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BBC推荐:6月必读书单

2017-06-09来源:和谐英语

BBC文化频道的每月书单更新啦,本期推荐作品既有神秘离奇的惊悚小说,又有探究社会传染效应的现实作品,哪一本会被搬上你的书架?

1. Christopher Bollen, The Destroyers
《破坏者》克里斯托弗•博伦

Bollen opens this thriller, set on the Greek island of Patmos, with an explosion ripping through the outdoor patio of Nikos Taverna, killing a young American tourist, and he never slows down. The narrator for most of the book is Ian, who is down on his luck and running away from the tense aftermath of his father's death. He travels to Patmos to visit his boyhood friend Charlie, who offers him a job with his new charter yacht business. But Charlie's life as the son of a wealthy Greek-Cypriot businessman is filed with unexpected dangers. And the game they played together when they were young – in which a group of masked gunmen bursts into the room and starts shooting – begins to seem all too real. Intellectually intriguing and eerily timely. (Credit: Harper)
这部恐怖小说背景设定在希腊帕特摩斯岛,以尼克斯•塔维尔娜家户外庭院的一场爆炸拉开帷幕,爆炸导致一名美国青年游客死亡。小说情节紧凑,步步惊心。伊恩是书中主要的叙述者,他穷困潦倒,为了逃避父亲去世后的麻烦而离家出走。伊恩来到帕特摩斯岛看望儿时好友查理。查理给他找了一份工作,于是伊恩开始经营包租游艇的业务。查理的父亲是希腊-塞浦路斯商人,身为富豪的儿子,查理身边充满预想不到的危险。一群蒙面人持枪冲进屋内开始扫射是他们儿时一起玩的游戏,如今游戏似乎开始成为现实。小说剧情烧脑、诡异的气氛渲染的恰到好处。(来源:哈勃出版社)

2. Nick Laird, Modern Gods
《当代诸神》尼克•莱尔德

Laird's intimate and searing look at the aftereffects of violent conflict and religious fanaticism, revolves around two sisters facing personal crises. Liz, a New York-based academic, is preparing to travel to the rainforest of Papua New Guinea to make a BBC documentary about Belef, the charismatic woman leader of a cargo cult. But first she's back in her hometown of Ballyglass in Northern Ireland, for her sister Alison's second wedding. Before the honeymoon begins a newspaper headline reveals Alison's new husband's past as a member of the Ulster Freedom Fighters involved in a pub massacre. And now she is morally implicated. Half a globe away, Liz is drawn into Belef's rituals, with tragic consequences. Finely etched, impeccably structured, Modern Gods has the enduring echoes of a classic. (Credit: Viking)
莱尔德围绕着两姐妹身上发生的危机,近距离审视了暴力冲突和宗教狂热带来的恶果。利兹是来自纽约的学者,她准备前往巴布亚新几内亚的热带雨林为BBC制作一部关于魅力超凡的货物崇拜运动女领袖比利芙的纪录片。但是,利兹要先返回家乡巴利格拉斯——位于北爱尔兰的一个小村落,参加姐妹艾莉森的第二次婚礼。艾莉森开始度蜜月之前,一家报纸的头条新闻曝光了其新婚丈夫的过往,他曾是阿尔斯特自由战士组织的成员,这个组织与一起酒吧大屠杀有关。于是现在艾莉森也被牵连其中,遭到道德批判。而在地球的另一端,利兹被比利芙的宗教仪式所吸引,最终引祸上身。《当代诸神》文笔细腻,结构缜密,是一部耐人寻味的经典之作。(来源:维京出版社)

3. Victoria Redel, Before Everything
《最重要的事》维多利亚•雷德尔

Redel's new novel brings to mind Virginia Woolf's The Waves, with its chorus of distinctive voices sharing private perceptions along with their sustained collective experience. Five girls who dubbed themselves "the old friends" in sixth grade have carried their connection forward through decades, sharing tragedies and triumphs. In March 2013 they gather as Anna, the sparkplug of the group, decides to discontinue her cancer treatment after four remissions. She wants to say her goodbyes. In lyrical prose, Redel interweaves Anna's final days with echoes of the past – the day Helen accompanied a teenaged Anna to her abortion, the day of Ming's daughter Lily's brain surgery, the weddings, the divorces. The endings. "This, Helen thought, this is what Anna will do. She will teach us all how to do this thing we don't know how to do." (Credit: Viking)
雷德尔的新小说《最重要的事》让人想起弗吉尼亚•伍尔芙的《海浪》,它将不同的声音融合在一起,透过大家一直以来的共同经历分享每个人的认知。五个女孩在6年级时就互称“老相识”,她们同甘共苦,友情维持了几十年。2013年3月,她们之中的核心人物安娜在癌症反复四次后决定终止治疗,她希望向所有人道别,五个女孩因此重聚。在这部抒情散文中,雷德尔将安娜最后的时光与昔日的记忆交织在一起,海伦陪伴着年轻的安娜堕胎、明的女儿莉莉接受脑部手术、结婚、离婚,直到走向生命的终结。“海伦想,这就是安娜要做的。她将教会手足无措的我们如何面对死亡。”(来源:维京出版社)

4. Colin Harrison, You Belong to Me
《你是我的》科林•哈里森

Harrison's encyclopedic knowledge of New York, his noirish genius and his storytelling chops are on fine display in this new thriller about immigration lawyer Paul Reeves and the couple who live across the hall, a blonde American beauty named Jennifer and her wealthy Iranian-American husband Ahmed. Reeves is twice divorced and focused mostly on his passion for old maps of New York, which he stores in his apartment and his family home in Brooklyn. Jennifer tags along with him to Christie's one day while Ahmed is out of the country on business, and Reeves witnesses her surprise at spotting a blond man in desert-coloured soldier's fatigues staring at her. She leaves with the man. And so begins the unwinding of a marriage, with tragic consequences for the men in Jennifer's life. (Credit: Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
哈里森就是个纽约百事通,他的暗黑天赋以及叙事能力在这部全新的惊悚小说中得到了完美的呈现。小说讲述了移民律师保罗•里夫斯以及住在隔壁的情侣的故事。詹妮弗是一位美国金发美女,她的丈夫艾哈迈德是伊朗裔美国富豪。里夫斯离过两次婚,他醉心于纽约老地图,将它们收藏在自己的公寓和在布鲁克林的家中。有一天艾哈迈德出国谈生意,珍妮弗就尾随里夫斯去了佳士得拍卖行。而里夫斯发现她在看到一个身穿沙漠迷彩服的金发男人注视她时意外惊喜。詹妮弗和这个男人离开了。一场婚姻由此破碎,詹妮弗生命中的那个男人以悲剧收场。(来源:Sarah Crichton出版社/Farrar, Straus and Giroux出版社)

5. Julia Fierro, The Gypsy Moth Summer
《舞毒蛾入侵的夏天》茱莉亚•菲耶罗

In June 1992, gypsy moths invaded Avalon Island, caterpillars stripping trees, covering houses and pavements, and raining down upon the residents. This is the summer, writes Fierro in her luminous second novel, when Leslie Day Marshall, "golden-haired prodigal daughter, returns with her black husband and brown children to claim her seat as First Lady." Leslie's son Brooks falls in love with Avalon's Maddie, the daughter of a wealthy mother and a working-class father. Their Romeo and Juliet story plays out as Grudder Aviation, the island's major employer, is blamed for a cluster of insidious cancers and for dozens of women, including Leslie, suffering repeated miscarriages. Fierro laces her lyrical tale of revenge and rebellion with gritty details, mythic settings and a nuanced sense of how class and racial divisions shape us. (Credit: St. Martins)
这部精彩的小说是菲耶罗的第二部小说。1992年6月,舞毒蛾入侵阿瓦隆岛,这种蛾虫吃光树木,覆盖在房子和人行道上,如雨点一般掉落在居民身上。菲耶罗写道,就在这个夏天,“叛逆的金发女儿莱斯利•玛西尔带着她的黑人丈夫,棕色皮肤的小孩们回来了,坐上第一夫人的位子。”莱斯利的儿子布鲁克斯爱上了岛上的姑娘麦蒂,她的妈妈是个富人,而爸爸是工薪阶级。阿瓦隆岛上的一群人在不知不觉中患上癌症,几十名女性经历多次流产,其中包括莱斯利,岛上的用工大户格路德飞机制造公司被指为罪魁祸首。菲耶罗通过栩栩如生的细节、神秘的背景设定以及对阶级种族分化如何塑造人类的细微刻画,书写了一部充满感情的复仇和反抗的故事。(来源:圣马丁斯出版社)