More on the Lost Man Booker

I recently edited my last post on the Lost Man Booker to add some links to reviews of two of the books. Some more information on another two titles.

Firstly, a bit more detail on Len Deighton's Bomber by Mike Sims of A Book for all Reasons :

Len Deighton the thriller writer and military historian, has written an epic fictional account of an RAF bombing raid on Germany in June, 1943, from the initial preparations in England, the briefing, take-off and the raid itself, and simultaneously the preparations and defences at the German target, the actions of the civilians, radar tracking personnel and the night fighter crews. The book was later dramatised by the BBC in several episodes broadcast in real time, as the action of the novel developed, over one day.


The first edition of Len Deighton's 'Bomber' looks like this:



Secondly, I have been attempting to read Down All the Days by Christy Brown. I have never read anything by Brown before, though I have of course seen My Left Foot staring Daniel Day-Lewis. I was looking forward to readin this as a result but frankly I found it unreadable. It has dated badly and I say this as someone whose reading is presominently in the past. Brown's style is poetic, if I am being polite, overly wordy if I am not; and the adolescent fantasies were so boring I just couldn't continue with the book. The portrayal of working class life in ireland is interesting but has I think been done so much better by so many other writers. In both subject matter and style then, I really don't think it has stood the test of time.

The first edition of Christy Brown's Down All the Days looks like this:





If you have links to books from the longlist that you ahve reviewed then please let me know and I'll add them.