Alluring Anecdotes

Newcastle Herald

Saturday March 15, 2008

EDITED BY ELVIRA SPROGIS

THE GIGANTIC BOOK OF FISHING STORIES

Edited and Introduced by Nick Lyons

Skyhorse Publishing, 796pp, $39.99

If all fishermen are liars, as is often heard, this may be one of the largest collections of lies told.

The first story, by Barnet Phillips, reaches back into early civilisation with a treatise on the origins of the fish hook.

In the second story, author William Radcliffe examines the ancient scribblings of Claudius AElianus (170-230 AD), a natural historian who first described fly fishing in a Macedonian river.

And what compilation of angling yarns would be complete without at least a bite from Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler?

Once past the early history lessons, the stories are as diverse as the many ways and places there are to catch fish.

I have my favourites:

The River God, by Roland Pertwee, tells of the author's boyhood induction into salmon angling in Wales.

In Sacred Eels, American James Prosek's pursuit of the birthplace of eels leads him to New Zealand, home of some revered monsters of the deep, "tuna", Maori for eel.

A River Runs Through It is Norman Maclean's bare-knuckled classic on fly-fishing in Montana, made famous by the Brad Pitt movie of the same name in 1992.

Among the authors are Guy De Maupassant, Rudyard Kipling, Zane Grey, Henry David Thoreau and Dave Barry. Yes, the comic columnist Barry is in esteemed company.

Bruce Quirey

EXODUS 1947: The ship that launched a nation

Ruth Gruber

Sterling Publishing

205pp, $19.99

Ruth Gruber was intimately and passionately involved with the journey of the ship Exodus, which tried to transport 4500 Jews to the as-yet-unborn state of Israel.

She recounts the harrowing tale of Jewish Holocaust survivors and other Jews who were trying to reach what they considered to be their homeland.

The British prevented the Exodus from landing at Haifa and the refugees were taken back to France and then to Germany. From there they gradually took their own paths, and reached what was then Palestine. The story is one of British barbarity and indifference.

The treatment is more journalism than history, and is often expressed in emotional language. There is no attempt to understand or explain British policy, and the British are all bad while the Jews, Americans and French are all good.

In 1946 Gruber wrote an article Divide the land and let the people grow. It is sad that her wise advice has not been followed.

Peter Beale

LE BAL

Irene Ne{aac}mirovsky

Vintage Books, $19.95

Irene Ne{aac}mirovsky died in Auschwitz in 1942. Her masterpiece, Suite Francaise, was published posthumously in 2005 and confirmed the promise shown in these two short novellas, published in 1930. Each is essentially a portrait.

In the title story, Le Bal, Antoinette is 14 years old with a social climber mother (who has truly a long climb ahead), and the hormones are surging.

This is not a happy story, but then adolescence tends not to be a happy period in one's life; even here Antoinette's triumph is very much a Pyrrhic victory.

The second story is about a very different woman. Tatiana Ivanovna has grown old serving the aristocratic Karine family in Tsarist Russia all of her life. Faced with the changes brought by the Revolution, including the death of her beloved Youri, her favourite child and, just possibly, her own, she continues to serve "her family" in exile, to her death.

David Christie

PLATINUM

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Random House, 211pp, $17.95

Jennifer Lynn Barnes wrote her first novel at age 19. It shows.

Her writing lacks real finesse but it is fun and by no means attempts to present itself as a great work of fiction.

Platinum is the sequel to Barnes's first book, Golden. There are references to the preceding instalment, however is not necessary to have read it to get what is going on in part two.

The latest story is pitched to a young female audience and explores the social quagmire that is high school.

Central character Lilah Covington is at the top of the social heap, the girl everyone loves to hate. But freaky encounters with the supernatural threaten to bring her precise and perfect world undone.

Barnes conveys beautifully the manipulative and wily ways of the teenager. Here, rather than in the other-worldly elements, is where the best bits of the book lie.

Jacqui Jones

NORTH UNDER STEAM: New South Wales Government Railways

Robert Driver

Kingsclear Books, 124pp, $49.95

The purpose of this book is to chronicle the closing decades of government steam operations in northern NSW.

This is a valuable publication by Driver, formerly of Telarah, in that it is an important archival record of a bygone era.

This is a "must read" for the railway historian and for all those who have an interest in the age of steam. This beautifully produced book is copiously illustrated with black-and-white and colour plates.

The accompanying descriptive narrative focuses heavily on the various types of locomotives used to pull freight and passenger trains.

The Sydney-Newcastle, as well as Maitland, Muswellbrook and Werris Creek goods and wheat traffic feature prominently.

The book is available by mail order from Kingsclear Books, PO Box 335, Alexandria, NSW 1435. It is priced at $49.95 plus $5 return postage.

Paul Kraus

BEST SELLERS

NON FICTION

Underbelly The Gangland War

John Silvester & Andrew Rule

$19.95

New Earth

Tolle Eckhart

$29.95

Body Shape Bible

Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine

$39.95

Cooking at Home

Karen Martini

$39.95

4 Ingredients

Kim McCosker & Rachael Bermingham

$17.95

FICTION

Wrath of a Mad God

Raymond E. Feist

$32.95

People of the Book

Geraldine Brooks

$22.95

A Prisoner of Birth

Jeffrey Archer

$29.95

Remember Me

Sophie Kinsella

$21.95

Atonement (film tie-in)

Ian McEwan

$24.95

List courtesy

of Borders

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home