I read six books in July.
All this Richness by Barbara Pym and her readers …
… and one of those readers I’m thrilled to say is me! This is an anthology of short stories, three of which are by Barbara P herself and the remaining 22 are by readers/writers who have submitted entries to the competition administered by the Barbara Pym society.
Entrants take a Pym character and run with them – take them abroad/forward in time/change their relationships or whatever. Great fun to do, and it was fabulous to read the other stories in this collection.
Not available online (yet; I believe this will be coming). In the meantime contact:
Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes
Literally – a mix-up of shoe bags at a gym changes the lives of struggling wife and mum, Sam, and trophy wife Nisha. Many twists and turns ensue in this warm and satisfying read.
The Veiled One by Ruth Rendell
I was, and still am to some extent, a big fan of Ruth Rendell’s writing, her plots and her protagonists Inspector Wexford and his right-hand man Mike Burden. (I used to work for her publisher in London and was once introduced to her.)
Her books are set in the 60s/70s/80s and reading them now at least forty years later these decades are another world and not just in terms of technology and attitudes. She’s so good on detail and giving a sense of place and so much has changed in how and where people live, for example areas once downtrodden now have properties worth millions, that her books seem somehow more dated than others written in the same era.
Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova
Read for book group. Set in the crumbling Paradise cinema (rumoured to be based on one in Edinburgh … ) this takes in the surreal, hallucinatory months that Holly works there, ushering, making popcorn, watching films, getting to know her colleagues, cleaning – I won’t give you a single example of what filmgoers leave behind on and under the seats but I can tell you it’s all revolting.
I admired the consistency of the world that Camilla Grudova created (and the book was long listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction last year) but had to read some bits with my eyes shut …
Last month I
read two books by Jacqueline Winspear and I read two this month, A Sunlit Weapon and The Comfort of Ghosts – the
seventeenth and eighteenth in the now concluded Maisie Dobbs series. I
discovered there were some rather large gaps in my knowledge of Maisie’s
relationships so I shall have to go back to catch up.