Read The Unwilding by Mariana Kemp ★★★★★📚
An excellent artist as monster, but looking at the fallout for other characters more than the monster himself. Two main narrators, the possibility of some unreliability, time & location change make for a captivating read.
Tag: ★★★★★
Read: In Ascension by Martin MacInnes ★★★★★ 📚
My goodness what an interesting book, from biology to spaceflight with climate change & corporate greed hanging over everything. Plenty of mystery, some from my own lack of knowledge some written in (or out).
Turtles:
Lifting the bulk from below, tipping forward, using the momentum of the minor collapse as a motive force, a means of going on.
Read: The Divorcees by Rowan Beaird ★★★★★
The fifties in a “divorce ranch” in Reno. I did not expect to love this, but I did. Felt a bit like a B&W movie. A feeling of things going awry builds. Great characters, interesting ‘history’ & some surprises.
Read: Lone Wolf by Adam Weymouth ★★★★★ 📚
In 2023 there were sixteen fatal dog attacks in the UK alone, not to mention the approximately 15,000 sheep killed by dogs off the leash each year.
In 2022 The author follows the 2012, 1200 mile journey of a radio collared wolf from Slovenia to Italy. The book covers a lot of ground too, climate change, human migration, politics & the natural history, conservation & controversy of wolves in Europe.
Read Highway Thirteen by Fiona Mcfarlane ★★★★★ 📚
A series of stories surrounding a serial killer’s crime that is never fully described. Instead the tangential echos and sources of the crime are explored.
Read The Blazing Heather by Colm Toibin ★★★★★📚
Éamon an Irish judge, is quite & extremely reserved, not too likeable, distant from family. The book goes back and forth between his older self & upbringing. I really felt from him later, quietly heartbreaking.
Read: Half of a Yellow Sun: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ★★★★★ 📚
First half about fairly privileged folk, second half how the horror of Biafran war played out.
Everything was moving so fast. He was not living his life; life was living him.
Read: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel ★★★★★📚
A subtle & grownup take on the post apocalypse novel. I think I enjoyed everything about this. Flits between characters & time before & after the Georgian Flu which kills 99% of the population.
None of the older Symphony members knew much about science, which was frankly maddening given how much time these people had had to look things up on the Internet before the world ended.
Read: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett ★★★★★ 📚
A book around a famous (in the USA?) play I’ve never heard of. Compelling & mostly comfortable. Laugh out loud sometimes too.
Read: Cairn by Kathleen Jamie ★★★★★ 📚
The common curlew, as the old books have it,
Fragments, essays, poems & notes, following the natural world, and the mess we have made of it. Beautiful.