Four in December

Or, more accurately, I read three books and finished a fourth in December.

Family Britain 1951-57 by David Kynaston

This has been one of the non-fiction books I dip into between novels. (I previously read his Austerity Britain 1945-51.) I started it a while ago and finished it this month – 776 pages (including notes and index) encompassing exhaustive research through newspapers, books, magazines, Mass Observation diaries and other archives.

As the blurb says this was the era when: ‘Britain was starting to move away from the hardships of austerity. Great national events jostle alongside everything that gave 1950s Britain its distinctive flavour from Butlin’s holiday camps, Kenwood food mixers and Hancock’s Half Hour to Ekco television sets, skiffle and teddy boys.’

I was born during this time so one item gave me particular pause for thought. There was a very popular radio quiz programme called Have a Go! compered by ‘Halifax’s Wilfred Pickles’. His opening catchphrase – ’Ow do, ’ow are yer? – was followed by ‘amiable chat with the mainly working-class contestants about their lives’ and there was (my italics) ‘a large round of applause if a contestant turned out to be over 60’.

From which I conclude that 90 is the new 60.

Gingerbread and Cupcakes by Claire Watts

As hinted above I am an ‘OA’ and not a Young Adult at which market this book is aimed. I was already aware of the author’s excellent non-fiction book The Covenanters so was interested to know about her novels. She is one of four YA authors who have collaborated to publish their books under the banner Paisley Piranha.

Although this title is the third in a series about a group of 17/18-year-old girls it can be read as a standalone. It’s the summer before Lily and Simon go to university. Simon has been one of their school’s heart-throbs (to use an OA expression) while Lily is quieter, more in the background. They are thrown together when Simon’s cake-shop-owing mum has an accident and he and Lily step in to help. Their sweet romance is told from both their viewpoints – and there is bonus material in the form of cake recipes at the back. Loved it.

Betty: The Story of Betty MacDonald, Author of The Egg and I by Anne Wellman

Betty MacDonald is an author I re-read, most recently in October this year. So I was delighted to find out that there are a couple of biographies newly out on her. It was great to fill some of the gaps in my knowledge about her  – her four books for adults (she also wrote very successfully for children) are ‘lightly fictionalised’ accounts of her life. This book is self-published and my only gripe is that I would like to know what the author’s connection, if any, was to Betty MacDonald/her family. They sound such fun – even during the Depression they were able to keep cheery in their overcrowded household and made a ceremony out of every meal however frugal.

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

This is 514 pages but I read it in just over a day in the Christmas holidays – not as impressive a feat as it might appear as the type in my hardback copy is large and many of the chapters are just one page so there’s a lot of white space.

I’ve loved Curtis Sittenfeld’s books which are all quite different. The last one was Sisterland which I read in March this year. She’s such a stylish writer.

So I was really looking forward to Eligible, her modern take on Pride and Prejudice. Her Fitzwilliam Darcy is a neurosurgeon newly moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where live the feckless Bennett family. Mr Bennett has had a heart attack and as Mrs B is more interested in her Ladies’ Luncheon Club than in looking after him, 40-year-old Jane and 38-year-old Liz come home from New York to help. It was fun seeing what CS did with the characters (although perhaps too many ‘issues’ are ascribed to them) but it’s told in a kind of reportage style which I found distancing (and another reason why it was a quick read); all in all I confess I was rather disappointed.

What would Jane Austen make of 21st-century life were she to take this as her guide? I expect she’d be delighted that women can now live independently, and amused to know that they can make the running in a relationship … but I’m sure she’d be sad that, in 2016, romance (dictionary definition: a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love) would appear to be well and truly dead.

Let’s hope that’s just in Cincinnati ...

Wishing you a happy and peaceful 2017. Oh – and, wherever you are, if you are looking for a book that does give a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love, may I recommend ...

See reviews here. And buy it here. And may all your Christmas wishes come true.

Seven in October

I read seven books in October. A short holiday, a long journey and a day in bed feeling a bit peaky gave me the opportunity to hoover up words. Not always from my to-be-read pile though – I do love re-reading favourites.

 The Dark Ship by Anne MacLeod

Read for book group. The ‘dark ship’ in question is the Iolaire, returning to the Western Isles with troops after the First World War. It foundered on rocks and sank within yards of the shore. Most on board perished. The novel, built around that true story, was first published in 2004 and re-issued for the FWW anniversary. It vividly evokes the effect the tragedy had on the community.

Stranger in the House by Julie Summers

(Author of Fashion on the Ration which I read last month). I love social history based on first-hand accounts and this is fascinating. It’s about what happened after the Second World War when four million British servicemen – many physically or emotionally damaged – were demobbed. What should have been joyous reunions were not always … Julie Summers interviewed ‘over a hundred mothers/wives/sisters/fiancées/children who were caught up in the maelstrom of history’.

When the Children came Home by Julie Summers

Bit of a theme going on here … this one has the stories of wartime evacuees. The blurb says ‘while for some evacuation was a wonderful experience that enriched their whole lives, for others it cast a lifelong shadow’.

The Lark Shall Sing by Elizabeth Cadell

Read on Kindle. Elizabeth Cadell’s first of fifty books was published in 1946; some have recently been digitised. When I saw that The Lark Shall Sing was now on Kindle I downloaded it – the title was familiar. I’m pretty sure my mother had it and I read it as a teenager. It’s the first in a trilogy about the Wayne family. It didn’t stand the test of time for me – too many viewpoints, even from characters who are only in the story for two minutes – but it was a pleasant, nostalgic read.

Island Wife by Judy Fairbairn

There are many books about people relocating to islands off the west coast of Scotland but this is the best I’ve read.

Forty years ago (the book was published in 2013 ) Judy and her husband Alex (her’ Wild Pioneer’) and their two small children moved from Norfolk to an unnamed island, with enough money to buy a large house but none leftover to improve it. A few years, and three more babies later, they run a guest-house. She cooks dinner for up to sixteen people in the most basic of kitchens with children and dogs and lambs always underfoot, and does myriad chores on the croft. Meanwhile, her husband takes visitors out in a boat and finds himself becoming a world expert on whales.

Judy Fairbairn’s writing is fab – poetic, funny, unflinching. This is, it seems to me, to be the truth about a way of life that can seem from the outside to be idyllic.

 An Open Book by Monica Dickens

Feeling the beginnings of a cold, I huddled up on a chair with an old favourite, Monica Dickens’ autobiography. Like her illustrious ancestor, MD wrote novels around social issues. But before that she had varied experiences as a (not very efficient) cook, a wartime nurse and a reporter on a local newspaper. For twenty years she wrote articles for Woman's Own; as a magazine short-story writer now I was depressed to see that in her day the magazine had NINE MILLION readers.

I actually met her once … twenty-eight years ago I was in a museum in London and recognised her from her author photograph. I’m so glad I plucked up the courage to speak to her because she seemed genuinely touched when I said I loved her books. And she admired my seven-month-old baby – pity he doesn’t remember being smiled upon by Charles Dickens’ great-granddaughter.

The Plague and I by Betty Macdonald

I retreated to bed  <cough cough, sniff sniff> so I cheered myself up by re-reading Betty Macdonald’s account of the months she spent in a tuberculosis sanatorium. 

Betty Macdonald (1908-1958) is best known for her book The Egg and I which was made into a film. I love her writing and the way that she can find the funny side of any situation.