Oh what a month. My daughter was admitted into hospital for a burst appendix and as such, I’ve spent much of the time being with her for recovery and feeling guilty for not going into the office – turns out the flexible hybrid working still comes with a side helping of guilt – and reading has been harder this month. But I have read some, so here’s the round up.
The Seaside – Madeline Bunting
Radio 4 has just run a short series called Living on the Edge which tours British coastal towns and talks to the people who live in them, to find out more about their lives and how their way of life is changing. This is similar but confines the journey to English resorts only, the big towns that used to be a holiday destination, with the somewhat bizarre exception of Norfolk which she skips over. I think it’s no real secret that coastal communities are some of the most deprived in the country, and even the big areas that used to draw in the crowds are on their knees. This book doesn’t have many – any – answers, though it does in a few places talk to voluntary or creative services that are running to try and make a difference. I heard someone describe Britain recently as a country that looks as if it’s been kicked in the teeth and nowhere does this description come into its own than at the coast. We need to do better for ourselves.
Anxious People – Fredrick Backman
This was the reading group choice this month and I wasn’t looking forward to it, as we’d already read his previous book A Man Called Ove which I found irritating. As it turns out, irritating but finishable was an achievement – I couldn’t even finish this. I imagine some people might enjoy Backman’s quirky writing style but it rendered the entire story – which might have been quite engaging written by almost anyone else – utterly unreadable. Why tell a story in a straightforward way when you can wander about, adding in a digression in this paragraph, maybe telling the reader how you feel about young people using mobile phones in that paragraph, then flitting back and forth in time and between characters, but only when you’ve digressed again and inserted another anecdote. It’s like the book equivalent of sitting with someone really fidgety. I hated it.
A Long Petal of the Sea – Isabel Allende
I’ve been making my way through books about the Spanish Civil War and this is another, for the first half anyway. Based on a true story – that the poet Pablo Neruda financed a boat to take Spanish refugees and settle them in Chile following the war, the story follows Victor Dalmau, a doctor who treats soldiers across the country before being interred by Franco’s forces. He flees Spain in the company of his brother’s widow, Roser, and her child. The second half of the book sees them settle in Chile and begin again through the turbulent history of Chile. Allende is always readable, though more of a teller not a shower in her style, and although I enjoyed the Spanish section more than the second half, this was an enjoyable enough read.
The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers – Samuel Burr
This is due to be published next year and I think there will be a lot of publicity and noise about it, the way the publishing industry can do for something with a quirk. Quirks are a gift for marketing teams and publishing has some great marketing teams. I read this on the hospital ward and it was fine, an easy read and I didn’t have to concentrate on it much. It’s about a young man, Clayton, who was abandoned at the door of a communal puzzle fellowship and brought up by Pippa. Now she’s died, she has left him a puzzle to solve for himself – who were his parents? The book flits back and forth between past and present, as Pippa sets up the fellowship and Clayton does his investigating. There’s a lot in here about logic and word puzzles if that’s your thing and it’s all nice enough. I liked the romance element. Whether it will live up to the amount of publicity the marketing teams will get for it is another story.
Early Morning Riser and Single, Carefree, Mellow – Katherine Heiny
Thank goodness, then, for Katherine Heiny whose debut Standard Deviation was excellently funny. I’d meant to pick up her follow up novel for a while and finally did so, along with a copy of Single, Carefree Mellow which is a series of short stories. They all have Heiny’s wicked and blunt sense of humour, which is a plus. Early Morning Riser is about Jane, a primary school teacher who falls for Duncan. Duncan has made his way through every woman in the town and a relationship with him cannot last, but then a tragic accident means their lives are changed. This is a book about finding family, adjusting expectations and responsibilities, and love, with a huge dollop of bitchy observations along the way. It’s very good. The short stories are mini versions of the same – love, sex, awful relations.
Moments of Pleasure
I was so glad that E’s recovery meant we did make it to London to see the stage play of Hamnet at The Garrick Theatre. I thought it was a really good adaptation, and shed a tear by the end when Agnes watches Hamlet. We also stopped in at the Light Room to see the David Hockney exhibition – more like sitting in a documentary – which I enjoyed.
Susan E Barsby 