number of female friends have rejected Moran’s style worries me. And it makes me wonder whether there is such a thing as female feminist writing for men. I know that Moran wins praise from many women, too, but if writing could be gendered, could her writing be more at the male of the spectrum? I wouldn’t use crude or sexist tools for locating it on that spectrum (it’s not just about how many times she mentions sex and booze versus handbags and shoes). I just wonder whether male feminists might be more open to Moran’s style than that of other writers?

I wouldn’t want to leave you with the impression that this book is all polemic. It is also a memoir, a supremely funny comedy and an astute insight into society in Britain. It is not at all stuffy; that is not to say it is not heavy; it is accessible and relatable. For that, Moran deserves great praise.