katewritesandreads

katewritesandreads

Friday 11 February 2022

News Flash!!

 

 Delighted to say I have been shortlisted for the Scottish Arts Club Flash Fiction Award 2022. 

 

My story, The Two Gems, came out of a prompt given to members of Edinburgh Writers' Club, for which much thanks.

 

The judges, Louise Welsh and Zoe Strachan, have made their decision which will be announced at a Flash Bash on 19 February.

 

Crossing my fingers but not holding my breath as regards winning as there are 26 other shortlistees.

 

You can read all the entries here.

 

UPDATE I wasn't placed but it was gratifying to know there had been 650 entries. And I had a lovely NIGHT OUT at the awards ceremony and met some NEW PEOPLE – I think everyone was thrilled at the normality of that. The deserving winner was the entry called A Letter from the Home Office. 

Friday 4 February 2022

Seven in January

 I read seven books in January.

 


These Precious Days by Ann Patchett

A few weeks ago Waterstones had a three-day sale in which every single hardback was half price. I restricted myself to two, one of which is this book of articles and essays. I loved her first such volume This is the story of a happy marriage which includes a long and wonderful memoir of her life as a writer.

In this new book more than one essay concerns AP’s friendship with a woman (met through Tom Hanks – jealous, moi?) who, while she is still virtually a stranger, and a seriously ill one at that, ends up living with AP and her doctor husband during the first lockdown.

Years ago I read AP’s Bel Canto but for some reason I’ve never read her other novels; must remedy that.

She is much to be admired also for the bookshop she opened in Nashville when otherwise the city would be without one.

 

I like a bit of a crime spree in January. So I read these three:

 


Death in the Mist by Jo Allen

The seventh and perhaps the last (hope not) book in the Jude Satterthwaite series, set in the Lake District. The novel murder method might put you off camping …  Excellent.

 


Black Widow by Chris Brookmyre

Journalist Jack Parlabane is looking to redeem himself with a scoop, and a doctor on trial for the murder of her husband might provide one. The outcome was one I certainly didn’t see coming. Terrific.

 


Skeleton Road by Val McDermid

The third, and the only one I hadn’t read, in the Karen Pirie cold case series. With the investigation reliving the horrors of the Balkan war in the 1990s it was a harrowing read; for me there was just too much history/backstory.

 


China in the Morning by Nicholas Wollaston

A charity shop purchase – my copy doesn’t have this nice jacket. Nicholas Wollaston visited China in 1960 when very few outsiders were allowed in. He found a population which seemed to be happy with their lives in Mao Zedong’s Communist Party state – one urban student couldn’t wait for her turn to be selected for the ‘privilege’ of being sent to work the land with the peasants. The ‘Great Chaos’ of the Cultural Revolution was yet to come.

His onward trip to Vietnam is also here – again he was there at a time prior to seismic events in that country.

 


Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley

Married couples Alex and Christine, and Lydia and Zachary, have been friends for years. Christine and Zachary were once an item and Lydia holds a candle for Alex. Each couple has a grown-up daughter, one sensible, one a mess. Their lives are as entwined as they have been since they were students but (not a spoiler) Zachary dies suddenly. Old grievances emerge when Christine invites the grief-stricken Lydia to stay with them for as long as she wants.

Tessa Hadley notices everything about her characters and their surroundings – for example, she describes in forensic detail the items in artist Christine’s studio. So it is easy to visualise it all but I didn’t care for any of the self-absorbed characters (although dead Zachary sounds as if he was jolly company).

I enjoyed The Past, the only other TH novel I’ve read, but the jury is out on this one.

 


Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

Read for book group. Winner of the Palestine Book Award.

Nahr has been confined to the Cube: nine square metres of glossy grey cinderblock, devoid of time, its patterns of light and dark nothing to do with day and night. Journalists visit her, but get nowhere because Nahr is not going to share her story with them.

The world outside calls Nahr a terrorist, and a whore; some might call her a revolutionary, or a hero. But the truth is, Nahr has always been many things, and had many names.

How Nahr came to be imprisoned in ‘the Cube’ is told in flashbacks. A disturbing read, obviously, but there are some bright spots too – her relationship with her mother and her grandmother, her mother’s embroidery, her love of dance and some delicious-sounding meals.