Culture Wars reviews contemporary fiction along with regular feature coverage of fiction festivals such as Jewish Book Week and prizes like the Orange Prize and Man Booker.

Browse books by title with CW new books archive feature.

Disobedience

The strength of the book is where Alderman displays her insight into Jewish religion and customs, which adds depth and meaning to the situations of the characters. The novel has more originality and freshness when Alderman allows her own presence to be diminished.

A Blade of Grass - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

It is hard to understand why Desoto insists on setting up his characters with such shallow, oversimplified emotions. It is as if he has never read any previous literature on the subject.

I’ll Go to Bed at Noon - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

Woodward’s great concern in this novel appears to be the disintegration of the family unit in the modern age, and the impact of materialistic values on the traditional way of life for the English.

The Master - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

The Master deals with the life of Henry James, from the dramatic failure of his play Guy Domville through the creation of a string of masterpieces including The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of a Dove, and The Turn of the Screw.

Cherry - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

Steve’s story is implausible, but it’s hard to tell whether we’re dealing with a sci-fi novel or a delusional narrator, or both (or indeed whether our narrator is even reliably delusional).

Snowleg - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

Nicholas Shakespeare touches on a range of themes that provide fertile ground for a story: identity crisis and cultural dislocation, the tumultuous events of Germany’s reunification, and love across generational, geographical and political divides. Yet the book fails to ever really surprise or provoke the reader.

The Unnumbered - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

The novel makes for a swift and refreshing read despite North’s fragmented, incomplete characters, his patronising emphasis on the vulnerability of women and the at times irritating leitmotif of the inability to shape one’s future.

Cloud Atlas - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

If the Booker prize was awarded for sheer effort and ambition, then David Mitchell should win hands down. In over 550 pages, Mitchell jumps across centuries from character to character, intertwining their fates and linking their lives in real, or (postmodern) symbolic ways.

Sixty Lights - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

The characters slowly gain shape, and ultimately existence, through a description of ordinary events and unremarkable episodes, all painted two-dimensionally, to fit the boundaries of the photographs they inhabit.

The Line of Beauty - (Man Booker Prize 2004, WINNER)

Hollinghurst is frequently described as Jamesian, but at the risk of offending latterday aesthetes, to be Jamesian in today’s social and political climate is a very different thing from being Jamesian in Henry James’.

Cooking with Fernet Branca - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

Fernet Branca is an Italian specialty. It is a spiced liquor similar to ‘Gammel Dansk’ and to a lesser degree the German ‘Jegermeister’. Fernet Branca is however more of an acquired taste then its two siblings.

The Electric Michelangelo - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

The balls of society aside, Hall can be relied on to write beautifully, and some of her finest work lies in subtle, unerring descriptions of passing moments or moods, screaming details or silent visions.

Becoming Strangers - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

Life sucks, and relationships grow tired and have to be put up with. Those who have invariably lose what it is they long for. Those who get what they long for are invariably disappointed with the reality of it.

Bitter Fruit - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

Bitter Fruit is the story of the Ali family, set in South Africa during the investigations leading up to the Truth Committee Report. As a member of the political underground fighting apartheid, Silas was made witness to the rape of his wife Lydia, by a white policeman, of which their son Mickey is the product.

Always the Sun - (Man Booker Prize 2004, Longlist)

Surprisingly, it is Cross’ valiant effort to write decently about men doing - or failing to do - the right thing that both touches most and disappoints most.