Tag: ★★★★

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Read: Sheila Armstrong by Falling Animals ★★★★ 📚

Celia turned five last month while he was on a container ship from Liverpool to Halifax. They were passing an island off the coast of Newfoundland and Manoy clung to the port railings, scrabbling for a few bars of reception to make a call from the satellite phone, even though the sea-ice was wrist thick and the containers looked like frosted teeth on a blue-white jaw. After hearing her voice, he came down below with a wind-red nose, but a smile so wide the top of his head could have snapped off.

A set of loosely joined stories connected to a coastal town on the west cost of Ireland. Told at a gentle pace that kept me wrapped in each tale. I was slightly disturbed by the way episodes trailed off, but it intrigued & made the atmosphere linger.

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Read: Sanshirō by Natsume Sōseki ★★★★ 📚

Why? Well, look at it this way. Your head is alive, but if you seal it up inside dead classes, you're lost. Take it outside and get the wind into it. Riding the streetcar is not the only way to get satisfaction, of course, but it's the first step, and the easiest.

At the turn into the 20th century country boy Sanshirō goes to university in Tokyo. Mixes with crowd interested in the west, literature, art & science. Very much out of his depth as he drifts through lectures & relationships.

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Read: The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers ★★★★ 📚

The Battle was the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985, at which Redbone was a more than willing partici-pant, and a subject that Calvert has frequently indulged his friend in over the intervening years but which he has little desire to hear repeated now, or indeed ever again, for the account is well worn and the telling of it is like retreading a desire path through the vegetation of Redbone’s semi-fictionalised personal history.
Calvert has long suspected that his friend somehow equates that June afternoon with some of the blood-and mud-flecked battles that he himself was a part of in South Georgia, when of course they are incomparable.

1989 over a summer 2 very different misfits spend 10 nights creating crop circles while lost in their own thoughts about society, the natural world, war & much more. A boys book perhaps, but an enjoyable one.

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Read: The Cut Up by Louise Welsh ★★★★ 📚

Cat slipped off her jacket. Her arms were decorated with tattoos not yet dense enough to be considered sleeves but numerous enough to declare commitment. She saw me clocking them and gave me a want-to-make-something-of-it stare.

Another crime novel about Rilke, an auctioneer, Glaswegian & nice take on the compromised but conscience driven hero in the criminal borderlands. The novel chases along at a great rate. Especially enjoyed the Glasgow setting. Lots of places I know.

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Read: The Spy and The Traitor by Ben Macintyre ★★★★ 📚

On the morning of 4 July, a dishevelled couple in tattered clothes could be seen lounging aimlessly at the end of Victoria Road, Coulsdon, in the South London suburbs. One was Simon Brown, of P5, MI6's head of Soviet bloc operations; the other was Veronica Price, the architect of Gordievsky's escape plan. A Home Counties creature from her pearls to her twinset, Price was not suited to this sort of subterfuge. 'I've borrowed the char's hat,' she announced, as they climbed into their disguises.

I've not read much spy fiction but this true story of a KGB man who betrayed Russia & helped cool Cold War tensions only to be first caught & then escape from the USSR to Britain was quite a trip.

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Read: Trespasses by Louise Kennedy ★★★★ 📚

Northern Ireland 1975 Cushla young RC teacher starts an affair with a Married Protestant Lawyer & gets mixed up with a mixed family of a pupil. Spent the whole book tensed against the expected end.

While in Dublin:

They walked up Grafton Street. Buskers were playing guitars, huddles of youths standing about watching them.
Something was wrong. She looked up and down the street and didn’t know what it was until she was in the doorway of Switzers, sliding her handbag off her shoulder and holding it open. Michael laughed. You’re not in Kansas any more, he said.

I remember in the 70s my aunt on a visit to Glasgow going up to the security guard in M&S & opening her handbag.

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Read: Waging Heavy Peace by Neil Young ★★★★ 📚

I do enjoy writing, and I hope someone gets something interesting out of this book. I already have. Now, If I ever have to write a book that is not about me, I may be totally stumped and have writer's block. We will see. Writing is very convenient, has a low expense and is a great way to pass the time. I highly recommend it to any old rocker who is out of cash and doesn't know what to do next.

Reads almost as it has been run right out with any editing. Jumps from topic to topic & across times, with occasional words to the reader. Follows a wide range of the author's experiences obsessions in a somehow really engaging way.

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Read: The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine ★★★★ 📚

She has read that in Belfast during the conflict there were séances because so many were taken unexpectedly, leaving behind unanswered questions and husbands, wives, children who didn't get to hear or say a last I love you. Who couldn't understand why they wanted an ectoplasmic gush of revelation or reassurance? All bullshit of course, but a dark table in a house, a woman in a mantilla, Miriam would go there, if she knew of such a place.

A girl is sexually assaulted by 3 of her "friends". The novel explores the families involved, individual's histories, personalities & class. Their stories are mixed in with other connected or disconnected fragments. No easy answers.

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Read: This must be the place by Maggie O'Farrell ★★★★ 📚

You see, my mother’s idea of a good time was to spend the evening re-reading The Divine Comedy, whereas my father liked to have several beers and watch the game. That they were woefully mismatched seemed a given, a background presence in our lives; like others of their generation, they just got on with it, circling around each other, making the best of it.

A tale with a host of POVs, locations & dates, all somewhat mixed up, circle round the two principals.

Every character has connections & disconnections, problems & strengths. Some are improbably gifted & unusual but that didn't stop my engagement.