Read: Seascraper by Benjamin Wood ★★★★★ 📚
Little waves are shouldering the cart’s tyres, spitting upwards at his face. The sea is patterned by the rain like honeycomb. He’s trying to make the best of it, but he can tell the horse is getting more reluctant.
A wonderful novella. A few days in the life of a young horse & cart shrimper working on a misty flat coast. Beautiful slow description of the daily grind in the cold & wet. The story unfolds slowly into drama, dreams & music.
Read: Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time by Penelope Lively ★★★★ 📚
There is a vogue for ‘life writing’ at the moment, both for publication and as private endeavours. I am all for it, partly because I gobble up other people’s lives, as a reader, but also because it seems to me a productive personal exercise – to stand aside and have a look at your story and try, not to make sense of it, which may be too taxing, but to trace the narrative thread, to look at the roads not taken, to see where you began and where you have got to.
Lovely memoir and reflections on memory, books & old age. The author is continually curious across history, objects, people…
Read: No Friend to This House by Natalie Haynes ★★★ 📚
What do you mean, you didn't see me there? Well, of course you didn't. It's not a trick, it's grammar. Greek uses the masculine and the feminine, but it prefers the masculine (I know). So no matter how many girls were in a room (just one, in this instance), if boys were there too, the word 'children' takes the masculine ending. And the girls disappear. But yes, in case it's unclear, Medea and Jason had three children, two sons and then a daughter. I was a baby when Jason left my mother; Medea fled Corinth holding me in her arms.
Retelling of the Medusa myth, lots of points of view, female, that are only hinted at. The first half is fragmented but it really picks up when Medusa takes over the narrative. Jason doesn't get much respect.
Read: And He Shall Appear by Kate van der Burgh ★★★★ 📚
Working class boy is dazzled by Cambridge & his magician, occultist “friend”. Page turner, dark academia.
Some people say we’re our true selves when we think nobody is watching. But how do we know our own identities without others’ confirming gaze? If, like the tree falling in the proverbial wood, nobody is around to hear us, is our story a story at all? And when were different things to different people, what then?
Read Americana by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ★★★★ 📚
Love story that investigates class, race, sexism & history in Africa, USA & Britain
Obinze saw himself through Vincent’s eyes: a university staff child who grew up eating butter and now needed his help.
Read: Against Identity by Alexander Douglas ★★★ 📚
The Guardian describe this as a powerfully strange counterblast to identity fetishism and quote What we think of as our own special identity is just a suit of borrowed clothes but although I enjoyed parts the references & context in this philosopher’s book was a bit above my level.
Read: Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur ★★★★★ 📚
A scientist as monster father. Adam’s ego and bi-polar comes to a head his family is exploding in various ways. Alternative chapters written in close third keep some sympathy for all the privileged Cap Cod cast as the family history is dug up. Lots of nature, funny & exciting, I really enjoyed this one.
Read Dance Moves by Wendy Erskine ★★★ 📚
Slightly off kilter stories about off kilter characters that keep you wondering. The author leaves you waiting until you start to grasp the main ideas. All with a Northern Ireland connection.
Read: TheWater Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates ★★★★ 📚
Slavery & the underground railway in the USA. Realistic, except for the hero’s developing ‘superpower’ which I guess was a metaphor. Not as horrific as other slavery novels I’ve read but spells out a lot powerfully.
Read: Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis ★★★ 📚
UN newbie gets caught up with isis bride. Interesting, engaging & very mixed up on several levels. The mix of humour & seriousness felt slightly off kilter to me. The authors credentials made this more surprising when I read them.
