Ah 2024. War. Elections. Change or destruction? I’m not optimistic so this is why I thought I really should start to make a serious dent in the to be read pile before the apocalypse. I’ve created a spreadsheet and there are around 100 unread books in my house that I need to tackle. It’s a year’s reading, even I buy nothing this year which I think we all know is unlikely to happen.
The rule is, no more vaguely looking at the shelves to decide what to read, instead I will use a random number generator to pick one and read it on demand. This way I can try and get through much of the tbr pile and clear a little space on the bookshelves. It also doesn’t hurt to have a huge pile of things to read in order to stay away from the news and social media. Usually I pick things on what I’m in the mood for but this leads to me avoiding some titles, despite professing to want to read them. Enough of this namby pamby attitude, this year I will read what the number generator dictates.
The Why of Things – Elizabeth Winthrop
This was technically a December read but I didn’t do a December round up and anything after Christmas Day feels like a new year so I’ve included it here. I’d got this out of our lovely shiny new library and saved it for the post-Christmas break when, about 10 pages in, I realised I’d read it before. Hey ho. It’s the story of a family (Mum, Dad, two daughters,) who travel to their summer home to find that someone has driven their jeep into the quarry lake on their land and died in there. It brings up huge questions – who was he, why, how did it happen etc – but more than that, this is the first year they have been to the summer house since their eldest daughter took her own life and they are all still reeling from her death. This is not about solving the why of things but how to reconcile yourself to not always knowing, about being able to go on, somehow. I enjoyed it, both times.
The Ship Beneath the Ice – Mensun Bound
This was a Christmas gift and is the story of how they found Shackleton’s sunken ship, The Endurance, as told by the expedition leader, wreck specialist Mensun Bound. It’s fair to say Bound is perhaps better at wrecks than he is at writing and there are some clunky phrases here, as well as a lot of technical detail which can be safely skim read. There were two expeditions to the Antarctic to find the Endurance, the first obviously being unsuccessful, and while the ‘story’ of this is going on, what he does well is expand on the story that Shackleton told in his book, South. Shackleton told the men to keep their diaries as they travelled across the ice, to bear witness, but didn’t publish all of them. Bound does bring some of the extra detail in, and mentions some of the tensions that struck the men so this is all so very interesting to use as supplementary info. The second half of the book is the story of the successful mission and the excitement of the find is well worth trawling through the techie details of some of the earlier parts. The only thing I would have liked was more photos, especially of the crew members who were mentioned a lot in the text.
Babel – RF Huang
The first reading group choice of the year and this was very hyped. I must say, I found it quite disappointing. It’s supposed to be an alternative history with a hint of magic to it, but essentially it’s like being hit repeatedly over the head by someone wanting to make a point – but the point is not as nuanced as it could be if handled by a better writer. There is also a lot of academic writing in it – I don’t know if the writer has studied linguistics but it certainly felt like it. Anyway, this is an allegorical tale about how terrible empires, and especially the British empire, are/ were, but it did feel terribly basic in its criticisms and I wanted more insight and nuance. I wonder if it did well because we don’t learn a lot about empire in this country and finding out anything is better than nothing, and also because it’s the kind of book the publishing industry likes to tout about in an effort to look more diverse than it really is – and to avoid doing more to make proper change.
The Whalebone Theatre – Joanna Quinn
Kurt Vonnegut’s writing advice included the instruction to ‘start as close to the end as possible.’ It’s something I often think about as I write, and perhaps Joanna Quinn would have benefitted from it too. (As would the Babel author, tbh.) This has a prologue of around 200 pages that sets a scene of a big country house after the First World War, the posh folk who live there and their tangled relationships with each other and a series of bohemian artists, none of which is very interesting. Then a whale washes up on the beach, they make its bones into a theatre and perform plays. The action then shifts to the Second World War, all the adults of the first part disappear (handy plot points like the Blitz, a country house in Ireland and a marriage in New York) and we’re left following the aristo children, Crista, Flossie and Digby, who all serve in the war (two in SOE, the other is a Land Girl.) Throughout the war years the theatre – what it represented, what it taught them – is referenced and repeated, as a light theme, rather than a huge point throughout. It’s a sprawling book with some plot but essentially examines the change wrought by war to England: families, especially posh ones, where the change wasn’t always unwelcome; to the roles of women, and to ideas about what should and shouldn’t work for the good of everyone. However, to start with one set of characters, lose them and carry on with another set doesn’t quite work which is a shame. I liked all the children characters when I was allowed to get to know them – I think in the hands of someone like Sarah Winman who can write these kinds of ensemble books so well, this could have been brilliant. As it is, it’s eventually very good but only after you’ve stuck with it.
My Monticello – Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
No need for Vonnegut’s advice here. This is a novella that gets straight into the action and is brilliantly constructed. It also feels very relevant with the US elections coming up later this year. In My Monticello, US society has broken down and white supremacists have taken over, including disbanding the police, following the death of a white girl in a protest march. The story is told in the first person, a testament it turns out, by DaNaisha, who is a descendent of Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings. DaNaisha is a university student with aspirations to be a teacher, and is dating a white man, Knox, whose family have disowned him for his choice of girlfriend. They, along with some others including DaNaisha’s grandmother, flee from the violence that has taken over their city and threatens their homes, and they seek shelter at Monticello, Jefferson’s home plantation and museum. The book tells the story of the days they spend there together, hoping everything will die down and they will be able to return. It’s an excellently written, taut thriller that feels very close to something we could soon see happen, no matter what the result in November. Let’s hope not.
December – Elizabeth Winthrop
Having enjoyed the last Winthrop I went back to the library to see if they had any other of hers and found this. It’s similar in tone, though the story is of a family where the daughter has become mute and no one knows why. Once again, the why is not really explained that well, but instead the book is an exploration of the who, what and how. The reaction of the parents and how they try to help and the ideas they come up with in desperation felt so very real and understandable. Not as good as the first book of hers but interesting nonetheless.
A Long Shadow – Caroline Kington
Indie publisher Eye books ran a promo before Christmas where if you ordered some books they sent you some more from their catalogue. This was one of those, set on a farm at the turn of this century where farmer Dan has been found dead from a shotgun blast and his wife, non-farmer Kate, needs to find out what happened. The story is spread into three narratives, Dan and Kate’s love story, the aftermath of Dan’s death and a story of some tenant farmers just after the Second World War. The third story becomes more relevant as you go on. This is a competent book, shedding some light on how difficult farming is, and talking at length about human relationships. In some places I felt the minor characters were over the top in terms of their awfulness and it did get a bit silly and contrived near the end. But it was ok.
A Heart That Works – Rob Delaney
You might know of this already as the author, actor and writer Rob Delaney, has done a lot of publicity about it. Delaney’s third son Henry was diagnosed with a brain tumour when he was about one year old, and this is the story of his treatment and subsequent death. But it’s also a story full of love, compassion and anger – a honest tale of how one family dealt with the worst possible news, how they were helped by others in turn and how Delaney feels we could all help each other through any other tragedies that may occur. It sounds as if it might be a depressing read but I didn’t find that at all – it is filled with humanity. It’s simply a great book full of good things, normal human behaviour in the worst of human circumstances. Excellent.
Grief is the Thing with Feathers – Max Porter
The random number generator threw this out one day, which has sat on the shelf since the hugely hyped paperback publication a couple of years ago. Part poem, part grief tract, it’s about a family of two boys and a dad whose mother/ wife dies and how they try to deal with her death. The dad is Ted Hughes scholar and one day a Crow comes to live with the family to help them manage. (I believe this is a Hughes reference but I’m not a Hughes scholar.) I confess I didn’t completely understand a lot of it but if you put complete comprehension aside, what you get is an overarching idea which has some lovely writing, a beautiful ending and some surprisingly funny passages. The bit where the dad finally meets Ted Hughes especially made me smile. I think it may warrant rereading and discussion.
A Month in the Country – JL Carr
This is a book you often hear referenced, usually with a sigh about how lovely it is, a modern classic etc. As our library service is facing yet more change and cuts, despite having just opened a beautiful new central building, as well as getting through my tbr, I feel the need to visit frequently and take books out so my usage is logged somewhere. I saw this on the shelves and thought I should finally get to it. It’s only 84 pages, and set in the aftermath of the First World War. Tom Birkin, a shell shocked veteran, schooled in art restoration techniques, travels north to a small Yorkshire village to restore a fresco in their church which has been hidden beneath whitewash. That’s pretty much the sum of the plot but the 84 pages are about his interactions and relationships with the locals, especially the vicar’s wife Alice and an archaeologist Moon, who is digging up the next field and who is also a veteran of the war, though with a very different outcome to Tom. It has a style I had to adjust to from the beginning, but when I was used to it, I enjoyed it very much. A surprise in some ways to find it was only written in 1980. It feels contemporary to its story.
Pig – Andrew Cowan
What an odd book this is, and yet the fact that it’s a debut novel fills me with some kind of hope. Pig is a coming of age story and though I’m unclear on the setting or the time, it feels old enough for everything to be different but not so old to be a period piece. It’s likely in there somewhere but let’s guess it’s early eighties, a time when everything is about to change in terms of technology and modernisation. Danny’s grandmother has died and his grandfather has been taken into a home, leaving their old fashioned cottage (near a rubbish tip and some other unused land) and their pig. Danny takes it on himself to look after the pig over the summer, sometimes helped by his Asian girlfriend, Surinder, and in a way, uses his time with her at the cottage as a kind of sanctuary against change and against the racism Surinder faces from a working class community not yet used to immigration. Nothing very much happens – I seem to be typing this a lot this month – but I wanted to get to the end.
Moments of Pleasure
There are days when I don’t feel any different from a teenager and there are days when I realise how middle aged I really am – this month I have taken much joy in the clearing out of things around the house. There has been much quiet satisfaction in clearing the fridge, the food cupboard, the games and jigsaws, the recipes, the craft supplies. While the house doesn’t really look that different to me, the small pockets of chaos are clearing and these small tasks have been good to do.
I also got a new ipad for Christmas and with it, three months of Apple TV free. So I’ve enjoyed watching Ted Lasso, surprisingly feminist for a TV show about male footballers, and I have loved Slow Horses, starring Gary Oldman. I’ve only read one of the Mick Herron books the series is based on but the show has been done very well and Oldman is always worth watching, as is Kristin Scott-Thomas. These days, I think I enjoy spy stories more than regular crime stories so this was right up my street.
Finally I went to see The Holdovers at our local indie cinema and it’s just the kind of film I like, slow paced character based about people who are losing at life. An excellent people-y comedy.
Susan E Barsby 