Kerstin

By blending fictional and real characters in this historic novel Pat Barker has created a powerful book about the traumas of World War 1. The different points of view regarding the war and various treatments for those psychologically damaged from their experiences are narrated in the third person omniscient, which works well here. Peter Firth reads this audiobook and I can't imagine anyone reading it as well as he does. I feel encouraged to read the next two books in the trilogy.

Having grown up in the Man United/George Best era I was hoping for some insight into his later years yet there is little insight here only a repetitive account of his drinking, his health, the women in his life and his reaction to being "babysat". Inevitably there was always going to be a limit on how close Celia Walden could come to the aging and ill Best but the reader finds out little more than any reader of news stories at the time. What was the purpose of this book? The reader might feel that it was far more about the author than about the subject. I certainly did.