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book chat A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, Bloomsbury £16.99 (£13.99) Set in war-torn Afghanistan, at this harrowing but uplifting novel's heart is the friendship between two women. Mariam was forced to marry an older man but suffers when failing to produce a son. Years later, pregnant orphan Laila's taken in as another wife. Afgan- American Hosseini showed he could fly high with The Kite Runner; this second novel proves he's up there with the best. The splendid Suns also shines. Secret Diary of a Demented Housewife by Niamh Greene, Penguin £12.99 (£10.99) This is a Bridget Jones style diary of a yummy, crummy, oh lummy mummy that seems all too familiar. Mum-in-her-thirties Susie struggles to keep sane while surrounded by the usual suspects of lively toddlers, selfish husband, best friend with a livelier life, lecherous lone dad and all the rest. Nicely penned first novel... but Irish Greene needs to show her range of colours. Cultural Amnesia by Clive James, Picador £25.00 (£20) At 876 pages you might think this was written by Clive of Windier. Don't be deceived. The London based Aussie wizard with aphorisms offers an original A-Z compendium of more than 100 essays on heroes and villains, ranging from Camus and Tony Curtis to Miles Davies and Mao. He argues that our cultural amnesia means we are forgetting our champions of human- ism. Now, remind me again, who's this fel- low Clive James? A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr, Macmillan £25 (£20) Ex BBC news top honcho Marr looks at post-war Britain and the triumph of shopping over politics. He covers everything from our Cold War vulner- ability to the oil boom and migra- tions, looking at the great visions of each decade's governments... and the way the stroppy British failed to follow them. Wry but engagingly down to earth... even though it came from Marr's. ED PERKINS with Borders of Bournemouth Top 10 music books Borders, The Square, Bournemouth, BH2 6DT Tel: 01202 589736 or bordersstores.co.uk June 9, 2007 7 PEOPLE have been gripped by two fascinating history programmes showing on BBC this month. One is former BBC political editor Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain. And the other is Peter and Dan Snow’s programme about Twentieth Century Battlefields. Now, the Daily Echo has teamed up with Borders, the bookshop in Bournemouth Square, to offer the two books that accompany the two series as a prize in our weekly competition. This week’s prize books are: ■ A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr, published by Macmillan at £25. ■ Peter and Dan Snow’s Twentieth Century Battlefields, published by BBC Books at £18.99. To have a chance of winning these two books, all you have to do is answer the following question: What was Andrew Marr’s job from 2000 to 2005 at the BBC? The first correct answer drawn from a hat will win. Send your entries by Saturday June 16 to Magazine Borders Competition Number 11; Promotions Department, Daily Echo, Richmond Hill, Bournemouth BH2 6HH. Usual Echo rules apply. 1. BBC Proms Guide – 2007 2. Seriously Bad Album Covers – Nick Difonzo 3. No One Gets out Alive – Biography Of Jim Morrison – Jerry Hopkins 4. Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison – Michael Streissguth 5. Redemption Song – The Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer – Chris Salewicz 6. Bring the Noise-Simon Reynolds 7. Rough Guide to Jazz-Rough Guide 8. Changeling - Autobiography Of Mike 0ldfield- Mike Oldfield 9. Slash –Surviving Guns 'N' Roses – Nick Middles 10. Easy Piano Songbook – Andrew Lloyd Webber moved to Maida Vale, but before long most of the Ash Grove community had gravitated to within a few streets of his new west London abode. Some lived as housing association tenants, others – Joe included – in squats. It was around this time that Joe got more serious about music, particularly when he started singing and playing on the pub-rock circuit with The 101-ers. “They were seriously good and we used to follow them around. In fact, we saw an early Sex Pistols gig [November, 1975] when they got a gig supporting The 101-ers who they know would pull a crowd. I wasn’t impressed – thought they sounded like a bad Velvet Underground – but I remember John Lydon leaping off stage to have a fight with someone. “Joe was living in this damp, manky basement squat – I went to see him once but couldn’t stay more than five minutes. I saw him sing Heartbreak Hotel around that time, solo. He was so into that moment, so consumed by passion that he was spitting the words out. He used his guitar more like a prop than an instrument and it was astonishing. That was when I knew he had something really special. “He came round to see me and Maggie the night after one of their not so great gigs. He was troubled because he wasn’t sure their sax player was up to it and asked what I thought. “I asked him straight out: ‘Joe, are you in this for the fun, or do you want to go to the top?’ ‘To the top!’ he came straight back with that. Soon after the sax player was gone, so he had that ruthless streak but he felt bad about it.” It was same drive that saw Joe turn his back on the The 101-ers in favour of The Clash. Sold a dream, an ideology and the promise of regular money by Clash manager Bernie Rhodes, Woody Mellor was consigned to history as Joe Strummer bleached his hair and set about changing rock music forever. “Joe was never a leader as such, but a lot of us were disappointed when The 101-ers broke up. They were at the centre of the social scene for us; they felt like ours. Punk was something younger, the audience was a crowd not a community. “Maggie and I wanted to start a family, but not in London, and we loved Dorset so we came back and started Spill the Beans in 1976. I saw a Clash gig in Bournemouth at the Stateside Centre, but didn’t think much of it, maybe I was still smarting at the loss of The 101-ers. I never saw Joe again, although I followed his music and when London Calling came out it was obvious what it had all been about. “I heard the real Joe in later songs like The Magnificent Seven and in the music he made after The Clash, but our paths never crossed again. “I heard about his death on the news and thought: ‘Well, he really must have been famous and touched a lot of people’s lives.’ It was sad, so terribly sad.” ■ Eric and Maggie Drennan, and inset, in the mid-1970s ■ Joe Strummer on stage with The 101-ers ■ Eric (far left) with Joe Strummer (far right) and various mem- bers of The 101-ers Chance to win a book and get to grips with history
