Seven in June

I read seven books in June.

Calling Major Tom by David M. Barnett

Read on Kindle. Think of a story where a highly trained astronaut is about to leave on a one-way trip to Mars, his task to take ten years to set up a colony there. However, when he dies before take-off his place is taken by forty-year-old Thomas Major (and yes, he is Bowie fan) who is unqualified for the job except that he is so unhappy he relishes the thought of the forthcoming solitude. Now think of the Ormerods, a family firmly rooted on Mother Earth, where a teenage girl is desperately holding things together for herself, her little brother and their increasingly forgetful granny, terrified that bureaucracy will separate them.

It seems impossible at first that these stories could plausibly coincide. Yet they do, in this cleverly constructed and heart-warming book.

The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane Moriarty

OK, I cracked. I couldn’t leave my last two Liane Moriartys unread any longer. They lay at the side of my bed saying … go on, you know you want to …

Hypnotherapist Ellen is fascinated by what makes people tick. So when she falls in love with Patrick, the fact that he has a stalker doesn't faze her in the slightest. If anything it intrigues her, and the more she hears about Saskia, the more she wants to meet this woman. But what Ellen doesn't know is that they've already met . . .

Not my favourite, which remains The Last Anniversary, but once embarked upon not to be put down until finished.

Truly Madly Guilt by Liane Moriarty

Some similarity to Big Little Lies – an event at a social function has unexpected consequences and results in someone’s death. Terrific characters – I loved Vin in particular, and little Ruby just jumped off the page.

So that’s where my bingeing has got me … no unread Liane Moriartys; I can only hope she is typing at top speed at this very moment.

Foreign Fruit by Jojo Moyes

On the bright side I found a Jojo Moyes I hadn’t read at the Christian Aid booksale and enjoyed it very much too. Set partly in the 1950s and partly fifty years later, the story centres around Arkadia, an Art Deo House, in a staid English seaside town. Notorious in its early days for its bohemian inhabitants, it falls into disrepair until its transformation into a hotel uncovers past secrets.

Autumn by Ali Smith

Read for Book Group. I must admit, because I thought it would be a difficult read, that I put off starting it until the Sunday morning before the Monday evening meeting – but then found myself completely involved and read the first 150 pages without looking up, finishing it in the afternoon. Her writing is mesmerisingly good. There’s not a plot as such but different stories illustrate the state of Britain in the time of Brexit. It has some very funny scenes such as when Elisabeth is trying unsuccessfully to produce a suitable photograph for her new passport, and when two characters get onto a TV programme called The Golden Gavel (clearly AS is poking fun at Antiques Road Trip). An unexpected treat.

The Making of Us by Lisa Jewell

I loved Lisa Jewell’s earlier books but after I read, and wasn’t very keen on, The House We Grew Up In, I didn’t pick up her more of hers until I saw this one and liked the premise.

Lydia, Robyn and Dean don't know each other – yet.

It would be a spoiler to tell you what these three have in common so I’ll just say that it opens up a whole new world of possibilities for my favourite TV programme Long Lost Family. Loved it. Now I’m back being a Lisa fan with lots to catch up on.

The Boy that Books Built by Francis Spufford

Christian Aid Book Sale purchase. FS had a difficult childhood in some ways – good parents but also a little sister with a very rare medical condition. So he retreated into reading and in this beautifully written memoir he revisits his favourite childhood books. I think he’s a little younger than me but we both grew up before the ‘Young Adult’ book was a thing.

I was a retreater too, if not for the same reason, so I felt we were kindred spirits even if our tastes rarely coincide – for some reason the Narnia books completely passed me by and neither have I read Tolkein or Ursula Le Guin, all of which obsessed him. However, we are a hundred per cent on the same page about Little House on the Prairie; he has a wonderful chapter on the series, and its author, including an account of a visit he made (in order to write a newspaper feature) to De Smet, immortalised in the later books, and now trading on the fame Laura Ingalls Wilder brought to it.