November reading round up

I finished October feeling rather disillusioned with reading. It hadn’t been a vintage month of books. And as this year was going to be my year of re-reads, I started off by going back to a couple of books I’d read before, to try and rediscover a joy in reading.

The Secret History – Donna Tartt

This book is 30 years old this year. My copy is the American paperback version which was sent to me by my then-boyfriend’s mum, who liked to talk reading with me. I think I was back home in the UK by then but she did send a couple of parcels before and after we broke up – she was a lovely woman and I liked her a lot. Anyway, I was interested to reread this – I’d read it twice before and it always read like a drug, you would race through it and ignore everything else until you were done. I wondered if my aging cynicism would regard it in the same way. Some books are only for the young. So I was very pleased to find that although I didn’t race through it in the same way, it was still enjoyable. And although I knew all the characters were unpleasant, this time I was struck about how honestly ghastly and pretentious they all are. You like them anyway, of course, but you’d definitely avoid them in real life. In case you’ve not read this modern classic, it’s narrated by Richard, who attends a small New England college and falls in with a private tutor group studying Greek. There is a murder. There’s a lot of drinking and drugs. Everyone behaves incredibly badly and often gets away with it because they’ve either got a lot of money or have the reputation of a family who has a lot of money. Except Richard who bluffs through the whole thing. None of this sounds very attractive when you put it as I have above, but it’s a great book. It reminds me of being young in a new city and talking to peers in the bookshop where I worked, discussing books and ideas and films over pints after work.

Olive Kitteridge and Olive, Again – Elizabeth Strout

Before I decided to read the second Olive book, I re-read the first. This is a series of loosely linked short stories, featuring the title character, sometimes only in a passing role or mention and sometimes the subject of the story. Many people write about Olive and say they don’t like her very much, that she’s difficult to like but I think this is a harsh judgement. She’s spiky, direct and has trouble expressing herself sometimes but acts from the heart many times, and shows herself to be a woman of compassion to others. Her husband Henry is a kind, patient man and I don’t think would have stayed with her if he hadn’t seen goodness in her. It’s her parenting that she struggles with and her son Chris is frankly as bad as her, both on the defensive and demanding more from the other. These stories are often about very small incidents or moments of connection and are beautifully written, full of poignant observations. The second volume felt more about Olive, though she was a brief mention in a few of the stories, but there was more of a thread and arc to this one, as Olive grows older, more frail and has buried a second husband. I really like Olive and these books are excellent.

The Lincoln Highway – Amor Towles

This was my reading group’s choice this month and it’s a bit of a beast, over 500 pages. But I enjoyed it. I wonder if simultaneously reading a book of linked short stories helped when reading this too. Set in the 1950s, it’s ostensibly a story about Emmet Watson, freed from a short spell in juvenile detention, who comes home to Nebraska to find his father’s farm is being foreclosed and who decides to make a new life fixing and selling houses in the West with his little brother Billy. It’s meant to be an allegorical odyssey retelling of sorts, Billy has a book where he is constantly reading about myth and legends. The characters of the brothers are well drawn and you immediately start rooting for them and when, at the end of the first chapter, the odyssey meets its first challenge, you know it’s all going to go wrong and you don’t want it to. The challenge comes from two other inmates from the juvenile detention centre, Duchess and Woolly, who have stowed away and followed Emmet to Nebraska. They have a request, a quest to get some money which they will split three ways if Emmet helps them. And knowing Emmet doesn’t want to help them and potentially get back into trouble, they engineer circumstances to get him to go after them and help them in the quest. The book takes them across America – riding box cars – to New York City and there are lots of meanderings with characters they encounter, which add to the length and the feel of the book being like linked short stories. I loved the characters of Emmet and Billy, and Woolly but Duchess, the main engineer and a true artist of disaster, was the one you kept wanting to shake. Well drawn, plotted in an ambling way that worked well for me, I enjoyed this v much.

Black Butterflies – Priscilla Morris

I haven’t done very well reading this year’s Women’s Prize shortlist, which I usually try to make time for so this was only the second book on the list I’ve read. I must confess to knowing very little about the Bosnian war of the 1990s, which this book is about, so this was interesting in being able to find out a little more about it. Black Butterflies refers to embers of books, burned in bombing, and the book is about Zora, who is a Serbian artist and art professor living in Sarajevo. She has sent her ailing mother and her older husband to England to visit her daughter when the city is placed under siege and she cannot get out. The book tells the story of the siege, how Zora and her friends and neighbours try and manage through the dreadful hardship of war. This is a clear-eyed look at a terrible situation, made more relevant by what’s going on in the news right now, and is an well written book with an engaging and kind main character.

Managing Expectations – Minnie Driver

I don’t read a lot of celebrity autobiographies as I’m not that interested in most of them, but this was featured on Radio 4’s A Good Read and sounded rather fun. I’m glad I read it. It’s not glam or fake or frivolous and isn’t filled with celeb party stories. Instead it’s a series of loosely linked essays and remembrances from Minnie’s childhood and into adulthood as she trains, fails and finally succeeds as an actress. Famously described by Harvey Weinstein as an actress “you wouldn’t want to f*%k” (both inaccurate and a badge of honour I imagine) Driver is a good writer, funny and self deprecating but clear on the moments of real pathos where necessary. Her family, especially her mum and her sister Kate, come through as the main joys here and her love for both is evident. A good read.

Moments of Pleasure

Ach, November. It’s the worst month. (Although I say that about January and February too – watch this space.) I have not been doing National Novel Writing Month this month, though I decided to bash out as many words as possible and now have a very long document that is diary, short story drafts, blog posts and moanings in one. The exercise of churning out the words is useful though.

I also went to the theatre and watched Rupert Everett in A Voyage Around My Father, by John Mortimer. It’s a gentle comedy in old fashioned British style, full of class observations, repressions and polite bullying and was excellently acted all round. A note to the man sitting along to the row from me – please try and stop fidgeting in the theatre, you have no idea how close you got to having me clip you round the ear.

Finally, regular readers know how much I love libraries and this week saw the opening of Nottingham’s new central library, which is lovely, light, airy, bookish, modern and close to my office. I’ve already been in twice, got some books out and will be making regular trips. If you’re local – please take the time to visit this library, or any library and let them know what a wonderful thing they are.