Eight in January

I read eight books in January – well, seven books and one long short story.

‘Broadsword Calling Danny Boy’ On Where Eagles Dare by Geoff Dyer

I’ve had a soft spot for the film Where Eagles Dare (based on the novel by Alastair Maclean) since I first saw it, something that for some reason my husband likes to tease me about. So what should I find in my Christmas stocking but this book, ‘Geoff Dyer’s tribute to the film he has loved since childhood.’ I thought I would put off reading it until I had the chance to see the film again – and lo, in early January there it was on one of the Freeview channels.

It was fun to see it again after a long gap and to realise the many ways in which it is preposterous (that seemingly bottomless haversack of explosives and useful things that Clint Eastwood lugs up and down snowy precipices for example) – and that is the tone of Geoff Dyer’s terrific little book: he still loves the film despite/because of its many preposterousnesses.

The Corrections by Jonathon Franzen

My son left this behind after a holiday. I’d never read JF before and I don’t think I will again but I was compelled to finish this once I’d embarked. The premise – an elderly mother wants to gather her three children and her grandsons around her in the family home for one last Christmas – could be the cue for a soft-focus, sentimental story, but soft-focus this most certainly ain’t. Father Alfred has always been a bullying type and, as a mother myself, my sympathies should have been with Enid but I’d avoid spending Christmas with her too given the choice.

Intellectual (too intellectual sometimes; I skipped pages of technical details concerning Alfred’s potentially millions-making invention which he’s sold to a large company for peanuts) but always with an edge of black humour to leaven the mix.

Song of the Skylark by Erica James

A dual timeline story. Lizzie in the present day, at a crossroads in her life, meets elderly American Mrs Dallimore when she volunteers in a care home. ‘As Lizzie listens to Mrs Dallimore's story, she begins to realize that she's not the only person to attract bad luck, or make mistakes, and maybe things aren't so bad for her after all . . . ’ Didn’t grab me.

A Country Christmas by Louisa May Alcott

This is a long short story and was a giveaway at Christmas time by a writer friend Helena Fairfax. Recipients could download the file; I then sent it to my Kindle. What a treat to read something previously unknown to me by the author of Little Women. I've just had a google and see that you can read it online here (along with Christmassy American recipes and other delights).

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club by Sophie Green

Read on Kindle. Set in Northern Territory, Australia in the 1970s. The members of the ‘book club’ live miles apart with often hostile terrain/weather between them so they can’t meet very often but their friendship and support for each other sees them all through difficult times. Loved it. And it led me to download, free from Project Gutenberg, an autobiographical novel set in the same region at the beginning of the last century: We of the Never Never.

The Woman in the Dark by Vanessa Savage

Read on Kindle – more or less in one go, on a cold wet Sunday. This is ‘A chilling psychological thriller about dark family dysfunction and the secrets that haunt us’ and had me gripped to the last twist. My only gripe is the title – rather fed up of seeing books called The Woman/The Girl ...

The Hard Way by Lee Child

Paperback from charity shop to whence it returned when I’d finished it. My favourite Jack Reacher (of about four) to date, unusual because it is part of it is set in England. A rich man’s wife has disappeared and Reacher has been hired to find her. He certainly knows how to make you turn the pages. If you want to read what other people think of the book it will take you a while – the last time I looked there were 11,657 reviews on Amazon with an average of four and a half stars.

The Hopes and Dreams of Lucy Baker by Jenni Keer

Read on Kindle. Tagged as ‘the most heart-warming book you’ll read all year’ and although the year has just begun this could well be true. The friendship between twenty-five-old Lucy and her neighbour Brenda who’s seventy-nine is touching and funny, a perfect combination.