Ten in May

 I read ten books in May.

 

Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny

Regular readers will know I love Katherine Heiny’s first novel, Standard Deviation, so much that I have read and twice reread it since it came out in 2017. So that was a very hard act to follow – but she’s done it again and I look forward to my first reread of Early Morning Riser soon. Here’s what some others have said about it:

‘Gorgeous. Very, very funny in a knowing wry way but so tender, so beautiful. I loved all the characters.’ Marian Keyes

‘Warm, witty, touching – and frequently hilarious’ David Nicholls, author of Sweet Sorrow

‘You put the book down and feel glad to be alive’ India Knight, Sunday Times

 

The Long Hot Summer by Kathleen McMahon

‘The MacEntees are no ordinary family. Determined to be different to other people, they have carved out a place for themselves in Irish life by the sheer force of their own personalities. But when a horrifying act of violence befalls television star Alma, a chain of events is set in motion that will leave even the MacEntees struggling to make sense of who they are.’

Cleverly told from nine points of view.

 

Then, in need of distraction, I took to crime.

I used to work in London for the publishing company who published Ruth Rendell (I met her once) and I have copies of most of her books. I embarked on a galloping reread of six of them, picking up one as soon as I’d finished the one before.

The first five feature Inspector Wexford, one of my favourite fictional detectives, and the last is a standalone.

Hadn’t reread them for a good few years. The plots have stood the test of time and her writing is terrific (in Murder Being Once Done London comes alive as much as any of the characters) but my goodness how much the world has changed since the 1960s/70s. Technology of course and attitudes, but it’s particularly hard to believe that back then there were streets of grotty bedsits in areas of London like Notting Hill, now only affordable by the mega rich.

 

The Speaker of Mandarin

 

Murder Being Once Done

 

The Best Man to Die

 

Kissing the Gunner's Daughter

                                                               

                                                          Wolf to the Slaughter

 

                                                             The Secret House of Death

And still on a crime spree:

Remain Silent by Susie Steiner

The third book (after Missing, Presumed and Persons Unknown) featuring DI Manon Bradshaw (and her complicated personal life, so best to read them in order). Here she is investigating the death of a young Lithuanian man who was a migrant worker in a horrible chicken factory. His fellow workers are frightened to talk about it. Manon’s colleague, Davy, goes to Lithuania to find out more about the dead man.

A satisfying police procedural, with heart. And worth reading alone for the laugh-out-loud scene when Manon tears into the unfaithful husband of her best friend.

 

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

I could hardly tear myself away from this story of a mysterious death in the Australian outback. Told from the point of view of the dead man’s brother, it’s a tale of old and new family secrets played out in a relentlessly hot and dangerous landscape.

 

 

 

 

 

Fifteen in April (1)

I read fifteen books in April – this is the first of two blog posts about them.

 The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey

I worried that I wouldn't care for this one as much as her Letters to the Lost which I positively inhaled; after I'd got it I put off reading it for ages for that reason. I worried needlessly. Lockdown came, with lots of reading time, and I spent a blissful day or two in the company of Alice and Selina and Lawrence. I love the era and the settings (1920s, country house/London) and the writing was wonderful and evocative and emotional. About two-thirds of the way through, heart pounding, I began to gulp uncontrollably. Luckily tissues were at hand. You have been warned.

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

(after having a quick skim through Olive Kitteridge which I read a couple of years ago)

I used a birthday book token in Toppings Bookshop in Edinburgh to get this copy which is not only beautifully bound but signed by the author. Having loved Olive’s first outing I knew I’d enjoy her second.

Not that she’s a lovable person, or even an easy one; the author shows her how she is, warts and all. As in Olive Kitteridge, each chapter is almost a story on its own and in some Olive barely appears; instead, we might, for example, follow a character who was once taught by her.

I expect this is the last we shall see of Olive, sadly. But there was a pleasant surprise at the end when Olive makes a friend – with someone from another Elizabeth Strout novel.

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

From Christian Aid Book Sale 2019. Jeannette Walls wrote the extraordinary memoir The Glass Castle – the story of her childhood with a charismatic but unreliable and erratic father, a mother who thought he could do no wrong, and her siblings. The opening scene, of the grown-up Jeannette, a successful film director, being chauffer-driven down a street and seeing her parents foraging for food in a dumpster, is unforgettable.

In this book she tells, in novelised form, the story of her mother’s mother, a most amazing character called Lily, who rode as easily as she walked and, with little schooling, could later turn her hand to anything including teaching.

Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiney

I’ve read this three times now in the last two years or so – and it will always be a go-to for me now. It is rare for a book to become a comfort re-read for me that isn’t one I first encountered decades ago. It is snortingly funny, clever and perceptive; and Audra is one of my favourite ever fictional characters.

I love Hilary McKay’s stories of modern family life, although I’m some decades beyond the target demograph (so what?). I saw that one of them was free on Kindle and after I’d read it I had to buy the other two. After a family tragedy Binnie, her brother and sister and their mother move to Cornwall but their troubles aren’t over.

I’ve been listening to episodes of A Good Read while I’ve been on the exercise bike of a morning (distraction from the agony). Comedian Danny Wallace chose Diary of a Nobody which reminded me that it was ages since I read Keith Waterhouse’s brilliant riposte showing Mrs ‘Nobody’s’ side of the story: Mrs Pooter’s Diary. Great fun.