Six in December

I read six books in December.

The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin

I’ve been a fan of CM’s since reading Brooklyn (made into a great film starring Saoirse Ronan, albeit with a slightly different ending). This one is set in Ireland in the 1990s. Declan is dying, and that brings together the women of his family – his sister, mother and grandmother, between whom relations have been strained for a long time. He is so good on family dynamics; for me though this book lacked the warmth and touches of humour that made Brooklyn so wonderful.

The Second Stage of Grief by Katherine Heyton

Read on Kindle. A police series set in New Zealand. I read the first in this series last month and the second one was just as good. Gritty and page-turning:

Ngaire Blakes is trying to put her life back together. The ex-cop resigned from the police after a vicious assault left her battling PTSD. Dragged into a murder investigation, she’s shocked to discover that all the evidence points to her.

Noreen and the Barclay Affair by Helen Dawson

Another book set in New Zealand, this time a children’s one with a great cover – I pounced on it in a charity shop. However, the story about Noreen, a girl who works in her aunt’s detective agency, was, I’m sorry to say, dire. Implausible plot to say the least and the aunt is barely mentioned – she is got out of the way in various unlikely scenarios so that Noreen can do the ‘detecting’. Still like the cover though …

The Pen and Pencil Girls by Clare Mallory

Another children’s title and set in New Zealand, although really it could be set anywhere. Six schoolgirls form a club to write and illustrate stories. One of them is set the task of typing the stories up for a competition. I learned to type myself on a manual machine with seven – seven – carbon copies (under the eye of a very strict teacher) so could sympathise with the pains she took. The book was first published in 1948; this edition is a reissue from the wonderful Girls Gone By Publishers.

Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald

I’d read reviews of this and have long wanted to read it – not knowing this, my dear d-in-l surprised me by giving me a copy which I proceeded to read in a couple of sittings. 

Sara is Swedish and has been made redundant from the bookshop she has worked in for ten years. She has been having correspondence with an elderly lady in a sleepy small town in Iowa which culminates in an invitation to visit. Not to give too much away – but Sara’s arrival and her love of books draws the town’s eccentric inhabitants together. I love books set in small-town America and I liked all the booky references. Sara’s slow-burning relationship with Tom was very believable. My favourite character though was ‘Poor George’ and his fatherly longing for the daughter of his faithless wife. Recommended …

The Virago Book of Christmas edited by Michelle Lovric

Curl up with a tantalising volume that fives full rein to the seditious humour, peculiar discomforts and exquisite social tortures of the season.

Some familiar and loved authors of mine here – Elizabeth Goudge, Agatha Christie and Laurie Graham for example – and many new to me. Among my favourite pieces was an extract from Winifred Foley’s memoir A Child in the Forest in which she – eventually – comes to love her home-made rag doll. And one unexpected pleasure was Jane Welsh Carlyle’s letter to a friend telling of ‘the very most agreeable party I was ever at in London’ where the company included Charles Dickens doing conjuring tricks.

The problem with anthologies – and I am working my way through The Virago Book of Food too – is the discovery of new authors. So little time, so much to read …

On that note, a very Happy New Year to you.