Novel set in London (and a bit about book sales)

It is a sobering thought that a lot of authors actually sell only a limited number of books, and as I read The Marrying of Chani Kaufman - long listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2013 - I reflected on the situation. At TripFiction we come across a phenomenal number of books that have massive merit in their own right, are beautifully written, tick so many boxes, yet just never make it to prime position in a bookshop. Talent and a bit of luck just don't seem to be enough these days.

India Knight in an article entitled Ambushed in the Old Sentimentality Shop in the Sunday Times of 11.11.12 was in part discussing the Booker Prize of October 2012. It emerged, she says, that sales figures for the shortlisted books, before the announcement of their inclusion on the list, were pitiful: Alison Moore's The Lighthouse, for example, had sold 283 copies, Jeet Thayil's Narcopolis 100 and Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists had had 174 buyers. Naturally sales went up after the shortlist was announced. 

Her sentiments were further echoed by Ian Rankin on Twitter 14.7.13, where he opined that a debut novelist, garnering good quotes from famed authors for the cover, plus good reviews, can still expect to sell only a few hundred copies. He was specifically referring to Robert Galbraith (who we now know to be J K Rowling). The Sunday Telegraph on 10.7.13 said that until the real author was revealed, that Galbraith had only sold 449 copies, according to Neilson Bookscan. 


What are we to make of this? Sales, whether in a bookshop or via the internet are how an author makes his/her living (just see author, Dan Smith's, recent piece entitled A Victimless Crime) so buy books. Another thing we can all do, as readers, is to write reviews, because reviews help garner new readers and new sales. There are plenty of places you can write your reviews - Goodreads, Amazon and of course here at TripFiction. And often processing thoughts and channelling them into a review is quite an interesting and rewarding exercise. Give it a go, you, too, can help authors get their works out there!

The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris set in Golders Green/Hendon, London

A tender, and at times frank peak behind the Scheitel (wig) culture of the Ultra-Orthodox community in the Golders Green/Hendon area of London.

It is a brave thing that a non-Haredi chooses to write about a culture that keeps its doors firmly closed to the outside world of modern Western culture. But I think the author has really achieved a good balance of insight, empathy and reality (as far as one can tell, of course), and for this she was rewarded by being included on the Man Booker Longlist of 2013. 

Chani, in her late teens, is waiting to be approached by the shadchan (the matchmaker) with a proposition from a potential husband, just to meet and spend a little time together. Her suitor is Baruch who espied her at a wild wedding celebration.

The story line is interwoven with the stories of others, all of whom have a connection to the couple, and through their eyes we glimpse a little of what life can be like in the Orthodox community. Like any of us, the individuals are trying to find their way through life, deflecting the bad, and embracing the good. There are a huge amount of strictures to observe in everyday life for those who aspire to be frum (religious/observant) - from food preparation, to interaction between the sexes, attire, you name it. There seems to be an overriding sense of monochrome 'colouring' their lives, a touch lacklustre, and a depressing lack of information when it comes to sex (so it was interesting to see such a brightly coloured cover on this book). But who are any of us to judge a choice of lifestyle, one which clearly becomes deeply ingrained in each new baby that arrives, and is clearly based on a very strong sense of community.


If you are not familiar with the ways of the Ultra Orthodox community, it will certainly be a revelation. It is beautifully written, well observed and for the most part sensitively written. 

And if you enjoyed this move, then we suggest Reva Mann's book The Rabbi's Daughter which will offer further insight.

Tina for the Tripfiction Team


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Novel set in Cambridge (73. 131. 977. 1213. 83719*)

The Humans by Matt Haig set in Cambridge can now be found on the new TripFiction website

LONDON: louche living in the Swinging 60s

Three Brothers by Peter Ackroyd, set in London

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NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE/LONDON Family trauma

The Other Family by Joanna Trollope set in London and Newcastle upon Tyne

Richie is the link between two families who live 300 miles apart, in London and in Newcastle upon Tyne. Two families; one wife, one partner and four children. Intriguing.

But then Richie, a successful musician, suddenly dies and leaves the two families with different problems to sort out. The two families have never met but know of each other. Richie never divorced his first wife, Margaret who lives in Tynemouth with a son, Scott who is in his late 30s. In London, I’m not sure where, Chrissie tries to pick up the pieces of her devastating loss with her three daughters, Tamsin, Dilly and Amy. The reading of Richie’s will brings the family together over a sentimental legacy. Changes have to be made but there is an issue with acceptance of the situation they find themselves in.

But how does it bring them together?

Joanna Trollope successfully portrays the emotions and dynamics of family life and relationships.

The novel is set in two different cities. I know Newcastle upon Tyne well and the buildings mentioned, The Sage and The Baltic to name a few. I can picture these iconic buildings and the view that is described of the Tyne Bridge from Scott’s city centre flat. But I am wondering if there is a strong enough emphasis upon the place that other readers would want to visit if they had not before. But Newcastle upon Tyne does have a hold for one of the family members not only because of its difference to London but also because of the music opportunities she can take. And of course Newcastle upon Tyne has long associations with many iconic musicians: Sting, Dire Straits, Bryan Ferry, Lindisfarne, The Lighthouse Family, and Cheryl Cole....(to mention but a few).

This is an interesting read and once again Joanna Trollope has written a winner with her successful style. Some of the sentences take up half a page. It took me a while to get used to this; but it reads like someone having the conversation in their head. However, for me the cities could have been anywhere and I don’t know if I would have wanted to visit them. But after all this book is about people, relationships, their struggles and coming to terms with a new future.

Thanks to Ann Reddy for reviewing this for TripFiction If you would like to really get under the skin of the North East of England, then we have many novels that will do that for you. Just click here And London as you can imagine is really well represented on the website!

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Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide

A collection of novels to evoke the feel of the River Thames:

The Thames stretches from the beautiful Cotswolds to the heart of London and beyond, and as we have been researching the novels for TripFiction we have come across several books that hugely evoke the bustle and busyness, and the variety of life along the river; in our featured novels the river almost become a character in its own right. It has been such an important feature of life in the South of the England, since time immemorial, so much history, and so very essential to everyday life. Indeed it is the longest river in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. So it deserves a blogpost in its own right.

Tideline by Penny Hancock first sowed the seed for this idea, a gripping tale of life along the banks of central London, where the Thames itself grew to be a character in the novel.

Marie Claire puts it succinctly: "A clever, creepy thriller about misplaced affection and abduction, with a riverside location as an eerie backdrop"








Our next choice is Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd.

One May evening in London, as a result of a chance encounter and a split-second decision, the young climatologist Adam Kindred loses everything - home, job, reputation, passport, credit cards, money - never to get them back. With the police and a hit man in merciless pursuit, Adam has no choice but to go underground, joining the ranks of the disappeared, struggling to understand how his life has unravelled so spectacularly.

The Daily Mirror captures the feel of this novel: 'A storm of a story ... London has never looked so threatening' 

Downriver by Iain Sinclair is constructed as twelve interlocking narratives, in which Iain Sinclair traces the ruins of Margaret Thatcher's reign through the lens of a fictional film crew that has been hired to make a documentary about what's left of London's river life. The Thames may still flow through the heart of the capital, but life along its shores has changed dramatically. It is a savage, satirical quest to understand how people's lives, a government's policies and a legendary waterland conspire together in a boggling display of self-destruction.







Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald is the winner of the 1979 Booker Prize. 

Offshore possesses perfect, very odd, pitch. In just over 130 pages of the wittiest and most melancholy prose, Penelope Fitzgerald illuminates the lives of "creatures neither of firm land nor water"--a group of barge-dwellers in London's Battersea Reach, circa 1961. 

'Fitzgerald is adept at evoking the atmosphere of late 1960's London with rich period detail' Elizabeth Day, Observer

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. From its famous dramatic opening on the bleak Kentish marshes, the story abounds with some of Dickens' most memorable characters. Among them are the kindly blacksmith Joe Gargery, the mysterious convict Abel Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Haversham and her beautiful ward Estella, Pip's good-hearted room-mate Herbert Pocket and the pompous Pumblechook. As Pip unravels the truth behind his own ‘great expectations’ in his quest to become a gentleman, the mysteries of the past and the convolutions of fate through a series of thrilling adventures serve to steer him towards maturity and his most important discovery of all - the truth about himself.

And it's over to Deptford with Penny Hancock's latest thriller The Darkening Hour 

A middle class woman at her wits' end. A struggling migrant worker with few options for survival. When tensions boil over, who will be the first to snap? Will it be Theodora, finally breaking under the pressure? Or Mona, desperate to find a way out? Two women. Two stories. Who do you believe?

And we will sign off with a couple of lines attribute to Shakespeare: "The River Thames, that by our door doth pass, His first beginning is but small and shallow: yet keeping on his course, grows to a sea."

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1923: Maps from "Father Thames" by Walter Higgins via http://thames.me.uk

We have brought together only a few books that conjure up life along the Thames. Please add your suggestions in the Comments Box below!

OXFORD + NEW YORK: "The right cocktail of people, the perfect blend for calamity"

Black Chalk by Christopher J Yates set in Oxford and NYC

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Island Life on the ISLE OF WIGHT in 1976

Summer of '76 by Isabel Ashdown set on the Isle of Wight


"The distant whisper of the sea is always there, a transparent layer that lies beneath all other sounds, as it rolls over the beaches that surround the island, ever constant". Welcome to the Isle of Wight. 

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The spirit of THE PEAK DISTRICT in fiction

The Shadow Year by Hannah Richell, set in the Peak District

The author talks to us about location. Plus our review can now be found on the new TripFiction website here

Flying kites with the Kosovans in Geordieland (NORTH EAST UK)

Flying with Kites by Alan Reynolds - our review can now be found here

The Beauty of Murder in CAMBRIDGE, UK (a novel for cat lovers!)

The Beauty of Murder by AK Benedict  set in Cambridge

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