Read: Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka 📚
A huge complicated baggy book. Perhaps reflecting the chaos of reality too much to read smoothly. Sometimes exciting, sometimes amusing & quite often baffling to me. I suspect some knowledge of recent Nigerian politics would help.
Category Archives: Book
Read: Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flyn ★★★★★ 📚
The book travels to places abandoned by people & recovered to varying degrees by nature. It evokes the ‘islands’ weirdness powerfully. The last chapters go further, reaching into deep time, climate crisis & even faith. Marvellous.
Read: Rizzio by Denise Mina, ★★★★☆ short account of the murder. Not too much in the way of backstory, but lots of detail & characters. Fits very well with the painting by Sir William Allan.
Featured image: Out of Copyright, National Galleries of Scotland.
In Search of One Last Song
In Search of One Last Song: Britain’s disappearing birds and the people trying to save them Patrick Galbraith ★★★☆☆
The author’s meeting with a cross section of folk working in bird conservation, talking about the birds they love. Not the usual conservation suspects, but farmers and keepers along with poets and RSPB types. The subjects sometimes had very differing opinions from each other. They also often differ and argue against the usual conservation narrative. This made for interesting reading.
Reading this in short bursts rather than a few longer sittings I was sometime confused by jumps between different conversations and subject. Each voice appeared and left without out much of a formal introduction & conclusion.
Thanks to 4th Estate & William Collins and NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review.
A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan ★★★☆☆ 📚 one to re-read when I am reading in larger chunks. Fragmented tales across time and characters had me a mite confused.
Read: The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami ★★☆☆☆ 📚
Simple, slow and quiet tale, told rather flatly. Left me feeling slightly depressed.
Read Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart ★★★☆☆ 📚
Read: French Braid by Anne Tyler ★★★★☆ 📚
Family story, nothing dramatic but quietly insightful. Personalities and behaviour bounce through generations.
Read: Blank Pages and Other Stories – Bernard MacLaverty ★★★★★ 📚
Quite spare stories, filled with details. Mostly around loss, grief or difficult lives.
Read: My Name Is Lucy Barton – Elizabeth Strout ★★★★☆ 📚
So quiet and understated, the whitespace seems to hold the story.