Willoyd's Reading 2025

[willoyd]

13. Co-Wives, Co-Widows by Adrienne Yabouza *****
Having reached fifty books in my Reading the World project just before Christmas, I've had a brief hiatus whilst I get my United States tour back up and running: i initially intended only to start this global journey after finishing the American trip, but was too keen to start, and the problem then became that the latter then slid rather on to the back-burner. I'm still pressing on with it (40 reached now), but can't leave this alone much longer - it's too addictive!

So, a book for a country (Central African Republic) in a continent that's been a bit of a revelation: I've really enjoyed pretty much every African book so far having read so few before. This latest is apparently the first adult novel from CAR to be translated into English. As Ann Morgan says on her Reading The World website (in several places!), there's a danger in this sort of situation for a book and author to be almost forced to adopt the mantle of 'representing' a country, and i suppose that's true of any book in a project such as mine too, but on the positive side, it's still broadening my range of reading, and these books are increasingly serving as an introduction to a whole range of literature that I'm looking to explore further.

Co-Wives, Co-Widows is a slim volume, barely 120-odd pages, in the Dedalus Africa series. It focuses on the impact of the unexpected death of their husband Lidou, a successful builder, on the lives of his two co-wives, especially when Lidou's family led by cousin Zouaboua, a nasty piece of work!) try to take over Lidou's property and money. Ndongo Passy and Grekpoubou have a fight on their hands if they are going to secure their and their children's future.
The novel touches on a range of serious subjects, including the situation of women in a highly patriarchal society and systemic corruption at all levels (it is set against the backdrop of a presidential election). However, it's written with such a light touch, that it's the wit and humour that is the main aftertaste, but it's a wit that cuts with a very sharp knife. Yabouza says much in very few words, so few that on occasions it's almost too easy to miss, a single word changing the slicing direction of a sentence, a severe beating of the two wives summarised in barely four or five lines, the brutality underlined by the succinctness and matter of factness of the writing, but easily overlooked if not paying attention! The language feels simple and direct belying a subtlety that took me a while to appreciate. Much of the narrative has an uncomfortable feel from a westerner's perspective (the patriarchy!), but one begins to understand that the women involved (not just the two co-widows) are going to 'succeed' (read survive perhaps, but hopefully also change things) by working within the system rather than always against it.

I found this a very quick but thoroughly rewarding read. It initially feels a 'simple' read too,being fooled by the directness of the language, but I was soon disabused of that! Whilst I enjoyed this from the very first page, it was a book that definitely grew on me as I read it, and is one that I will almost certainly return to in the future. And, in the same way that I have started to enjoy exploring the back catalogue of Latin American specialists Charco Press, I'm now looking forward to trying out others in the (smaller) Dedalus Africa series, which has opened up previously hard to come by introductions to other non-English speaking countries from this continent too.

[willoyd]

I have got a fair amount of catching up to do, having not been on the site for almost a month, and getting on for six weeks behind on book reviews.  So, here goes with books to the end of April (in 2-3 posts)

 

14. The Burgundians by Bart van Loo *****
If one ever reads any medieval history or historical fiction, Burgundy and the Burgundians have a tendency to keep cropping up. Most famously, at least for me, was that they were the ones who captured Joan of Arc and sold her to the English with dire consequences. The wine region is probably even more famous, and I assumed that most of this history would be centred on that part of France. How wrong could I have been, as the bulk of Burgundian territory, and the main source of wealth, was actually in the Low Countries, and before long I found myself realising that I was actually reading an origin story for the Netherlands and Belgium (and, to a lesser degree, Luxembourg), and a background history to one of the lynchpins of European Early Modern history, the Emperor Charles V - nephew to Katherine of Aragon and father-in-law to her daughter, Mary I. I had always read of him in his role as monarch of Spain and Austria, and never appreciated that fundamentally he was, and felt himself to be, Burgundian (and that Burgundian equates to modern day Dutch/Belgian).

In fact, this book filled in so many holes in my European history, being one of those books where a light-bulb seemed to go off, perhaps not on every page, but certainly every chapter! And it was very readable! This is no academic tome, and whilst there is sometimes a tendency for some to look down at 'popular history', and the author is certainly not afraid to offer his opinion, I enjoyed the driving narrative that the author developed, and found it sufficiently deep and rigorous for my purposes! It is perhaps slightly unbalanced in that the meat of the book seems to be with Philip the Good, whilst the period after the death of Charles the Bold is pushed through rather rapidly, but that reflects the 'glory years' where Burgundy was a genuine European power. It did, however, mean that, at least for me, there were one or two patches of longeuse in the middle, whilst the pace was almost too much of a gallop towards the end. No matter, it's a book that will remain on my shelves for dipping into and refreshing - I've become increasingly fascinated with Dutch/Belgian history, but haven't been this far back before. As an added bonus, I also found the interestingly discursive bibliography to be very useful - and have already followed up on some of it (including the fiction).

 

15. Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan **
I've been looking forward to this for a while, even more so as an increasing number of people have positively raved about, so settled down to it last night after finishing the above, looking forward to a satisfyingly big week of a read. 24 hours later, a quarter completed, and I'm done! There's plenty of evidence here for the quality of writing - some brilliant sections - but ultimately, as so often, it comes down to the characters for me (although one or two pieces of dialogue sound horribly artificial). It's patently clear that one isn't meant to like them, and that's no problem. But they, and the direction the book is taking, feels so superficial, so 2-dimensional, so devoid of any real interest, I really don't care. The book is described as a 'state of the nation' novel, but it isn't. As so often, reviewers and commentators seem to think London is the nation (as do our politicians), but it isn't, and this is very much about London alone. And even then, just one, rather privileged slice of it (although there are so many characters, it's inevitable others are touched on). As a Londoner who emigrated to the north decades ago, but whose roots are still fairly firmly planted in that relatively small, if heavily overpopulated and badly mangled, corner of the country, I do enjoy reading about my home city, but sadly, not this. I don't want to run this book down, I know I'm in a minority, and there is no doubt that this is very readable in its own way - but I can't get the phrase 'all style and no substance' out of my head. I don't even really 'dislike' it - I just don't care enough to keep ploughing though the remaining 400 pages.

 

16. L'Argent (Money) by Emile Zola *****
Aristide Saccard makes a comeback after his major role in La Curee (The Kill), in this fourth volume* of Zola's Rougon-Macquart sequence. Zola takes a long hard look at the world of finance and speculation in Second Empire Paris. He tells a great story, told in the same rich and lush style of the Empire itself, whilst drilling down into its corrupt underbelly (no less corrupt than we are today, I hasten to add!). With all of these books so far, I've enjoyed them from the outset, but it's taken a while for me to sink fully into the narrative, and this has been no exception, not untypical of quite a bit of nineteenth century literature for me. But once in, it's absolutely gripping. I just love the richness of characters and the atmosphere created. A very satisfying read, that seems also particularly topical.

 

* I'm reading them in the order recommended by Zola himself, not in publication order. This was actually a fairly late book in written order, being the 18th published. It definitely follows immediately on from, and refers to, La Curee, both the third in Zola's order, and the third published.

 

17. Love Triangle by Matt Parker **

My OH was rather surprised at the title when she heard it - "not like you!" - but this is no romance but a book on the author's joys in trigonometry. I'm no ignoramus in the subject, having studied it up to first year uni as a subsidiary subject (where I did reach my limit!), but I found myself after the first few reasonably straightforward and interesting chapters, all too rapidly getting lost in the topics introduced, and frankly not that interested. Unfinished.

[willoyd]

18. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri ***
Read for one of my book groups. This was Lahiri's second volume of short stories following on from her Pulitzer prize winning collection Interpreter of Maladies, one which debuted in the New York Times bestseller list at #1. Although not a short story fan, I expected much, but to be honest I wasn't over impressed. There's no doubting her writing skills IMO, but as a collection I found this rather repetitious and, in the end, mildly tedious. Lahiri appears only interested in the experiences of a very small cadre of people, middle class Ivy League West Bengali immigrants to the US, and is consistently bleak in her views (with the the odd glimmer of positivity). In earlier books she apparently focused on first generation immigrants, here switching for the first time to second and third generations. Characters were largely interchangeable, scenarios similar, issues examined and re-examined, gloominess prevailed. I don't think this helped being a collection of short stories, almost encouraging repetition, and always finishing just as the characters started to feel developed and potentially interesting. I would be interested to read one of her novels, although not rushing to in amongst a TBR pile of far more attractive looking reading, and if ever tackling another short story collection, reckon that I would appreciate them more read individually over a rather more extended period of time than the ten days this book occupied. As so often, I went along to the book group thinking I would be out on a limb (expecting others to be more enthused - after all the applause and sales), only to find that most of us were in agreement - very few (two of the twelve I think) were anything more than lukewarm, although none positively disliked.

 

19. Havana Year Zero by Karla Suarez ****
Read as the book for Cuba in my Reading The World project. A lively, quirky romp of a novel, centred on a quest by Julia (a pseudonym, as are all the names meant to be) to trace a document which proves that the Italian, Antonio Meucci, invented the telephone, as opposed to Alexander Graham Bell (Meucci is an historically real person). It's as convoluted as ball of wool, and thoroughly entertaining, reeking of both time (1993) and place.

 

20. The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning *****
The first volume in the author's Balkan Trilogy, set in Romania in the early months of World War Two, centred on newly married couple Guy and Harriet Pringle. It's still early days (the first book of six, including the chronologically successive Levant Trilogy), but the couple's relationship looks like it could get complicated as they gradually reveal their characters to both each other and the reader, the situation looks increasingly precipitous as the war comes ever closer, and the novel gradually entwines the reader in its narrative. The world they live in almost seems childlike in its naivety, emphasised by a mixed cast of often eccentric characters, but there's an undercurrent of darkness which gives a distinct edge to the story. The only minor irritant is one Yakimov, a British passport holding White Russian, who is a bit too much of a caricature for my taste, but otherwise I'm gripped.

 

21. Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood ****
Read as the book for Australia in my Reading the World project. Shortlisted for the Booker prize last year, and regarded by many as the best on that list, I can see why (even if I disagree - Orbital remains for me a rare occasion where I actually agree with the judges, at least of those I've read to date). It is a book which I respect, even admire, rather than actually say I 'like'. Beautifully written, it's more a meditation than a narrative (although the progress of the plague of mice has a certain compulsive, almost horror, quality to it), not least about how we handle both grief and those instances in life of which we are privately ashamed, but which occasionally come back to haunt us (even if others may barely remember them, if they do at all). I read this pretty much in one sitting (only broken to make a cup of tea at one point!), it was so compulsively hypnotic. So why 'only' 4 stars? I can't quite put my finger on it, but in the immediate aftermath, that just felt the right level - perhaps reflecting that lack of like versus respect. Just a mite too clinical, too starkly 'literary'? I struggle to put my finger on it, but that's how it left me, so 4 it is.

[willoyd]

22. We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida *
Read for one of my book groups. I wasn't looking forward to this, unimpressed as I am with the latest fashion for 'quirky' Japanese books (libraries and cats seem to abound), but even with that likely prejudice, I couldn't quite believe how bad this was. 5 short stories all based around a mysterious mental health clinic, that only appeared when people 'needed' it, and where cats are prescribed as the 'medicine' for clients' ills. All very cutsie with a streak of magical 'realism' (nothing very realistic here), served with a liberal dose of repetition, clunkiness, stilted dialogue, tell not show, and paper thin characters. How on earth was this even published, let alone a bestseller? Ghastly, and not worth wasting any more words on.

 

23. The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber ***
Read as the book for South Dakota in my Tour of the USA. A first person story told by the wife and mother in a black family of ranching settlers in the Badlands about their efforts to survive all the vicissitudes of life both thrown at them and self-generated in this tough environment - and there are plenty! Eminently readable and well placed in time and space, I really enjoyed this for the first half to two-thirds, and found some of the issues raised promising, not least the various elements of prejudice. although ultimately not explored in as great a depth as I hoped. However, the unremitting grimness took its toll as this felt increasingly like an exercise in fictional mis-lit, and I struggled to more than skim the last third as the story arc became increasingly depressing and obvious. On top of that, whilst I don't need an ending that ties up all the loose ends, this one just left too many unresolved for me - the story felt to be only half told. There was much to admire about this book, but in the end it left me rather more frustrated, even irritated, than satisfied.

 

24. Truss at 10 by Anthony Seldon ***
An interesting, strongly researched account and analysis of Liz Truss's brief time as Prime Minister. I found the structure a little bit laboured, based around the author's 10 rules for keeping power as Prime Minister, but it certainly highlighted quite what a disaster she was. And, in spite of her protestations, self-inflicted.

[willoyd]

25.  Castle Dor by Daphne du Maurier ***
Read for one of my book groups. A slight oddity, being an unfinished novel by Anthony Quiller-Couch (a man oft cited in Helen Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road), whose daughter persuaded du Maurier to finish it after his death. It's not clear how much is which author's work, but the book tends to be credited to the latter. It's a 'modern day' retelling of the Cornish legend of Tristram and Isolde (at least, it's set in the early 20th century!). I enjoyed some of the descriptive writing, evoking Quiller-Couch's native and du Maurier's much loved Cornwall, but the plot felt mildly laboured and rather contrived - with 2-3 characters providing something of a narrative of various versions of the original legend through their researches, thus theoretically enabling the untutored reader to spot the parallels, but it all got rather stodgy and predictable. Not a bad book, rather somewhat dull, and it took some effort to make it to the end.

 

26. The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks by Donald Harington ***
The book for Arkansas in my Tour of the United States. Donald Harington is an author of whom I'd previously not heard at all, but when investigating novels for Arkansas, his name cropped up time and again as very much an author of place, in a similar way to Wendell Berry being 'of' Kentucky and William Faulkner 'of' Mississippi, all three creating and developing a body of work based on one fictional place. In this book, we have a multigenerational story of the Ingledew family of the author's fictional town of Stay More set in the Ozarks, in the northern reaches of Arkansas, the subject of most of his books. Having dipped into this a couple of times, I was really looking forward to this, and once getting going properly I was rapidly immersed in the stories - the book effectively being 20 interlinked short stories, each one based on a building in the town (illustrated in the chapter heading). The writing is difficult to describe: folksy, tongue-in-cheek, it's a sideways look at an American backcountry lifestyle and mores (I think - I'm no expert!). It's certainly engaging.
And yet, I found around halfway through that things were distinctly dragging. The style, initially engaging, gradually felt irritating, the tone felt flat, almost monotonous, the characters became confusing - they were all so similar - and I really started to wonder if I was going to get to the end. This wasn't helped by the author's obsession with sex, and I found his almost matter of fact approach to rape and incest uncomfortable. Perhaps this was deliberately so? Maybe, but it was the sort of uncomfortable which almost put me off completely, and I'm not a squeamish or straitlaced reader by any means. However, I pushed through, and things did pick up in the last third.
In a very similar way to the previous book in this project, I found much to admire and enjoy in this book, and in just the same way, early chapters suggested this was heading almost for 'favourite' status. But it's tonal flatness, thematic repetition, samey characterisation and some distinctly uncomfortable approaches in places made this harder work than I initially expected, and I was relieved rather than satisfied to finish and to be able to move on. Whilst my reading of the two othe authors mentioned above, Wendell Berry and William Faulkner, left me keen to explore their work more, I'm not so sure here.

 

27. It Comes From the River by Rachel Bower ***
Read for one of my book groups. An interesting read by a local writer (from Bradford). Alex is a young mother married, it's almost immediately apparent, to an abusive, highly possessive, husband. Lauren is a single mother of two, trying to make ends meet, with her story opening just as she is caught shoplifting. Nancy is an older woman, now in a care home after a domestic accident. Their three stories are told in alternating (if one alternate between three?!) stories, in monthly chapters. Gradually, as is inevitable (so no spoiler!) there stories intersect, reaching the equally inevitable climax.

The author is a poet and short story writer, and her poetic background shows. Every now and again she overeggs the pudding, but overall I enjoyed her writing, and the way we see the stories intersect. The characters are well drawn, even if I found them a little bit cliched. What slightly disappointed me was the plot. The blurb declares that the novel is "infused with the folklore of northern England...{and}...is an unforgettable, uncanny debut about violence, resilience and hope - and the power of women when they work together". Hmmm. There is an element of 'folklore', with a few additional sections about the 'gytrash'*, but they add absolutely nothing to the story and are, if anything, a complete red herring, going absolutely nowhere. And, as for the women working together, they don't, not at least until virtually the last page. I was hoping for something a bit original, different - even unforgettable and/or uncanny! Instead, we were treated to a fairly average, if well written, story treading a well-worn and fairly obvious path - although the ending had its moments of high drama. Ultimately a bit disappointing, but achieves three stars for the writing (with which one or two other reviewers were, I have to admit, less enamoured).

*A gytrash is a "North-of-England spirit....which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers" (Jane Eyre ch xii). There is, almost inevitably, a Wikipedia article on the subject, which I had to look up (it's a while since I read Jane Eyre!). Given one of the plot elements, the 'large dog' idea promised but never delivered.

 

28. A Little Luck by Claudia Pineiro ******
Read for one of my book groups. After a string of, at best, average reads, it was good to get back to an author whose previous novel I'd read, Elena Knows, was at the top of my scale. And boy, did she deliver. Mary Lohan is an ex-patriot Argentinian, returning from Boston to Buenos Aires after a twenty year absence to assess a school for accreditation by the educational organisation she works for. It's a reluctant return, as she was previously a parent there, but left the area after some sort of disastrous incident there in which she was involved. However, she has physically changed a lot in the time, and is virtually unrecognisable, so takes the risk of returning. The novel develops from there, but to say more would spoil.

I was gripped, transfixed, pretty much from start to finish. Having reached to page 70-ish in one sitting, I realised that I had to put the next morning aside to finish off (it's only just over 200 pages) - this was not a book I wanted to read in short sections. At times during that morning, it proved both vividly and excruciatingly painful to read - I almost couldn't at one point, so scrunched up was I in reaction to what was unfolding. On at least one occasion I had to stand up and walk round the room to take a (very!) deep breath or two. It absolutely nailed me to the seat otherwise, and nothing was going to disturb me from finishing this. It's a while since I read a book that moved me quite as much as this one did. Simply put, it blew me away.

Having read two of the three books published by Charco Press, and loved them both, I'm now going to try what she's rather better known for, outside Argentina at least, her crime novels, published by other presses. Even if they are only half as good as these two, they'll be worth a read; it'll be interesting to see how they compare. I am also looking forward to reading that third, Time of the Flies, but not immediately - that sort of intensity needs spreading out a bit!

[willoyd]

A while since I posted - a combination of holidays (two and a half weeks in the  Outer Hebrides) and family funeral1  Anyway, some catch up reviews, the first of two sets to bring my up to date:

 

29.  Bookish by Lucy Mangan ***
Subtitled 'How Reading Shapes Our Lives', this takes over where Bookworm, the story of the author's childhood reading, leaves off. Having enjoyed that (not perfect, but fun and interesting to read), this seemed like a no-brainer, particularly given the swaithe of 5 star reviews. Hmmm. I'm going out on a limb on this one, but I thought it was very ordinary, tending towards the disappointing.

I so related to her 'bookworm' view of the world - I've been in enough trouble in my life for having my nose antisocially buried in a book to fully empathise with her point of view - and I enjoyed her lightness of touch, but for me the content was lacking. Sentences all too often rambled on, and didn't say an awful lot quite several times over, discussion of books felt superficial at best, and there was a general woolliness to the narrative. I was also looking forward to her focusing on the world of adult reading after a full book on children's reading, but it seems that children's books are a significant proportion of her adult reading too, and I found myself skipping or skimming large sections in search of something a bit more grown up (I find children's literature fascinating by the way, but this was meant to be a book about adult reading. Perhaps if she'd discussed why so much children's lit still fascinates her - and others - as an adult I'd have stayed interested).

I can't say I agree with quite a few of her assessments (sorry, but I'm not giving ground on the plain awfulness of Dan Brown! And no, I'm no fan of bonkbusters!), but divergence of opinion on books is the stuff of life, and any book group where we all agree is guaranteed to be a dull meeting. There were enough areas where we definitely agreed (yay, another who rates Anne Bronte in front of her sisters!) for there to be enough common ground, so it wasn't her book opinions that have influenced my rating. No, this book was for me sadly just too frothy and too thin to be more than a throwaway read, with no real examination on what was supposedly the topic of the book as in the subtitle - perhaps if that had been rephrased 'How Reading Is My Life' it would have felt more to the point? So, OK while it lasted, but nothing like enough depth to remain on my shelves alongside her previous book.

 

30. A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam ****
The book for Bangladesh in my Reading the World project. The story of a widow's efforts to keep her family intact as her two children get involved in the 1971 War of Independence. I knew next to nothing of this period, only being aware (as a 13-year old at the time) of the change from 'East Pakistan' to 'Bangladesh'. Of the horrors of the war and genocide - absolutely ignorant.

The story itself was a fairly standard if enjoyable family saga, with no real narrative surprises but enough character, plot and sense of place to keep me engaged through to the end, even if none particularly stood out. Rehana, the mother, is young(ish?0 and naive in the ways of the world, but has a certain steel when it comes to her children, and builds in strength and character as the narrative progresses. It was certainly good enough for me to look to read the sequel A Good Muslim (just ordered). Some reviews do comment negatively on the accuracy of the background (although I have to say that the tenor of the complaints suggest some sort of agenda - and they are often not accurate in themselves), but that's a subject about which I don't know anything like enough to comment. However, whatever else this book did or was, it had me going off to read up more on the subject (ongoing!), so in terms of helping improve understanding and knowledge, - and helping open my eyes - this was a definite success, and I can see why it won Best First Book in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

 

31. The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy ***
I was initially totally engaged with this slim novel (barely 200 pages) as the main protagonist, Saul, is knocked over on the 'Abbey Road' album pedestrian crossing, breaks up with his girlfrienc, and goes out to East Germany (it's the 1980s) and falls in love with his interpreter. Some of it feels rather strange, the characters are interesting rather than likeable, but there's a feeling of something to come. And then things become distinctly odd (I won't say what as it would be a spoiler). I found myself floundering and intrigue started to turn to bemusement and rapidly increasing disengagement, before realising (rather slow on the uptake") to understand what was going on. Well, at least in principle, as some of the detail was still, deliberately, obscure and tangled. It was also enough to see me through to the end, appreciating in particular the author's portrayal of the mix of thoughts going through Saul's mind, and the interplay between memory and current events. The book as a whole, however, left me rather cold: it all felt rather too clever (at least for me) and manufactured, but perhaps more critical was that the more I read of Saul, the less I was interested in him. So, another book where I respected the writing, but whereas I did enjoy Stone Yard Devotional, I cant say I liked this very much at all.

 

32. Clear by Carys Davies ****
John Ferguson, a poverty-stricken minister in the newl formed Free Church in Scotland, is employed by a landowner to be taken out to a remote island off the north coast to evict the sole remaining resident to make way for sheep (part of the Highland Clearances). His 'victim' Ivar speaks only Norn (a northern dialect), so when John arrives and is taken into Ivar's home after an accident, the whole idea of how to effect this eviction appears even more problematic, especially as the men gradually develop trust and a means of communicating. In the meantime his wife Mary, left on the mainland, is increasingly worried about what her husband has taken on.

I enjoyed the author's atmospheric writing in West, even if I had some problems with the story itself, and pretty much the same could be said here. Some reviewers have complained about a lack of pace and overwrought descriptions, but for me the fomer was perfect and the latter both evocative and involving. The narrative development showed promise, but yet again, I just couldn't match the people (particularly John) with the events that transpired. And then when we came to the ending, the pace seemed to go into sudden overdrive, and the whole story, in stark contrast to the carefully developed buildup, all came to a juddering and all too conveniently resolved halt. It was an improvement on West, but the flaws were all too familiar. Still, it was an enjoyable read; Davies certainly creates a vivid sense of place that reminds me strongly of the Scottish islands, so it was no real surprise, even with my doubts, to see her win the Ondaatje prize (for books that do just that!). I also look forward to reading more from her, but I hope she can sorther plotting out, and move from the just good to great (at least IMO!).

 

[poppy]

48 minutes ago, willoyd said:

A while since I posted - a combination of holidays (two and a half weeks in the  Outer Hebrides) and family funeral.

 

Any photos from your holiday, Willoyd?

[willoyd]

On 7/22/2025 at 12:55 AM, poppy said:

 

Any photos from your holiday, Willoyd?

I'll post some in the next couple of days.  

[willoyd]

And the second set....

 

33. The Undercurrents by Kirsty Bell ******
The author moves to a larger, older apartment in Berlin with her husband and 2 sons, to face breakdown in the apartment itself (Opening sentence: A large pool of water had appeared overnight on our kitchen floor, so silent and unexpected it seemed to be a mirage, rapidly, and unexpectedly at the time, followed by the same with her marriage (Second page: It asked for an equally extreme response, which duly came in a sudden, brutal and final break....My husband went away for work and never came back to our home.). As a consequence (the reasoning is obscure!) she is drawn into the history of the apartment (one of few on the street to have survivied WW2) and that of the part of the city surrounding the building - riven with significant history as we find. The book grows into a mixture of (largely cultural/social) history and memoir, and an absolutely fascinating read. I was hooked from start to finish, wrapped up in both the text and following the book and identifying locations on Google Earth (I love books where I can track them like this!).
It's a book I will almost certainly return to (especially when I next get back to Berlin - this is a part I didn't get to visit, but abuts onto the small part I'm familiar with). Initially given 5 stars, but, writing 2-3 weeks later, I can't for the life of me think why I was so stingy, so a 6th added on. This will challenge for my non-fiction book of the year I'm sure.

 

34. The Great Auk by Tim Birkhead ****
A subject that's always intrigued me. Split into two halves, the first focusing on the history of the bird itself leading to its extinction in (probably) the 1840s, the second on the after-life of the bird, in particular what happened to the various artifacts (stuffed skins, eggs mainly), and more particularly, the mildly eccentric life of perhaps the most avid collector of these, Vivian Hewitt. The author is a recognised authority on the species (his area of speciality study more generally is guillemots), so as one would expect, there's a ring of authority, and he's a decent writer who can tell a good story. However, whilst I was glad of the 'full' story, I felt there was too much emphasis on the second section than the first: indeed, by the end of the book I felt I knew almost more about Hewitt than about the Great Auk! So, a decent read, but not a keeper.

 

35. Overlord by Max Hastings ****
The author's one volume account of WW2 is perhaps my favourite history of that period, so it was almost inevitable that I'd go to him for this more focused account. And it is a good read. However, perhaps as a function of that greater detail, I felt that i got rather bogged down at times in all the various regimental/brigade/divisional numbers, and I found it increasingly hard to keep any sort of picture in my head of what was going on. I think this wasn't helped by the, as is all too usual in such histories it seems, poor range of maps, and their inadequate labelling and level of detail.
On the other hand, Hastings excels in several other areas. I find some (all well regarded) authors rely too heavily on too frequent and too large chunks of quotes from letters/interviews to tell their story. This author, as in the previous book, is far more able at sustaining the flow, - both choice and length almost invariably moving the narrative on and enhancing it. Equally, I enjoy his (what seems to me) even handed analysis, that takes one well beyond a simple retelling. His views on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the forces involved (at least the main ones), and of the leaders, was illuminating; I particularly appreciated his precision, clarity and balance. Overall a satisfying and definitely educational read!

 

36. When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut G ***
Read for one of my book groups, but already on my TBR shelf after a very strong recommendation by a friend. It certainly started off well, with an enthralling chapter that linked so many different chemical threads together. However, it became apparent (supported by reading interviews with the author) that whilst the first chapter was almost 100% factual, later chapters grew more and more fictional. I have not problems with that normally: I enjoy historical fiction and am used to authors filling in gaps with their own interpretations, even slightly modifying the history to enable a stronger, pehaps more focused, narrative arc. However, it became apparent that in order to tell the story he wanted to tell, the author apparently replaced large chunks of the history with complete fictions of his own, increasingly so as the novel (which is what it was) progressed. It didn't help that some of this fiction took on a distinctly sordid tone. To such an extent that by around two-thirds through this relatively brief book, I was looking to finish, and only to glad to get there(I don't think I would have bothered if it hadn't been a book group read). Group discussion revealed that I wasn't the only one both bemused and disappointed with the author's all too violent twisting of his subject's lives, undermining any credibility in what he was trying to say, which seemed to be a very cliched examination of the mad genius (male of course!). It didn't even provide any illumination of the science involved, with descriptions of the 'beauty' of the maths or concept involved left completely unexplained and undescribed. Overall, very disappointing, and only saved from a 1/2 star rating by the excellent first chapter. What I find curious is that we, a very disparated group, were near unanimous, yet Goodreads (for instance) suggests that over three-quarters of the 56000+ ratings were 4/5 stars.

 

37. The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel ****
A curiously enjoyable read, picked up on spec in a bookshop on holday last year. Jane is a young widow with 2 teenage daughters (Eve and Vera), working on a bioengineering project to restore the woolly month from extinction. Because she's a single parent with little support, the daughters get dragged all over the place, so their education is, shall we say, diverse. It's a novel that centres on the ethics of such a project, but is also an examination of the mother-daughter relationship, which, my being male (one of three brothers, and the father of a son), is about as far from my familial experience as I can get! So I can't vouch for its authenticity or otherwise, but I can vouch for the liveliness of the writing, its humour, and its thought provocation. Other themes also thread their way through the narrative, not least the issues Jane faces in a decidedly patriarchal workplace.
This book was by no means perfect. In fact there were some fairly massive flaws (not least the coincidences/unlikelihoods) and the writing itself felt patchy. It's been likened by some to Lessons in Chemistry, which I have to say that whilst I enjoyed whilst reading, left me distinctly discontented and more and more irritated on reflection. And yet...maybe it was being on holiday, or maybe it was the sheer (and deliberately chosen?) unlikelihood of what happens, or perhaps it was my complete lack of experience of any aspect, or the contrast with reading the last few weeks, or...any one of half a dozen things, but whilst I certainly get why reviewers have offered such a diversity of opinions and, objectively, I can't disagree with those who didn't rate it, I have to say I quite enjoyed this; in fact it felt rather refreshing! But only as a small dose!

[willoyd]

38. The Secret History by Donna Tartt *****
Read both for one of my reading groups and as the book for Vermont in my tour of the USA. This was a long anticipated tome - a book that I have meant to read for some time, and I was delighted (and ready) to at last be tackling it. In some ways, it lived up to expectations too. It was very soon apparent that Donna Tartt can really write: I was almost immediately grabbed by pretty much every aspect, and completely immersed in the story. I settled in comfortably for the long haul (700+ pages)

But then, about a third of the way in, things began to drag a little. Just a little, but I found myself shifting from enthralment to a feeling of 'come on, get on with it', a feeling that not only can the author write really well, but she knows she can, and that she was beginning to indulge herself, a feeling where I began to wonder where the editor was. It was a subtle shift, but it enough to induce restlessness. However, because it was both a group and a tour read, I persisted, and gradually, another third of the way along, I was slowly but surely pulled back in. There were still questions about where things were going, but in the end the denouement was such that it all finally made sense!

So, perhaps not the 'great novel' I was expecting, or, at least, not the perfect masterpiece - it was cerainly 'great' in some ways both in size and quality - but one that justified the time and effort demanded, which is saying something given that I'm not normally into preppy novels about privileged 'kids'. In fact, there were aspects that would normally have completely turned me off. For a normally big starter, I can't say I liked any of the characters, and on occasions struggled to even differentiate between one or two of them. Indeed, I can't say I even cared about them particularly. Their activities - antics - were of the sort that would normally have me running a mile to avoid reading about them. This was one of those books where we knew one of the main plot outcomes before the end of the first page: who killed whom, and almost how. The setting was, for me, not of any particularly interest or depth, being a privileged university/college (so not of much interest) in an under-developed Vermont -no real depth or sense of place other than in one particular section set in winter. Hmmm, yes, that section, the same one which left me wondering why all those pages were there and seemed to be just one huge almost stand-alone diversion. I think I worked it out, with the help of my book group, but I still think it would have been a better book without. or at least not taken so long to work through.

And yet, this remained compulsive reading. The build up to the murder , the why, and the fall out from it and its effect on this misanthropic bunch of privileged misfits was riveting. It was the epitome of watching a slow motion car crash: you know you shouldn't, it's anything but pretty, you're desperate to do something but you know you can't, and you just can't take your eyes away as you sit there in both horror and fascination. There were some superb stylistic choices, not least the author's decision to see events solely through the eyes of one of the group members, one who in some important ways was different to the rest of the group, even an outsider - you're both outside looking in, but also inside at the same time, with all the added intrigue of wondering how reliable or accurate the narrator is in their interpretation of events. And to that extent, this is a work of (almost) pure genius. I still reckon her editor could have been a bit stronger though. It all certainly made for a stonking group discussion!

 

39. A Short History of the World According to Sheep by Sally Coulthard ****
An interesting, fairly light and easy, read about the influence of sheep on our (British) history. No huge insights, but some interesting snippets, a few eye-openers, all pulled together in an eminently readable way - and a nice offset to the previous book. I was lucky enough to meet the author at an event at our local bookshop, and she came across as genuine and interesting as her book. She has written a number of others in a similar vein, and I'll be looking them out. Not great literature, but a pleasure to read.

 

40. Borderlines by Lewis Baston *****
The author visits and takes a good look at the history of various borders between European countries, sometimes breaking them down into sections where each has been formed in a different way. The history ranges from the almost ancient, where a fistful of Belgian 'exclaves' in the Netherlands are a result of medieval ownership patterns (this was a revelation, had me diving into Google Earth, and really makes me want to visit!), to the ultra-topical, and the divides between Russia and its neighbours. This is a book where there's so much, that I have already forgotten or not fully absorbed a good half or more of it, and so has to be one that I will return to (a lot, I think!). Fortunately it's also a book which is well signposted, and works well as a series of individual essays.

 

41. The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn *****
A story of eccentric family relationships, growing up, resilience, discovering oneself, adapting to wartime. In some ways it's all been said before, in others it came across as quite fresh. To be honest, it wasn't what it was 'about' that I was interested in or read it for: this was chosen because I was looking for a good, solid, summer holiday-type read, and it pretty much ticked all the boxes, providing me with an absorbing story about three 'siblings' (it's complicated!) growing up on a minor Dorset landed estate in the 1920s, and the impact of war on their lives. I'm sure I could critique it more closely, but I'm perfectly happy at having been told a thoroughly good, solidly developed story where I really cared about the characters involved. I think I might carry on with August in a similar vein, although I do/did have other plans. My only complaint was that I wanted to know what happened to them afterwards too!

 

[Madeleine]

I read The Secret History nearly 20 years ago, also for a book group read, and I was also curious after hearing so much about it.  I did enjoy it, if that's the right road, but like you I also found it too long, maybe over-written at times, and agree that none of the characters were very likeable.  I remember at the time it felt a bit like a book of two halves, and I think I thought the 2nd half was better.