Robert Harris
August 29, 2008 - Books
Looks like I haven’t updated Currently Reading in the sidebar for quite some time now, in fact I haven’t really updated the whole page for ages. Guess it’s about time for another approach to change this situation. Let’s get started with a post about what I’ve been reading lately and maybe give you some good advice on what you should check out as well.
Amongst other things I read every single novel of Robert Harris over the last weeks: Imperium, Pompeii, Fatherland, The Ghost, Enigma and Archangel. Most of them have been really good but let’s just have a short review on each of them in the order I read them.
I started with Imperium which is some kind of biography of the Roman statesman Cicero mixing facts and a bit of fiction. It’s a vibrant description of the Roman time and the early career of Cicero up until he becomes a consul. The book is definatly one of my all-time favorites now and I liked it so much that I went to the closest bookstore and bought everything else Harris has written so far. I’m really looking forward to the next book in the Cicero triology, Conspiracy, which is said to be released in October of 2008.
Next was Pompeii which also plays in the Roman time and is about the story surrounding the ouburst of the Vesuvius in the year 79, again mixing facts with a fictional story. Harris really is good in telling those Roman stories and it gripped me that much that I finished it in no time as well.
The third book I read was Fatherland, Harris’ first novel to be published from 1992. The story unfolds in 1964 under the premise that the Germans have won World War II. It’s about several high class Nazis who simply know too much and now need to be taken care of, a simple thriller somehow but with a dark and dreary background. Another keeper.
Fourth was The Ghost, his latest book, and tells the story of a ghostwriter who is asked to write the biography of the fictional former british prime minister Adam Lang. Not a bad book but definatly not as good as the ones playing in ancient Rome or the entirely fictional world of Fatherland. In my opinion the worst of his works up to now.
Next was Enigma which is again a must read in my humble opinion. It’s the story of british cryptanalysts from Bletchley Park in World War II trying to break the German Enigma ciphers. In this setting Harris tells a story of betrayal and deceit with a splash of a love story. You may have seen the movie based on this novel already, if so you should do yourself a favor and forget the movie then read the book.
Just yesterday I finished the only novel left: Archangel. Again a damn good one that plays in Russia and is about a lost notebook of Stalin. Take a blender, add dirty descriptions of Moscow, the russian out-back, russian intelligence agencies like FSB and SWR, Spetsnaz, loads of communism and a shot of corruption and bribery. Shake it good and voila - Tasty stuff!
I’m definatly looking forward to Conspiracy (the follow-up to Imperium) and whatever else Robert Harris is going to write in the future.
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