I read seven books in January.
These Precious Days by Ann Patchett
A few weeks ago Waterstones had a three-day
sale in which every single hardback was half price. I restricted myself to two,
one of which is this book of articles and essays. I loved her first such volume
This is the story of a happy marriage
which includes a long and wonderful memoir of her life as a writer.
In this new book more than one essay
concerns AP’s friendship with a woman (met through Tom Hanks – jealous, moi?) who,
while she is still virtually a stranger, and a seriously ill one at that, ends
up living with AP and her doctor husband during the first lockdown.
Years ago I read AP’s Bel Canto but for some reason I’ve never read her other novels;
must remedy that.
She is much to be admired also for the bookshop she opened in Nashville when otherwise the city would be without one.
I like a bit of a crime spree in January.
So I read these three:
Death
in the Mist by Jo Allen
The seventh and perhaps the last (hope not)
book in the Jude Satterthwaite series, set in the Lake District. The novel
murder method might put you off camping …
Excellent.
Black
Widow by Chris Brookmyre
Journalist Jack Parlabane is looking to
redeem himself with a scoop, and a doctor on trial for the murder of her husband
might provide one. The outcome was one I certainly didn’t see coming. Terrific.
Skeleton
Road by Val McDermid
The third, and the only one I hadn’t read,
in the Karen Pirie cold case series. With the investigation reliving the
horrors of the Balkan war in the 1990s it was a harrowing read; for me there
was just too much history/backstory.
China in the Morning by Nicholas Wollaston
A charity shop purchase – my copy doesn’t
have this nice jacket. Nicholas Wollaston visited China in 1960 when very few
outsiders were allowed in. He found a population which seemed to be happy with their lives
in Mao Zedong’s Communist Party state – one urban student couldn’t wait for her
turn to be selected for the ‘privilege’ of being sent to work the land with the
peasants. The ‘Great Chaos’ of the Cultural Revolution was yet to come.
His onward trip to Vietnam is also here –
again he was there at a time prior to seismic events in that country.
Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley
Married couples Alex and Christine, and
Lydia and Zachary, have been friends for years. Christine and Zachary were once
an item and Lydia holds a candle for Alex. Each couple has a grown-up daughter,
one sensible, one a mess. Their lives are as entwined as they have been since
they were students but (not a spoiler) Zachary dies suddenly. Old grievances
emerge when Christine invites the grief-stricken Lydia to stay with them for as
long as she wants.
Tessa Hadley notices everything about her
characters and their surroundings – for example, she describes in forensic
detail the items in artist Christine’s studio. So it is easy to visualise it all but I
didn’t care for any of the self-absorbed characters (although dead Zachary
sounds as if he was jolly company).
I enjoyed The Past, the only other TH novel I’ve read, but the jury is
out on this one.
Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa
Read for book group. Winner of the
Palestine Book Award.
Nahr
has been confined to the Cube: nine square metres of glossy grey cinderblock,
devoid of time, its patterns of light and dark nothing to do with day and
night. Journalists visit her, but get nowhere because Nahr is not going to
share her story with them.
The
world outside calls Nahr a terrorist, and a whore; some might call her a
revolutionary, or a hero. But the truth is, Nahr has always been many things,
and had many names.
How Nahr came to be imprisoned in ‘the Cube’
is told in flashbacks. A disturbing read, obviously, but there are some bright spots
too – her relationship with her mother and her grandmother, her mother’s
embroidery, her love of dance and some delicious-sounding meals.
