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Books currently recommended by Salley Vickers:

BOOKS OF THE YEAR

As a Man Booker judge I've rather had my fill of fiction this year but THE CITY OF YOUR FINAL DESTINATION by Peter Cameron (4th Estate) has stayed in my mind as unpretentious, beautifully written and with an unfashionably happy end. In non-fiction, I admired Will Fiennes' engaging THE SNOW GEESE (Picador). Inspired by Paul Gallico's classic, Fiennes makes the subject his own while enhancing the source he pays homage to. Carole Angier's PRIMO LEVI (Penguin) deepened my understanding of an extraordinary life. Anthony Stevens' intriguing ARCHETYPES REVISITED (Routledge) is that rare thing, a literate book by a psychiatrist.

Appeared Observer Nov 23rd 2002

The City of Your Final Destination - Peter Cameron
The Snow Geese - Will Fiennes
The Double Bond - Primo Levi
Archetype Revisited - Anthony Stevens


The Double Bond - Primo Levi
THE DOUBLE BOND: Primo Levi, A Biography by Carole Angier

Primo Levi was one of the most awe-inspring men of the twentieth century and one for whom I have long had the greatest respect and admiration. His meditations on his experiences of Auschwitz are a remarkable testimony to the capacity of people, of exceptional quality, to suffer, endure and embrace with compelling meaning the atrocities perpetrated on them by others who also go by the ambiguous name of 'human'. But although he survived the Nazi concentration camps he did not survive his own inner tormentors and finally took his own life. Carole Angier has written an impressive and searching account of Levi's life, to include fascinating analysis of his work as poet and writer and its part in his inimitably tragic yet exhilarating story.

 

Hardcover - 928 pages (19 March, 2002)
Viking; ISBN: 0670883336

   
The Snow Geese - Will Fiennes
THE SNOW GEESE by William Fiennes
A moving and unusual account of one man's obsession with the Snow geese and his tracking of them to the Canadian Arctic. As a lover of birds myself (cf my own 'Instances of the Number 3) I am hugely enjoying this intelligent and observant book with its delicate homage to Gallico's original 'Snow Goose'.

See the review
  Picador, March 2002 ISBN 0 330 37578 4

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About the Author
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