Runelight by Joanne Harris

If you've read anything else by this author, this is very different (with one exception). Chocolat it is not.

Runelight is fantasy, pure and simple. Good and evil, gods, magic, alternative writing systems, alternative worlds, maps of alternative worlds... It's Phillip Pullman crossed with Paul Stewart with a dollop of Joanne Harris as you know her. But perhaps I'm being unfair.

This is a follow-up to Runemarks (the exception I mentioned earlier), so if you've already read that one, you'll know what to expect. I hadn't, though I will now, and I must say it would have helped a great deal if I had. Nevertheless, I did enjoy this, even if I didn't know all the time exactly what was happening - there's a lot of back history to be explained, though the dramatis personae at the beginning, plus the maps, help a great deal.

The characters are great: varied and appealing or not in equal measure, but what kept me going was the desire to discover what it was all about, what was going to happen and who would win in the end. There's humour and some adult themes including sex (though little violence), but I wouldn't say this is in the same league as, say, Ursual Le Guin's Earthsea stories, though there are similarities.

If you're already a fan of fantasy, then you'll probably enjoy this. If you're more of a Blackberry Wine person, maybe not. But then, I'm both, so what do I know?

The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler

I love Anne Tyler's stories about family life in Baltimore, USA, and this is no exception. This one is about coming to terms with bereavement. The main character loses his wife suddenly, and then she returns to him - or does she? Although he has several conversations with her - the story is told in the first person - and even describes for us someone else's reaction to seeing his late wife apparently alive and well, ultimately we only have his word for it, and the reader is left guessing.
As always with this author, the well-drawn, rounded characters (even the minor ones) and the details of everyday life are what makes this a good read and, although the main character can be really irritating at times, the reader's sympathies are with him all the way to the happy ending.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman

Two things immediately surprised me: this seems an odd choice of subject matter for an aetheist, and this author shows a great deal of knowledge of the Bible: the reasons for both of these gradually become clear throughout this short, thought-provoking novel.

It's basically a re-telling of the life of Jesus from the point of view of a new character who wasn't in the original Gospel versions. The crucifixion of Jesus is orchestrated by his twin brother (the "scoundrel"), egged on by an unidentified shadowy figure (Satan? An angel?), with the purpose of creating a Church which the author clearly sees as an evil institution. Hence, "scoundrel". Jesus, meanwhile, is just another good, if misguided human being who is caught up in all this. Other well-known characters appear, but pale into insignificance beside the three main protagonists.

It's certainly an original idea, and does provoke some interesting questions about the relationship between Church and power - a theme the author visited in the well-known His Dark Materials trilogy - as well as more general questions about the nature of religious and historical truth. As a Christian, I was not offended by it, since it is clearly a fantasy, and I would go so far as to say that some passages would make good material for discussion groups and the like: particularly parts of the speech made by Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, and the author's Afterword, which ends with a brilliant question to all Christians. We should not be afraid to tackle difficult issues. However, this book could be awkward reading for some Christians I guess, particularly those who believe the Bible is literally true or who are easily offended by criticism of the Church.

And it's very readable, despite the heavy subject matter.