Book reviews

LATELY, there has been a risk that Sir Terry Pratchett’s knighthood, and his new-found role as a campaigner on euthanasia and Alzheimer’s, might eclipse his initial claim to fame — the majestically detailed fantasy realm of Discworld.

The latest Discworld book sends tough, honest cop Sam Vimes on a reluctant holiday to his wife’s country estate, where, as inevitably happens when a city policeman holidays in the country, he stumbles upon a murder.

Gently poking fun at the conventions of the crime novel, Pratchett utilises its ability to take a scalpel to society, as Vimes’s investigations dig up racism and worse at this rural idyll’s heart.

At times, though, there seems to be more material here — on deference, the culture of the Discworld’s goblins, the nature of criminality — than Pratchett can fully marshal. Nor has Snuff many of the laugh-out-loud moments one expects from the Discworld.

The Sealed Letter

Emma Donoghue,Picador, €10.55

Review: Lauren Turner

HOT on the heels of the critically acclaimed Room comes The Sealed Letter, a reissue of one of Emma Donoghue’s earlier works.

Readers could be forgiven for thinking there was nothing to connect the gripping saga of a woman and her young child imprisoned in a shed and this salacious tale about a Victorian court case.

However, both are based on real-life events, this new release about a scandalous divorce trial for which Donoghue scoured 19th century newspaper cuttings. It tells of the Codringtons and their relationship with Emily “Fido” Faithfull, a publisher and women’s rights campaigner.

Helen Codrington recommences her friendship with Fido upon her return to London from Malta, where her Admiral husband had been posted. But their bond is stretched to the limit when Fido is forced to turn a blind eye to Helen’s affair with another man — and then becomes embroiled in the court case that could blacken her own name.

The Sealed Letter is an enjoyable romp with intrigue woven into the plot.

A History Of English Food

Clarissa Dickson Wright, Random House, €33.00; Kindle, £10.39

Review: Robert Dex

THE surviving “Fat Lady” packs hundreds of years and thousands of meals into this culinary survey which takes in everything from medieval banquets to microwave meals.

Beginning in the 12th century, it zips along and is stuffed with detail about ingredients, cooking methods and titbits of social history. But it sometimes feels as though Clarissa Dickson Wright uses the most interesting ingredient — herself — a bit too sparingly.

The book only really comes alive towards the end when she turns her attention to developments in her lifetime, and her brief descriptions of the shops she knew as a child have more life to them than all the previous pages combined.

Foodies will enjoy it regardless, but you can’t help but wonder what it might have been if she had made it a more personal history.

There’s A Golden Sky: How Twenty Years Of The Premier League Has Changed Football Forever

Ian Ridley A&C Black Publishers, £18.99

Review: Roddy Brooks

BRITAIN’S Premier League came into being 20 years ago and over those two decades it has transformed the face of professional football.

But the effect it has had on the game at all levels — from the very top of the game down through to amateur, youth and women’s football — is not so clear.

Using access granted to him as a sports writer on national newspapers, Ian Ridley has written nine books, the latest chronicling how he sees the game has changed over the years. Ridley has spoken to players, managers and officials at all levels of the game and the result is a rare insight into some of the stories behind the headlines.

There is no doubt the Premier League has made some people very rich, but Ridley has also dug up some of those who have lost out and others who have carried on being involved in the game they love regardless.