Daniel Pirrie

Guest: Daniel Pirrie, Actor; credits include Mysterious Creatures for ITV and Jane Eyre for BBC1. Nominated for Best Actor- 'Sting for Nolte' by The Stage Awardsfor Acting Excellence 2007 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2007

Competition question - Title of Nick Nolte's Biography?
Answer: Caught in the Act by Mel Weiser
Prize: Underground Man by Mick Jackson (Faber & Faber)
Winner: Jamie Beeviss

Dan Pirrie's choice of books

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (synopsis courtesy of cormacmaccarthy.com)

The novel recounts the adventures of a young runaway, the kid, who stumbles into the company of the Glanton Gang, outlaws and scalp-hunters who cleared Indians from the Texas-Mexico borderlands during the late 1840's under contract to territorial governors. Reinvisioning the ideology of manifest destiny upon which the American dream was founded, Blood Meridian depicts the borderland between knowledge and power,between progress and dehumanization, between history and myth and, most importantly,between physical violence and the violence of language.

Blood Meridian is not for the faint-hearted, requiring of its readers (as of its characters) an initiation to the grim but often funny business of desacralization, especially of sacred cows.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (synopsis courtesy of wikipedia)

War and Peace depicts a huge cast of characters, both historical and fictional, the majority of whom are introduced in the first book. At a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer in July 1805, the main players and families of the novel are made known. Pierre Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of a wealthy count who is dying of a stroke, and becomes unexpectedly embroiled in a tussle for his inheritance. The
intelligent and sardonic Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, husband of a charming wife Lise, finds little comfort in married life, instead choosing to be aide-de-camp of Prince Mikhail Kutuzov in their coming war against Napoleon. We learn too of the Moscow Count Rostov family, with four adolescent children, of whom the vivacious younger daughter Natalya Rostova ("Natasha") and impetuous older Nikolai Rostov are the most memorable. At Bleak Hills, Prince Andrei leaves his pregnant wife to his eccentric father and religiously devout sister Maria Bolkonskaya and leaves for war.

The novel tells the story of five aristocratic families, particularly the Bezukhovs, the Bolkonskis, and the Rostovs, and the entanglements of their personal lives with the history of 1805–1813, principally Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. As events proceed, Tolstoy systematically denies his subjects any significant free choice: the onward roll of history determines happiness and tragedy alike.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway`s evocation of the pride and the tragedy of the civil war that tore Spain apart. A young American volunteer is sent to handle the dynamiting of a bridge behind the lines of Franco`s army. In the mountains he find the dangers and the intense comradeship of war -- and he discovers Maria.

Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

Dave Egger's parents died from cancer within a month of each other when he was 21 and his brother, Christopher, was seven. They left the Chicago suburb where they had grown up and moved to San Francisco.This book tells the story of their life together.

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Saleem Sinai was born at midnight, the midnight of India's independence, and found himself mysteriously 'handcuffed to history' by the coincidence. He is one of 1,001 children born at the midnight hour,each of them endowed with an extraordinary talent - and whose privilege and curse it is to be both master and victims of their times. Through Saleem's gifts - inner ear and wildly sensitive sense of smell -we are drawn into a fascinating family saga set against the vast, colourful background of the
India of the 20th century.

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

'A dry martini,' Bond said. 'In a deep champagne goblet. Three measures of Gordons, one of Vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice cold, then add a thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?' 'Certainly, monsieur.' Introducing James Bond: charming, sophisticated, handsome; chillingly ruthless and very deadly, this,the first of Fleming's tales of agent 007,finds Bond on a mission to neutralize
a lethal, high-rolling Russian operative called simply The Cypher' by ruining him at the Baccarat table and forcing his Soviet spymasters to retire' him. It seems that lady luck is taken with James. The Cypher has hit a losing streak. But some people just refuse to play by the rules and Bond's attraction to a beautiful female agent leads him to disaster and an unexpected saviour.

Dan's mate Dave is reading-

Great War for Civilization by Robert Fisk (synopsis courtesy of WHSmith.co.uk)

This is an astonishing and timely account of 50 years of bloodshed and tragedy in the Middle East from one of our finest and most revered journalists. "The Great War for Civilisation" is written with passion and anger, a reporter's eyewitness account of the Middle East's history. All the most dangerous men of the past quarter century in the region - from Osama bin Laden to Ayatollah Khomeini, from Saddam to Ariel Sharon - come alive in these pages. Fisk has met most of them, and even spent the night out at a guerrilla camp with Bin Laden himself. In a narrative of blood and mass killing, Fisk tells the story of the growing hatred of the West by millions of Muslims, the West's cynical support for the Middle East's most ruthless dictators and America's ever more powerful military presence in the world's most dangerous
lands as well as its uncritical, unconditional support for Israel's occupation of Palestinian land. It is also a story of journalists at war, of the rage, humour and frustration of the correspondents who spend their lives reporting the first draft of history, their weaknesses and cowardice, their courage and truth-telling. After reading "The Great War for Civilisation" the reader grasps just why those 19 suicide pilots changed the world on September 11th. Assessing the situation right up to the present day and reporting from the heart of a bombed-out Baghdad, Fisk examines the factors leading up to the coalition forces entering Iraq, and discusses possible outcomes of long-term involvement there.

Muthamma's Books-

The crimes of Charlotte Bronte by James Tully

Noted criminologist James Tully became fascinated by inconsistencies he found in the accounts of the lives and deaths of the Brontes. So dark and unexpected were the results of his searches, he decided to tell the story in the form of a novel. He has created a controversial and compelling account of this most famous Victorian family.

The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing

'Listening to the laughter, the sounds of children playing, Harriet and David would reach for each other's hand, and smile, and breathe happiness.' Four children, a beautiful old house, the love of relatives and friends, Harriet and David Lovatt's life is a glorious hymn to domestic bliss and old-fashioned family values. But when their fifth child is born, a sickly and implacable shadow is cast over this tender
idyll. Large and ugly, violent and uncontrollable, the infant Ben, 'full of cold dislike,' tears at Harriet's breast. Struggling to care for her new-born child, faced with a darkness and a strange defiance she has never known before, Harriet is deeply afraid of what, exactly, she has brought into the world