Seven in January

Seven in January

I read seven books in January. (I know it’s almost March but this month I’ve published a new story collection and had other news to report … )

Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks.

Yes, the Tom Hanks. And it’s a signed copy, courtesy of the wonderful Topping bookshop in St Andrews and my (also wonderful) husband.

Each of the stories involves a manual typewriter in either a minor or a major way (TH has collected about a hundred of them). Some of the stories have the same characters. Some are very thoughtful, others very funny. I think my favourite, and falling into the funny category, was the very first one, about three best friends, two men and a girl, Anna. One of the men, the narrator, makes the mistake of having an affair with Anna for ‘three exhausting weeks’, after which they revert, with mutual relief, to their previous relationship.

Between Friends by Jenny Harper

‘Love, secrets and loyalty’ in contemporary Edinburgh. When Marta bumps into an old acquaintance, Tom, during the Edinburgh Festival and asks him to dinner, a whole domino effect of disasters occurs, as Marta is unaware of the effect that Tom’s appearance will have on her two best friends Jane and Carrie. Of course the Edinburgh setting was bound to appeal to me but I also enjoyed this gripping story of female friendships.

The Savage Garden by Mark Mills

I read this author’s The Whaleboat House last year and loved it. Enjoyed this one too which is set in Tuscany in 1958. A young English scholar tries to decode the clues in a mysterious garden and in doing so uncovers secrets of love, revenge and murder from 400 years ago and much more recently …

Howard’s End is on the Landing by Susan Hill

The house Susan Hill shared with her Shakespearian scholar husband had bookshelves everywhere. One night she went in search of Howard’s End. She couldn’t locate it but she did realise that there were books on their shelves that she’d forgotten they had, some she would love to re-read and perhaps two hundred that she hadn’t read at all. So she decided to give up buying new books for a whole year, instead going through the house shelf by shelf. At the end, with great difficulty, she compiled a list of the forty books she would keep if she had to give the others up.

I liked reading about her experience – and although I could do the same (check my to-be-read pile, print and Kindle!) I’m afraid I would not have the self-discipline.

Year of the Tiger by Lisa Brackman

A thriller set in China, with flashbacks to the war in Iraq where the narrator, Ellie, was a medic. Ellie’s friendship with a missing local artist leads her into big trouble when both Chinese and American government agents hound her about him.

I’m mad keen on books – fiction and non-fiction – set in China since a visit there a few years ago. 

The Secret of Nightingale Wood by Lucy Strange 
'1919. Henry [Henrietta] moves to the countryside with her family, scarred by her brother's untimely death. Her only friends are characters from her favourite books - until, one day, she wanders into the woods and meets Moth, a striking witch-like woman. Together they form a bond that could help Henry save her family and overcome her grief.'

Henrietta is twelve, but this could be read by anybody of any age. Adults will read it on an extra level, knowing about the horrors of the First World War and of the way mental illness (not just of war veterans) was treated at this time. 

I adored this book and cannot recommend it highly enough.

A Cold Case in Amsterdam Central by Anja de Jager

Excellent contemporary police procedural. A workman falls from the top of a half-finished building – accident or murder? The answer – spoiler alert – has its roots in the Nazi occupation of Holland and a present-day extortion racket. Great sense of place and an interesting protagonist in Lotte Meerman, a police detective who has just returned to work four months after being shot; not all her colleagues are pleased to see her … 

This is the second Lotte book; I'd like to read the other two (which is why, see above, I could never do a Susan Hill).

Swimming towards the jammy doughnuts

I post here about books I’ve read each month. There are other titles that I have on the go, that I pick up and put down and don't necessarily finish the month I started – books of short stories that can be dipped into and non-fiction books where there’s no narrative and I can read a chapter every so often without losing the thread.

Currently these are:

The Penguin Book of Contemporary Women’s Short Stories, selected and introduced by Susan Hill

Contemporary in 1995, that is. Authors include Maeve Binchy (a darker than usual story from her), Angela Carter, Daphne du Maurier, Janice Galloway, Sylvia Plath and Grace Paley. My favourite so far is by a writer I hadn’t heard of before, Judy Corbalis. Her story, The Bridesmaid, is a tale of childhood friendship and betrayal set in rural New Zealand.

Swimming in the Steno Pool: A Retro Guide to Making it in the Office by Lynn Peril

I bought this when I was in America, as you can tell from the ‘steno’. This is an eye-popping history of the secretary, from 150 years ago to the present day but mostly concentrating on the mid-twentieth century – think Mad Men, but ten times madder.

There were many secretarial schools as well as books and articles telling girls how they could be the ideal secretary, all emphasising in various ways that she should combine ‘the best features of an executive’s wife, his mother and his best friend – without any of their faults.’

A novel published in 1960 indicated that some bosses might have another role in mind:

Helen Gurley Brown, the first editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, does not come out of Swimming in the Steno Pool too well, looked at from a 21st-century perspective. In her book Sex and the Office (1964), she chided another author for advising secretaries to make themselves look ‘as inconspicuous as possible’; in HGB’s opinion ‘a bit of lace peeking out below a slender sheath skirt’ during dictation was ‘fascinating’. 

And when, almost thirty years of feminism later, a newspaper called her in 1991 to ask if there was any ‘sexual harassment’ in the offices of Cosmo, she replied, ‘I certainly hope so … the problem is that we don’t have enough men to go around for the harassing.’

She advocated throwing impromptu office parties and gave a recipe to make them go with a swing: ‘Simply mix a gallon of white wine with three or more bottles of vodka (an inexpensive brand will do), along with fruit punch and maraschino cherries.’

Can you sieve the maraschino cherries out of mine, please? Thanks. Hic.

But that’s New York for you. I temped over a summer in Glasgow, in the early 70s, and one assignment was in the typing pool of the South of Scotland Electricity Board. Disappointingly, punch was not served, at least not the week I was there; it would have livened up the days no end. Instead, and a welcome sight she was, there was a cheery lady who came round with a tea-trolley and jammy doughnuts.