Hola! We started the month on a city break in Madrid which was lovely. The food was good, the people are so nice to children (which helped as my daughter is the best Spanish speaker of all of us – I kept lapsing into the 3 Italian words I know) and they put a bit of effort into making sure their public spaces look good. I could have done with a couple more days there to really make the most of it but we did alright. And so to the books this month:
The Reading List – Sara Nisha Adams
This is a debut novel and looked light enough to take on holiday, which I suppose it was. I mean light as in not challenging reading, obvs. It told the story of a community library in Wembley and how one mysterious person had left a reading list of recommended books lying around for various people to find, and then how those books and the library changed their lives. This especially focused on a young girl working at the library and an old man whose wife had recently died, and how they become friends. It was alright. It went on a bit. I found the interpretations of the reading list books to be rather annoying (I guess she wanted to avoid spoilers but for no one to mention the plot twist in Rebecca was only one of several glaring omissions for me.) I got the point of the book very early on and there wasn’t a lot of development. I left it in our apartment building in Madrid as part of the book swap so hopefully someone else can read it on holiday too.
Ruth and Pen – Emilie Pine
I loved Pine’s book of essays Notes to Self so had been looking forward to reading her novel and I confess, it took me a while to get into. She’s clearly used to writing non-fiction more and it shows, this was quite a ‘tell not show’ type of book. Having said that, I guess the style could also be deliberate since both the main characters, Ruth and Pen, had trouble articulating their feelings. Being on holiday with no other books to read meant I stuck with it and I’m glad I did as it was actually excellent and a bit lump in the throat-y by the end. In short, the action (such as it is) takes place over a single day and is spelled out in time-chapters. Ruth is a therapist who thinks her marriage is about to end, and who has a hospital appointment she needs to go to, and Pen is a teenager who has some behavioural/ mental health issues but who is also going to a protest rally and date with the girl she likes, Alice. The two stories intersect a little, but it’s not necessary to have them both wrapped up in each other. The main point is about connection, talking and being heard. I liked it.
The Locked Door – Elly Griffiths
Home from holiday, we went from Stansted to my in-laws for the weekend and I had read my holiday books so picked through their bookshelves. While everyone watched the FA Cup final, I sat in the garden with this. Lots of people have recommended Elly Griffiths to me and while this was the 14th book in the series, it was still an entertaining enough read. I thought the plot had some convenient resolutions and was sometimes rather contrived but the characters made up for that, and it was a good relax in the sunshine read.
Our Friends in Berlin – Anthony Quinn
Another from the in-laws – this is a Second World War spy thriller. It was competent and interesting enough. I especially enjoyed the reasons behind him writing it – a story in the paper about the number of British people who were Nazi sympathisers during the war, who wanted to try to help the German effort. The story revolves around Jack Hoste, a former banker turned MI5 agent, who is acting as the liaison man between these sympathisers and Berlin (or so he tells them) but he’s also trying to track down a dangerous German agent. Sources send him to Amy Strallen, who works at the 1941 equivalent of Match.com, setting up people who want to get married. It’s not as good as Le Carre, nor is it as confusing as Le Carre can sometimes get but this was an entertaining read.
Think of Me – Frances Liardet
I think this was a Twitter book recommendation somewhere down the line. It’s a thought provoking book that takes in huge themes of love, baby loss, war and isolation. Told in two interweaving narratives, we hear from Yvette, writing a diary in 1964 about how she met her husband James, when she lived in Alexandria and how they married and moved to England after the Second World War. The second narrative is from James himself, ten years later, who is a vicar moved to a dilapidated house in a new parish. His reluctance to talk to his archdeacon about his plans for the area leave us with a mild mystery to be uncovered. The book is excellently written, though the huge differences in setting and story at the beginning need a little patience to unravel. I found a number of personal themes I could relate to also, from baby loss to prisoners of war marching through Europe to evade the Red Army (my grandpa did this). It’s also a book about faith and things that sustain you through hard times.
Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
I usually try to read quite a few of the Women’s Prize shortlist before the announcement but did very badly this year, managing one other book and two whole chapters of this before they announced that this was the winner. In case there’s any of you out there who haven’t heard about this, it’s a retelling of David Copperfield but set in the Appalachian Mountains around the time of the opioid epidemic. It takes Dickens’ ideas around systemic poverty and the resourcefulness of its characters and transposes the entire thing very well. You don’t need to have read David Copperfield to appreciate the skill with which Kingsolver has retold the tale and I think CD himself would admire what she has done with it. It’s a story full of furious anger, vivid characters and a real understanding of the cobweb of tangled forces and feelings its main character is up against. As you might know if you’re a regular reader, I’m not a fan of addiction stories but this was deftly told to make it fresh and complicated. I stayed up well into the night to read it and found that it infiltrated my dreams. I’m honestly not sure a book has ever done that before.
Still Life – Sarah Winman
My re-read this month is the reading group choice and I’ve been looking forward to it. Having said that, I’d forgotten the Evelyn parts – and on a reread, these are clearly the weak points. If you’ve not read this, it’s an ensemble piece with very little plot. It starts when British soldier Ulysses Temper meets older art historian Evelyn Skinner on the outskirts of Florence in the Second World War, as the Gerrmans retreat. They, and Ulysses’ commanding officer, enjoy an evening together before going their separate ways. Ulysses finishes the war (his commanding officer does not, sadly) and goes home to his wife and friends in a London pub, but not before saving the life of an Italian man looking to jump off a building. A few years later, Ulysses finds that the man has left him all his worldly goods – money and a building in Florence so Ulysses, with his wife’s daughter (from a wartime liaison with an American officer), an eccentric friend and a parrot set up home in Florence and welcome friends and family back and forth over the years. This part is lovely and I adored it. Once in a while you come across a book you’d like to live in and this is one for me. Evelyn, meanwhile, goes back to London and eventually ends up back in Florence but her chapters are told differently and I felt they were rather self-indulgent. I seem to remember that she’s a character based on a real person so these sections are likely to be an homage, but they’re less interesting. The rest, though, is wonderful.
The Cookbook of Common Prayer – Francesca Main
One that’s been sat on the shelves for a bit. This is about an Australian family whose older son goes to teach in the UK and dies in a potholing accident. As if this isn’t bad enough, their daughter is in hospital with a severe eating disorder and is so weak they are afraid the slightest shock could kill her, so they tell her that he’s broken his leg only, and head off the UK to sort things out. But then the mum comes home and a) starts to write odd recipes (she’s a food writer – think Nigella but less assured) and b) starts to write letters from the son to the daughter in hospital to extend the lie. So it’s a book about trust and confidence – in your children, in your parents, and in each other – and it’s also about grief and family life and coping and not coping and it’s less about food than I would like. The food writer’s agent starts to tell her there’s no market for a cookbook written in the midst of grief – but of course that just made me think of Ella Risbridger’s Midnight Chicken and The Year of Miracles – both of which are about that and with better recipes – and the recipes that are printed are by the by. The main part of the book is about the relationships and it could have had a better title. But it was well written.
Adventures on the High Teas – Stuart Maconie
We went to see Stuart Maconie, a radio regular in this house, at an event as part of Lowdham book festival and he was charming so I ended up buying three of his books. He comes across as a British Bill Bryson, which is needed in the British travelogue market since Bryson became so extra grumpy and rude in his later books (this seemed to occur when he returned to the US – a coincidence? Hmmm.) Anyway, this is Maconie’s gentle exploration of that vague term ‘Middle England’. Maconie wanders about exploring things that are associated with Middle England, from actual places to food, music (Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Syd Barrett), literature (Austen, Eliot, Gaskell), our predilection for crime drama, spa towns and all sorts. It’s not meant to be a full sociological exploration but more of an idea; however what did strike me was how dated the concerns of the country were. It was written in 2008, as the banking crisis was about to start but it really does feel like a different country, more at home with itself, content in a low key way. It’s not necessarily all good – so much of what Maconie explores is mired in the past, for one thing. I’d like to see a British travel book that explores the modern forward thinking areas of Britain – there’s a challenge for you. The nostalgia industry has a lot to answer for (I have a friend who blames Cath Kidston for Brexit). While most of the book is very gentle and polite, he does take a moment at the end to go full grumpy Bryson and suggest that maybe these days we are too keen to whine, blame other people and not be stoic enough, so perhaps he can also see that the country is about to go down a tortured route and this will become a period piece. He’s right about the railways though.
Moments of Pleasure
My daughter had two nights away on a school residential and without her, we went on a date. We watched Chevalier, an amusing historical film that likely took quite a few liberties with the truth but in a fun confident way, and then we had cocktails and chips because we’re sophisticated classy types. But what a change to have some time to spend together alone, the way we used to. It is such a boost to a relationship just to have that headspace once in a while and since we don’t live near friends or family, it’s a rare occurence. Anyone who brings children up with a steady stream of help and babysitting services nearby, I hope you feel your privilege.
Susan E Barsby 