January 2012 Guest Editor Simon Lelic selects As If...
A recent entrant into my ever-changing list of favourite books, this is another work I could read again and again – were it not so intensely heartbreaking. Although actually, that hasn’t stopped me, and nor should it any parent, son or daughter. I discovered it in researching my latest novel, The Child Who, and have since forced it upon virtually everyone I know. Gitta Sereny’s series of articles for the Independent on Sunday Review are the only other pieces of journalism to come out of the James Bulger case that come close to the standard Morrison sets – but my advice would be to read both.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
| Recommendations: |
In 1993 toddler James Bulger was beaten to death by two ten-year-old-boys. In the wake of this brutal crime, came one of the most public and shocking trials in living memory. Written in Morrison's supple, beautiful prose As If is a passionate, first-hand testimony of the Bulger case. It is a book about the nature of children, the meaning of childhood innocence and the state of the world we live in today.
As If features in the following genres: Biographies & Autobiographies, Non-Fiction Books of the Month, eBooks of the Month, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, Recommendations
As If is available in Ebook, Paperback
As If was written by Blake Morrison and published by Granta Publications
£24.16
