Historic art and objects tell story of a nation

NON-FICTION

The Seven Ages Of Britain

David Dimbleby

Hodder & Stoughton, 25.

Trisha Andres ****

David Dimbleby attempts to tell Britain's story through its art and objects – from the Iron Age to the Computer Age – in his new book The Seven Ages of Britain, to tie in with a primetime BBC series of the same name.

The exquisitely illustrated book is comprised of seven chapters each depicting an era in Britain's art history – from the Middle Ages right through to twentieth-century modernism – each written by distinguished historians and curators.

In his introduction, Dimbleby writes about the Alfred Jewel, a gold and crystal jewel, encasing an enamel picture of a man clutching a flower in each hand, which is thought to have been commissioned by King Alfred to give to his bishops as a pointer for reading the Bible.

The tangible object breathed life into the image of the king and rendered "the king who burnt the peasant woman's cakes" in Dimbleby's mind as a real person.

The object becomes the medium through which history makes itself concrete.

Such is the premise of the book. Its theme-based approach does possess some faults, for certain centuries are too complex to be pigeonholed as a specific "age".

However, by heralding the events and artefacts of each era, Dimbleby and his collaborators demonstrate vividly how art reflects British history.

The Ticking Is The Bomb

Nick Flynn

Faber and Faber, 8.99.

Robert Dex **

Poet Nick Flynn found a wider audience with a memoir detailing his time working with the homeless in Boston, including his own father who he lost touch with years earlier.

His new book again merges the public and private as Flynn awaits the birth of his daughter while recording his growing obsession with torture in Iraq. No details are spared of Flynn's complicated love life, his father's continuing mental and physical decline and his own troubled upbringing, including his mother's suicide.

There are also excerpts from interviews with some of the Iraqis imprisoned at Abu Ghraib, but little light is shed on what happened there or why it is so important for Flynn. Instead the reader is left with a series of short, sharp chapters that read like rambling diary entries from a particularly pretentious and self-obsessed teenager.

FICTION

Captured

Neil Cross

Simon & Schuster, 12.99.

Roddy Brooks ****

In Captured, Neil Cross takes us on a journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind as the main character sets out to right all the perceived wrongs in his life before he dies.

But the consequences of every action, particularly when they are based on misconception or misunderstanding, are brought shatteringly home through complex plotting.

The gory detail and life-like descriptions paint a stark picture of the life of portrait artist Kenny Drummond.

Captured is gripping stuff.

But as the main character spends most of the story attempting to fill a void in his life, you can't help feeling there was something missing from this story which could have made it perfect.

Chronic City

Jonathan Lethem

Faber and Faber, 14.99.

Lisa Williams ***

In Chronic City, modern day New York is under threat from a thick grey fog, an eyrie of eagles and an escaped tiger.

Its narrator Chase Insteadman, a former child actor, is engaged to a astronaut marooned in space and his best friend is a cannabis-smoking culture vulture who thinks the New York Times controls the minds of all its readers.

While the book is not always grippingly exciting or achingly funny, it tightropes between the two with sharp descriptions, intriguing psychology and, of course, a warped and surreal imagination.

The Disappeared

MR Hall

Macmillan, 12.99.

Nilima Dey Sarker ***

The 40-something coroner from Severn Vale District in Bristol is back at the scene of crime in The Disappeared. Jenny Cooper, the divorced mother suffering from emotional trauma made her debut as The Coroner over a year ago.

When distraught mother Amira Jamal appeals for an inquest into the death of her missing son, Jenny's interest is aroused and she launches a probe that leads her to corruption, espionage and conspiracy in the British Security Service.

Former lawyer-turned-screenwriter Hall brilliantly captures the post 9/11 paranoia as he explores Muslim radicalism. Although at times it reads like a TV drama, the intricate plot keeps the pages turning.