The Book of Other People

I know its for charity, but the problem is it just isn't very good. I had high hopes, admittedly. A handsomely designed hardback with twenty-three short pieces on the theme of character, containing work by some of my favourite novelists – David Mitchell, Hari Kunzru, Jonathan Safran Foer, Dave Eggers and Colm Tóibín – and a supporting cast of other interesting writers that I had either enjoyed before or wanted to know more about – A. L. Kennedy, ZZ Packer, Andrew O'Hagan, Zadie Smith, Nick Hornby, Toby Litt and A.M. Homes. What could go wrong ...

David Mitchell's Judith Castle was the first big disappointment. I haven't read anything by David before that was less than brilliant, but this is pretty shallow and tedious with a punchline that you can see coming from less than half-way through.

Rhoda, Jonathan Safran Foer's Jewish granny stream-of-consciousness, has its moments, but is a long way from the best of his writing. Andrew O'Hagan's Gordon (yes, that Gordon) is a great idea, which doesn't quite come off, while Dave Eggers' Theo is a throwaway idea stretched and meandering way beyond the point where it was interesting.

The two best stories for me were Colm Tóibín's affecting Donal Webster and A. L. Kennedy's genuinely unsettling Frank. Both create vivid and believable individuals who find themselves in situations that you desperately want to know more about.

Anyway it is for a good cause – www.826national.org (unbelievably they even get the website wrong in the introduction) – and I hope the book raises them lots of cash. However, if you want to read something captivating and amusing I would suggest you try the letters to President Obama written by some of the students supported by this organisation instead.

the Boat

the Boat is an interesting book and there's no doubt that Nam Le is a talented writer, who may well go on to great things. Unfortunately, the stories in this collection don't live up to all the hype and, for me, although there are some small precious gems within the book there are just too many gaps and holes for the writing to work.

He sets out his background and dilemma early on in the first story, Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice:

'It's hot,' a writing instructor told me at a bar. 'Ethnic literature's hot. And important too.'

And then on the next page his fictional friend tells him:

'You could totally exploit the Vietnamese thing. But instead you choose to write about lesbian vampires and Colombian assassins, and Hiroshima orphans – and New York painters with haemorrhoids.'

Sadly I didn't find the lesbian vampires, but all the other characters are present and correct. And that for me is the main problem. While the writing is virtuoso the stories aren't up to snuff. They all read like experiments for his creative writing course (that also crops up in the first story), and I am sure they got good marks, but most left me with a feeling that I only had tiny fragments of what was really happening in these imaginary worlds and these specks weren't enough to bring them into focus.

Even the heartbreaking final story about Vietnamese refugees trying to escape on a fishing boat that breaks down suffers from this problem. The description is superb and the situation is all too vivid, but the characters are obscured and they seem to richochet off each other rather than connecting as they should.