Review: Vivien Horler

Trace – Case studies of a forensic pathologist in Africa, by Ryan Blumenthal (Tafelberg)

Doctors are notorious for closing ranks when a patient believes they have been wronged by their medical practitioner.

But Dr Ryan Blumenthal, the author of Autopsy and now Trace, isn’t that guy. That’s because he is only too familiar with the sort of mistakes doctors can make – he sees the results on his autopsy table.

He believes many procedures performed today are probably unnecessary, and based “on first-hand experiences where I have witnessed the negative outcomes of such cases”. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

People who like Dogs like People who like Dogs – Extraordinary encounters in an ordinary park, by Nick Duerden (John Murray)

Englishman Nick Duerden was a cat person, until he got a dog. He was also, as a result of not being very well, rather reclusive, not helped by the fact he is a freelance writer.

But when you get a dog, you have to walk it, so you’re forced to go out. And then you will meet other dog walkers, and possibly make friends with them, or at least become dog-walking companions.

The dog he got was a Border Terrier which, oddly enough, doesn’t at all resemble the doodle they’ve chosen to put on the cover. I was drawn to the book by the cover, since my own dog, a Border Doodle, looks exactly like that. And when Sofia wants to go for a walk she will sit, looking both accusing and gormless, sometimes with a ball in her mouth.

No matter, in the reading of this memoir I was drawn to Missy, his small terrier, about whom he writes with great affection and occasional exasperation. Missy, who is 13 months old at the start of the memoir, has a stiff wire coat and “the energy of a just-lit firework”. You’ll know what that’s like if you’ve ever had a 13-month-old dog. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

Everything is Tuberculosis – A history and persistence of our deadliest infection, by John Green (Ebury Press)

Around 1940 or 1941 my Aunty Thelma contracted tuberculosis. It was in the early days of World War 2, and she worked for a company that had been making compressors for the mining industry before pivoting to munitions as many British manufacturing companies did.

She was not quite 20, and having a lovely war. She was engaged to a man who drove a sports car, she had a flashy diamond ring, and according to her younger sister – my mum – was partying till late and then going straight on to work in the shell shop.

They made explosive shells in the shell shop, which was housed in an old, damp building, and she got sick.

This was more than a decade before streptomycin became available as a cure for TB, and so she was treated, as people in the UK were in those days, in a sanatorium in a place called Tehidy in Cornwall.

The ward she was in had a roof and three walls, with the fourth side open to the elements all year round. In winter they would watch snowflakes drifting on to their beds, she told me (although in truth it doesn’t snow much in Cornwall). Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

Remain – A supernatural love story, by Nicholas Sparks with M Night Shyamalan (Sphere)

A supernatural love story? Not my usual fare.

There’s a telling exchange between the main guy, the architect Tate, and his friend Oscar.

Tate tells Oscar he’s not in a good space, and Oscar responds: “I’m guessing you and Gigi had a fight?”

Mystified, Tate responds: “Gigi?”

Oscar: “GG? Ghost Girlfriend?”

In fact the ghost girlfriend is called Wren, but other than that, Oscar is on the button. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph)

You wouldn’t think a novel about a rather formal, acerbic 70-something woman from Annapolis, told solely in the form of letters and emails – mainly letters – would become a bestseller.

But you’d be wrong – The Correspondent topped the New York Times bestseller list in December. Of various reviews I’ve read, I think The Times said it best: “A warm, funny gem of a novel.”

Sybil Van Antwerp lives alone in a house with the view of a river through the trees. She is particular, precise, likes to write her letters with a fountain pen on good paper she gets from the UK. Continue reading →