Books do furnish a room

The Source of the Nile by Richard Burton This is an account of the 1857-9 expedition to the great lakes in central Africa. The account is written by Richard Burton and he was accompanied by John Hanning Speke. The two famously fell out and in Burton’s account he refuses to use Speke’s name and refers to him as “my companion” Burton was an interesting character. He was multi-lingual and translated The Perfumed and the Kama Sutra, He was also (allegedly) the first European to travel (in disguise) to Mecca. He had an army career in India and pretty much became an explorer and was very widely travelled. In later life he joined the diplomatic service. To be honest this is a pretty tedious read with lots of description and detail that might be considered superfluous. Burton also spends a good deal of time complaining about the various servants, hired helps and porters that went along. Some of them were slaves. The route the party took was along the main trading route used by Arab caravans and slave traders from the central regions to the coast at Zanzibar. Burton and Speke may have felt they were intrepid explorers but it was a route traders had been using for centuries. I don’t want to spend too much time on this. It is detailed and boring, but also the attitudes are as bad as you might imagine: “Like the generality of barbarous races, The East African are wilful, headstrong, and undisciplinable: in point of stubbornness and restiveness they resemble the lower animals” There is plenty more like this. After a while it becomes clear from Burton’s descriptions that the lighter the skin, the more civilised Burton finds them. Don’t waste your time on this. 2 out of 10 Starting The Quest for the NorthWest Passage (Folio Society)

Great North Road by Peter Hamilton “The dead hand of society’s inertia and the financial interest of the elite minority hold us back as a species. They govern us so they can continue to govern us.” This is a hefty science fiction novel, like most of Hamilton’s work, about 1100 pages. There is a massive character list and the novel itself is structured by days mainly in the year 2143. The novel is set partially in Newcastle. This gives Hamilton the opportunity to try his hand at a Geordie accent. The result is rather unfortunate! The plot revolves around killings twenty years apart. The technology is cleverly set up and as this is Hamilton there are gateways/wormholes to other parts of the galaxy. The action is split between Newcastle and a planet called St Libra. This is a planet that is entirely vegetation, no insect or animal life. It also has something called bio-oil which pretty much powers the economies of the various worlds. Added to this there has been a cloning experiment. The details are too complex to go into, but suffice to say they are integral to the plot. Hamilton Mixes the whole lot together and adds in plenty of flashbacks, so the reader gradually pieces together the jigsaw. As a whole it does work and there is also the trademark dry humour: “The military do so love shiny new technology, there's always so many ways to abuse it.” We have a high tech sci-fi noir novel with added aliens. The Gaia part of it was a nice touch as well. 8 out of 10 Starting Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Britons and Anglo-Saxons Lincolnshire 400-650 One of the myths of British history involves the Romans departing and the Angles and Saxons arriving covering the period of around 400 to 650ish. This is where the Arthurian legends originate from. It sort of assumes that all the Romans promptly departed overnight and left a vacuum. It is, of course more complex than that. Green here focuses on the county of Lincolnshire and how the transition to Anglo-Saxon rule worked here. It is a detailed historical study using primarily archaeological evidence and some contemporary evidence: the Y Gododin and other Welsh texts (there was a link between the kingdom of Lindsey (part of Lincolnshire) and Wales in terms of language and culture). Green draws some interesting conclusions. Lincoln was an important Roman city (Lindum Colonia) where legionnaires went when they retired. There is evidence that when the Romans left the area of North Lincolnshire and Lincoln (known as Lindsey, then Lindes) in the early fifth century then the kingdom continued as an independent unit for well over one hundred years. Green also considers the Arthurian legends and considers an interesting theory about how they begun. It is clear that when the Roman military left, the remaining society coalesced into a series of small kingdoms and groupings. When the Angles and Saxons began to arrive there were some clashes, some assimilation and pretty much everything in between. Green posits that there were a series of minor battles all over the country and most likely a major battle at somewhere called Badon Hill. These were spread over many years and involved various tribes and groupings. In some the Saxons were successful: less often the Britons. Green argues the successes gradually formed a set of myths centred on an Arthur figure. In reality the various incidents collected together happened over a period of a century or so in various parts of the country, but collectively it may well be that this is where the Arthurian myths came from. Green even makes a case for the battle of Badon Hill being in Lincolnshire (to go with the other twenty or so contenders). By about 650 the Saxons were clearly present in the area, although names of tribal leaders clearly indicate that the Saxons and Britons had assimilated and were living side by side (I’ll avoid the jokes about sleeping with the enemy). There’s lots of fascinating stuff here related to the ever increasing archaeological evidence. 9 out of 10 Starting Story of a Murder: the Wives, the Mistress and Dr Crippen

Julia Roseingrave by Marjorie Bowen “"I hear from Mrs Barlow, who is a good gossip, that your mother and your sister are both ill. You must, then, have very little company." "Very little human company," she replied.” This British Library Tales of the Weird collection consists of a novella (Julia Roseingrave) and six short stories: The Scoured Silk, Dark Ann, Hurry! Hurry!, Sheep’s Head and Babylon, Red Champagne and finally The Sign-Painter and the Crystal Fishes. Marjorie Bowen (1885-1952) was one of the many (at least seven) pseudonyms of Margaret Gabrielle Vere Long. She had a difficult upbringing in poverty, he father being an alcoholic who died young. She studied at the Slade and wrote from an early age. Her first novel was rejected by many publishers for being too violent and not appropriate for a female writer. It was a bestseller when it was eventually published. She was a prolific writer: many novels (over 150) and short stories. She was also a committed vegetarian, having witnessed the way animals were killed for meat, and often purchased animals in order to release them. She wrote a number of gothic novels and short stories. The novella in this collection is initially quite effective, the plot and characters are set up well. A wicked aristo returns to his estate to hide away. He turns up dressed as the devil after a masque and scares the locals. The Julia of the title lives with her mother and sister, both of whom have disabilities. She is also close friends with a local wise woman. They devise a plan to ensnare the newly arrived Lord of the Manor. Unfortunately the ending is rather weak and doesn’t work at all. The short stories are a varied bunch. Dark Ann is probably the best of them, Hurry! Hurry! the worst. On the whole if you like gothic tales with a twist, there’s enough here to make it worth reading. It’s a shame about the novella though, it was almost good! 6 out of 10 Starting The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale

Trespassing by Uzma Aslam Khan Published in 2003 this novel looks at Pakistan in the late 1980s and 1990s (with a brief trip back to the 1960s). It is a complex novel revolving around two families, the main characters being Dia and Daanish. The main focus is Northern Pakistan and Karachi with Daanish spending a little time in the US. The environs of Karachi are captured with some vivid characterisation of buses, fishing villages, slums, beaches, brothels, flora and fauna. There are explorations of society: periodic dissatisfaction with and struggles against the government: life and loves: arranged marriage, the perils of; friendships and betrayals with a few twists thrown in. There are strong minor characters. There is a queer thread through this as well. The reader also learns a good deal about the making of silk and the rearing of the caterpillars. The story is told from five alternating perspectives: Daanish and his mother Anu, Dia and her mother Riffat and Salaamat, whose place in the puzzle takes a little time to work out. The Gulf War is going on, so that backdrop comes into play. There are contrasts between the developed and developing world. There is a sense of a struggle for a sense of nationhood in what is a post-colonial background as well as the erotic thread through it. There are no easy answers here, just the messiness of complex relationships and this is certainly an interesting novel, by an author previously unknown to me. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting The Dead of Summer edited by Johnny Mains

Gallows Court by Martin Edwards Martin Edwards is a scholar of Golden Age Detective Fiction as well as writer in his own right. This is set in London in 1930 and is the start of a series. This isn’t really a classic detective novel withy clues to follow, it’s more of a thriller. There are two main protagonists and several antagonists. There is also some doubt for at least the first half of the novel as to whether one of the main characters is a protagonist or an antagonist. There is plenty of intrigue and a series of mysterious deaths. Jacob Flint is a reporter for The Clarion and we follow his slightly clumsy efforts at reporting on the series of murders and seems to be forever in the wrong place at the right time, a mysterious wealthy woman (named Rachel Savernake, the daughter of a judge) seems to be helping him (or is she). Of course, nothing is as it seems. There are plenty of twists, some predictable, but not all. There is a good deal of period detail and wandering round the back streets of London. Edwards uses a few classic tropes: there is a locked room mystery and some nods to Hammer Horror films. There is also a Grand Guignol feel to it as well. It is a bit formulaic, but does have a mix of genres. I found it mildly entertaining and not too taxing: ideal for a train journey! 7 out of 10 Starting The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout “It interests me how we find ways to feel superior to another person, another group of people. It happens everywhere, and all the time. Whatever we call it, I think it’s the lowest part of who we are, this need to find someone else to put down.” The premise is straightforward. Lucy Barton has an extended hospital stay and is quite unwell. Her estranged mother comes and stays at the hospital for some days (they haven’t seen or spoken for some time). The novel (well, novella really) consists of Lucy and her mother talking and a significant number of flashbacks (plus a few flashforwards). We get lots of thoughts about life, family, love and so on. It’s a quiet novel where not a great deal happens and is very reflective. It is also full of quasi-profound quotes like the above: on virtually every page. It is much loved. “This must be the way most of us manoeuvre through the world, half knowing, half not, visited by memories that can’t possibly be true.” I am afraid it didn’t do a great deal for me, but it isn’t much of an investment in terms of time. 6 out of 10 Starting Sycamore Gap by L J Ross

Maurice by E M Forster “It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted.” E M Forster wrote this in 1913-1914. It was published in 1971 after his death. It is very clearly a novel about being gay, the perils and pitfalls, written in clear Forster style. He showed it to a few friends over the years. He felt it could not be published without prosecution, especially as he had decided that it must have a happy ending: “A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn’t have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense, Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood.” Forster felt that he had to show that two gay men could live together and make a life and not be cursed. A bad ending would be expected and might be more easily accepted if it was published (This didn’t work for Radclyffe Hall though with The Well of Loneliness). The novel itself is pretty straightforward; we follow Maurice Hall from his schooldays, through university to adulthood. It follows his gradually growing awareness of his feelings towards other men and his lack of desire for women: his first love affair at university: finally, a more lasting relationship with Alec. Maurice is clearly upper middle class and Alec is working class and parallels have been drawn with Mellors in Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Forster’s novel, as is well documented, was inspired by a visit to Edward Carpenter, a gay rights activist and socialist who lived in Derbyshire. He saw there two gay men living together as a couple and this inspired the novel. It was be remembered that Wilde’s trial and treatment was recent history when Forster wrote this. As one reviewer has written (Jeffrey Round), “conformity is the true “perversion””. 8 out of 10 Starting Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene

Ceremony of Innocence by Madeleine Bunting This novel was something of a surprise and ended up being much more interesting than I was expecting. The novel moves between the Shah’s Iran, Modern Bahrain, an English Country House and modern London. Bunting seems to move between political thriller, a Country House novel, a love story, decolonisation and the utter ruthlessness of the upper classes. At the centre of it all is the Wilcox-Smith family. Martin Wilcox-Smith in the 1960s decides that instead of working for the Foreign Office in Iran he will work independently in Bahrain, when he effectively becomes an arms dealer and general factotum for the government. He has inherited a Country House and renovates it, along with bhis rather elegant wife Phoebe. In the modern day his niece Kate, whom is a single mother starts a relationship with an asylum seeker from Bahrain, Hussain, who she has taken in to help pay the rent. Hussein is a doctor who helps other asylum seekers. The plot gradually unwinds as Kate and Hussein discover what her family have really been up to and how dangerous it is to express dissent and wok for justice. The novel starts with the disappearance of Reem, Hussein’s daughter who is doing her PhD on the activities of the company that Martin Wilcox-Smith set up. This looks at the way empire tails off (or just re-emerges in different ways and is quietly swept under the carpet and ignored in society. Or even these days glorified by the far right. Bunting says this about her intentions: “The issue which has fascinated me for decades is how Britain has managed to tuck empire out of sight – it’s a history hidden in plain sight, if you like. We grow up knowing a version but it is one which is so thin and crudely edited with so little understanding of the relationships of power and wealth extraction which we developed and from which we still benefit as a country. So yes, this book – along with others now emerging – is a bid to flesh out that history and bring it home, open eyes and prompt questions” It does all this and was rather a serendipitous find. 9 out of 10 Starting Julia Roseingrave by Marjorie Bowen

The Voyage Home by Pat Barker This is the third in Pat Barker’s series about the Trojan Wars, presumably a trilogy, but who knows. It focusses on the women in the situation, on both sides, but mainly on the Trojan side. For me Barker’s Regeneration trilogy is much better, but that isn’t surprising as they are some of my favourite books of all time. These are certainly worth reading though. This part of the series looks at the voyage back from Troy and the return to Greece. The main characters are Cassandra, King Priam’s daughter and Ritsa her maid (slave). Ritsa is also a concubine to Machaon, Agamemnon’s healer. Cassandra has been given to Agamemnon as part of the spoils of war. On the Greek side there is Clytemnestra, awaiting the return of her husband Agamemnon and plotting revenge on him for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia to the gods before he departed. The novel encompasses the time period from leaving Troy, the voyage and arriving back in Greece, continuing for some days until the climax of the anticipated events: which you will know if you are familiar with the myths. This novel looks at the aftermath of war, for the winners and losers. Barker also makes clear that the women on both sides are often losers. There are some vivid descriptive passages and Barker uses, as she generally does some earthy language which puts across some of the hideousness of war, its brutality. Barker is good at this, she did it with the Regeneration trilogy. As always Barker’s characterisation is good. However Agamemnon did appear rather one dimensional, unlike Achilles in the first book who had a good deal of nuance. One particular problem for me was the ending. It just didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the book and felt like an easy way out. It might possibly mean there’s a fourth book on the way, but as an ending to the three books it just felt rather feeble. 7 out of 10 Starting My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

Ordinary Families by E Arnot Robertson Another contribution from Virago, this one was published in 1933. It is set in Suffolk in a small village (Pin Mill) on the banks of the River Orwell. The Rush family are the centre of the novel and we see things from the point of view of one of the daughters, Lalage (Lallie). The book covers a number of years and ends with Lallie in her twenties, so there is certainly a coming of age element to it. The novel is a snapshot of 1920s village life, revolving around three families The Cotterell’s (rather left leaning with a hint of Bloomsbury), The Quest’s (richer and a little stand-offish) and the Rush’s themselves (outdoorsy and very much into sailing). There are also a few members of the lower classes dotted about as well. The first part of the book, dealing with Lallie’s childhood, involves a lot of sailing and chasing around after wildlife. This actually gave it a bit of a Swallows and Amazons flavour, which I found a little irritating. It was all pretty jolly and given some of the risky sailing processes and procedures, I was amazed none of the kids drowned. However the novel moves on to some of the usual teenage angsts (not necessarily an improvement, trembling of stiff upper lips and so on) and on again to marriage and concerns about what to do with one’s life. For me, one of the strengths of the novel was some of the more minute observations of nature. She was very popular in her day and her novels were described as middlebrow. Harold Nicholson summed up her “middlebrowness”: “Miss Arnot Robertson is too interested in bird-life, too contemptuous of aesthetics, too brisk and bouncing to please the high-brow; and the low-brow finds her saying sharp and horrid things about the public school traditions of romance and what not.” Another plus is the fact that the protagonist, Lallie, is awkward, clumsy and rather prone to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. She, at least, is endearing. It’s all very middle class English though. Mixed feelings. 6 out of 10 Starting Gallows Court by Martin Edwards

Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor “One longs for news from the buried ruins of some stronghold miraculously untouched since Batu Khan set fire to it, the trove, perhaps, of some Transylvanian forester digging out a fox or a badger and suddenly tumbling through the creepers and the roots into a dry vault full of iron chests abrim with parchments...” This is the follow up to A Time of Gifts and follows the second stage of Fermor’s journey through Europe in 1933/1934. This one charts Austria, Hungary and the Balkan states, with the Danube being a central part of the journey. Remember Fermor was only nineteen. He remains as captivating a narrator as in the first volume and provides an interesting description of the cultural life of central Europe in the 1930s. It captures a society and way of life that was swept away within a few years. Fermor’s enthusiasm for everything and everyone he encounters follows on in this book from the first. Fermor was writing later, from memory and diaries. In an introduction he says that he did worry about remembering the chronology of events, but he reflects: "Then I said to myself that I was not writing a travel guide and that these things don’t matter, and from then on I let the tale unfold." There’s a good deal of walking, travelling on carts, a few carts and even on horseback over the Hungarian plains. Fermor recounts a great deal of history along the way, and as in the first volume there are plenty of quotes and literary references. He seems to have got along with all classes and as he was travelling through the Balkans on foot, he inevitably met many groups of Romani and spent a good deal of time with them. He clearly started out with some of the usual prejudices, but unlike many of his literary contemporaries (not mentioning Rebecca West), his experiences and time spent with them clearly changed his views. His gregariousness continued into later life. The journalist Allison Pearson recalls when she was sent to Crete to meet him when he was 83 to write an article on him. She expected a frail old man she would have to “look after”. She just about remembers drinking more in 48 hours than she had for the previous 20 years and waking up under a bar. Pearson says that as they walked around Crete she could barely keep up with him and he was very much like he was in the book; observant of nature, breaking into song and poetry periodically and climbing things. This doesn’t quite match the power of the first volume, but nevertheless Fermor is a captivating companion. “Live, don't know how long, And die, don't know when; Must go, don't know where; I am astonished I am so cheerful.” 8 out of 10 Starting Maurice by E M Forster

Lincoln Cathedral: The Biography of a Great Building Jonathan Foyle seems to have a thing for cathedrals, as he has written about quite a lot of them. He even produced a series of TV programmes about fifteen years ago who he climbed six famous cathedrals (inside and out with the help of a team of riggers): Lincoln was one of them. This is more of an architectural history. I live very close and considering it is one of the greatest buildings in the world (and for a time the tallest) and it’s very easy to walk past it regularly and not really see it. So I read this to learn a little more. The current Cathedral was started around 1072. It was part of the Norman means of subduing the country. Lincoln and Lincolnshire was outlaw country and Lincoln Cathedral and Castle were ways of bringing order to the area, a means of social control. This is a history of a building, the changes over the centuries. The collapse of a tower following an earthquake, rebuilding. Changes due to dissolution of the monasteries and the Civil War. There are lots of pictures and diagrams and if magnificent architecture is your thing, then you will enjoy this. 7 out of 10 Starting Britons and Anglo-Saxons: Lincolnshire 400-650

Yes Madeleine, they are certainly not short! The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen “I am a bad refugee because I insist on seeing the historical reasons that create refugees and the historical reasons for denying refugee status to certain populations.” This is a collection of eight short stories about refugees from Vietnam. They are set in California and sometimes Vietnam. Obviously the collection is full of refugees. Themes include homes and homelessness, homesickness, starting a new life, alienation, starting a new life, estrangement, parent child relationships and much more. “Even if refugees, undocumented immigrants, and legal immigrants are not all potential billionaires, that is no reason to exclude them. Even if their fate is to be the high-school dropout and the fast-food cashier, so what? That makes them about as human as the average American, and we are not about to deport the average American (are we?).” Black-Eyed Women is about a ghostwriter writing a memoir about a man with survivor guilt. Her mother tells ghost stories and this is significant. The Other Man is about an eighteen year old refugee arriving in the US and discovering his sponsor family consists of two gay men. In War Years an unnamed boy watches his parents as they negotiate running a convenience store and relating to other members of the Vietnamese community, especially those collecting for the anti-communist cause. The Transplant is about Arthur who has been saved by a liver transplant. He discovers that the donor was Men Vu. He gets to know his son. I’d Love You to Want Me is about Mrs Khanh and her husband who is developing Alzheimer’s disease. The Americans is about James, former USAF pilot. He and his wife Michiko are visiting their daughter Claire and her boyfriend Legaspi in Vietnam. Things don’t go quite as planned. Someone Else Besides You. Thomas, following his mother’s death lives with his father. He gets to know his Father’s mistress and attempts a reconciliation with is ex. In Fatherland Phuong lives with her parents and two siblings. Her father had a previous wife and three children in the US. One of those children visits with interesting results. The stories are plainly and simply written, but they are effective. They is no pity, but a clarity and humanity which is impressive. A good collection. 8 out of 10 Starting Trespassing by Uzma Aslam Khan

Revelation by C J Sansom “Fanatics on both sides,’ old Ryprose said gloomily. ‘And all we poor ordinary folk in the middle. Sometimes I fear they will bring death to us all.” This is the fourth is Sansom’s Shardlake series set in the latter part of Henry VIII’s reign. This one is set in early 1543. Catherine Howard has lost her head and Henry is looking for wife number six and he has his eyes on Katherine Parr. I have noticed that if I search for a book on Google I get a brief sketch about it, presumably from the AI. Interesting to note that these shorts are actually worse than Wikipedia, quite an achievement. Sansom covers quite a lot in this one. Shardlake in his lawyer capacity has taken a case concerning someone who has been admitted to Bedlam; and there is a good deal about the links between fundamentalist religion and mental health. There is also a serial killer on the loose, working his way through some of the nastier parts of the Book of Revelation. At this time there was a good deal of tension in society relating to religion. Henry had stepped back somewhat from Reformism and towards the Catholic Church (now that he had had his way maritally and had taken a good deal of its wealth). There were now two camps: pushing for more and more radical reform and the other pushing back towards the old rules and regulations. The Reformers were on the back foot and Archbishop Cranmer’s situation was a little precarious. Katherine Parr was in the Reformist camp and the Reformers were pinning their hopes on the prospective marriage. Sansom weaves the plot around these tensions. Sansom makes his feelings clear in his historical afternote: “Many [Tudor-era religious radicals] believed then, exactly as Christian fundamentalists do today, that they lived in the 'last days' before Armageddon and, again just as now, saw signs all around in the world that they took as certain proof that the Apocalypse was imminent. Again like fundamentalists today, they looked on the prospect of the violent destruction of mankind without turning a hair. The remarkable similarity between the first Tudor Puritans and the fanatics among today's Christian fundamentalists extends to their selective reading of the Bible, their emphasis on the Book of Revelation, their certainty of their rightness, even to their phraseology. Where the Book of Revelation is concerned, I share the view of Guy, that the early church fathers released something very dangerous on the world when, after much deliberation, they decided to include it in the Christian canon." It's an interesting mix to hang the story on and it mostly works. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Great North Road by Peter Hamilton

Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley “She is a woman who survives, even if that survival means tricking herself into believing this world is something it is not, that her life is all glory.” This is a debut novel, which Mottley started writing when she was just seventeen. It was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022. It is set in Oakland in California. The novel concerns Kiara and her brother Marcus. Their father is dead and their mother is in prison. Kiara is seventeen and her brother is a little older. Kiara also looks after a younger child called Trevor (he is about eleven) as his mother (who lives in the same block) is unreliable. The rent on their flat has increased and the landlord wants payment. Kiara’s job pays to little and her brother is too busy trying to produce rap music to earn any money. Kiara solves the dilemma by falling into prostitution, eventually being used by a group of local policemen. The novel works through what follows. The themes are poverty, sexual exploitation and social injustice. Mottley has commented that although this is fiction, the story is real. Mottley is looking at the underside of society, at the vulnerable, the victims of exploitation and violence. The novel is disturbing and graphic at times, but it is written with passion and power. It is moving and the characters are engaging. Mottley does throw everything at this and it feels rushed at times, but I enjoyed it and it’s an impressive first novel. 8 out of 10 Starting Lincoln Cathedral: Biography of a Great Building

Two Storm Wood by Philip Gray This is a historical novel based in the World War One era, but it is a bit of a variation on the usual theme. It is set primarily in 1919 with some flashbacks. Amy Vanneck goes to France /Belgium in 1919 to search for her fiancé Edward Haslam, who is missing, presumed dead. Edward was an officer in the 7th Manchesters. There is a good deal of work going on with groups of soldiers looking for bodies and attempting to identify those they find. One thing I did learn was that a good deal of the labour of finding bodies was done by Chinese labour; as was some of the tunnel digging throughout the war. Amy meets Major Westbrook a Provost Marshal who is there to investigate the deaths of an English officer and a number of Chinese workers at a place called Two Storm Wood. Foul play is suspected. She also meets Captain Mackenzie who is in charge of the soldiers looking for bodies. Gray builds up tension well and it sort of ends up as a thriller as it becomes unclear as to whether Haslam is alive or not. There are lots of rumours and red herrings. Gray is a journalist and it does show in the way it is written. The novel itself was triggered by Gray looking at his grandfather’s trench maps. Gray says he wanted to unsettle and disturb. I did feel that some of the more gruesome details were rather unnecessary. The build up and tension work well. However the ending was too trite and contrived. Nevertheless it works well as a historical novel and is an interesting addition to First World War fiction. 8 out of 10 Starting Ceremony of Innocence by Madeline Bunting

Folklore of Lincolnshire by Susanna O'Neill “When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire Full well I served my master, for more than seven year. Till I took up to poaching as you shall quickly year, O ‘tis my delight on a shiny night In the season of the year.” Not many English counties have a celebration of criminality as their county song! And poaching still thrives in Lincolnshire. I have started reading more about my local area and this is part of that process. This covers a large area of local folklore and even touches of Lincolnshire dialect. I am just old enough to remember older members of some rural communities still speaking the dialect. Folklore is based on important aspects of everyday life. So there are sections on religion and the church, farming, Sheep (wool was vital in Lincolnshire’s medieval economy, love and marriage, the dead, animals and much more. There are plenty of witches, wizards, wild men of the woods, ghosts, ghostly goings on, large black dog like animals (a bit like the modern day black panther sightings), the Lincoln Imp (inevitably), giants and much more. There is also more modern stuff around the Second World War and the many air bases. There are also descriptions of events such as the Haxey Hood. It's all very entertaining, but it is also a very good record of social history, much of which is now disappearing with the advent of modern technology. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Michael Palin, diaries 1969-79

Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling “What avail is honour or a sword against a pen?” I have been skirting around Kipling for some time now, mainly by reading some of his children’s stuff. This is a combination of short pieces of prose and poetry. It is set in Sussex and is a look at English history from an Edwardian perspective (published in 1906). It is an interesting look at Kipling’s imperialism. The stories are told to Dan and his sister Una. They have been practising the play within a play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Puck appears to them and in a series of visits he shows them different aspects of English history by introducing characters to them. Each different story begins and ends with poetry. There is an element of fantasy, the world of faerie is taken as given. There are also Danes, Saxons, Normans, Picts and Romans. There is also a tale set around the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Interestingly the last tale looks at the history and treatment of the Jews in England and their influence on Magna Carta. Puck represents the spirit of England and describes himself as “the oldest thing in England”. I am writing this in the shadow of the right doing very well in local elections, with their anti-immigration agenda and the ramping up of racist rhetoric. Interestingly Kipling makes the point that there is no such thing as racial purity. The English are made up of Saxons, Danes, Picts, Romans, not to mention the original Britons. Kipling is making a broader point and elsewhere has argued that the variety of races that have combined to make the English very suited to managing an Empire!! Kipling is also interesting in his approach to religion. One of the poems is a hymn to Mithras and Weland makes an appearance. Kipling is very negative about the later Protestant/Catholic conflicts and says that the world of faerie left the country at that time. The whole is somewhat disjointed and Kipling is still the arch-imperialist, but his approach is interesting. 6 out of 10 Starting The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen

All the Light we Cannot See by Anthony Doerr “You know the greatest lesson of history? It’s that history is whatever the victors say it is. That’s the lesson. Whoever wins, that’s who decides the history. We act in our own self-interest. Of course we do. Name me a person or a nation who does not. The trick is figuring out where your interests are.” This seems to very well liked and won the Pulitzer Prize as well. The plot revolves around two particular characters and is set mostly in World War 2. The two characters are children/early teens at the start. Werner is an German orphan who lives with his sister in a foster home. He has great abilities building and using radios. Marie-Laure is blind and lives with her father who works at the Museum of Natural History. We follow them through the late 1930s and through to the end of the war. Their paths converge at St Malo. The novel is constructed around small fragments grouped together and the groups are not in chronological order. The plot also revolves around a diamond called the Sea of Flames, which was kept at the Museum of Natural History. It is a sort of boy meets girl, although the meeting is very fleeting. The tale is also told in the present tense. I found the construction of it rather irritating. Doerr does have a way with words though and he deals with difficult subjects with a light touch. It’s a compelling story, but there are so many in this genre, I’m not sure this one is that compelling, not for me anyway. There are dozens of slick quotes though. “What do we call visible light? We call it color. But the electromagnetic spectrum runs to zero in one direction and infinity in the other, so really, children, mathematically, all of light is invisible.” 6 and a half out of 10 Starting The Voyage Home by Pat Barker

A Secret Sisterhood by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Sweeney “The world’s most celebrated female authors are mythologised as solitary eccentrics or isolated geniuses. The Jane Austen of popular imagination is a genteel spinster, modestly covering her manuscript with blotting paper when anyone enters the room. Charlotte Bronte is cast as one of three long-suffering sisters, scribbling away in a draughty parsonage on the edge of the windswept moors. George Eliot is remembered as an aloof intellectual, who shunned conventional Victorian ladies. And Virginia Woolf haunts the collective memory as a depressive, loading her pockets with stones before stepping into then River Ouse.” This is an account of four female literary friendships. The first is Jane Austen and Anne Sharpe. Anne was a governess for the Austen family and a sort of servant, she also had literary ambitions and there was a friendship and correspondence between her and Austen. Unfortunately much of their correspondence has not survived, so there is a fair amount of speculation in this section. The second friendship was between Charlotte Bronte and Mary Taylor. They were friends throughout their adult lives. What was interesting was that Taylor felt able to be critical of Bronte’s work, saying she found it too conventional and not feminist enough. That made me want to look out for Taylor’s novel, which is more radical than Bronte’s were (more for the tbr list). The third is a transatlantic friendship between George Eliot and Harriet Beecher Stowe, a connection I wasn’t aware of. It was entirely by letter, they never met. This was interesting and uncovered some aspects of both women’s careers that I wasn’t aware of. The final friendship between Woolf and Katherine Mansfield is the one most is known about, although large parts of their correspondence has also been destroyed. Woolf and Mansfield are often presented as enemies, but the reality is much more complex and they both acknowledged the other’s genius. This account looks more closely at the nuances in their relationship. This is an interesting account and there is no putting on pedestals, it’s pretty much a warts and all account. There is a good deal that is already known, but it is well-researched and if you are interested in this sort of thing then you may enjoy it. “And so, misleading myths of isolation have long attached themselves to women who write: a cottage-dwelling spinster; an impassioned roamer of the moors; a fallen woman, shunned; a melancholic genius. Over the years, a conspiracy of silence has obscured the friendships of female authors, past and present. But now it is time to break the silence and celebrate this literary sisterhood—a glimmering web of interwoven threads that still has the power to unsettle, to challenge, to inspire.” 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson “Because that was how it happened: one moment you were there, laughing, talking, breathing, and the next you were gone. Forever. And there wasn’t even a shape left in the world where you’d been, neither the trace of a smile nor the whisper of a word. Just nothing.” This is the first in a series, and has a number of classic tropes in place. Jackson Brodie is a forty something ex police officer who is now a private eye. He is also divorced (well, estranged). He is managing three cold cases of varying ages: the relatives involved have turned to him for help. He is also trailing an air stewardess whose husband thinks she is being unfaithful. To all this is a complicated private life and the fact that someone appears to be trying to kill him. Obviously, there’s no way this lot could be linked….is there? I haven’t seen the TV series, which probably helps. There are lots of plot strands and Atkinson uses a variety of voices. It took me a while to unravel them all. It is well written and pretty undemanding, a good last thing at night read. There is a dry sense of humour as well, which also helps. “The plot thickens,” he said, and wished he hadn’t said that because it sounded like something from a bad detective novel. “I think we have a suspect.” That didn’t sound much better. “My house has just exploded, by the way.” At least that was novel.” 7 out of 10 Starting Revelation by C J Sansom

The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst “It is hard to do justice to old pleasures that cannot be revived—we seem half to disown our youthful selves, who loved and treasured them.” This novel spans seventy years. It is very English starting in wartime Oxford in the early 1940s. There are five snapshots in time with some recurring characters and their offspring/partners. There is a queer note running through it as the main character Johnny is gay. He does not appear in the first part, though his father David does. There are glimpses of gay life and coming out in the 1940s, 1960s, 1970s, 1990s and finally 2010s. It had a bit of the feel of A Dance to the Music of Time and it really does feel very English. Hollinghurst has been called the heir to Henry James, although as far as I am aware James never wrote any scenes involving blue dildos … The title relates to David (Johnny’s father) and was a 1960s scandal involving gay sex and MPs. The scandal is always just off the screen and we never really find out quite how it happened. We see the nature of gay life in Oxford in wartime and in each snapshot, ending with the age of Grindr in the 2010s. The novel is from a variety of perspectives; Freddie Green in the 1940s, Johnny himself, Lucy Johnny’s daughter (not by the usual method), who has two mummies. There is a sense of nostalgia about the whole thing. The old pre-legality, pre social media ways of communication: glances, smiles, a different semaphore in contrast who the very upfront ways of today. One thing to mention, the whole AIDS epidemic is conspicuous by its complete absence. That felt odd to me. I know Hollinghurst says that he wants to show the effects of these things without telling, but I don’t think he succeeds here. On the whole this did work and following the characters from the beginning (the 1940s section) to death is quite effective. As I have said, omitting AIDS completely was a mistake. It is also very English and very middle class. 7 out of 10 Starting Ordinary Families by E Arnott Robertson

Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd “The view backward showed you all the twists and turns your life had taken, all the contingencies and chances, the random elements of good luck and bad luck that made up one person’s existence.” This is another of those books that has been on my shelves for some years which need to be moved on. I can’t remember how it got there, but here we are. This surprised me a little by not being a total disaster, not that far off though. It is set in the 1910s. The first part in Vienna just before the First World War. The second part in England and France during the First World War. The protagonist is Lysander Rief is an actor and son of an actor. The first part is Vienna in 1913 where Rief is staying and consulting a psychoanalyst. Freud even makes a walk on appearance. Rief becomes involved with another patient of his psychoanalyst. Boyd throws in a rape trope to conclude this part and introduces the spy part. In the second part Lysander has a price to pay for being extricated from Vienna and he has a job to do for what passed for secret services. He goes undercover to look for a traitor. There is a brief foray to Geneva and a bit of torture followed by Rief being shot. Back to London to unravel the puzzle and unmask the bad guy. The ending is a little opaque with a twist or two. Boyd does bring psychotherapy into a number of his novels. In this one he invents a style of psychotherapy called “parallelism”. The plots rolls along well, but it’s a bit clunky and some of the spy tropes are a bit predictable. “Maybe this is what life is like - we try to see clearly but what we see is never clear and is never going to be. The more we strive the murkier it becomes. All we are left with are approximations, nuances, multitudes of plausible explanations. Take your pick.” 5 and a half out of 10 Starting Nightcrawling by Leila Motley

Edge Of England by Derek Turner This rather comprehensive account of my home county, Lincolnshire covers a good deal of ground. It is the second largest English counties and one of the least well known. Turner covers geography, history, customs, folklore, wildlife, architecture, industry, farming (inevitably), lots of brief accounts of historical figures along with Turner’s own personal history in Lincolnshire and his experiences. It also has the feel of travel literature. The chapters are organised geographically, which means there is no real chronological framework. After the introduction there are chapters on waters, coastline and doggerland (the land now covered by the North Sea that was once inhabited). Then there are chapters on the Fenlands, Marshland, the Wolds, the River Ouse, The Humber Estuary, northwest Lincolnshire, Lincoln, the west and southwest. The chapters are a bit of a patchwork which leads to odd juxtapositions. Some work better than others. When discussing Grantham Turner inevitably has to comment on two particularly famous residents; Isaac Newton and Margaret Thatcher. He is a bit cautious about Thatcher (more than I would have been) and with Newton perhaps overly hero-worshipping the notoriously grumpy Mr Newton: very much avoiding his alleged investment in a slave trading company. Slavery is also skated over when he talks about Stamford. Most of Lincolnshire was too out of the way for any involvement, but Stamford, in the south of the county was much closer to London with easier access to what was happening. There’s plenty about landscape and architecture. There is the magnificence of the cathedral and some of the oldest churches (Saxon) in the country. The vignettes of the well-known and less well known are fascinating with lots of Saxons and Vikings (origins of place names and the like), assorted explorers (Flinders, Franklin, Harrison, Bass and Banks) a veritable choir of churchmen with a few added “saints” (Hugh, Guthlac, Gilbert, John Wycliffe, Robert Grosseteste (who now has one of Lincoln’s universities named after him), John Wesley and John Foxe), a sprinkling of the great and the good as well as various literary and musical types (Tennyson, Byrd, Taverner). In addition there are lots of stories of the everyday type. The whole thing is pretty comprehensive and fascinating. Inevitably there are some issues and things I disagreed with, but it’s very informative. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting Folklore of Lincolnshire by Susanna O'Neill