Six in May

I read six books in May.

Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives by Lucy Mangan

A book about books – what’s not to like? I enjoyed Bookworm which covered Lucy Mangan’s childhood years of not wanting to do much else other than read (a girl after my own heart then).

Of course, though, adulthood does have its compensations – an income to buy books and a house (and a specially built ‘shed’ in the garden, of which I am very jealous)’) to put them in. Oh, and a husband who’s equally bookwormish, and a child who provides a reason to reread favourites and to find new ones.

So this book ranges wildly and wonderfully (as anybody’s reading material should) from Library Lion to 1990s bonkbusters such as Lace, to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with much (much) in between.

I had the pleasure of seeing her recently being interviewed under the auspices of the wonderful Toppings bookshop in Edinburgh and got this lovely signed copy.

 

 

Free, Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

Read for book group. I knew next to nothing about Albania; it was so interesting to hear about its recent history through the eyes of Lea Ypi, born there in 1979 and now a professor at the London School of Economics.

Albania, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe, was a difficult place to live in for many reasons – but it was Lea’s home and all she knew. But in December 1990 political upheaval meant everything changed. There was freedom at last which seemed wonderful to begin with but it came with many downsides for everybody and, for Lea, some startling family revelations.

Fascinating.

 

 

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

Something extraordinary happens on a flight from Hobart to Sydney – an elderly woman called Cherry goes down the aisle telling each passenger (including children) and crew members when and how they are going to die.

Thereafter, the book focuses on some of these people and what effect their prediction has had on them (especially when they find out that some of the predictions have come true)  – and we find out Cherry’s very plausible backstory too. Riveting. I particularly enjoyed Leo’s and Ethan’s stories – Leo, the family man with a toxic boss, and Ethan, hopelessly infatuated with his rich, glamorous housemate. I still think about them actually …

 

April Lady by Georgette Heyer

Yay – the Christian Aid book sale was back this year in Edinburgh after a couple of years’ hiatus. Among my (very restrained) purchases were two GHs I’ve never read before. April Lady won’t go into my top five but it was very enjoyable all the same.

 

 

Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

A joy to catch up with Jackson Brodie again.

A painting has apparently been stolen from the Yorkshire home of a deceased woman but her unpleasant offspring are reluctant to involve the police. Our hero, rather reluctantly, takes on the case – which leads to a stately home, an array of characters straight from the Golden Age of crime writing, and a Murder Mystery Weekend. Hope that’s not the last we see of JB – I’m still cross that the television series was cancelled.

You can’t see from the image but my copy (also purchased in Toppings but this time the St Andrews branch) has sprayed black edges, a special edition for independent bookshops.

 

 

Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers

After I read Small Pleasures by CC a few years ago, I read through her backlist of six books, one after the other.

Shy Creatures, her latest, is terrific. Set in the 1960s, in the environs of Croydon, it was inspired by the true story of a man discovered in a house he hadn’t left in forty years – a man with wild hair and beard and an astonishing talent for art.

Helen, an art therapist (embroiled in an affair with a charismatic married colleague in the psychiatric hospital) becomes entangled in the man’s mysterious past.

Seven in April

 I read seven books in April.

 

Jeannie’s War by Carol MacLean

A couldn’t-put-down family saga set in Glasgow in 1939 and, yippee, the first in a series called The Kiltie Street Girls.

The first Girl is Jeannie Dougal who lives with her widowed mother, wayward teenage sister, Kathy, and small brother and sister – except that the younger two are currently evacuated to Perthshire and the fate of older brother Jimmy who is in the army is constantly on her mind. Jeannie has become engaged to the handsome and comparatively well-off Arthur Dunn but comes to realise how overbearing he is.

In the munitions factory she makes friends with three girls whose lives become entwined with hers and with her family.

The Second World War shows no sign of falling from popularity as a background for novels. (Last month I read A Wartime Secret, this month We Must be Brave, see below, and I have The Watchmaker’s Daughter lined up.) I look forward to hearing more from Kiltie Street.

 

The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan

Vaseem Khan was the keynote speaker at the Scottish Association of Writers conference this year, and a very entertaining one he was too. I bought this book, the first in a series, and asked him to sign it. I told him I was going to read it first … but I’d like it signed for my brother who has been to India on business many times and he wrote a very nice personal message inside. Brother was delighted (and yes, I told him I’d sneaked a read). Terrific characters (two- and four-legged) and a great plot.

On the day he retires, Inspector Ashwin Chopra discovers that he has inherited an elephant, an unlikely gift that could not be more inconvenient. For Chopra has one last case to solve ...

 

The Sentinel by Lee Child with Andrew Child

The first book written by the two brothers. More of the same – violence and mayhem and our hero walking off into the sunset having sorted it all out with more violence and mayhem.

 

Transcription by Kate Atkinson

Original take on the spy novel. In 1940, Juliet Armstrong, alone in the world and just eighteen, is recruited to MI5. Mundane typing and dangerous liaisons follow – and an unexpected ending – told in Kate Atkinson’s brilliant writing.

 

The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon

Best-known as the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, Mark Haddon turns his attention here to short stories. Apparently he wanted to experiment with writing styles and genres but not commit these to a whole novel.

So the first story, for example, is about the collapse of a pleasure beach pier and it’s told by an omniscient narrator who observes the scene before, during and after – the innocent holiday makers, the deaths, the injuries, the traumas, the heroism. Not something you’d want sustained – as a reader or a writer – in a longer piece but the effect is stunning (if grim) here.

In fact all the stories are dark and disturbing and only too memorable – I wanted to, but couldn’t stop thinking about The Island, based on Greek mythology, long after I finished reading it.

 

We Must Be Brave by Frances Liardet

‘Domestic stories of women’s lives in wartime are common in genre publishing but rarer in literary fiction.’ began the Guardian’s review of this book.

It’s 1940; Southampton has been bombed and homeless civilians arrive in busloads in the village of Upton. Childless Ellen Parr and her much older husband, Selwyn, help them to find beds for the night – and Ellen realises that among them is a small, unaccompanied girl. Pamela ends up staying with them for some years until … no spoilers.

Then there’s Ellen’s riches to rags back-story, her uncompromising friend Lucy who just walks off the page, and much else woven into the fabric of Upton over the years – the novel finishes in 2010.

I won’t read it all again (so little time so much to read …) but when I finished it I did go back and revisit the passage where Ellen and Selwyn first literally bumped into each other. For various reasons it was an unlikely match but that meeting very believably set the tone for their happy relationship.

 

The Nighwatchman by Louise Erdich

Read for book group. Set in 1953 in the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. Thomas Wazhuhk, a prominent member of the Chippewa Council is extremely worried by the US government’s proposed new ‘Emancipation Bill’ which threatens the rights of Native Americans.

The book also follows Pixie who supports her family financially but wants, somehow, to get to Minnesota to find her missing sister.

The author, an enrolled member of Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for this book. It’s a gripping read and opened up a world I knew almost nothing about.

Eight in September

 I read eight books in September.

 

Dear Reader by Cathy Retzenbrink

Read on Kindle. Yay, a book about books; what’s not to like. My favourite of the genre is Lucy Mangan’s Bookworm but what I loved particularly about this one was the behind-the-scenes glimpses of working in bookshops and Cathy Retzenbrink’s successful bookselling career before a family tragedy led her to become a writer.

 

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

Read for bookgroup. As you will have seen if you read last month’s post I am on a Clare Chambers jag at the moment. This is her latest one, published last year after a ten-year gap, which has been so successful that her backlist has been reissued.

Set in 1957 in smoggy suburban London, it’s about Jean, a journalist on the local paper who is asked to follow up a letter from a reader, Gretchen, who claims that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth.

No spoilers except to say that Jean’s life is changed as a result of meeting Gretchen and her family. Clare Chambers conjures up so well Jean’s small world, the aforementioned smog and the general grimness of life in just-post-ration Britain, with an edge of sharp black humour.

 

Back Trouble by Clare Chambers

Read on Kindle. ‘On the brink of forty, newly single with a failed business, Philip thought he'd reached an all-time low. It only needed a discarded chip on a South London street to lay him literally flat. So, bedbound and bored, Philip naturally starts to write the story of his life.’

Another bittersweet novel from CC.

 

In a Good Light by Clare Chambers

Read on Kindle. My favourite backlist CC (so far, I still have A Dry Spell to read; it is ready and waiting on my Kindle).

Esther’s life, living with her adored older brother, Christian, has become mundane until there are repercussions from her happy but eccentric childhood. I loved all the characters especially Donovan, one of the waifs and strays Esther’s parents were fond of collecting.

 

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith

I suppose I must have eaten and slept and thrown the odd word to my other half between the Friday evening I started this and the Sunday afternoon when I finished but that was all a blur; for the time it took to read 1073 pages I was completely absorbed in the world of Cormoran Strike and Robin. A corker to end all corkers.

 

Death in the Woods by Jo Allen

Read on Kindle. The sixth outing for Jude Satterthwaite and this engaging series set in the beautiful Lake District.

A series of copycat suicides, prompted by a mysterious online blogger, causes DCI Jude Satterthwaite more problems than usual, intensifying his concerns for his troublesome younger brother Mikey. Along with his partner Ashleigh O'Halloran and a pyschiatrist he tries to find the identity of the malicious troll.

A distressing subject, beautifully handled.

 

The Keeper of Happy Endings by Barbara Davis

Read on Kindle. I think this was the free book I chose as a perk of being an Amazon Prime member (to which I signed up inadvertently a year ago … ).

The worlds of two people collide in 1980s Boston – Rory (Aurora) in her 20s, grieving the loss/lack of news of her kidnapped medic boyfriend in Africa, and Soline with a past in war-torn France that she’d rather forget.

I wasn’t mad on the writing (a bit repetitious) but I did like the story and shed a wee tear or two at the end.

 

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson

Hadback from charity shop. The fifth (and long overdue but she has been writing other novels) outing for one of my favourite fictional detectives, Jackson Brodie (played by Jason Isaacs on TV in a series that inexplicably got axed). As with the first four, Kate Atkinson gives us several strands of story and ties them up miraculously.