Used to be that a new year took a few days, weeks even, to get used to. 2025 feels like it’s been here for many moons, it wasn’t even strange to write it down. Of course, it feels like the most eventful start to a year we’ve had for some time and even the end of the year feels a long time ago. But I finished 2024 reading Ann Patchett, having got two of her backlist for Christmas and raced through one (Run) in the sanctuary of my in-laws’ rooms, heating on full blast and drinking tea. What luxury.
A Room with a View – EM Forster
I asked for the new hardback edition for Christmas, there have been three reissued hardback Forsters and they’re all lovely. It goes very well with my other Florence books – Still Life and Florence Ordeal by Water – that I may have to instigate displays in the house to make the most of them. Anyway, I’d not read it for a while and had forgotten so much of it – the funny chapter titles, that George throws Lucy’s postcards away, the scene at the pond – and immediately remembered a lot of the lines in the voice of the actors from the film, as so much of it is lifted into the script verbatim. What a funny little world it was for those people, so sheltered and hopelessly unable to talk about anything at all. The new introduction makes sense of it all by talking about it as a cloak for Forster’s homosexuality and repression through necessity. It works either way.
Fresh Water for Flowers – Valerie Perrin
I wanted an absorbing and immersive read and chose this from the tbr as it was quite chunky. While I was reading, I enjoyed it. I liked the narrator’s voice, the novelty of her being a cemetery keeper and the unfolding tragedy that we learn very slowly from her. It is a painstakingly slow book, full of tiny details and tangents, which I enjoyed. It was only when I finished and reflected that I found I had trouble with it – the attitudes towards women, the way they all seemed to be blamed for the male failures, the rapacious sexual appetite of the men – so much of this was raw due to the Gisele Pelicot case and the articles I’d read about how the French in general were reacting to this. And I remembered how, back in the days when we were childfree, we would go to the cinema on a whim and watch all kinds of indie movies and how the French films often seemed to be extra melodramatic and domestic and full of tiny odd details that drove everyone mad. This was like that.
My Dog Tulip – JR Ackerley
Another Christmas present, this was my jolobokaflod gift from Mr B and is part of a series that revives old sometimes forgotten books form the twentieth century. Some, like Great Granny Webster, are excellent, and others, like this one, I’m afraid to say, belong in the past. The blurb is what likely sold it to Mr B, as it says that it’s one of the best dog books ever written and all sorts of other nice things. I thought it would be one man’s tale of trying to tame his untrained dog, but to me, the dog seemed fine and it was the man’s attitudes that needed serious examination and change. It’s well written, Ackerley was a journalist, I think, but it’s very much of his day in terms of attitudes towards animal care and also attitudes towards other people, especially those he regards as lower class. What may have been funny in 1956 comes across as inconsiderate at best and downright unpleasant at worst.
Thunderclap – Laura Cummins
I’m trying to learn some more about art. I’m rubbish in art galleries, ambling around not knowing what to look at. But it’s a hefty subject so I’m being random about what I learn and how. This is a book about the painting of The Goldfinch and its artist, Carel Fabritius who died in the Delft explosion way back when, or it tries to be. There is barely any detail surviving about Fabritius which makes a book about him quite a challenge and Cummins does speculate at times, but mostly she paints a broader picture by relating sub stories and background snippets about the context and contemporaries of the time and she also fills in some detail about her father who was also a painter and who taught her about Dutch art. I think I would have very much enjoyed a long article about Fabritius, but I found it difficult to get a handle on the wide range of subjects covered here. It’s an interesting read and has been well acclaimed but I’m not sure if I’m totally convinced.
The High House – Jessie Greengrass
The end is nigh for mankind here, in a book about the apocalypse and how a mother tries to ensure some life for her son in a world devastated by floods and raging waters. It’s bleak but somehow enjoyable, if that makes any sense. The high house is a large self-sufficient house close to the coastline, well equipped for the baby son of a climate scientist, his half sister and their neighbours. The book outlines a little about how they got there, but mostly what happens next. It’s very good and is a companion, in a way, to The End We Start From, another book with a similar theme (if a more upbeat ending).
I Was Vermeer – Frank Wynne
Another art book. This was about a forger, Han M and how he wanted to create a Vermeer painting that would totally fool an art establishment that didn’t appreciate his own art. A plan driven by revenge as the new forms of art took over from interest in the old masters. He succeeded, and of course got too cocky and carried on. But in the process, he got incredibly rich, fooled a stuffy art establishment and swindled the Nazis by selling Goering a fake Vermeer while asking for actual Dutch masterpieces to be returned. He was a hard man to like but I did have some sympathy for what he was trying to do in the face of the stuffy gatekeepers of art and how willing they were to be fooled.
Misfits – Michael Coel
This is a thin manifesto – sorry, in terms of pages, not the quality of the content – which contains the text from Coel’s lecture for the TV series but is bookended by her thoughts on writing it, what it taught her about herself. Coel is blunt about her own experiences, calling herself a misfit but is also open about the series of racist and sexist incidents that occurred to her as she made her way in the TV industry. It’s a call for self examination from the industry and a rallying cry for anyone interested in nurturing diverse voices and talent.
The Performance – Claire Thomas
I can’t remember where I first heard about this but finally got round to reading it. It’s set in Melbourne, a city surrounded by raging bush fires, and the performance of the title is of Happy Days, a Samuel Beckett play watched by three different women, Margo, Ivy and Summer. Each chapter flits from one to the other as the play pans out in front of them. I confess I don’t know Beckett’s work well so it may be very apt choice that reinforces the themes of the book, but those allusions were lost on me. However, each of the women have different things preoccupying them as they watch and it still feels fresh to note that none of these were about a man. Well, Margo’s husband has Alzheimer’s and has displayed signs of violence but I mean, in terms of love or seduction or sex or something of that ilk. The problems of each were varied and not about sex, but about how they came across to others, how they dealt with wider relationships and their own futures or legacies. It was well written and I rather enjoyed it.
Orbital – Samantha Harvey
The reading group choice this month and I thought it best to reread it. Somehow it felt more apt in this month of anxiety and nonsense to get a perspective from far away.
Reading resolutions
I wanted to be more mindful about my reading this year and not impulse buy on the basis of hype. This mindset helped with my post-Christmas voucher shopping, where I avoided piling up things I may later discard.
I’m also reading longer books slowly and in a studious way. So I mentioned I want to learn more about art. The Story of Art by Gombrich is a hefty key text (with lots of pictures) and I’m working my way through it. So far, the Greeks and Egyptians so a way to go still.
I’ve also been taking part in Wolf Crawl, slow reading and notes to supplement the Wolf Hall trilogy which I am enjoying very much and trying to be as disciplined as possible by not reading ahead when I really want to. I’m also trying to master the art of close reading through a writing school, a course I started in September. It’s difficult when you read fast to slow down.
Moments of Pleasure
I showed the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice to E this month, as she’d tried reading it and struggled with the language. There’s plenty of time for her to try it again, but in the meantime I thought it might help if she heard some of the language spoken and also got an idea of the story. What a gratifying exercise this was! She loved it, her reactions about the scenes and the story were a delight – hands over the mouth, what is going to happen next kind of thing. It’s Austen’s 250th year and this seemed like an auspicious start. There are several Austen readalongs taking place online and I’m tempted to make my way through them all again. Even Mansfield Park.
Susan E Barsby 