The Fire Hills – Henry Normal

This slim volume is a collection of poems by Henry Normal, better known for his scriptwriting for comedy shows such as The Royle Family and Mrs Merton. And while there is some comedy here (particularly the brilliant ‘Premier League Football – The Rules’), it is not so much laugh out loud as clever wordplay or thoughtful satire.

Another, possibly the main, theme is the natural landscape and built environment of East Sussex, to where the author recently moved. Added in are a few personal reflections on an aging body and on the country’s dysfunctional politics.

The poems are plentiful but mainly short with over a hundred in the 120 pages, so a quick dip in and out is easy and generally rewarding. Although for those who think poems should rhyme, this may not be for you.

A Chip Shop in Poznan – Ben Aitken

The book-packing journey continues in Eastern Europe with the eponymous food outlet just one element of Ben Aitken’s ‘unlikely year in Poland’.

In March 2016 the campaigning for the Brexit referendum is in full swing. Among the many and spurious issues being banded about is the allegation that migrant Poles are taking ‘our’ jobs. Ben Aitken’s response is to up sticks and head the other way, his mission to get to know the country, its people, and the reason why so many move to the UK for work.

He heads not to Warsaw or Kraków, but the workaday city of Poznan, to live and work for twelve months while he still freely can as an EU citizen. He finds a flat to share with some locals, and finds work, first in a school, then in the chip shop, which is more of a bar. The pay is meagre but the cost of living low.

The natives are friendly and as keen to talk about the UK as he is to talk about their country. He learns some Polish, but finds he is never far from and English-speaker. In addition to the language he immerses himself in Polish culture and learns some of its, largely unfortunate, history.

He sticks it out for the year, during which the UK serves notice on leaving the EU. His jobs, travels, conversations, and observations are reported in (mainly) whimsical style, often amusing but sometimes touching.

Not your standard travelogue, it makes for an interesting and entertaining read.

The Young Accomplice – Benjamin Wood

For the first half of this novel the focus is on the Mayhoods, a young couple, Arthur and Florence, both architects. It is England in 1952 but they are keen disciples of ‘organic architecture’ as set out by American legend of the profession, Frank Lloyd Wright. To that end they combine their nascent practice with developing and running a small farm.

We get some back story, and it is Arthur’s that is relevant. He is an ex-Borstal boy made good, and he wants to give others the same chance. He recruits a couple of apprentices from a correctional institute, who happen to be siblings, Charlie and Joyce Savigear. As they settle in, the focus changes to the Savigears. Again there is a back story, but it is Joyce’s continuing connections to the criminal fraternity that takes the plot forward.

The 1950’s setting has an authentic period feel to it and the prose is easy on the eye. The insight provided into the Borstal system is interesting to a point, less so the architectural practice backdrop. The characters of Arthur, Florence, Charlie, and Joyce are well drawn, but it is only Joyce’s criminal escapades that lift the plot above the mundane. Not even a late cameo appearance by Frank Lloyd Wright himself saves the, to me, rather limp ending.

 

Case Histories – Kate Atkinson

Another re-read, though only after a dozen years (and four sequels), back to where the Jackson Brodie novels began in 2005.

Ex-DI Brodie, newly separated from wife, Josie, and daughter, Marlee, is grubbing a living as a private investigator, mainly checking out partners of suspicious wives and husbands. In addition there are the continual demands of Binky Rain, the old lady with so many cats there is always one lost for Jackson to hunt down, which he tolerates as it pays the bills.

But then three cold cases come calling: an abduction of a toddler from 1970; an unsolved murder of a young woman in 1992; and a missing person (the daughter of an axe-murder convicted in 1979).

As we, the reader, are given snatches of each backstory, Jackson must trawl old evidence and look for gaps in the original investigations in the hope of finding a new lead. Slowly, the truths emerge, only to give Jackson some moral dilemmas to resolve.

However the strength of the book is not the crime-solving but the characters created, the relationships between them, and Jackson’s internal monologue and dry wit.

Good to be reminded of how it all began and, as ever with Kate Atkinson, an enjoyable read.

1984 – George Orwell

Re-reading 1984 after a gap of fifty years would, you hope, prove a less menacing experience. Think again.

As a reminder, Winston Smith, a low level functionary in the Party, lives a dreary life under constant surveillance of his masters, symbolised by Big Brother. He starts to doubt the Party’s propaganda (indeed his job is to assist the re-writing of history) and wonders if there is a better way. Even thinking such a thing is an offence – ‘thoughtcrime’ in Newspeak – and after a brief secret rebellion, he is brought in for a horrific rehabilitation.

The central themes – surveillance, towing the party line, subscribing to their version of events, re-inventing truth – ‘what the Party holds to be the truth is the truth’ - is all frighteningly relevant today.

Where Orwell had Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in mind, we now have Putin, Trump, the Taliban, and more authoritarian regimes besides, able to replace facts by their truth and impose acceptance through ignorance, corruption, and coercion. Instead of re-writing history, as Winston does, they label it a lie, fake news, a western/liberal elite/infidel (delete as applicable) plot.

Back to the book. Orwell paints a graphic picture of life under a totalitarian government. Smith is no hero, just an ordinary cog in the machine that goes wrong and needs repair. The lengthy and wordy treatise detailing the political science underpinning the regime sits a little uncomfortably in the middle of the book (though repays the reading), but either side of that the story flows well enough to a well-known and unwelcome conclusion.

So, well worth the re-read.

Eden – Jim Crace

In Jim Crace’s eden (with intentional lack of initial capital) there live angels and humans. The angels take the form of large, blue-feathered birds, and the humans take the role of farmers and labourers, working the land for their own sustenance and to provide for the Lord and his host.

It is a hard life for the men and women, and it is eternal. For there is no death in eden, and by implication no birth, no children, and no sex. Also no escape, eden is enclosed by a wall, the only gate carefully guarded and only opened to export meagre alms to the mortals outwith.

Even in paradise there are misfits. Jamin is an angel who fell and damaged a wing and who, uniquely in the host, enjoys fraternising with the humans, particularly Tabi. Tabi has a spark of life about her, a curiosity that sets her apart, makes her noticeable, and she, alone, questions the regulated existence and the angels’ version of the world – leave eden and you will die. Her attractiveness bothers Alum, a surly man and self-appointed informer of transgressions and punisher of lapses, tolerated by the angels for his usefulness. He keeps a close eye on Tabi and pounces on any misdemeanour.

When Tabi goes AWOL, it is not just Jamin and Alum that miss her. Co-worker in the orchard, Ebon, realises how much he valued her companionship. He, like Jamin and Alum, seeks answers to her disappearance and a way to get her back from over the wall.

Benevolent imprisonment and immortality versus a dangerous freedom that promises death is the theme. But it is not just an individual’s choice. One person’s actions can have implications for the whole community.

Beautifully written with a deceptive simplicity that masks a depth of character and plot.

Trust – Hernan Diaz

This is a story of the rise of Andrew Bevel, an American tycoon who plays, even manipulates, the financial markets through the early twentieth century to make his fortune, and about his wife Mildred. He is driven by ambition and is reclusive. She is similarly self-sufficient but active in supporting philanthropic and cultural causes, until she dies relatively early. The twist is that the tale is told in four versions.

The first is in the form of a novel in which an author, Harold Vanner, presents a thinly disguised fictional portrait of the tycoon and his wife. The second is Andrew Bevil’s incomplete attempt at autobiography, penned in response to Vanner’s novel, presenting the ‘real’ story of his business success and his relationship with his wife.

The third part is an historic account by Ida Partenza of how she was recruited by Bevil to turn his dictated ramblings into readable prose augmented as necessary to ‘fill out’ Mildred’s personality. Finally, Mildred’s own voice, in the form of recently discovered notebooks, is transcribed to give her version, shedding light on a hidden aspect of her life with Bevil.

An interesting concept and structure, but in truth only Ida Partenza’s contribution satisfies as a novel, providing characterisation and dramatic tension; the other sections are rather dull.

But what else to expect from a winner of one of the heavyweight prizes, be it Booker, or as in this case, Pulitzer. Will I ever learn?

The Running Hare – John Lewis-Stempel

Herefordshire farmer and nature writer, John Lewis-Stempel, is dismayed by modern intensive farming techniques that extinguish all wildlife, flora and fauna, in the pursuit of ever-increasing crop yield. He decides to take a conventionally farmed arable field and turn it into a traditional wheatfield. Other farmers think he is bonkers, or worse – dangerous, intent on reinfesting the land with pests and weeds. But he persists and manages to rent a field (along with adjacent paddock and woodland) for a year.

As he takes us through the farming year – ploughing, sowing, ripening, and harvest – we learn so much. About farming techniques, Lewis-Stempel may be a traditionalist but he’s no Luddite, and the science is as important as the lore. About wildflowers that used to adorn corn fields that given this chance, do so again. About the insect life that begins to thrive again, attracting birds and animal, culminating in the iconic hare.

It is a joyous celebration of nature, a demonstration of working in harmony with other creatures that have as much right to live off the land as we humans. The message is, there is enough for all. What is lost in productivity is well compensated by the proximity of wildlife and the pleasures that brings.

There are humorous anecdotes to add variety, and tangential flights into old writings, but the strength of the book is in the here and now of the comings and goings in the field.

Truly Darkly Deeply – Victoria Selman

When Sophie gets a letter from Battlemouth Prison she faces a dilemma. It is from Matty Melgren, convicted serial killer, now, twenty years on, terminally ill. He wants to see her. To see him would re-open old wounds and stir up old feelings. To see him could, at last, provide closure, for still, after all these years, she is not sure he is guilty and worries that her part in his arrest could have triggered a miscarriage of justice.

Sophie’s chewing over her current dilemma is spliced with her back story. How, aged six, she moved to London from the US with her mother, Amelia Rose (her father didn’t make the trip, having left before Sophie was old enough to remember). How Amelia Rose’s new boyfriend, Matty Melgren, soon became the father figure Sophie never had. How wonderful life was with Matty, though he never moved in and often went missing with work commitments.

How, increasingly, Sophie and Amelia Rose came to consider the awful possibility that Matty Melgren could be the North London serial killer.

Sophie’s narrative loops around in time, a tad confusingly (though this may be deliberate) and the guilt-tripping and handwringing gets a bit repetitive. The resolution of the did he / didn’t he issue involves a couple of revelations that are hard to swallow. So not the most satisfying read for me.

A Slow Fire Burning – Paula Hawkins

A book with a map always appeals. In this case it is Islington area of London, around the Regent’s Canal on which two boats of interest are moored – Miriam’s and Daniels’s. Close by are the houses of Carla and Theo, ex-partners but still semi-attached. Further away are Irene’s house and Laura’s high-rise flat.

Six characters in search of a story, and Paula Hawkins serves up satisfying tale of murder, mischief, mix-ups, and manipulation.

Daniel has a fling with Laura and ends up dead. Miriam discovers the body, pockets some evidence, and calls the police. She has a longstanding grudge against Theo and sees this as an opportunity for mischief – as Daniel is Carla’s (that’s Theo’s ex – keep up) beloved nephew. Daniel’s mother, Carla’s sister, Angela, is recently deceased. There have been years of bad blood between the sisters since the death of Carla’s infant son while in Angela’s care. As for Irene – she is (or was) Angela’s next door neighbour and is now reliant on high-rise Laura for company and assistance. And by the way, Laura has issues and should not be relied on for anything.

Throw in two police detectives, Chalmers and Barker, bring in some tasty back stories, and sit back and enjoy the relationships unfold, the murderer being unmasked, and the righting of a long buried injustice.

A Tidy Ending – Joanna Cannon

It starts with Linda, the narrator, speaking from some sort of institution, a day centre maybe. She describes herself as someone ordinary, nondescript, who keeps herself to herself. Where she is, why and how she got there, is the narrative hook to be unravelled.

The main narrative goes back six weeks to the discovery locally of the body of a young woman. Linda discusses the murder with her husband, Terry, and her mother, who lives nearby. There is no father; he died when Linda was a child in far off Wales, his death following a scandal for which Linda feels partly responsible. She has not trusted the police since.

Linda’s life goes on inconsequentially against the background of the murder investigation, but she is distracted by some post, specifically catalogues, that arrive at her house addressed to a Rebecca Finch. The catalogues hint at a lifestyle she can only aspire to – elegant clothing and clean-lined interior décor. An obsession develops. She feels a connection, and a compulsion to meet and befriend to Rebecca Finch.

The three storylines – the childhood scandal, the murder inquiry, and the search for Rebecca Finch – move forward sporadically but without really gelling together. And I am not sure if everything was resolved in the end, but by then I was not bothered much. Maybe the title was meant to be ironic.

For me, the storylines failed to convince, and none of the characters appealed, which is a disappointment given Joanna Cannon’s enjoyable other work.

An Officer and a Spy – Robert Harris

Major Georges Picquart has only a peripheral role in the arrest, trial, and ritual degradation of Alfred Dreyfus, a captain in the French army exposed as a German spy. Dreyfus’s protestations of innocence are useless, not helped by the fact he is Jewish, and antisemitism is rife. His punishment is incarceration for life on Devil’s Island where he is the sole prisoner.

Six months later, Picquart is promoted to colonel and put in command of the ‘Statistical Section’ - a euphonism for the military intelligence service – the people who put Dreyfus away. Picquart is not welcomed by open arms, and when a new case of spying throws up evidence that casts doubt on the Dreyfus conviction, his attempt to re-investigate is undermined by his staff and shut down by the powers that be.

Over time, the evidence mounts, and Picquart is convinced not only have they court-martialled the wrong man, but also the real spy is still out there operating within the army. What is more, he thinks the section know that but are engaged in a cover-up to protect careers and reputations. But public unease is swelling too, with the likes of Emile Zola trumpeting the miscarriage of justice.

He has a choice to make. To serve justice and free an innocent man, he would have to defy orders, end his own career, and plunge the army into a leaderless crisis when war may be threatening.

Robert Harris tells this true story with precision and utmost clarity, instilling drama into what could have been a dry tale of sifting evidence and courtroom tactics. There is even a duel to be fought.

An interesting, informative, and satisfyingly enjoyable read.

Burning Questions – Margaret Atwood

This collection of Margaret Atwood’s non-fiction pieces covers the years 2004 to 2021 and includes essays, memoirs, lectures, introductions, biographies, and reviews.

The subjects vary but some themes re-occur as ones close to her heart and mind: the natural world and the damage being wreaked on it; feminism and its evolution; and of course writing and literature.

The first two of these themes necessarily impinges on politics, and as a Canadian looking south in trepidation, events in the USA loom large.

On home turf of writing, various pieces give insights into her early influences and her most significant works, including The Handmaid’s Tale and the Oryx and Crake trilogy.

Whatever the subject she turns her hand to, the outcome is a well crafted piece of writing with a sharpness of focus, a sprinkling of wry humour, and a point to be made.

The Mercies – Kiran Millwood Hargrave

It is Christmas Eve 1617, and the fishing fleet is in sight of land when the storm strikes the Barents Sea off the north coast of Norway. The women at Vardo look on in horror as the boats are dashed and sunk with no survivors. Maren has lost her father, brother, and fiancé. It is the same story for all. The only males left alive at Vardo are old men and babes in arms.

Help is slow in coming to the isolated community. Meantime, the women, led by the capable Kirsten, must take on the men’s work – putting out to fish and tending the livestock and meagre crops. Only when the ground thaws are men sent to help bury the washed up dead and go, leaving only a pastor behind.

Two camps form. Those who are content to rely on the pastor’s fine words and faith that God will provide, cluster around Toril. Those like Maren whose faith is shaken by the obliteration of their menfolk, prefer to rely on their own efforts, taking their lead from Kirsten.

But this is not a good time to stand apart from the church. A decree from King Christian IV demands that sorcery and devil worship be rooted out and its followers incinerated. And the northern lands, where the indigenous Sami people still roam, is suspect. A commissioner is to be sent.

Absalom Cornet arrives, a bible thumping bully. With him is his new wife, Ursula, a shipowner’s daughter picked up in Bergen and broken in on the voyage north. Her change in situation is a shock to her, Maren is drawn in to provide emotional and practical support.

The uneven struggle for power in Vardo plays out horribly. The prose is sparing, totally suited to the bleak setting, harsh climate, and desperate circumstances.

Read and enjoy, or at least appreciate.

Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver

This is not so much a retelling or updating of the Dickens epic, more an echo or parallel. Demon narrates his life story from birth to early adulthood spent in rural Kentucky. His circumstances begin badly and rapidly worsen with a few bright spots that turn out to be false dawns. As ever, it’s the hope that kills.

The style of the first person narration reflects the upbringing of young Demon, who is intelligent but streetwise rather than educated. So the prose doesn’t exactly flow, peppered with US slang and adolescent whining – authentic but not easy on the eye. This wears off both as Demon matures and the reader attunes.

The backdrop to the story is increasingly the US opioid epidemic that affected the cash-poor communities Demon moves in, experiencing first-hand the devastating effects on lives.

As for the paralleling, it is not heavy handed. Names are cleverly echoed, and the female characters are given more prominence and feistiness. Inevitably, to those familiar with the original, the plot holds no surprises, though climactic events remain tense and moving.

A curiosity worth the 600 page investment? The jury is out.

Lessons in Chemistry – Bonnie Garmus

When we first meet Elizabeth Zott, in the 1960s, she is a single mother hosting an afternoon TV cookery show. In her mind, neither of these roles define her. She is first and foremost a chemist who looks at the world through scientific eyes.

Her route from outstanding chemistry undergraduate to iconic TV housewife is revealed piecemeal in the novel, so no spoilers here. Sufficient to say it is men and male attitudes that have thwarted her vocation in life. But Elizabeth Zott is difficult to thwart as she strives to subvert the roles allocated by those who seek to pigeonhole her.

The message is hammered home mercilessly but entertainingly in breezy style as Elizabeth, armed only with good looks, scientific knowledge, and a 2H pencil takes on the male hegemony.

Enough said; read and enjoy.

Cloud Cuckoo Land – Anthony Doerr

Three narratives, centuries apart; five characters who begin as strangers; and one, or not even that, ancient Greek comedy attributed to Diogenes; are all weaved together to produce a memorable novel.

In the past, mid-fifteenth century Europe, a young girl named Anna is learning to embroider (badly) in a Constantinople sweatshop. She is more interested in the world outside and finds a way to learn Greek, using the skill to earn a crust by raiding a long-abandoned library and selling on the texts. However, approaching the city is the Sultan’s vast army, intent on conquest. With it, conscripted as an oxen driver, is young Omeir, disfigured and shunned, but devoted to his oxen.

In the present, in a local library in Lakeport, Idaho, an old man named Zeno is taking a group of schoolkids through a dress rehearsal of a play he has cobbled together. Downstair, Seymour, a troubled teenager, lurks with a bomb in his rucksack.

In the future, a young girl named Konstance lives with her family and similar volunteers on the Argos, a spaceship on a generations-long mission to a new beginning on a planet of a distant star. All the mission’s needs are met by an all-knowing AI, going by the name of Sybil.

The link, initially and tenuously, is the Diogenes text. Anna steals it in Constantinople and keeps it for herself. It passes through Omeir’s hands and is lost for centuries. Once rediscovered and shared on-line, Zeno makes his amateur attempt at translation / reconstruction. Seymour and Konstance both get involved (to say how would be a spoiler), and the text’s importance to all their lives increasingly emerges.

It is well written and cleverly constructed in narratives spliced in terms of time and space. The nearly six hundred pages race by in engaging prose, full of depth as each character’s back story and future is revealed with compassion and insight.

Up there with the best reads of recent years.

The Year of the Flood – Margaret Atwood

We are back in the post-apocalyptic world introduced in the author’s earlier work Oryx and Crake where few have survived the deadly pandemic, Oryx unwittingly unleashed.

Toby has survived and is holed up on a rooftop garden, with access to food and water for now. Ren’s survival is due to a temporary stay in an isolation facility that saved her from infection. It caters to her every need, but the bad news is that she is locked inside and everyone outside seems to be dead.

We get each girl’s back story, Toby in the third person and Ren in the first. And they have a connection – both had spells as members of the ‘God’s Gardeners’ religious cult that preached self-sufficiency (useful now!), environmental awareness, and the inevitable demise of humanity in a ‘waterless flood’, which has come to pass in the form of the pandemic.

Toby and Ren’s pasts teem with characters and action against a backdrop of an all too believable future where current societal trends come to fruition. Global corporations dominate a bipolar society of the haves, who work for them, and the have nots, who don’t.

How Toby and Ren got where they are, and whether they will remain isolated or manage to make contact with other survivors, provide a strong narrative hook that engages the full 500 pages.

Roll on vlume three of the trilogy – MaddAddam.

Emma – Jane Austen

Set in the Regency world of country houses and formality we have, centre stage, Emma Woodhouse. Young, attractive, comfortably off living with her widowed father, and it has to be said, a little spoilt. She acknowledges that, and is bent on self-improvement, almost as much as she is bent on improvement of others.

Such as Harriet Smith, ‘natural’ if inconvenient daughter of some man with means enough to place her out of the way but in a respectable position. Emma soon has plans for Harriet, which do not include marriage ‘beneath her’ to a local farmer. She thinks Harriet can do better, spikes the proposal, and steers her protégé towards the new vicar, Mr Elton.

Emma, herself, is more than eligible, but has declared that she will not marry, as that would entail leaving her home and father, over both of which she has free rein. She is happy in her circle that includes her old governess, now married locally to Mr Weston, her sister married to Mr John Knightly with two children, and her brother-in-law, the other Mr Knightly, an established bachelor who holds the family seat at Donwell Abbey. Also tolerated are two spinsters, Mrs. and Miss Bates. When Emma, for the benefit of Harriet, draws Mr Elton into the fold she miscalculates the effect.

Two newcomers arrive independently to spice up life in the village. Come to stay with the Bates’ is Miss Jane Fairfax, young, attractive, and as equally accomplished as Emma if somewhat inferior in pedigree. She soon turns a few heads. Visiting the Westons, albeit infrequently and briefly, is Frank Churchill, a sociable and engaging young man, who despite the surname is Mr Weston’s son by an earlier marriage. The ladies find him charming, including to her surprise, Emma. Mr Knightly has his reservations.

There is much polite conversation while sat in drawing rooms or walking in gardens; a few letters are exchanged; and fleeting bodily contact occurs during a dance. Some confusion and misunderstanding along with hints of forthcoming proposals, keep the plot alive (just).

All very, well, Jane Austen. Wordy to the modern reader, so rather buries its wit in verbiage, but it is another classic ticked off the Book-et List.Set in the Regency world of country houses and formality we have, centre stage, Emma Woodhouse. Young, attractive, comfortably off living with her widowed father, and it has to be said, a little spoilt. She acknowledges that, and is bent on self-improvement, almost as much as she is bent on improvement of others.

 

Trust – Mike Bullen

Greg Beavis and Dan Sinclair are mates, and rivals, with both working as sales reps for the same IT company in London. They both have long term partners and families. Dan is married to Sarah with a teenage son, Russell; Greg is not married to Amanda, but their commitment is demonstrated in the form of two young daughters.

It all starts to go wrong when Greg and Dan attend a two day conference in Birmingham. The men get talking to two attractive young women, Liz and Lynda, and on the last night as drinks flow in the bar, things get flirty and beyond.

On their return to the family fold, things change. There is incriminating evidence in Greg’s bag. And Dan’s renewed sexual vigour, while welcomed by Sarah, is suspicious.

Events unfold; deception and misunderstandings multiply. The partners, destabilised by suspicion, become prey to temptation and proposition. Revenge is considered. Even adolescent Russell and long-gone Liz and Lynda, and their partners, become tangled in the webs of deceit. Trust is in scant supply.

The prose is sharp and witty, and the plot complexities are well handled and easy to follow. Bullen has a nice line in one-liners and penchant for the ironic use of idiomatic expressions. Unsurprisingly, given Bullen is the creator of the Cold Feet TV series, the book has the same knowing – ‘this is adult life’ – vibe.

A good entertaining read.

The St James’ Park Murders – Frank Demain

Every other Saturday, August to May, Sarah Stephenson sees her husband, George, off to Hexham station to get a train to Newcastle for the match at St James’ Park. Except he doesn’t attend the game, he listens to the radio commentary while in bed with a lady he knows only as Jenny.

Sarah knows nothing of this arrangement, but there again George knows nothing of her own simultaneous fortnightly routine that involves an intimate visit from neighbour and shopkeeper, Tony Raine.

The cosy, mutually oblivious arrangement ends when after a particularly energetic afternoon with Jenny, George returns home to find the police outside his house with the news that his wife is dead, believed murdered,

On the case is DI Elspeth Sanderson, newly transferred to the area and still getting to grips with her new team. Step by step they gather evidence, strip away false alibis, uncover motives, and inevitably crack the case, despite distractions that involve Elspeth’s rivalry with a local DI and a long distance on/off relationship with a policeman in the Gambia where her previous case took her.

The plot holds together with enough twists and turns to maintain interest, and the characters are well drawn and distinctive. An enjoyable introduction to the DI Sanderson series of novels

Untold Stories – Alan Bennett

This collection of writings contains a variety of offerings from a master storyteller.

The title piece, Untold Stories, gives an account of Bennett’s early life and in particular his relationships with his parents. It is followed by Written on the Body, which takes the story forward to his time at university and into the Army to do his National Service. Both these pieces are surprisingly revealing and are coloured by the realisation of his sexual orientation.

The middle of the book is devoted to diary extracts covering 1996 to 2004, commenting variously on items in the national news and events in his professional life (with impressive name-dropping), supplemented by random observations on places visited, sights seen, and conversations overheard.

The rest of the writings include essays on the theatre and plays, radio and TV work, art and architecture, finishing off with accounts of some personal tribulations.

Irrespective of the subject matter, the prose is always spot on, the perspective is invariably off-centre, and the opinions given are subtle and understated to devastating effect.

The Siege of Krishnapur – JG Farrell

It is the start of 1857 and at Krishnapur, a two day ride from Calcutta, the English Raj are preserving their societal customs as best they can under foreign skies and a punishing climate. The poetry society is in session. Mr Hopkins, the top man, who bears the title of Collector, is reviewing his eclectic collection of items of art, science, and technology, some recently brought back from his visit to the Great Exhibition in London.

In Calcutta, the bright young things - epitomised by Lieutenant Harry Dunstable, his sister Louise, and newly arrived from Britain, George Fleury and his sister Miriam, who is already a widow – are at play with dances, outings, and picnics. But soon they decamp to Krishnapur where Harry and Louise’s father is resident doctor. On arrival they meet the pretty but disgraced and deserted Lucy Hughes, whom they befriend despite her tainted reputation.

It is not the best time to be in Krishnapur. There is unrest in the Indian army, mutiny is threatened. The Collector decides to strengthen the residency’s defences. Just in time, as the sepoys attack in force. The defences hold for now, but the siege begins.

Under the growing pressure what will happen? Will standards of civilised behaviour hold up? Will the Collector and his minimal forces be up to the task of defending the residency? Will the two doctors, Dunstable and McNab resolve their professional differences and work together to patch wounds and combat dysentery? Will the spiritual leads, Reverend Hampton and Father O’Hara keep the faith, despite their God’s seeming indifference to their plight and the atheistic jibes from magistrate Tom Willoughby? Will George’s and Harry’s romantic interests, and indeed the charms of the young ladies, survive the rigours of the siege? All is eventually revealed.

The pace of the novel and style of prose neatly mirror that of events, beginning rather stiff and formal, becoming languid during the siege, and then frenetic during the chaotic (and surprisingly funny) climax.

Despite its 1973 Booker prizewinning credentials (rarely a good sign), a really good read that, though slow to grip, increasingly entertains as it progresses.

 

Offshore – Penelope Fitzgerald

This offshore community is only a gangplank from dry land, on Thames barges permanently moored on the tidal reaches of that river in the heart of London. It is the sixties but these folk are neither swinging nor fashionable, though some may stretch to Bohemian.

There is an artist, Sam Willis, aboard Dreadnought, a vessel he needs to sell while it still floats. There is Maurice, aboard the conveniently renamed Maurice, who makes a living from picking up men from the shoreline pubs and from providing a repository for dodgy, probably stolen, goods. Aboard Grace is Nenna James, estranged from her husband and so effectively a single parent of her two daughters. Respectability is represented by retired company director Woodie Woodrow who takes pride in keeping his Rochester shipshape, and by Richard and Laura Blake, on Lord Jim, default leaders of the mooring.

Over the course of a few days, we share the small dramas of their lives as they fret about not only their own problems but also that of their neighbours, whom they are quick to help or at least comfort. The slowly sinking Dreadnought, the vulnerability of Maurice, the marital problems of Nenna, are all symptoms of the social decline of the floating community.

Immune from the general gloom, Nenna’s daughters, 11-year-old Martha and 6-year-old Tilda, have known little else and are as at home on the river as the rats that are kept at bay by the greased mooring ropes. They radiate freshness and hope.

At under two hundred pages, the book gives a taste of life on the river, a glimpse into a community rarely featured but here portrayed in realistic, if affectionate, style.

Katalin Street – Magda Szabo

The book-packing journey reaches Eastern Europe in the shape of Hungary.

Specifically at Katalin Street, Budapest, to follow the lives of three families who live in adjacent houses there. The properties are substantial with views out onto the Danube, and the residents are solidly middle class.

Mr Elekes is a headteacher with a wife and two daughters, Iren and Blanka. Next door but one are widower Major Biro, live-in housekeeper Mrs Temes, and the major’s son Balent, who is a little older than the girls. In the middle house, newly arrived, are Mr Held, a dentist, with his wife and daughter, Henriette, the youngest of the children. The Helds are Jewish, and this is 1934 …

After an extended preface that meanders enigmatically through time and space, the narrative unfolds in half a dozen chronological snapshots from 1934 to 1968. Some are told in the first person by Iren. The others are narrated in the third person from Henriette’s point of view that unnervingly persists beyond her early death in the upheavals of 1944.

For Budapest, the upheavals continue into the post war communist state and the false dawn of 1956. Such events form an unintrusive context to the story, the emphasis being on how they affect the residents of Katalin Street.

The spare prose quickly draws the reader into (mainly) the children’s lives – as children initially then as they grow older into adulthood. Throughout, the relationships among them – based on love, rivalry, jealousy, loyalty, and guilt – are particularly well drawn. There is enough forward shadowing to intrigue, and plenty of dramatic incidents to excite, before an end that is not so much a resolution as a coming to rest.

Once into the narrative, the book becomes an engrossing read.

Rubbernecker – Belinda Bauer

It starts when Sam Galen skids on an icy road in South Wales and sends his car over a precipice. Among the other motorists delayed by the accident is Sarah Fort, who is driving her son, Patrick, to a university interview in Cardiff. As their car halts at the scene, Patrick gets out to look over the abyss to the smoking car below. Is the driver dead, he asks the police, who give him and the other rubberneckers short shrift.

But Patrick is interested in death. When he was only seven, his father died in a car accident. And with Patrick on the autism spectrum, interested means obsessed.

But back to Sam Galen. He survives the crash but ends up in the coma ward at Cardiff. There, one of the nurses is Tracy Evans, not so much an angel of mercy as a mercenary angel on the look out for a rich husband, not necessarily her own.

The three storylines pan out. Sam’s is in the first person, a nerve-wracking account of an active mind in an unresponsive body. He sees things, bad things, but cannot report them. Tracy, who maybe should have noticed Sam’s attempts to communicate, has her focus elsewhere – on romantic novels, the boxes of chocolates from grateful relatives, and on the potentially widowed husbands.

Patrick too ends up in hospital, hoping that a course in the dissecting room will answer his questions about death and what comes after. He even manages to overcome his distaste of company to mix, if not socialise, with his fellow medical students and flat mates.

The book whizzes along with pithy prose and OMG inducing twists and turns. Incidents require police involvement, and a new character, DS Emrys Williams emerges and begins to knit together the plot strands. It all leads to a fine conclusion (for some if not all).

An excellent read; bring on more Belinda Bauer!

Origins – Lewis Dartnell

The aim of this book is to explore the linkage between the geology of Earth and human development and history. In the terms of the subtitle, how the Earth made us.

Starting from the formation of the planet and its structure, of which the drifting continents are the key feature, it swiftly homes in on what geological factors led to the emergence of homo sapiens as the dominant species.

Further chapters explain how climatic change affected early population spread; how wind patterns and ocean currents follow on from geological factors and how the discovery of them enabled Europeans to shift the axis of trade from overland routes such as the silk road to naval routes to overseas empires;  how science and technology has found and utilised the laid down rocks and minerals to drive development and draw on a bank of stored energy freeing mankind (for good or ill) from the previous constraints of sun-powered agriculture.

Well argued, informative and thought provoking.

Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir

Earth is in danger. The sun is dimming, losing energy faster than it should. The consequences are unthinkable. Forget global warming, the world will freeze to death.

Scientists of the world unite and find the reason. A strange life form, christened astrophage, is absorbing the sun’s energy and using it to migrate to Venus in order to breed and return in bigger numbers to start the cycle again. Good to find out, but how to fix the problem? A straw to grasp is that though the phenomenon is observable in most nearby stars, there is one that bucks the trend: Tau Ceti.

Dr Ryland Grace, who gave up a potentially brilliant academic career in science to teach high school, somehow gets head hunted into the Project Hail Mary team – so named as the hopes of the planet rest on a long hopeful shot, namely a thirteen year space flight to Tau Ceti to find out its secret. It is a suicide mission for the four crew, who must survive an induced coma, tended by robotic nursing for most of the trip, then send their findings back to Earth, using what fuel is left to power four tiny spacecrafts. Job done, the astronauts get to choose how to die.

Fortunately for Grace, he is not an astronaut, but as the novel opens with him waking up on-board, some last minute change must have occurred that his coma-fogged brain cannot fathom. From there the book twin tracks the ongoing mission with the back story.

Both breeze along from one scientific discovery, through setbacks, to the next problem only science can solve. It is a bit far-fetched, and when the Hail Mary gets to Tau Ceti, credibility is stretched to, or beyond, breaking point.

This is The Martian supercharged to beyond reason, just about worth pursuing to get to a tense conclusion, which is in doubt to the end.

The Reindeer Hunters – Lars Mytting

 This, the second book of trilogy, takes up the story twenty-two years after the end of The Bell in the Lake. Kai Schweigaard is still the pastor at Butengen in rural Norway, and still tends the grave of Astrid Hekne, who died in Dresden giving birth to twin boys. Kai brought her body home for burial and her one surviving son, Jehans, home to his mother’s family.

Head of the family, Osvald Hekne, has kept Jehans at arm’s length, but Kai Schweigaard has compensated by nurturing the boy at least up to adolescence at which point Jehans went rogue. He now spends most of his days fishing and hunting with an old rifle.

Now, up in the hills, he shoots a fine buck reindeer, but the kill is disputed by another hunter. He is a well-heeled English gentleman, Victor Harrison, and the two men strike up an immediate mutual liking, they even speak each other’s language – Victor had a Norwegian nanny, and Jehans was schooled in English by Kai. Without animosity the two reindeer hunters examine the corpse to discover it was a simultaneous hit. They agree to share the spoils, Jehans taking a cash settlement, just enough to buy a better rifle.

A year later and Jehans and Victor bump into each other again in the hunting grounds. When Victor is injured, Jehans takes him back to Butengen to recover at the pastor’s house. When Kai sees Victor, it is like déjà vu. He is the double of Jehan’s deceased father.

As Jehans’ and Victor’s stories develop separately, their potential true relationship seeps into their, and Kai’s consciousness. Is it possible that Astrid secretly gave away the second twin, and he has now, unknowingly, found his way back to Butengen? Kai believes it without understanding how. Victor is in denial, unwilling to disown his English heritage and family pile. Jehans is just happy to have a soulmate.

In parallel, Kai continues to search for the legendary, long-lost Hekne weave – a seventeenth century tapestry that is reputed to foretell events. All this against a backdrop of World War I that affects Victor and the subsequent flu epidemic that threatens Jehans and his family.

It is as beautifully written as its predecessor and builds to a tense and satisfying climax. We get a hint of who will carry the tale forward into the concluding (yet to be published) volume. I cannot wait.

The Echo Chamber – John Boyne

 Meet the Cleverley family who enjoy a privileged lifestyle funded by successful parents: George Cleverley, television journalist turned chat show host; and Beverly Cleverley, best-selling author churning out romantic fluff. Both are having secret affairs. The three children (17 to 23) benefit from liberal upbringing and generous allowances.

Eldest Nelson actually has a job at the school he used to attend, where he is bullied, as he was when a pupil. Next is Elizabeth with ambitions to be an on-line influencer, and a boyfriend so woke that he gets Elizabeth to sign a written consent when they make love. Youngest Achilles uses his boyish good looks and charm to provide an income from honey-trapped middled-aged men.

So far, so harmless. Just your regular 2020’s family, until:

George is hit by a double-whammy, his lover announces she is pregnant, and he gets into a pronoun tangle with a transitioning receptionist, a gaff amplified by the echo chamber of social media. Beverly (who no longer actually writes her books but employs a ‘ghost’ to ‘fill out’ her creative ideas) finds she is losing her lover, a Ukrainian dancer whom she partnered on Strictly. Nelson, who hides his insecurity by dressing up in uniforms to which he has no right, goes a step too far when he changes from nurse’s scrubs to police officer. Elizabeth, whose @ElizCleverley social media presence is pitiful, finds vilely trolling celebrities, including her father, as @TruthIsASword more rewarding in terms of followers. As for Achilles, his latest mark seems to have gone cold, requiring the ante to be upped.

The five story lines ricochet forward reflecting life in the modern, media obsessed, fast lane, but they are all heading pear shaped.

It is fast paced, easy, entertaining reading, the characters relatable and not so much bad as caught in bad situations. It is funny, with some slapstick moments, holding up a mirror to society, and taking a few well-meaning pot shots at political correctness and woke behaviour.

The High House – Jessie Greengrass

The High House – Jessie Greengrass

The location of the High House is unclear, other than it is a few miles inland and built on high rocky ground. Francesca, a climate change scientist and activist, convinced sea levels will soon rise disastrously, chose it for that reason and spends years fixing it up, clearing the attached smallholding, and latterly stocking it up with enough food, clothing, spare parts, and toys to make it self-sufficient.

The toys are a late addition as Francesca falls pregnant, but baby Paul sees little of his globetrotting mother, being left increasingly in the care of teenage stepsister, Caro.

In the coastal village below the High House another teenager, Sally, lives with her ‘Grandy’, who makes a living caretaking holiday homes left empty over winter. With the clock ticking to Armageddon, Francesca appoints Grandy as full time concierge at High House, and she recruits a reluctant Sally as housekeeper – Grandy is getting on and this is a long term project.

Finally the panicked word comes to Caro – don’t delay, get Pauly and yourself off to the High House.

Narrated in flashback by Caro, Sally, and a lesser extent Pauly, the preparation, disaster, and aftermath are told in personal and understated detail. These are resourceful girls, and you root for them. The novel is an excellent blend of a dystopian story of a near future and a study of relationships in a closed community of just four.

Barnaby Rudge – Charles Dickens

 This is one off my Book-et List, completing the fourteen (finished) novels of Charles Dickens. I read Oliver Twist in 1975, David Copperfield in 1977, ploughed through six novels in the 1980s, two in the 1990s, two more in the noughties, and the last prior to this in 2009.

Set earlier than most of his novels, we are in the period of the Gordon Riots of the 1780s, when the mob, whipped up by Lord George Gordon, head of the Protestant Association, took to the streets to protest at the removal of official anti-Catholic discrimination that had been in place since 1698.

Dickens’ plots cannot be given justice in a precis so instead, themes and characters. Star crossed lovers across the religious divide, Edward Chester and Emma Haredale; their respective father and uncle, lifelong enemies; good-hearted Joe Willet, at odds with his innkeeper father and rebuffed by flighty locksmith’s daughter, Dolly Varden, who prefers to bask in the attention of the local dandies.

Then there is Barnaby Rudge, a simple youth eager to please and easily led. By, for example, black-hearted ‘gypsy looking’ Hugh, who sees the riots as an outlet for his violent tendencies, and apprentice locksmith Simon Tappertitt, who fancies himself as a commander of the rabble.

The action ranges between London and its hinterland. Catholic’s property is at risk from the rioters; the rioters are at risk from the military; the ladies are at risk from the villains; love is at risk of being frustrated; and poor young Barnaby Rudge, an innocent abroad amid the chaos, is at the most risk of all.

The characters may be stock rather than memorable, but the descriptions of the riots are vivid and filled with jeopardy.

So, with Dickens done with, my pick of his fourteen major works are: Great Expectations, Bleak House, and Our Mutual Friend.

Review of 2022 Reading Year

The return to normality after the worst effects of the pandemic resulted in a slight decrease in reading levels with 34 books read in the year. Again the majority (62%) were by ‘new to me’ authors. The gender balance tipped this year with a 60:40 preference for male authors, and the males dominate the best reads list by 6 to 2. The reading group was back on providing 7 titles (including 2 best reads) and the ‘bookpacking’ reading journey progressed through Asia in 5 books (though none of these get a place at the top table).

My eight best books of the year are: (Month of full review in brackets.)

 

Ella Minnow Pea – Mark Dunn: Clever, funny, and cautionary tale told in epistolatory form of how dogmatism can develop into totalitarianism, even in a small island with an educated and literate populace. (Jan)

 

The Shining – Stephen King: Rightly considered a classic of the horror genre, the storytelling skill of King making the unthinkable all too credible. (Feb)

 

American Dirt – Jeanine Cummins: Frenetic, tension-ridden ride through Mexico as a woman and her young son join the tragic flow of those fleeing crime, terror, and injustice to seek sanctuary in the US. (May)

 

The Rotters Club – Jonathan Coe: Ben Trotter’s life unfolds from adolescence to adulthood in 1970s suburban Birmingham, full of iconic references, humour, and pathos. (Jun)

 

The Miniaturist – Jessie Burton: Atmospheric and engrossing novel set in 17^th century Amsterdam about a young woman’s introduction (as wife) into an older merchant’s claustrophobic household. (Jul)

 

Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari: A masterly and very readable account of human history with some original insights and thought-provoking ideas. (Aug)

 

There’s Only Two David Beckhams – John O’Farrell: Written years earlier but set at the 2022 Qatar world cup, a humour packed novel about football and parenthood, winning and doing the right thing, and the choices to be made between them. (Sep)

The Farther Corner – Harry Pearson: The author revisits the northeast football scene at all levels, the result as funny as the original Far Corner but underscored by a layer of personal reflection. (Sep)