Book reviews: When I Am Playing With My Cat, How Do I Know She Is Not Playing With Me? | The London Train | The Social Animal
William Leith reviews this week’s paperback releases
When I am Playing with my Cat, How Do I Know She Is Not Playing With Me?
by Saul Frampton
Rating: ***
(Faber, £9.99)
Towards the end of the 16th century, a French nobleman, Michel de Montaigne, decided to write about his life. All but one of his children had died in infancy; he’d also lost his father, his brother and his best friend. A riding accident nearly killed him. He wrote 100 essays — about life and death, weaponry and warfare, health and sickness. He travelled around Europe. This is a classy, astute and readable biography of the man.
The London Train
by Tessa Hadley
Rating: ***
(Vintage, £7.99)
Paul is a middle-aged man living in Wales. He’s married with two kids and a grown-up daughter from a previous relationship. The grown-up daughter disappears. Paul sets out to solve the mystery, which turns out to be a double mystery. Then we meet Cora. Her marriage has just broken up. She meets a man on the train from Cardiff to London and falls in love with him. The man is Paul. Weirdly, and brilliantly, this is happening two years before Paul’s daughter disappears. The time-shift illuminates the characters in a wonderful way.
The Social Animal
by David Brooks
Rating: ***
(Short Books, £8.99)
“This,” says David Brooks, “is the happiest story you’ve ever read.” Actually, it’s not. It’s about two fictional characters, Harold and Erica, who meet, get married, and become successful. But this isn’t a novel. Brooks has created these characters to explain the science behind everything they do. They grow up, learn things, are driven by ambition and hormones. Erica is a damaged workaholic; Harold is bright but soft. Brooks splices the science and the narrative with skill.
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