First and foremost I owe an apology to Mr. West for missing the post on 1/7/13. I was ill this week and slept for a full 24 hours and totally missed a whole day. You have my greatest apology.
Book Review of Hobson’s
Choice
Sponsored by Virtual Book Tours
Welcome to Books, Books, and More Books. I am pleased to share my review of this book
with you. Thank you for visiting and
please come again.
Genre: Short stories anthologies
Blurb
:
Hobson’s Choice & 15 other twist-in-the-tail short stories
This is a collection of
stories whose endings you can try to predict, but you will almost always get it
wrong. From the lottery-winner who inspires enmity in his neighbour, to the
fraudulent fortune-teller discovering that she has a psychic gift after all, to
the down-trodden schoolboy whose 'daydreams' reveal a crime which he then uses
all his ingenuity to expose, a huge range of characters walk through these
pages.Some of them are innocent; others, like the greedy property-developer, border on evil; but most of them are human with all the foibles and self-interest inherent in that condition. To read these stories is to share in the author's jaundiced view of the world - a world nonetheless illuminated by flashes of humour, pathos and warmth. You will be hugging yourself with glee at the 'comeuppance' doled out to some characters, and wishing you could dive into the story to give a timely warning to others. You will certainly be turning the pages rapidly to see what happens ...
About the
Author:
Clive West
was born in the West Country of England in the early 60's. He was educated at a
traditional English public school before going on to university to study civil engineering.
Over the years, he has worked as a civil engineer, tutor of maths and science,
schools quiz-master, employment agency boss, and writer.
His work
includes a collection of short stories with twists called Hobson's Choice (also
available in print), a full-length novel called 'The Road' about the
consequences of corruption on ordinary people and an accessible job hunting
interview guide (based on his years of experience as the boss of an employment
agency).
He has also
written a book about lymphedema. This is a disfiguring, life-threatening and incurable
disease he now suffers from and which his experience shows that most fellow patients
have (like him) been abandoned by their respective health services.
Clive now
lives in a rebuilt farmhouse in the Umbrian region of Italy along with Damaris,
his writer wife of 22 years and their three rescue dogs. Apart from his
fictional work, Clive also writes commercial non-fiction on a variety of topics
but especially relating to business and employment. He and Damaris run an indie
publishers called Any Subject Books Ltd – www.anysubject.com
Clive is now disabled but, aside from his
writing, he also enjoys playing the keyboard, listening to music and reading.
Contacts:
Contact
details: books@anysubject.com
Facebook
site: www.facebook.com/anysubjectbooks
Paperback
Excerpt:
“Cor, I need to rest me old bones a mo’. Mind if we stop
‘ere just for a quick break?” Lily, the self-appointed leader of the ‘three friends’
urged the aforementioned old bones to make one last supreme effort to get as
far as the park bench.
Lily, Daisy and Emily - the ‘E’s - had a combined age of
well over 200 and they were always keen to impart their acquired wisdom to
anyone who gave the pretence of listening. They ‘hung out’ together (as Emily,
the most modern-thinking one of them was apt to say), in a home for the elderly
(but not quite insane, Lily joked) and would escape at every opportunity.
Daisy was the quiet planner who normally came up with the
ideas for how to spend the day. Today it was a trip into town, a wander around
the boating lake, and then back to the ‘Old Folk’s Home’ for tea.
It was getting on in the afternoon now and darkness was not
far off. Although there were three of them, privately they all feared the dark
– the time of muggers, bag-snatchers, and worse. Tea-time at the Home was
boringly predictable but at least - and more importantly these days - it was
safe.
“I remember when this was just fields,” Lily said, suddenly.
“No you don’t,” corrected Daisy, “You come from up North.
You weren’t here when they made all this.”
“Lil’ might not have been but I was,” offered Emily
attempting to keep the peace. “They wanted to put houses here but some big-wig
put the boot in. I can’t remember who it was but they had his name put on all
the benches in his honour.”
Emily turned to inspect the bench they were sitting on.
“Yes, here it is, an inscription ‘in memoriam’ – there you go,” she pointed at
a small, time-darkened brass plate screwed to the back of the seat.
“Never noticed that before,” exclaimed Lily, “Funny, innit,
you live here all your life and you don’t see something like that. Oh well,”
she sat down again and turned back to the other two ladies. “Who’s up for
bingo, tonight?”
From some way off, the two boys whom Pat had earlier sent
packing, spotted the old ladies. One boy was in an empty shopping trolley which
the other was pushing. They suddenly veered across to the bench, clearly
looking for mischief. The three ladies bunched up together defensively.
“Wanna one-way trip to the cemetery, grannies?” the boy in
the trolley demanded.
“Give us yer purses and we’ll take yer there,” the other boy
shouted mockingly. In a show of bravado, he shoved his mate in the trolley towards
the lake.
“Eh, what you doin’?” He jumped out just before the trolley
splashed into the muddy water, scaring the ducks and swans into a burst of
protest.
The boys started scrapping with each other and the three
elderly ladies tacitly decided that now was a good time to be moving on. There
was no point in tempting fate; modern youths had no respect and most of them
were drug-crazed and carried knives – they had seen it on the telly and read
about it in the papers.
Just as the boys were about to take off after the three
women, they glimpsed the young policeman striding towards them. They certainly
had no wish to enter into discussions with him. Apart from having made his
acquaintance on prior occasions, the last thing they needed was him checking up
on them and finding out that they had been skiving off school all day.
Abandoning the trolley, they legged it off in the direction
of a little corner shop that was happy to sell them both individual cigarettes
and cans of beer, and cider from a multi-pack, as long as they had the
necessary cash and no-one was looking.
The policeman sighed at the sight of the trolley in the
lake. He was just about to go off duty and had no desire to spend his own time
locating the relevant supermarket manager, less still be seen pushing the
trolley through the streets. If an amateur photographer should catch him doing
that, copies of the picture would be pasted on the police station wall for
years to come along with, no doubt, a whole variety of suitably ‘witty’
captions.
As he pondered, Les arrived from the opposite direction
carrying his usual polythene bags which were chinking loudly with the
‘medicinal anti-freeze’ that got him through the colder parts of the night.
“Wha’s up?” he asked, “By the way, you seen my satchel?”
“No, sorry, Les. In answer to your other question, look:
some little toe-rag has pushed this trolley into the lake.”
“Don’t you worry about that; Les’ll take care of it.”
The tramp smiled, pushed the policeman aside and extracted
the trolley from several inches of cold and sticky mud. He suddenly bent
forward towards the reeds and exclaimed, “’Ere, I’ve found me satchel! Them
soddin’ kids must have had fun with it.” Les was so pleased with himself that
he nearly fell over backwards in his excitement.
He then searched around in the gathering dark for the
scattered contents of the bag, the policeman shining his powerful torch in
front of him to help. They scoured the reed bed, with Les occasionally stopping
to pick up a piece of paper which he inspected at length.
“Think I’ve got most of it,” Les announced finally, “It’s
nuffin to anyone else but it’s precious to me – photos of me family, and some
important letters from them.”
“We were very lucky, Les. If the park inspector had seen it
first, he would have chucked it all. Anyway, what you going to do with the
trolley? I can’t let you leave it here.”
“Nar, course not, I got me a mate who works at the
supermarket. Gives me a fiver for every one I takes back.”
Without saying another word, he shoved his bags and satchel into
the trolley and set off towards the supermarket, whistling tunelessly through
the gaps in his teeth. Just time to catch them before closing and, with any
luck, the fiver might get turned into a bottle of cognac or malt whisky which
had ‘fallen off a rickety shelf’. That would be nice. Something a bit special
to warm himself with as he settled down on his lucky bench.
Review
I think
this book might just have turned me into a Clive West fan. I love stories that have unusual endings or
twists. This book is full of just that. Each story has a surprise twist. I loved the one about the female writer and
the “Dear John” letter, probably my favorite… or maybe the multiple choice
ending that always ended up with the daughter dying. Sad but interesting.
I give
this book 4 out of 5 clouds.
This
product or book may have been distributed for review; this in no way affects my
opinions or reviews.
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