I read six books in February.
On the Up by Alice O’Keefe
The first but probably not the last book
I’ll read on how difficult it is for young (and not so young) people to afford
to buy, or even rent, somewhere decent to live in the UK in the 21st century.
Sylvia rents a flat on a council estate in
London with her laid-back, minimum-waged, ‘not-quite-husband’, Ove, their toddler
and baby. She’s the main breadwinner but while she is on maternity leave she
finds out the quango she’s worked for is to be wound up. Sylvia yearns for a
house like the one she was brought up in but all she and Ove could possibly
afford (if she finds another job) is one
that is virtually uninhabitable and only a minute’s walk from a motorway junction.
However, shockingly, compared to others on
the estate, Sylvia is lucky in that she has choices, although they may not
involve house ownership. When her block is scheduled for ‘redevelopment’ (ie
into properties none of the current occupants could aspire to buying) the
council tenants are told they will ‘probably’ be re-housed in the Greater
London area, or failing that, Birmingham.
The estate occupants come together to
protest the development, aided by a lawyer friend of Alice’s, knowing though
that the eventual outcome is inevitable and they will all go their separate
ways.
Number 1 Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li
Read on Kindle for book group.
‘The popular Beijing Duck House in
Rockville, Maryland has been serving devoted regulars for decades, but behind
the staff's professional smiles simmer tensions, heartaches and grudges from
decades of bustling restaurant life.’
Family businesses are a great subject for
novels (and TV dramas). This is the first one I’ve read set in the world of
Chinese restaurants and it was a fascinating glimpse into the fiercely hot and
noisy kitchens and the people who own them and the people who work in them.
Well-written, touching, funny and sad.
Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce
Inspired by agony-aunt columns in women’s
wartime magazines. Mrs Henrietta Bird is agony aunt for a failing magazine
called Woman’s Friend – but she’s not
much help to anyone in these troubled times. For one thing she’d rather be out
of the office lording it on various war-effort committees and for another she
refuses to answer any questions that involve what she calls Unpleasantness;
this includes: marital relations, pre-marital relations, extra-marital
relations … you get the drift.
Her new assistant, sparky Emmeline, seeing
the genuine dilemmas and unhappiness of some of the letter-writers, decides to
write back herself. Alongside this, there is Emmeline’s life outside the office
with her friend Marigold, known as Bunty, and her other job in the evenings on
the fire-brigade switchboard.
I thought the ending took a bit of
swallowing but I loved the idea and the characters, and the tone which was rather
reminiscent of girls’ school stories.
PS don’t look at Amazon reviews before you
read this; some of them have a big spoiler.
PPS here’s a blog post of mine which has
snippets of bracing advice from yesteryear.
The Holiday by T M Logan
From a charity shop to whence it was
speedily returned.
Four women go on holiday to an Italian
villa to celebrate their fortieth birthdays; one is on her own and the other
three are with their husbands and children. Kate suspects that her husband is
having affair with one of her friends. We learn from the tagline that one of
the party is a murderer.
I thought I was going to read a tense
psychological thriller with lots of build-up, but absolutely nothing happened
until three-quarters of the way through this 496-page book. Until then you have
to plough through banal interactions between characters who were all, whether
grown-ups or offspring, unpleasant/obnoxious/spoilt/terminally boring*. A pity,
because the reason for Kate’s husband’s suspicious behaviour turned out to be
unexpected and original.
*other opinions are available – the book
was a Richard and Judy best-seller.
The Hiding Places by Katherine Webb
I am a fan of KW, especially of her first
book The Legacy.
I got totally into this one. She beautifully
conjures up rural Wiltshire in the early 1920s and the heartbreak of Pudding
whose beloved elder brother Donald has come back badly damaged by the war. When
Donald is accused of the murder of a very popular member of the community,
Pudding and a newcomer to the village try to prove his innocence.
And then – then I began a new chapter and
was totally baffled, could not work out what was going on, even wondered
momentarily if the binder had got pages mixed in from another book. I read on
but nary a glimmer of light did I see. Only after I looked at reviews from
others who had a similar reaction did I understand that this wasn’t the
promised twisty ending but that there had been a sleight of hand all the way
through. Was it very clever or was it cheating? The jury is out.
Midnight Fugue by Reginald Hill
The
last, sadly, in the Dalziel and Pascoe police procedural series and it’s a
corker.
It
was a relief after the disappointments of the two books above to read one that
did exactly what it said on the tin.
