The other day I was searching for something new to read, and I spotted my own review of a Bernard Cornwell novel, here, on my blog. The benefit of blogging is that, despite my imperfect memory, I have an accurate record of many of the books I’ve enjoyed. This post inspired me to look up his other work, and I am now part-way through the third book of Cornwell’s King Arthur trilogy, thoroughly enjoying every page. Continue reading
fiction
Book Review: Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Where The Crawdads Sing is full of despair, poverty, prejudice and loneliness beyond all imagining. But it is also a book that delights in the wonderous gifts of the natural world. It tells the heart-breaking story of Kya, the ‘marsh girl’. Her mother walks off when she is still a young child, walking away without saying goodbye or even waving. She’s too young to understand what’s going on, but then her older brothers and sisters leave too, and soon she is left alone with her father, a veteran of the war, drinking his way steadily through their small income, unpredictable in his rages. Continue reading
Recent Summer Reads: Historical Fiction
I’ve been busy lately (with PhD work etc.) so rather than reviewing lots of books in separate blog posts, I decided to review a few of them together. I love historical fiction, both as time travel and escapism. It’s also a genre that makes you compare your own attitudes to those of others – other people living in different times and different cultures. And though it’s difficult to pinpoint how, I am sure that some of these characters and ideas are subsumed into my subconscious and resurface, often years later, in my own poems. Continue reading
Book Review: The Word by J L George
The Word is a compelling dystopian novel, set in a future that feels unnervingly familiar. It follows the stories of five youngsters born with supernatural powers: they can compel others to obey their commands. This strange plot device could have felt gimmicky, but J L George succeeds in creating a world that is believable, and particularly unsettling as a result. It’s also an emotional rollercoaster, and a gripping read. I read the book in just two sittings. Continue reading
Book Review: Salt by Catrin Kean
Based on a true story, Salt begins in Cardiff, in 1883, where young Ellen lives a dull and lonely life, working as a domestic. She longs to escape, but is forced to witness her mother’s daily turmoil, as she confronts the ghosts of her past. Then, one day, Ellen meets Samuel, a ship’s cook from Barbados. Despite the disapproval of some, they fall in love and get married, and Ellen is able to fulfill her childhood dream of running away to sea. Together, they set sail for San Francisco, working their way across the Atlantic Ocean, getting to know each other along the way. Continue reading
Book Review: The Soldier Son Trilogy by Robin Hobb
I have read several books by Robin Hobb, but I’ve never read a trilogy as utterly un-put-downable as this one. It begins with Shaman’s Crossing, following the story of Nevare Burvelle from the time when he is old enough to begin training for his destined career as a Cavalla Officer in the King’s army. From a young age Nevare begins to realise that the society in which he lives is riddled with conflict and inequality, where justice is often neglected in order to maintain the status quo. Nevare is a privileged Gernian, but he soon comes into contact with the Plainspeople and their mysterious magical abilities. Yet they have been subjugated by the might of the Gernian race, and even their magic cannot compete against the power of iron. Continue reading
Book Review: Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks
I read Human Traces several years ago, and it is no less incredible on a second reading. Set in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the story begins when Jacques Rebière (from France) and Thomas Midwinter (from England) meet each other at the age of sixteen. They discover that they share a common fascination with the growing field of psychiatry and its quest to solve one of humanity’s greatest mysteries: the complex workings of the human mind. Continue reading
Book Review: A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier
A Single Thread, like many of Tracy Chevalier’s novels, takes us back to a time before, when life for a young woman was far more challenging than it is now. Set in the early 1930s, the book is told from the perspective of Violet, a 38 year old woman who lost her fiancé in the First World War. She has lived with grief and loneliness for many years, and her future looks set: to remain unmarried and unwanted, as a companion to her suffocating mother.
Book Review: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
On opening Girl, Woman, Other, I was immediately struck by the simplicity of its verse form – the text on the page looks like poetry, and it flows too, with line breaks instead of full stops. It is easy to read, easy to become immersed, one by one, in the lives of these twelve women. And what makes this book exceptional is the intricate way in which each individual’s story weaves in and out of the stories and lives of the other women. We get the perspective, for example, of the mother, and then the daughter, the pupil, then the teacher, nearly all of whom are black or mixed-race, women whose voices often go unheard, even in fiction. Continue reading
Book Review: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Thirteenth Tale is full of gothic mysteries and ghosts, stories and secrets. It is a tale of sibling rivalry and love on many different levels, yet it is also a story of loneliness and unimaginable grief.
It begins in a fairly ordinary way, with a young woman who likes books. Margaret Lea works in her father’s antiquarian bookshop, and she writes biographies. She hides a secret – a secret that brings great sorrow, a secret that follows her everywhere she goes. Continue reading
Abergavenny Small Press: A New Welsh Publisher
Back in July, as lockdown began to ease and things started to happen once more, Dogs Darnborough launched a new independent publishing house: Abergavenny Small Press. They plan to publish one or two books each year, and the inaugural issue of their journal has just been published online (featuring two of my poems). I thought I’d interview Dogs to find out a bit more about this new publishing venture. Continue reading
Book Review: The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall series is a triumph of historical enactment in book form. When The Mirror and the Light (the third and final book) was published, I was still recovering from post viral fatigue, and didn’t have the strength to hold a normal paperback, never mind this giant brick of a book, so I left it a few weeks before ordering a copy, and, as my strength returned, I was able to sink back into the sixteenth century as if I had never been away. Continue reading
Book Review: Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield
It was the beautiful cover design that attracted me to Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield and, as soon as I began to read, I was hooked. It’s a wonderfully mysterious, ghostly tale, set in a time before people travelled far, and centred around The Swan Inn, on the edge of the Thames, at Radcot, where the age-old tradition of storytelling holds sway. Continue reading
Book Review: The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christi Lefteri
The Beekeeper of Aleppo is, without doubt, one of the saddest books I have ever read. It is told from the perspective of Nuri, a man who is fleeing the horrors of war with his wife Afra, who was blinded when a bomb exploded at their home, killing their young son. They leave Syria, hoping to join Nuri’s cousin, Mustafa, who has already made it to England, and their journey is fraught with danger.
Book Review: The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl is set in 1890s Atlanta, and it reminded me very much of Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women, which also features a protagonist called Jo, who writes. But this novel examines American society from a different perspective – that of the outsider. Jo Kuan is Chinese, scraping out a meagre living as a hat maker, and hiding away at night in the basement of a print shop, with her adopted father (Old Gin). They exist on the edge of society – not white or black, but viewed warily by others as something in between, to be avoided and ignored. Continue reading
Book Review: The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman
What makes someone a great artist? The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman provides a fascinating answer to this question, as it tracks the life of Charles Bavinsky, known as ‘Pinch’, son of the great artist, Bear Bavinsky. It begins in Italy, when Pinch is just five years old, watching his father entertain the crowds, desperate for his affection and approval. His mother Natalie is also an artist, working with ceramics, but she is eclipsed by Bear’s extravagant personality, and her work always comes second to his. Continue reading
Book Review: The Overstory by Richard Powers
The Overstory is an epic tale which moves at an incredible pace, following the stories of disparate people, and trees, over several decades. I was uncertain, to begin with, what to make of the present tense omniscient narrator style, but soon became swept along, mesmerised by the way in which the lives of people and trees are intertwined: Continue reading
Book Review: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
The title of this book – Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – has intrigued me, ever since I saw people reading it when it first came out, and yet something put me off – I think it was the knowledge that it was about loneliness, and I was afraid that it would challenge my perceptions of others, and perhaps even my perceptions of myself. But it does far more than that. It is a fascinating, beautifully told, incredibly gripping tale about one young woman who is just about coping with life. Continue reading