I write as Robert J. Lloyd, but my friends call me Rob. Having studied Fine Art at a BA degree level (starting as a landscape painter but becoming a sculpture/photography/installation/performance generalist), I then moved to writing. During my MA degree in The History of Ideas, I happened to read Robert Hooke’s diary, detailing the life and experiments of this extraordinary and fascinating man. My MA thesis and my Hooke & Hunt series of historical thrillers are all about him. I’m fascinated by early science, which was the initial ‘pull’ into writing these stories, but the political background of the times (The Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis, for example) is just as enticing.
This is the only ‘whodunnit’ on my list, but it’s so much more. (As are all the best ‘whodunnits’.)
For a start, it’s told from four different points of view. My own books use the early history of the Royal Society, its science, and various of its actual ‘Fellows,’ and this book was undeniably an influence. Pears details the politics and religious turmoil of the time and the excitement of new scientific discoveries.
The mid-17th century’s rigid social structure and manners are shown starkly, as is the misogyny. I found it dark, layered, and although complex, it’s immediately engaging. A very satisfying book indeed!
'A fictional tour de force which combines erudition with mystery' PD James
Set in Oxford in the 1660s - a time and place of great intellectual, religious, scientific and political ferment - this remarkable novel centres around a young woman, Sarah Blundy, who stands accused of the murder of Robert Grove, a fellow of New College. Four witnesses describe the events surrounding his death: Marco da Cola, a Venetian Catholic intent on claiming credit for the invention of blood transfusion;Jack Prescott, the son of a supposed traitor to the Royalist cause, determined to vindicate his father; John Wallis, chief cryptographer…
I’d never have guessed I’d be so beguiled by a book about moss. Or, more precisely, about Alma Whittaker, a bryologist observing moss.
I enjoyed this book's ‘differentness’. It’s an episodic story, unusually structured, with various life-like trailings-off of plotlines, characters, and marriage, but no less gripping for that.
Researching natural sciences in the nineteenth century is skilfully described, but it’s Alma who lingers in the mind. Its sentences, I thought, are beautiful too.
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
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'Quite simply one of the best novels I have read in years' - Elizabeth Day, Observer
'Charming ... extensively researched, compellingly readable' - Jane Shilling, Daily Telegraph
'Sumptuous ... Gilbert's prose is by turns flinty, funny, and incandescent' - New Yorker
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A captivating story of botany, exploration and desire, by the multimillion copy bestselling author of Eat Pray Love
Everything about life intrigues Alma Whittaker. Her passion for botany leads her far from home, from London to Peru to Tahiti, in pursuit of…
Historical fiction at its very best; it’s so sad that Thompson died shortly after the book's publication. This book follows Charles Darwin circumnavigating the world aboard The Beagle but is told largely from the viewpoint of the Beagle’s captain, Robert FitzRoy.
The science, then, is mainly Darwin’s theories of evolution by natural selection. But it’s also an account of FitzRoy’s meteorology: he was the person entrusted to set up Britain’s Met Office.
This may all seem a bit dry, but I thought it was as exciting as the best thrillers. It’s a big book, 700 pages or more, but I raced through it.
This is an epic novel of sea-faring adventure set in the 19th century charting the life of Robert Fitzroy, the captain of 'The Beagle' and his passenger Charles Darwin. It combines adventrure, emotion, ideas, humour and tragedy as well as illuminating the history of the 19th century. Fitzroy, the Christian Tory aristocrat believed in the sanctity of the individual, but his beliefs destroyed his career and he committed suicide. Darwin, the liberal minor cleric doubts the truth of the Bible and develops his theory of evolution which is brutal and unforgiving in human terms. The two friends became bitter enemies…
Actually, two novellas, it’s the first, "Morpho Eugenia," that’s always stayed in my mind. I loved how it handles discussions on such subjects as teleology, determinism/personal freedom, the nature of life after death, and so on, the post-On the Origin of the Species mindset.
I particularly like the ending, which, if you’re reasonably alert, you’ll work out well before our protagonist. I don’t think this is a weakness; observing the main character, Adamson (note the surname), flailing towards an inevitable ‘reveal’ is part of the book’s point, I think.
The prose imitates Victorian literature, very post-Modern, but don’t let that put you off. I found its style immersive, making me feel closer to the time.
In these two “astonishing” novellas (The New Yorker), the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession returns to the landscape of Victorian England, where science and spiritualism are popular manias, and domestic decorum coexists with brutality and perversion.
"At once quirky and deep, brimming with generosity, imagination, and intelligence." —The New Yorker
In Morpho Eugenia, an explorer realises that the behaviour of the people around him is alarmingly similar to that of the insects he studies. In The Conjugal Angel, curious individuals – some fictional, others drawn from history – gather to connect with the spirit world. Throughout both, Byatt examines the…
About WWII codebreaking, the reason this makes my ‘Best 5’ is that, besides being constantly inventive and informative, it’s also very funny. (I’m that shallow.)
There are similarities, I think, with Catch 22, in the plot’s intelligence, absurdity, and dreamlike turns.
I think Stephenson’s character Bobbie Shaftoe, a soldier who carries out counterintelligence deceptions, is hilarious. Also, Stephenson’s use of real historical characters–he presents believable portraits of Alan Turing, Douglas MacArthur, Karl Dönitz, and Hermann Göring, with a walk-on appearance by Albert Einstein–gave me license to do so in my own fiction.
With this extraordinary first volume in an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century.
In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse—mathematical genius and young Captain in the U.S. Navy—is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Waterhouse and Detachment 2702—commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe-is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence…
The City of London, 1678. New Year's Day. A young boy drained of his blood and with a sequence of numbers inscribed on his skin, is discovered in the snow next to the Fleet River. Also, a cipher was left on the body.
Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, the Justice of Peace for Westminster, enlists the Curator of Experiments of the Royal Society, Robert Hooke, and his assistant, Harry Hunt, to help his enquiry. While investigating the crime, Hooke and Harry find themselves embroiled in political intrigue and discover a mystery dating back to the Civil Wars. Using evidence rather than paranoia in their pursuit of truth, they must discover why the boy was murdered and why his blood was taken.
I grew up a fan of an evening news segment called “On the Road with Charles Kuralt.” Kuralt spotlighted upbeat, affirmative, sometimes nostalgic stories of people and places he discovered as he traveled across the American landscape. The charming stories he told were only part of the appeal; the freedom and adventure of being on the open road ignited a spark that continues to smolder. Some of my fondest memories from childhood are our annual family road trips, and I still jump at the chance to drive across the country.
Head West in 1865 with two life-long friends looking for adventure and who want to see the wilderness before it disappears. One is a wanderer; the other seeks a home he lost. The people they meet on their journey reflect the diverse events of this time period–settlers, adventure seekers, scientific expeditions, and Indigenous peoples–all of whom shape their lives in significant ways.
This is a story of friendship that casts a different look on a time period which often focuses only on wagon trains or gunslingers.
After four years of adventure in the frontier, Win Avery returns to his hometown on the edge of the prairie and tracks down his childhood friend, Jeb Dawson. Jeb has just lost his parents, and, in his efforts to console him, Win convinces his friend to travel west with him―to see the frontier before it is settled, while it is still unspoiled wilderness.
They embark on a free-spirited adventure, but their journey sidetracks when they befriend Meg Jameson, an accomplished horsewoman, lost on the Nebraska prairie. Traveling together through the Rocky Mountain foothills, they run into Gray Wolf, an Arapaho…
