Well, Britain may not be producing much in the way of decent music and film just lately but it's reassuring that a few of us at least know how to bang out a decent book or two.

Tim Lott's Rumours Of A Hurricane is a bold attempt at revisiting the tumultuous Thatcher years through its effects on the lives of an average couple, Charlie and Maureen Buck. It's brilliantly written, with a vivid eye for period detail and an acute observation of the small but pivotal moments in people's lives, all drawn against the larger canvas of seismic political events.

In terms of its range and compassion the book is perhaps comparable with the TV epic 'Our Friends In The North'. Yet if anything, 'Rumours Of A Hurricane' is a more powerful work because the polemic is much more subtle and unobtrusive, and the balance between humour and pathos so much more believable and lifelike. Anyone with even a passing interest in the recent social history of Britain really needs to read this book. That's an order btw, in case you hadn't noticed.


I have my brother and his wife to thank for introducing me to Going Out by Scarlett Thomas. She has invited favourable comparisons to the likes of Murakami and Coupland with this enchanting tale of a housebound young man allergic to the sun who, clad in a DIY spacesuit, sets out with some slacker pals in a VW camper van to find a mysterious Chinese healer who may just be able to find the cure to his afflication.

The book is at times a little too dialogue-heavy for my tastes, but it becomes a real pleasure enjoying the company of such an engaging cast of troubled but fun characters. Thomas proves as adept as Lott in terms of her adroit placement of pop-culture references and real-life events (the floods, rail disasters) into a curiously compelling narrative that slowly but surely reveals itself as a lo-fi relocation of The Wizard Of Oz to the streets of suburban Britain. There is a health warning though: you may never quite see Essex girls in the same light again. Unreservedly recommended.