Books do furnish a room

Thanks Willoyd, The Five is definitely a stand out book for me too. Where the Poppies Blow by John Lewis-Stempel Lewis-Stempel has written books about the natural world and about the First World War. Here he combines these two interests and looks at the natural world and the war. There are chapters on birds, horses, vermin (four legged and six legged), flowers and gardens, pets (dogs, cats and the like) and hunting and shooting. Between each chapter is an interstice, some contain poetry, others lists of mascots, statistics about disease, lists of battlefield birds and lists of naturalists. There is a good deal of poetry in the book. Lewis-Stempel also uses a large number of journals from soldiers and officers. There’s a lot of what you would expect in this, but there are some interesting observations. The corpses in no man’s land attracted huge numbers of birds like crows and magpies which fed on them. Rats and mice also did the same, which meant there were large numbers of raptors and owls feeding on them. The corpses also accounted for the millions of flies on the western front. Horses were also vital for moving things around, but there weren’t enough in Britain to meet the need and so many were brought across the Atlantic, especially mules, which were better adapted for the mud on the front. Over half a million horses and mules were used throughout the campaign. The soldiers also needed feeding and I wasn’t aware that by the end of the war, most of the fresh food the army needed was grown near the front; celery grew particularly well in trenches! There are the usual stories about hunting, shooting and fishing. Fishing sometimes supplemented rations. The penchant of the English aristocracy and upper classes to go into the countryside and shoot anything that moves didn’t change at war. There is also a good deal of sentimentality when it comes to pets and animal companions. The journal extracts and poetry are interesting (some of the poetry is good, some not so). Ivor Gurney stands out and one of his phrases is striking: “The amazed heart cries angrily out on God” Note that he is not crying out to God, but “On God”, in a poem about pain: animal and human. Another thing to remember is the relationship of many people at this time to the countryside. The Church of England, away from its evangelical and Anglo-Catholic extremes had (and has) a tendency to pantheism. The theologian Thomas Traherne said: “How do we know but the world is that body; which the Deity has assumed to Manifest His Beauty” The countryside he loves is not the handiwork of God, it is God. There is a good deal of this evident in poetic and journal form. Yearning for home is inevitable amidst the suffering and dying. This poem illustrates the feelings of those who got home, it is by Will Harvey: “For I am come to Gloucestershire, which is my very home. Tired out with wandering and sick of wars beyond the foam. I have starved enough in foreign parts, and no more care to roam. Quietly I will bide here in the place where I be, Which knew my father and his grandfather, and my dead brothers and me. And bred us and fed us, and gave us pride of yeoman ancestry Men with sap of Earth in their blood, and the wisdom of weather and wind. Who ploughed the land to leave it better than they did find, And lie stretched out down Westbury way, where the blossom is kind; And lie covered with petals from the orchards that do shed Their bloom to be a light white coverlet over the dead Who ploughed the land in the daytime, and went well pleased to bed.” This is interesting, informative and well researched. There is some sentimentality and some stomach churning moments. There are plenty of lesser known poets and a few of the usual suspects. The glimpses of the front at Gallipoli are also of interest. 7 out of 10 Starting Who was changed and who was dead by Barbara Comyns

It is excellent Vodkafan; not sure if there is a connection though. Folk by Zoe Gilbert This is set in the fictional village of Neverness, located on an island loosely based on the Isle of Man. Folklore and tradition is at the heart of the novel and there is a re-working of traditional themes. Although it is billed as a novel, it is really a linked collection of short stories. One of these stories won the Costa short story award in 2014. Interestingly there is no religion and religious imagery in the traditional sense. There is plenty of superstition, which is culturally important and a careful adherence to ritual. These are fairy tales, with no fairies in sight. There is also a strong sense of nature and the natural world. Hares, kites and bees all play starring roles. Neverness is on an island and the narrowness of belief reflects real life concerns. In one tale a woman perceived as a witch and scapegoated. There is no easy chronology here and some natural rules are suspended. A sentence like "Verlyn Webbe has a wing in place of an arm" will immediately put some readers off. There is a shared geography and some shared characters, although major characters in one tale become minor ones later. The stories do build a sense of place and there is violence in the mythography: nature really is red in tooth and claw. Tradition, ritual and a belief in a story seems to make it true. Gilbert is also good at setting a scene: “Listen, for the beat that runs through the gorse maze. It is an early twilight, the opening between last sun and first star, the door of the day closing until, soon, night will seal it shut. There are feet thudding in the gorse’s winding tunnels, hearts thumping in time. Above them the breath of boys hisses. Puffs of their steam are lost in spiny roofs.” One reviewer has referred to this as a map rather than a novel or collection of stories (and there is indeed a map of Neverness in the front of the book) and this certainly makes sense to me. A map of British mythic imagination with a core that repels and entices at the same time. It is vaguely reminiscent of Angela Carter. The boundaries between nature and human life are blurred; there are water spirits looking for female companionship, people able to leave their bodies and soar with the kites (a bird of prey) at night and maybe decide to stay up there forever. It's not a demanding read and if you like myth and folklore you are likely to enjoy it. There is plenty of fluidity of roles, but Gilbert maybe could have extended that fluidity to gender and sexuality as well. 7 out of 10 Starting Liza's England by Pat Barker

It is good vodkafan and rather positive as well The Five by Hallie Rubenhold This work finally puts in place what has been missing from studies relating to Jack the Ripper: it focuses on the five women, not on the murderer or the methods of murder. Rubenhold has meticulously done her research and her gaze is directly on the five and not on the Ripper. She dedicates the book to the five. Rubenhold is very clear that the dismissal of the women as "just prostitutes" is entirely wrong. Only one, Mary Jane Kelly, had consistently worked as a prostitute, Elizabeth Stride had periodically, but not for long. In doing so Rubenhold is able to highlight the status of women at the time: "When a woman steps out of line and contravenes the feminine norm, whether on social media on on the Victorian street, there is a tacit understanding that somone must put her back in her place. Labelling the victims as 'just prostitutes' permits writing about Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Kate and Mary Jane even today to continue to disparage, sexualize and dehumanize them; to continue to reinforce values of madonna/'lady of the night'" There are no gory descriptions here and the actual deaths barely merit a paragraph. There is a good deal of analysis of the nature of the workhouse, descriptions of the doss houses where the poor often slept and a look at sleeping rough in the capital at the time. A number of the women worked in domestic service and the precariousness of this way of life is made clear. The role of alcohol was key for a number of the women. All of them had been in relationships, four had married and there were several children. Rubenhold has carefully researched each woman and pieced together the stories. The research is so thorough that when she has to fill in gaps, she does so with authority. A fair amount is known about four of them. The fifth, Mary Jan Kelly remains mostly unknown. We don't actually know when or where she was born or what her real name was. Rubenhold follows all the leads and outlines the various possibilities, but she remains a mystery. But she gives them all agency and a voice, taking the focus off the brutality of their deaths. There are clear descriptions of the lives of the working (and non-working) poor and how their lives were lived. One of the issues Rubenhold has said she wanted to highlight relates to childbirth (and death): “You have these women with horrible birth injuries from repetitive childbirth and really terrible antenatal care… Women just gave birth until their bodies gave out.” This is a proper history book, well researched and telling a set of stories to put the spotlight on where it should be in relation to Jack the Ripper; on the five women and their backgrounds. 9 out of 10 Starting The Tale of Genji

The Futurist Cookbook by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti This is a rather bizarre offering from one of the pioneers of the futurist movement. It provides some of the most strange recipes I have ever read and is primarily a plea/demand for Italians to give up eating pasta because it leads to bloatedness and idleness and is not good for the spirit. There's a great deal that's Avant Garde, and slightly surreal. Unfortunately there is a significant amount of misogyny and racism and as this comes from the late 20s and early 30s, a support for fascism. It's all about novelty and shock and the setting for the food is as important as the food. There may also be an element of prank about it, but it seemed to be taken perfectly seriously at the time. Let me give you a little flavour: "A Simultaneous Dish (formula by the futurist aeropoet Marinetti) Chicken aspic, half of it studded with squares of raw young camel meat, rubbed with garlic and smoked, and half studded with balls of hare meat stewed in wine. Eat this by washing down every mouthful of camel with a sip of acqua del Serino and every mouthful of hare with a sip of Scira (a non-alcoholic Turkish wine made with must)" Raw meat of various types is fairly common in the recipes. There's also quite a focus on flying and some of the meals are supposed to be eaten in aeroplane cockpits. Here's another example: "Sicilian Headland (formula by the Futurist Aeropainter Fillia) Chop together tuna, apples, olives and little Japanese nuts. Spread the resulting paste on a cold egg and jam omelette." There's a great deal more like this and certainly some of it reminded a little of what Heston Blumenthal has been doing. I didn't like the political philosophy and after a while the recipes and settings just become boring, but it is an interesting period piece. 5 out of 10 Starting Where Poppies Blow by John Lewis-Stempel

Winter by Ali Smith This is the second in Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet. It isn’t a follow on from the first with new characters. There are four principals. Sophia is an aging businesswoman living in a large house in Cornwall which is mostly empty. Her older sister Iris is a child of the protest movements, including Greenham Common. Sophia’s son Arthur (Art) runs a blog called Art into Nature. It is the Christmas season and Arthur is supposed to be taking his girlfriend Charlotte home to meet his mother. Unfortunately he and Charlotte have split up rather acrimoniously. Rather than turn up alone he sees a girl at a bus stop and offers to pay her to impersonate his girlfriend for the visit. Her name is Lux. That is pretty much the whole cast. There are plenty of flashbacks into the 70s, 80s and 90s. Whilst there isn’t a great deal of plot, there is a lot going in: including some sharp word play. Trump is in the background and is only directly referenced right at the end. But then Smith references the Berlin tune White Christmas linking it to a growing white nationalism. The penultimate line is “God help us every one!” Obviously a play on Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol. There’s plenty of this type of word play and references to contemporary events. When Sophia realises that Lux (Charlotte) is from Croatia she refers to her not as Charlotte, but as “that foreign girl”, bringing to mind the “us vs them” mentality of Brexit. There are inevitably Shakespearean references and the plot of Cymbeline is present. Also real things seem fake and fake things real, referencing the current fake news era. There are links to the Arthurian legends and even Woolf’s Orlando. There are also plenty of references of the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, linked to Sophia and Hepworth’s use of form: “a means of retaining freedom whilst carrying out what was demanded of me as a human being… a completely logical way of expressing the intrinsic ‘will to live’ as opposed to the extrinsic disaster of the world war.” There are plenty of ghosts of Christmases past and a look at loneliness and community at Christmas with some thoughts about Christmas music: “It gives a voice to spirit at its biggest, and encourages spirit at its smallest, its most wizened, to soak itself in something richer. It intrinsically means a revisiting. It means the rhythm of the passing of time, yes, but also, and more so, the return of time in its endless and comforting cycle to this special point in the year when regardless of the dark and cold we shore up and offer hospitality and goodwill and give them out, a bit of luxury in a world primed against them both.” Most of the time Smith keeps her own feelings in check, but just occasionally she shows her anger: “Sophia had been feeling nothing for some time now. Refugees in the sea. Children in ambulances. Blood-soaked men running to hospitals or away from burning hospitals or away from burning hospitals carrying blood-covered children. Dust-covered dead people by the sides of roads. Atrocities. People beaten up and tortured in cells. Nothing. Also, just, you know, ordinary everyday terribleness, ordinary people just walking around on the streets of a country she’d grown up in, who looked ruined, Dickensian, like poverty ghosts from a hundred years ago. Nothing.” It’s the story of a season, a country and two sisters. There are plenty of loose ends and most of them are not tied up (thankfully). It doesn’t have the sharp immediacy of the first in the series, but it’s a worthwhile addition. 8 out of 10 Starting Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange This is a choreopoem and is a series of twenty poems for a cast of seven principals: they are Ladies in Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple and Brown. It expresses the struggles and problems that African-American women face; and amazingly it’s 45 years old now. The poems are linked by music. Subjects addressed include rape, domestic violence, loss, abortion and being abandoned. This is based on Shange’s own experience. I have read this rather than seen a production of it and obviously it would be much more powerful on stage. There is a film as well which I also haven’t seen, but will look out for. There is so much in this and Shange dissects the relationship between black women and black men as well as looking at how black women are portrayed: “ever since i realized there waz someone callt a colored girl an evil woman a bitch or a nag i been trying not to be that & leave bitterness in somebody else’s cup” Shange’s candour has been criticized for highlighting this issue, but she is clear what her focus is: “sing a black girl’s song bring her out to know herself to know you but sing her rhythms care/struggle/hard times sing her song of life she’s been dead so long closed in silence so long she doesn’t know the sound of her own voice her infinite beauty” Shange also says what she has to say with a deal of humour as well: “without any assistance or guidance from you i have loved you assiduously for 8 months 2 wks & a day i have been stood up four times i've left 7 packages on yr doorstep forty poems 2 plants & 3 handmade notecards i left town so i cd send to you have been no help to me on my job you call at 3:00 in the mornin on weekdays so i cd drive 27 1/2 miles cross the bay before i go to work charmin charmin but you are of no assistance i want you to know this waz an experiment to see how selifsh i cd be if i wd really carry on to snare a possible lover if i waz capable of debasin my self for the love of another if i cd stand not being wanted when i wanted to be wanted & i cannot so with no further assistance & no guidance from you i am endin this affair this note is attached to a plant i've been waterin since the day i met you you may water it yr damn self” Shange grew up in the midst of the civil rights movement and the turbulence of the 1960s and it shows in this; she is making a point not just to black men, but to the white feminist movement as well. There is a pattern of frustration as well; an alienation and loneliness because issues with black men. There has been an ongoing debate surrounding this which has been well documented. It was also interesting to see a walk on part for Toussaint L’Overture. This is a powerful piece of work with many layers and a powerful and significant message. I hope to see it on stage one day; but in the meantime I will look out for the film. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

Thanks Hayley The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles “A novel of alienation and existential despair” written just after the Second World War. I think I was supposed to like this: I didn’t. It is essentially about three Americans wandering around North Africa and the Sahara just after the war. Kit and Port Moresby are the centre of the book, a married couple travelling; their friend Tunner is with them for part of the journey. Bowles is very caught up with the difference between a tourist and a traveller, he spent his later life living in North Africa: “He did not think of himself as a tourist; he was a traveler. The difference is partly one of time, he would explain. Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler, belonging no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly, over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another. Indeed, he would have found it difficult to tell, among the many places he had lived, precisely where it was he had felt most at home. Before the war it had been Europe and the Near East, during the war the West Indies and South America” There is a very early indication that the whole is not going to be a cheerful travel romp or a clear-sighted cultural analysis or even a critique of colonialism when Port talks about “infinite sadness at the core of his consciousness”. Yep, we’re going to be navel-gazing and reflecting on how tragic we travellers are. To give Bowles his due, there is no sense of romance about the travel, it’s all pretty grim. There is a sort of love triangle between Port, Kit and Tunner which is partially hinted at (especially between Port and Tunner). One of the problems with this is attitude towards the general population. Bowles in his writings shares his feelings about Moroccans, “The Moroccan, educated or otherwise, simply does not believe in germs”. There is an underlying racism. There are plenty of colonialist clichés. Even some of the minor western characters have interior lives, the French colonial soldiers and administrators. The Moroccans are not given that privilege. As for the attitude to women; Kit is a collection of stereotypes based on some rather disturbing male fantasies (spoilers ahead). The rape scene is an example: Kit immediately falls in love with her rapist (cue tropes about handsome “dusky” males and no really means yes). So in love is she that she allows some other bloke to rape her as long as the first bloke is there. I’m probably missing some irony here, but this was just awful. Bowles was frequently derogatory about his adopted country, “thought is not a word one can use in connection with Morocco”. He frequently uses words like “purely predatory”, “essentially barbarous” and “childlike”. He also was very influenced by the “Hamitic hypothesis” that everything of value in Africa came from the Hamites, a Caucasian race who were superior to all the races to the south (nothing to do with skin colour of course!!!). These sort of ideas permeate this book. I haven’t even touched on the attitudes to mental health! How does this stuff become so revered? 2 out of 10 Starting The Futurist Cookbook by Filippo Marinetti

Thank you Willoyd; will keep you posted! The Salt Path by Raynor Winn The premise is straightforward. Raynor Winn and her husband Moth are in the early 50s. A poor finance decision has put their home in Wales at risk: it’s a small farm/smallholding and they have been there for about twenty years. They lose a court case and lose their home and it’s all pretty brutal with bailiffs and all. Two days later Moth is diagnosed with a terminal degenerative illness, Corticobasal degeneration: “..a rare degenerative brain disease that would take the beautiful man I’d loved since I was a teenager and destroy his body and then his mind as he fell into confusion and dementia, and end with him unable to swallow and probably choking to death on his own saliva. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing they could do about it.” What to do? Especially as they have very little money and although they can rely on friends for a week or two it isn’t a long term solution. They decide to spend their last money on some basic camping equipment and to walk the coastal path between Minehead and Poole. A total of 630 miles around the coast of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Dorset. The book recounts their journeys and how they managed with only £48 per week. One interesting issue raised by this account relates to homelessness. Urban homelessness is obvious and clear to see. Rural homelessness is different and not so obvious and often does involves backpackers with their lives on their backs. Seasonal work often means people do not have the means to keep a roof over their heads. Winn describes coming across all sorts of people who were homeless, often overlooked by society: “They were hidden away, communities living together in the woods going out to work every day. They lived in horse-boxes, sheds, all sorts of ways that people find to live if they don’t have a house.” Winn also makes some very important points about perception and attitude about homelessness: “When people asked how we had so much time to walk so far, we’d explain we lost our home. They’d almost physically recoil — that reaction came as a shock. We learned how to deal with it — to say we’d sold our house, we were having a mid-life moment, going where the wind took us. And they’d say: ‘Oh Wow! That’s inspirational’. There’s a huge difference between how people perceive selling and losing one’s home.” The beginning of the book is traumatic as Winn and Moth lose everything and losing a home is always more than just bricks and mortar: “Every stone we had carefully placed, the tree where the children played, the hole in the wall where the blue tits nested, the loose piece of lead by the chimney where the bats lived,” She doesn’t minimize the difficulties they faced: “The very beginning was especially difficult, not just because Moth was finding it so physically hard, even getting out of the tent in the morning and putting his boots on — but because of the transition from the normal life we’d led a few weeks earlier to now finding ourselves homeless on the cliffs.” One of the surprises was Moth’s physical state. The doctor’s had said it would be a downhill path, but over the walk he gradually improved and became stronger. The illness remained, but the trajectory was different. As you might expect there is a bit of travelogue and a good deal about food or lack of it. A diet of fudge and noodles isn’t to be recommended. Some of the travelogue bits are rather basic and feel like they’ve been taken out of guides. There is also a danger of being a little preachy. This clearly worked for Winn and Moth, but there is no guarantee that this could be a universal panacea. It is however inspiring and very moving at times and Winn makes some very pertinent points about homelessness. 8 out of 10 Starting For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange

The rest of my selections for the above are: G3 Africa: Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga I5 Novella: Exquisite Cadavers by Meena Kandasamy O2 Asia: Women Who Blow On Knots by Ece Temelkuran B4 Queer: Mean Little Deaf Queer by Terry Galloway I4 Pre 1800s: The Tale of Genji O5 Short Story Collection: Isobars by Janette Turner Hospital O3 Poetry: Say Something Back by Denise Riley N4 Less than 1000 ratings: The Three Sisters May Sinclair G2 Nobel Laureate: The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing G1 1800s: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen N5 Fantasy: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke N1 2000s: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo I1 Translation: Disoriental by Negar Djavadi B5 Potential Classic: Liza's England by Pat Barker B1 The 1900s: The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall B2 Scifi: The long way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers G5 Mystery/thriller: The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins I3 Disability: Call me Ahab by Anne Finger G4 Less than 5000 ratings: Jubilee by Margaret Walker I2 Play: For Colored who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange N3 Free Space: I want to read two books in conjunction and one of them will fit into this free space. They are: Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi Jasmine and Stars: Reading more than Lolita in Tehran by Fatemeh Keshavarz

This year the target is 80 books. Also in this is a women related reading goal. A friend on GoodReads is doing a reading women Bingo which goes as follows: B 1 1900s (year of publication) 2 sci fi 3 Latin America (author country of origin) 4 queer (theme/author) 5 potential classic (published after 1969) I 1 translation (not from English) 2 play 3 disability (theme/author) 4 pre-1800s (year of publication) 5 novella (less than 200 pages) N 1 2000s (year of publication) 2 long read (600+ pages) 3 free space 4 less than 1,000 ratings 5 fantasy G 1 1800s (year of publication) 2 nobel prize laureate 3 Africa (author country of origin) 4 less than 5,000 ratings 5 mystery/thriller O 1 Less than 10,000 ratings 2 Asia (author country of origin) 3 poetry 4 nonfiction 5 short story collection So I am attempting this. In terms of the ratings: less than 1000 would be not very well known, less than 5000 would be moderately well known and less than 10000, well known. Of the books I have started: The House of the Spirits is B3 Newfoundland is N2 Winter by Ali Smith is O1, less than 10000 ratings The Five is O4

At the start of 2020 I am currently reading The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende Newfoundland by Rebbecca Ray The Salt Path by Raynor Winn Winter by Ali Smith The Five by Hallie Rubenhold Folk by Zoe Gilbert The Pinecone: the story of Sarah Losh by Jenny Uglow The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi This is a collection of short stories, twenty-one in all, each one named after an element of the periodic table. In the UK the Royal Institution has voted it the best science book ever. There is a variety of stories: some are very personal memoirs, a few are fictional, some look at industrial processes and there is a good deal about the nature of words. Sometimes Levi does describe a search for a particular element, but in others he uses the fundamentals of the element for comparative purposes. In Argon he uses its almost complete inertness as a symbol for the marginalisation of his Piedmontese Jewish ancestors. Levi explains his passion for chemistry and the reasons for his pursuit of it as a career; as always the reasons are complex: “I have often suspected that, deep down, the motives for my boyhood choice of chemistry were different from the ones I rationalised and repeatedly declared. I became a chemist not (or not only) from a need to understand the world around me; not in reaction to the cloudy dogmas of Fascism; and not in the hope of riches or scientific glory; but to find, or create, an opportunity to exercise my nose.” Levis also writes well and tells a good story and there is a lyricism to his writing and even humour: “Zinc, Zinck, zinco: they make tubs out of it for laundry, it is not an element which says much to the imagination, it is grey and its salts are colourless, it is not toxic, nor does it produce striking chromatic reactions; in short, it is a boring metal. It has been known to humanity for two or three centuries, so it is not a veteran covered with glory like copper, nor even one of those newly minted elements which are still surrounded by the glamour of their discovery.” There is a poignancy to it as well, as when he leaves a job at a nickel mine to go to a lab in Milan, describing his essential belongings: “..my bike, Rabelais, the Macaronaeae, Moby Dick translated by Pavese, a few other books, my pickaxe, climbing rope, logarithmic ruler, and recorder.” The most powerful piece in the collection is Vanadium. It is post war and the firm Levi is working for has a query about the quality of some compound being purchased from a firm in Germany. He begins a correspondence with his opposite number. Gradually he realizes that he knows the man, a civilian scientist in the war who worked for the Nazis and he met him in Auschwitz. Levi explores his feelings and reactions to a man who was not unkind to him, but who essentially was a moral coward in the face of evil. The last chapter on carbon could be described as a little sentimental, but I can forgive Levi that. This isn’t a book about science, although there is plenty of science in it; it’s about humanity and the quirks and idiosyncrasies of everyday life. Levi is a good storyteller expressing human warmth, puzzlement and a sense of justice. A must read. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting Winter by Ali Smith

Academy Street by Mary Costello A deceptively simple novella about a woman of no significance or importance: an ordinary life. Tess is born in rural Ireland in the 1940s in a typical Catholic household. The novel takes us through seventy years of life (in about twice the amount of pages). Tess loses her mother at a young age and this is a pivotal experience: “The stairs sweep up and turn to the right and it is here on the turn, by the stained-glass window, that her uncle’s back comes into view. Light is streaming in. Her heart starts to beat fast. She sees the back of a neighbour, Tommy Burns, and her other uncle, struggling. And then she understands. At the exact moment she sees the coffin, she understands.” This starts Tess’s sense of isolation and an existence on the edge of life for the most part. We see snapshots of a childhood and then Tess trains as a nurse. The narrative is deeply part of Tess’s mindset. The warp and weft of her life can be seen by the reader and will resonate with many: “She goes to the cinema with a girl from Cork, but mostly avoids social gatherings and nights out. The shyness she feels among others, and the terrible need to fit in, cause her such anxiety that when the evening arrives the prospect of going among people renders her immobile, disabled, sometimes physically sick. Whenever possible, she opts for night duty, the low lights and the hush of the ward offering the closest thing to solitude available in a working life.” Tess moves to New York following her sister Claire and continues her career. She has a very brief romance: a child is born and she is a single parent to a son, Theo. She finds a best friend, Willa and life seems set in particular patterns. Tess has internal restrictions on her life which make her quite passive: “But never in her whole life had she had one iota of courage. She had sought, always, silent consent for everything she had done – as if she were without volition, as if a father or mother or God himself sat permanently on her right shoulder, holding sway over her thoughts and actions. And when consent was not gleaned, or was felt to be withheld, she resumed her position of quiet passivity.” There is a great humanity about Tess. We see her longing for the touch of another person. At times just wanting to touch and hold a man, but not wanting to disrupt her isolation; also wanting to touch/hold a particular woman, but again not wanting to disrupt a friendship. Tess is tentative and this can be a frustration for the reader, but she is very likeable: “Occasionally she thought about retiring, moving house, taking a trip back to Ireland, but she did none of these things. There was, in her nature, a certain passivity, an acquiescence that was ill-suited to change or transformation, as if she feared ruffling fate or rousing to anger some capricious creature that lay sleeping at the bottom of her soul.” Loss, grief and death gradually take hold. One slight irritation for me was the use off 9/11 to kill off a significant character, it felt a bit clumsy. But on the whole I loved this: it’s understated, moves slowly and has great warmth. “This was it. This was her life, the summation of her life, her dreams run out. She would not encounter love again. She would not lie down with a man or hold a child in her arms. She was at the end of her destiny.” 8 out of 10 Starting The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

Madeline; I much preferred The Silent Companions to this one. I just thought the tropes used for the villain were too easy and predictable. The ending is completely ambiguous! Queer Africa: Selected Stories edited by Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin This is a collection of short stories; a compilation from two previous volumes. There are stories here from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and Uganda amongst others. There are none from north of the Sahara, which is perhaps a weakness. One of the strengths is discovering a whole host of writers previously unknown to look out for in future. There are twenty-two stories here. In the introduction Chike Frankie Edozien makes some important points: "African books - by Africans, for Africans - have broken through the walls of major markets in international publishing, reclaiming our narratives for generations to come. Many exciting new voices have emerged to pick up the mantle for the next several decades. But while this was happening, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Africans found themselves under sustained, ferocious and often brutal attacks by the state. Religious fervour, often stoked by US evangelical Christians has led to countries ratcheting up anti-gay sentiments…This sparkling collection...means people all over the world will now have access to writing from across the continent that shows us as we really are, multidimensional and full of complexity." The stories cover a whole range of emotion and experience. Jambula Tree by Monica Arac De Nyeko was particularly good. There was one story which was out of place and with which I was very uncomfortable. My Dad forgot my Name by Victor Lewis is about a father and son who accidentally meet at a spa where men go to have sex. The meeting is uncomfortable, but leads at a later time with the father seducing and having sex with the son. I don’t think incest has any place in this sort of collection and sends the wrong sort of message. Or am I being too delicate? There is a general emphasis on youth and discovery of sexuality, as you might expect and they cover a range of emotions and problems as you would expect. Many of the stories come from places where being queer is challenging and this adds to their strength. Despite some mixed feelings this collection is well worth reading. 6 and a half out of 10 Starting Folk by Zoe Gilbert

The Body: a Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson I am joining a book club; unusual for me because I am not a hugely social animal. It is based at the university where I work for one day a week and it meets a lunch time, once every two months. This is the book for January; it’s not something I would have read in normal circumstances. Bryson employs his usual wry and laconic style and applies it to the human body. This isn’t a medical text book, but it is detailed and covers pretty much what you would expect. Bryson does cover the history and development of medicines, surgery and approaches to the body. He also uncovers some of the lesser known pioneers of medicine, those history has forgotten. Bryson tells their stories and uncovers their foibles in an entertaining way. The book is full of facts, it must be a dream for someone who goes to quizzes a lot, although there are some interesting ones as well. Bryson estimates that austerity in Britain has led to about 120 000 preventable deaths. He attributes the fact that Americans die at a younger age the Europeans to lifestyle. Bryson also takes a more global perspective and looks at the battle with infectious diseases and our overuse of antibiotics which has led to antibiotic resistant bugs. Bryson takes a look at the opioid crisis and at some of the medical techniques that did not stand the test of time; lobotomy for example. There are lots of interesting facts, many obscure diseases, lesser known medical operatives and trillions of cells. It is informative and Bryson is, as ever, a great raconteur. However I was left asking WHY? What’s it all for, interesting though it is? I’ll keep you posted on the book club! 7 out of 10 Starting The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

Thanks Willoyd The Corset by Laura Purcell Death by embroidery? Really? This is a gothic and menacing offering from the author of The Silent Companions (which I quite enjoyed). It is pure Victoriana and is well written and well told. The settings are pure Dickens with some typical prison and sweat shop scenes. There are two main characters. Dorothea Truelove (yes really) is an heiress who is unmarried and in her 20s. She does good works and is very much persuaded by phrenology and believes that the shape of the skull can give clues about the criminal propensities of the owner of said skull. Phrenology was quite popular in the mid nineteenth century. Dorothea is being pushed to marry a man of quality, but is actually enamoured of a policeman called David. Their relationship drifts through the book not really going anywhere. The other main character is Ruth Butterham. She is a young seventeen year old waiting to be tried for murder and most likely hanged. Dorothea visits Ruth and their stories alternate throughout the book. Dorothea visits the women’s prison regularly in the hope of persuading the inmates to allow her to feel their skulls and test her theories. Ruth has a tragic backstory and has to help her mother with her sewing from an early age. Circumstances lead Ruth to believe that she has the ability to damage people with her sewing and embroidery and there are various instances where this appears to be the case. Ruth is left orphaned and ends up in the equivalent of a sweat shop working for a tyrannical mistress called Mrs Metyard. The life is brutal and the punishments harsh, one even leading to the death of a young black girl called Miriam. The plot works itself out and Ruth seems to work some of her malevolence through her needle, Mrs Metyard comes to a sticky end and there are a couple of twists near the end which don’t come as a total surprise, but are quite baffling as the plot seems to get lost. So far, so gothic. It’s well told and the menace builds as it should. The whole thing doesn’t really seem to know whether it’s a crime novel or a supernatural chiller. Here’s the problems I have with it. The torture scenes are rather graphic and are being inflicted on young girls. Mrs Metyard, the one character in the book with no redeeming features, is even more of a problem. She is brutal and sadistic, especially when she has a reason to punish someone. At these times she emerges as The Captain, in male dress (possibly that of her late husband) and there is an unpredictability as to when The Captain will be present. So we have a combination of mental ill-health and tropes related to cross dressing/transgender being used to provide the role of antagonist. That did grate. Too much repetitious torture, misused tropes, not quite knowing what it’s meant to be and an inability to decide whose story it was. 5 out of 10 Starting The Pinecone by Jenny Uglow

Flush by Virginia Woolf This, on the surface is an oddity: a biography of a dog, Elizabeth Barrett’s cocker spaniel, Flush. It is a stream of consciousness novella, written straight after The Waves. Inevitably, because of the subject matter it is treated as a less serious work. Woolf certainly worried about it: “I open this to make one of my self-admonishments previous to publishing a book. Flush will be out on Thursday and I shall be very much depressed, I think, by the kind of praise. They’ll say it’s ‘charming,’ delicate, ladylike … I must not let myself believe that I’m simply a ladylike prattler.” Woolf felt that the point she was making would not be understood and said so to her friend Sybil Colfax when she appreciated the novel: “I’m so glad that you liked Flush. I think it shows great discrimination in you because it was all a matter of hints and shades, and practically no one has seen what I was after.” There are a number of themes addressed by Woolf. One of these is class, Flush is a pedigree dog whose antecedents are approved by the kennel club and who is above other mongrel dogs. He knows this, but over time he changes, through experience, and begins to realize that he is no different from the dogs on the street. It is also by its nature a commentary on the life of Barrett both before and after her involvement with Browning. Woolf’s obsession with London and its various glories and horrors also takes centre stage. Woolf scholar Jane Goldman makes some interesting points about Flush. It needs to be noted that although Barrett herself was an abolitionist, her family wealth came from plantations in Jamaica. The point is made that the collars and chains Flush wears can be seen as referencing those worn by slaves. A walk along Wimpole Street is seen as a slave arriving in a new country: “he stopped, amazed: defining and savouring until a jerk at his collar dragged him on” Flush has a previous existence in the country before he was given to Barrett: “the old hunting cry of the fields hallooed in his ears and he dashed forward to run as he had run in the fields at home … But now a heavy weight jerked at his throat; he was thrown back on his haunches. Why was he a prisoner here?” Flush was also intended to parody Lytton Strachey’s work on Queen Victoria. In addition there is the more obvious point that dogs were considered property in the same way that women were and are and links are drawn between the tyrannies each suffer. There’s plenty of sharp social comment here, although Woolf’s worries that it might be dismissed as sweet and sentimental; which given the attitude of the English towards animals was probably a credible worry. There is a philosophical element to Flush as well, consider the problem of what is real: “Then she would make him stand with her in front of the looking-glass and ask him why he barked and trembled. Was not the little brown dog opposite himself? But what is ’oneself’? Is it the thing people see? Or is it the thing one is? So Flush pondered that question too, and, unable to solve the problem of reality, pressed closer to Miss Barrett and kissed her ’expressively’. That was real at any rate.” There are recollections of Proust and collective memory: “Then with all her poet’s imagination Miss Barrett could not divine what Wilson’s wet umbrella meant to Flush; what memories it recalled, of forests and parrots and wild trumpeting elephants; nor did she know, when Mr Kenyon stumbled over the bell-pull, that Flush heard dark men cursing in the mountains; the cry, ‘Span! Span!’ rang in his ears, and it was in some muffled, ancestral rage that he bit him.” As there usually is with Woolf, there is much more going on than meets the eye and I suspect a second reading will be required. It can be read as a rather cute biography of a dog as Woolf feared: but it really is so much more than that. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Lanny by Max Porter Not quite sure why I’m reading this because I struggled with Porter’s first novel, Grief is a Thing with Feathers”. Like the previous novel this has several interspersed narrators. It is set in an English village about sixty miles from London. Like many English villages it is a cruciform shape revolving around a pub and a church; and like many English villages it has been there for centuries. The prime voices are Richard Lloyd and his wife Jolie (although her name isn’t divulged until later in the novel), an artist called Pete who has hippy credentials and is now getting on in years and there is one other main narrator. Here we wander into myth and legend. English history and folklore is littered with Green Man legends, portrayed in many churches with tendrils growing out of his mouth, a sort of ancient spirit/sprite/Puck who can also be corporeal and who has always been part of this village. Here he is named as Dead Papa Toothwort and he takes an active part in this narrative. He feeds off the life of the village and he is named after a parasitic plant (toothwort) which feeds off other plants as it has no chlorophyll of its own. The narrative revolves around Lanny, the young son of Robert and Jolie. Lanny is curious, sweet and enigmatic and comes out with odd sayings: “I’m a million cameras, even when I’m sleeping,” or “Which do you think is more patient, an idea or a hope?” Lanny is late primary school age and doesn’t really fit in with his classmates. His mother comes up with the idea of letting Lanny have art lessons with Pete. Pete, being an aging hippy type, doesn’t really do lessons, but they start to draw together and get along very well. Meanwhile Dead Papa Toothwort speaks like this: “He leaves the village riding the smells from the kitchens, spinning and surfing, wafting and curling, from Jenny's lasagne to Larton's microwave stroganoff, Derek's hotpot-for-one, such rich sauces, so much sugar, was never so varied as this, not-very-recently-dead meat dressed in fancy flavours, he laughs, funny busy worker bees of the village stuffing their faces and endlessly rebuilding and replacing things. All they are is bags of shopping and bags of rubbish. He takes such offence to the smell of Pam Foy's stir-in jalfrezi sauce that he tears a bit of his nightmare skin off and shoves it through her window. A truly horrid dream. Sleep well Pam, he chuckles, as he floats homeward across the field.” There is on particularly gruesome passage where Jolie finds a hedgehog trapped in a drain and is unable to free it, so she decides to put it out of its misery and basically smashes it to bits. It is a very unpleasant passage, but here is Dead Papa Toothwort’s reaction: “He was crouched in the septic tank watching this and he found it very pleasing. He saw in it an aspect of himself, of his part in things. He watched the boy’s mum mashing a hedgehog, turning panic stricken animal into watery blood-spike soup, and he loved it very much, same as Mrs Lartan stamping on a poisoned mouse to finish it off, same as John and Oliver shooting Jackdaws at the tip, same as Jean drowning wasps in her jam trap. One day as good as any in the human war against others. He loved the foot and mouth culls and spent those months slipping in and out of burning livestock; nothing new to Toothwort, veteran witness of the bovine burcs, the flus, the wonderful rinderpest, rain rot and sheep scab, the cycles of mange, mastitis and pox, he’s seen things die in thousands of ways.” Dead Papa Toothwort also listens in to conversations and you see little snippets in the text. They tend to be randomly strewed around, non-sequential, diagonal and printed sometimes on top of each other. This may be meant to be novel, clever or a different way of looking at the text: I just found it irritating. In the middle of the novel Lanny disappears and Porter gets the opportunity to look at how people react to this sort of occurrence. Obviously the relationship between Lanny and Pete is questioned by the police and the village. Even a watertight alibi doesn’t stop him getting beaten up for being a peadophile. The parenting skills of Richard and Jolie are questioned: why was he allowed to go out alone and why was he allowed to visit an older male alone. Porter tries to highlight the best and worst of human nature and looks at the nature of Englishness: “The thugs who will beat up an old man on the basis of a groundless rumour. The discord between what England believes itself to be and what it really is” The character of Richard is drawn well: he is rather shallow, thinks his son is a bit of a freak, watches porn on his phone thinking his wife doesn’t know (she does) and is a typical entitled middle class male. The ending, I found to be ridiculous and unbelievable, but I suppose the premise is if you have already read and accepted the folklore come to life that is Dead Papa Toothwort then you can accept the end of the book; unfortunately I didn’t. There are some funny moments and some of the snatches of conversation that Dead Papa Toothwort overhears are spot on. The portrayal of an English village as the centre of mysterious happenings has been done many times and I kept thinking of Agatha Christie and Miss Marple! What does it all add up to? On the whole this has been very well received and I think Porter does make some interesting points about human reactions to the disappearance of a child and the fears and prejudices surrounding it. However I think it was better done in Reservoir 13. I also think that you have to take care when using folklore in a modern context (I’m not saying don’t do it), especially in the way it was used here. Some may love this, but it didn’t convince me, especially the ending. 6 out of 10 Starting Academy Street by Mary Costello

Hope you both enjoy it! Ridge and Furrow by Neil Sentance In this brief book Neil Sentence creates brief vignettes of his extended family going back into the early twentieth century to chart the changes in rural life over the time period. The setting is Lincolnshire, although one family member ends up in Denmark and Sentance writes in relation to himself when he was living on the continent. This is not so much Magic realism as muddy realism in the flat clay fields: “The clay heaps under his feet, the furrows lengthening all the way to the stripped hedgerows beyond. A hare makes to scamper across his path, but sees him, coils and bolts the other way, gone in a breath.” This is a follow up volume to Water and Sky and it records and commemorates people seldom heard from or recorded. It charts war, poverty and change. There is an interesting collection of photographs (black and white) mainly from the 40s, 50s and 60s, but some earlier. The portraits are haunting and wistful; portraying the tough life of agricultural communities and the rapid changes of the twentieth century. This is a fascinating and poignant collection which preserves voices often lost; a form of oral history of those history would easily forget. 8 out of 10 Starting Newfoundland By Rebbecca Ray

Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver A gothic tale set in the fens and marshes of Eastern England, most specifically Suffolk. It is set between 1906 and 1913 when many of the old folklore and customs of the fens and marshes were still believed. There are all too few truly wild fens and marshes left, but this is set in one of them. There is a prelude set in 1966, when Maude Stearne aged 69 looks back on the childhood when the novel is set. At the centre of the story is her tyrannical and misogynist father Edmund. There are no spoilers as the novel is about why rather than what. Her father, one day in 1913, committed a horrific murder and spent the rest of his life in an asylum where he painted (loosely based on the painter Richard Dadd). The rediscovery of these paintings is the focus of the section set in the 1960s. The medieval mystic Alice Pyett is based on Marjorie Kempe. The medieval painting “The Wakenhyrst Doom” is also based on the Wenhaston Doom, discovered in the 1890s. It is a graphic painting portraying the horrors of hell. In the doom in the novel the demons are painted as denizens of the fen. This has been described as an homage to M R James with a feminist sensibility. Indeed the approach here is as much psychological as supernatural. Although none of the characters are particularly likeable, but the portrait of Edmund Stearne is a powerful study of self-obsessed tyranny. People are more frightening than the su A gothic tale set in the fens and marshes of Eastern England, most specifically Suffolk. It is set between 1906 and 1913 when many of the old folklore and customs of the fens and marshes were still believed. There are all too few truly wild fens and marshes left, but this is set in one of them. There is a prelude set in 1966, when Maude Stearne aged 69 looks back on the childhood when the novel is set. At the centre of the story is her tyrannical and misogynist father Edmund. There are no spoilers as the novel is about why rather than what. Her father, one day in 1913, committed a horrific murder and spent the rest of his life in an asylum where he painted (loosely based on the painter Richard Dadd). The rediscovery of these paintings is the focus of the section set in the 1960s. The medieval mystic Alice Pyett is based on Marjorie Kempe. The medieval painting “The Wakenhyrst Doom” is also based on the Wenhaston Doom, discovered in the 1890s. It is a graphic painting portraying the horrors of hell. In the doom in the novel the demons are painted as denizens of the fen. This has been described as an homage to M R James with a feminist sensibility. Indeed the approach here is as much psychological as supernatural. Although none of the characters are particularly likeable, but the portrait of Edmund Stearne is a powerful study of self-obsessed tyranny. People are more frightening than the supernatural here. There is a terrific sense of place and the fen is a character in its own right. Paver draws on folklore and tradition and there is an interesting description of eel-glaving. Some of these traditions continue and you can buy eels at my local farmers market. The combination of Edmund’s patriarchal tyranny with his puritanical protestant classicalism makes it chilling to watch his road to committing murder. The struggles of the imaginary Alice Pyett make for interesting reading as well. On the whole this is more gothic than ghost and fen fiction rather than fan fiction (sorry couldn’t resist!). I do wonder if this sort of tale is better as a short story or a novella rather than a full length novel, as at times it did feel a little stretched. The real horror however is the treatment of women and the privilege and hypocrisy of men.aulpernatural here. There is a terrific sense of place and the fen is a character in its own right. Paver draws on folklore and tradition and there is an interesting description of eel-glaving. Some of these traditions continue and you can buy eels at my local farmers market. The combination of Edmund’s patriarchal tyranny with his puritanical protestant classicalism makes it chilling to watch his road to committing murder. The struggles of the imaginary Alice Pyett make for interesting reading as well. On the whole this is more gothic than ghost and fen fiction rather than fan fiction (sorry couldn’t resist!). I do wonder if this sort of tale is better as a short story or a novella rather than a full length novel, as at times it did feel a little stretched. The real horror however is the treatment of women and the privilege and hypocrisy of men. 7 out of 10 Starting Paul Bowles The Sheltering Sky

Call of the Curlew by Elizabeth Brooks I seem to be reading a number of books at the moment set in the marshes and fens of the East of England and this one also fits that bill. The cover, by the way, is quite arresting. The sense of place here is important and the portrait of the marsh and its surrounds is central to the mood of the book. It is the story of Victoria Wrathmell who is an orphan. She is adopted by Lorna and Clem in 1939 at the age of ten. They live at Salt Winds, a house on the edge of Tollbury Marsh in Essex (now a nature reserve). The book moves between 1939-41 and 2015 and a now 86 year old Victoria, still living in Salt Winds. Brooks herself calls the novel, “her homage to immersive and evocative writing of Charlotte Bronte”. A rather big claim. The cast is fairly limited: Lorna, Clem and Victoria, a German pilot who crashes in the marshes, Max Deering, a family friend who is well portrayed as a creepy predatory male, and his children. There are a few other minor characters. There are also oblique references to other films/novels. This description of Max’s car is redolent of Rebecca, given Max’s name: ‘It was difficult to explain the car’s pull on her imagination – not without sounding silly – but there was something about its predatory grace that made it seem like a living thing. The lane from Tollbury Point to Salt Winds was pitted with holes and bumps, but Mr Deering’s Austin 12 never seemed to mind. It just glided forwards, silent and slow, the way a shark glides over the ocean floor.’ There is a haunting quality to the book and the start is meant to draw you in: “Victoria Wrathmell knows she will walk on to the marsh one New Year’s Eve and meet her end there. She’s known it for years. Through adolescence to adulthood she’s spent the last days of December on edge, waiting for a sign. So when one finally arrives, in her eight-sixth year, there’s no good reason to feel dismayed.” The sign is the skull of a curlew. It would be a mistake to see this as a ghost story, it certainly is not. The double track narrative is a little clumsy at times and there are a couple of little twists that for me didn’t really work. Max Deering makes for a convincing villain and his sense of male entitlement to anyone in his path is convincing. There is a tremendous sense of place which worked for me, despite reservations about the nature of the plot and the gaps in the storyline. 6 and a half out of 10 Starting Lanny by Max Porter

Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer Chiaverini This is a historical novel based on the brief life of Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and a mathematician of genius. It follows fairly closely the details of Lovelace’s life as it is known, but is rather selective about what is focussed on. There is a great emphasis on the relationships with her mother, who spends her whole time trying to ensure her daughter does not develop her father’s imaginative and poetic traits. The relationship is shown as often distant and adversarial. In fact there is a good deal of time spent on social and entertainment situations and too little on the more interesting aspects of her life. Lovelace worked closely with Charles Babbage and Mary Somerville. Her contribution to the development of Babbage’s plans for his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine has been much debated, but here there is no real contribution to that debate. There is much more discussion from Lovelace about how much she would like to be assisting Babbage rather than discussion of their work. The novel is limited by the fact that it is narrated by Lovelace herself and by its limited discussion of Lovelace’s work. There is very little mention of Lovelace’s relationships with other men, particularly John Crosse, to whom she left the only relics she had of her father. There is only a fleeting mention of Lovelace’s gambling addiction and her attempts to use her mathematical skills to assist her gambling on the horses. Little is also made of her relationship with the other leading female mathematician of the age, Mary Somerville. The first person narration does grate and the novel is over long for all the wrong reasons, the interesting aspects of her life were not prominent enough and there was too much uninteresting detail. Perhaps I would better have appreciated a decent biography. Mary Somerville was interesting and I think should be better known for her pioneering work. Lovelace herself is an interesting character and her work isn’t explored in enough detail here. Her refutation of the possibility of artificial intelligence was important enough for it to be examined and addressed by Alan Turing when he wrote about artificial intelligence. An interesting subject let down by a less than satisfactory novel. 5 out of 10 Starting Ridge and Furrow by Neil Sentance

A Hero for High Times by Ian Marchant The full title of the book: A Hero for High Times (Being an Account of the Life and Times and Opinions of Mr Robert Rowberry) Or: A younger readers guide to The Beats, Hippies, Freaks, Punks, Ravers, New Age Travellers and Dog-on-a-rope brew crew crusties of the British Isles 1956-1994. It is a great read and is a comprehensive history of the counter-culture. The whole thing is built around Bob Rowberry who has lived through most of it. Bob now lives in an old school bus in a wood in Wales where he makes and mends stuff, with solar panels providing his electricity and a wood burner his heat. However the things that Bob has done in his time are surprising. He has lived rough in London and Liverpool, frequented Soho Jazz clubs, busked with Eric Clapton (when he played the banjo) and Rod Stewart, was the first person to sell acid to R. D. Laing, the band Procul Harem took their name from his cat, was the first person to bring Afghan Coats into the country (much beloved by hippies), arrested in Iraq in the late 60s and interviewed by a military officer called Saddam Hussain (whatever happened to him). He played a small part in the Profumo affair, acting as bodyguard to Ronna Ricardo, one of the witnesses in the case. Bob spent time in a few jails. The one in Mexico was memorable as he was freed by the local population! Bob has dealt in cannabis and acid and used most drugs, but never been an addict. The story about Bob’s encounter with Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm is very 1960s (look it up). He’s played a tambourine on stage with Led Zeppelin. There’s much, much more and Bob’s love life (mainly women, but some men as well) is very picturesque. Marchant weaves Bob’s story in and out of the times but covers music (central to it all), Situationism, anarchism, the Angry Brigade, the decline of deference, hippies and their beliefs and the fascination with Eastern religions. Marchant links this fascination with Said’s Orientalism to provide a good analysis of the phenomenon. There’s a great deal about alternative lifestyles, building a bender and living away from society. He charts those who dropped out and looks at what happened to them and where they are now. The history of the Women’s movement plays its part, but not prominently enough. There’s plenty about punk and the role of the NME and the story draws to a close with raves and New Age Travellers: until the Tories put a stop to it all in 1994 and effectively killed off the counter culture. Marchant also links the end to the gradual changes in the university fee structure and the rise of managerialism as well as Thatcher. It’s a great read and there are references to lots of books. In the appendix there is a reading list and a music and film list with links to useful websites. It’s rather long, but full of interesting stuff. Bob is portrayed warts and all and there’s no sentimentality. It’s clear where Marchant stands politically and I’m pretty much with him. He hopes he can inspire younger readers by telling stories about what is possible and what has gone before. 9 out of 10 Starting Flush by Virginia Woolf

Thank you Willoyd, that's very generous of you. Reflecting Rogue: Inside the mind of a feminist This is a collection of essays, fourteen in all, which cover a range of topics, academic and personal. Some are autobiographical, as Gqola says: “There are reflections of and on living, loving and thinking as feminist. One feminist.” There are personal essays about motherhood, parents, education and essays about the issues within South Africa. Other essays cover those Gqola respects and reveres: all cover her experience with “racist capitalist patriarchy”. There is a brilliant essay on Femrite, the Uganda women’s writers association, an essay about a controversial art exhibition. She writes about feminists like Wambui Otieno with some interesting reflections on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and the Nobel laureate and activist Wangari Maathai. Gqola speaks about, “rogues – unapologetically disrespectful of patriarchal law and order, determined to create a world in which choice is a concrete reality for all.” This is powerfully written and Gqola has better words to express what she’s about than I do: “ .. it is to reject the idea of writing as safe and rioting as dangerous; to recognise the power of women’s writing in our contexts. As African feminist literary scholars, we insist on reading imaginative agency in the material resisting cultures whether textual or embodied as theorising, partly in flagrant disregard for the pressure to reinscribe the Cartesian or Enlightenment logic that posits the body of knowledge docile to interpretation, which is an episemic reinscription of how African raw material is docile and ready for processing elsewhere to ready it for easy/ready consumption. It is not possible to hold on to an idea of writing as safe against the background of South African Miriam Tlali’s consistent banning or Egyptian Nawal el Sadaawi’s detention. These African feminists were not treated as people engaged in safe activity by the regimes that recognised how loaded and revolutionary their work was. Miriam Tlali buried dozens of books in her back yard in Soweto because she understood both how precious the written word is, and how deadly the consequences of being found with the wrong book could be in apartheid South Africa.” These essays work on a number of levels: they engage and stretch the mind, challenge assumptions, promote feminist justice, challenge racism, engage at a personal and emotional level and for me, give me a whole range of writers and thinkers to add to my reading. 9 out of 10 Starting The Periodic Table by Primo Levi

Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault This is the first of Mary Renault’s trilogy about Alexander the Great. It covers the period up to his father Philip’s death when Alexander is in his late teens. Renault’s sources are the usual ones (Plutarch and co) and she then adds to the bare historical bones. She takes part of the mythology and uses it for her narrative purposes adopting a third person omniscient narration. Renault does not shy away from Alexander’s sexuality and clearly portrays him as bisexual, which the historical records indicate he probably was. The relationship with Hephaistion is central to the book and the strength and depth of their relationship is important to Alexander. Hephaistion understands his role in supporting Alexander: “You’re with me,’ Hephaistion said. ‘I love you. You mean more to me than anything. I’d die for you any time. I love you.” In parallel with this Renault, at least in this novel, implies that sex itself wasn’t that important to Alexander: “He’s as chaste as Artemis; or nearly” “One might have supposed that the true act of love was to lie together and talk.” Renault draws the comparison with the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus and Alexander is very conscious of this. Parts of Alexander’s character also feel quite modern: consider this exchange with his younger sister towards the end of the book as she discovers she is to marry her uncle: “He crossed over and drew her against his shoulder. He had scarcely embraced her since their childhood, and now it was in Melissa’s arms that she had wept. ‘I am sorry. You need not be frightened. He’s not a bad man, he has no name for being cruel. The people like him. And you’ll not be too far away.’ She thought, You took for granted you’d choose the best; when you chose, you had only to lift your finger. When they find you a wife, you can go to her if you choose, or stay away with your lover. But I must be grateful that this old man, my mother’s brother, has no name for being cruel. All she said was, 'The gods are unjust to women.’ 'Yes, I have often thought so. But the gods are just, so it must be the fault of men.” Renault seems to want to make Alexander a benevolent and consistent tyrant. The historian in me doesn’t approve at all. However for novelistic purposes it works overall and I’m glad that Renault does not shy away from the question of sexuality. The characterisation and the portrayal of Alexander’s context are both strong. The descriptive passages have bothered some readers because it means the novel doesn’t flow so well, but Renault isn’t writing an action novel! This passage comes from Alexander’s boyhood: “The mild summer day declined to evening. On the salt lake of Pella fell the shadow of its island fort, where the treasury and the dungeons were. Lamps glimmered in windows up and down the town; a household slave came out with a resined torch, to kindle the great cressets upheld by seated lions at the foot of the Palace steps. The lowing of homebound cattle sounded in the plains; in the mountains, which turned towards Pella their shadowed eastern faces, far-distant watch fires sparked the grey. The boy sat on the Palace roof, looking down at the town, the lagoon, and the little fisher-boats making for their moorings. It was his bedtime, and he was keeping out of his nurse's way till he had seen his mother, who might give him leave to stay up. Men mending the roof had gone home, without removing their ladders. It was a chance not to be wasted. He sat on the tiles of Pentelic marble, shipped in by King Archelaos; the gutter under his thighs, between his knees an antefix in the shape of a gorgon's head, the paint faded by weather. Grasping the snaky hair, he was outstaring the long drop, defying its earth-daimons. Going back he would have to to look down; they must be settled with beforehand. Soon they gave in, as such creatures did when challenged. He ate the stale bread he had stolen instead of supper. It would have been hot posset, flavored with honey and wine; the smell had been tempting, but at supper one was caught for bed. Nothing could be had for nothing. A bleat sounded from below. They had brought the black goat, it must be nearly time. Better now not to ask beforehand. Once he was there, she would not send him away. He picked his way down the long spaces of the ladder-rungs made for men. The beaten earth-daimons kept their distance; he sang himself a song of victory. From the lower roof to the ground; no one was there but a few tired slaves going off duty. Indoors Hellanike would be searching; he must go around outside. He was getting too much for her; he had heard his mother say so” There is much more like this. I’m glad I read this and I like the understated way that Renault gets her points across. One interesting aside; Oliver Stone’s film is very much based on Renault’s trilogy. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Queer Africa edited by Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin