I read seven books in February.
Love a road trip book, love an American road trip book, love an American road trip book set in the 50s. So, job done, Mr Towles – and you delivered on the premise in spades.
A young man and his much younger brother (Billy, one of the most precocious but delightful child characters ever, sees the world through his book of classical heroes) set out from Nebraska with the intention of driving to California to see if they can find their long-gone mother. However, they acquire some unexpected passengers and things very much do not go according to plan. Adventures aplenty, good and bad, ensue.
Manages to be both screwball and quite dark with gorgeous writing – I adored it.
Another favourite genre, the Depression in America, not sure why it appeals so much – perhaps because it was such a testing time and so much good writing has come out of that adversity.
This is Amor Towles’ first book and, again, I loved it.
‘On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate New York City jazz bar trying to stretch three dollars as far as it will go. But a chance encounter with the handsome banker at the next table changes everything, opening the door to the upper echelons of New York society and a glittering new social circle.’
A memoir. In 2018, British-born New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead moved back to London, with her husband and son, after thirty years in New York. It’s a culture shock for all of them. She reflects on her career in America (and one of the reasons they left – the outcome of the 2016 election), her childhood and family history. I found it absorbing.
The Watchmaker’s Daughter by Dianne Haley
I had an all too short holiday in Austria this month: three nights in Vienna – and one in Salzburg where we went on a Sound of Music tour. So when I was thinking what to read on the plane and thinking of the plot of the Sound of Music I remembered I’d bought this for my Kindle when it came out. It seemed an appropriate read and it turned out to be a terrific one. I’ve now downloaded the two sequels.
It’s a WW2 Resistance novel (another of my favourite genres) but with a difference – this one is set in Switzerland. The country was technically neutral but, with occupied France just across the border, life is precarious. ValĂ©rie helps the French resistance by smuggling messages with her father’s watch deliveries and hiding refugee children in his workshop – all the time worrying about her boyfriend Philippe who is in the army. Tense and exciting.
On holiday is when I do most of my Kindle reading. This was next up, an easy but satisfying read. No one speaks to anyone else on their daily commute from south London – until an event forces a disparate group of people into contact and relationships which will change all their lives.
I think this was the free book I chose one month through Amazon Prime. More America, east coast this time … Noah, in his seventies, has moved to ‘an independent living community’ but it feels more like a prison to him. A newcomer, eccentric Cassandra Joyce, turns out to be someone he knew fifty years earlier. Noah invites Cassandra to his ramshackle Cape Cod cottage out of season, and realises he would like their relationship to move up a level.
And, started on the plane journey home, and completed later, the latest Inspector Rebus. He’s retired now but when it looks as if his daughter might be arrested for murdering her partner he hurries to the far north of Scotland to carry out his own investigations which see him, amongst other things, visiting a WW2 prisoner-of-war camp and a stately home. Meanwhile back in Edinburgh his ex-colleagues may have some information to help him. Terrific.