Howl’s Moving Castle – Diana Wynne Jones – 01.09.20

I can’t believe I’m only reading my first Diana Wynne Jones novel now, at the age of 51! This is exactly the kind of book I have loved since early childhood, and I have no idea how they managed to pass me by?! This is a dark, witty and thoughtful look at traditional fairytale/fantasy storytelling. I’ve always wanted to watch the film, and never got around to it, although after reading some people’s reviews who have both read the book and seen the film, it seems like the film makes the characters nicer and less complex, and it was the fact that the characters had both light and dark in their personalities that I liked about the novel (or at least that was one of the things I liked!). Once or twice, the book seemed to suddenly burst into an action sequence and I’d get a bit confused and have to stop and read over the previous few pages to get my bearings again, but other than that (and perhaps that’s because I’m getting old, bless me) I loved every minute of it.

Lanny – Max Porter – 27.08.20

Like the fabulous Grief Is a Thing With Feathers, also by Max Porter, this book is a beautiful merging of poetry, prose, magical realism and raw human emotion. It uses the technique (which I had to google but is apparently called concrete or visual poetry) where the arrangement of words on the page is part of the overall artistry of the book. Told with snippets of lots of different voices, including a mythical persona called Dead Papa Toothwort, it introduces a very special, insightful and artistic little boy, Lanny, his parents and a family friend, local controversial artist, Mad Pete, who gives him art lessons. When Lanny goes missing, the worst and best of human nature is brought out both searching for him and blaming and pointing the finger at those closest to him. It’s a lovely thought provoking and moving book.

The Last – Hanna Jameson – 26.08.20

I’m just back from a visit with my daughter and her boyfriend in Wales, and we had the clever idea to swap kindles for the visit and read each other’s books. When flicking through her kindle my finger accidentally lingered on this book which opened it. I started reading, and was instantly hooked. It’s a postapocalyptic novel, with its main protagonist as a middle aged American at a conference in Switzerland when Nuclear war happened. The book follows the few people who didn’t try to flee the remote hotel. With phones and internet down, they have to come to terms with not knowing what’s going on and deciding what to do next. There’s also a bit of a murder mystery as they find the body of a small girl who must have been killed before the bombs. I enjoyed the book and found it a fun holiday read.

The Midnight Library – Matt Haig – 19.08.20

I have loved everything I’ve read by Matt Haig, even his self-help type books, when normally I wouldn’t go near that sort of book. This is a novel, with a bit of self-help thrown in for free. During a suicide attempt, Nora finds herself in the state between life and death in a mysterious library with her beloved old school librarian, Mrs Elm. All the infinite number of books represent possible lives she could have lived. Mrs Elm shows her a book of regrets, which lists all the things she has done that she wishes she did differently, from major life decisions to minor little things. Nora is given the chance to experience what her life would be if she’d made the other choice – she can visit as many of these alternate lives as she likes until she finds one where she wants to stay. The story is fun and wise and thought provoking and actually made me feel better about my life – the takeaway sentiment from the book is not to live with regret because whatever choice you make you will end up with a life that has both joy and sorrow and seeing what might have happened makes you both appreciate the life you have and feel excited for the potential for what is yet to come.

Everything Under – Daisy Johnson – 14.08.20

I wish I knew how to capture or even quantify the quality that makes some books just so darn beautiful. Like dipping my toes into water that is just the right temperature I knew right away that I would relish swimming through this book (am I stretching this metaphor too far?!). It’s similar in feel (I thought) to the lovely ‘Where The Crawdad’s Sing’ although it’s set in England with the riverboat community rather than in the swamplands of Florida. The book examines the complexities of family relationships, specifically mother/daughter relationships and the unreliability of memory – one character trying to piece together the truth from her patchwork of childhood memories, and another losing perspective as alzheimer’s steals an ‘orange sized chunk’ from her own mind. Themes of gender and language and fate pervade with different strands of the plot nibbling at the reader’s consciousness like fish nibbling a lure before being reeled in and slotting into place with a satisfying clunk. I really loved this book.

The Limpet Syndrome – Tony Moyle – (AUDIOBOOK) – 14.08.20

This audiobook is the first in a darkly comedic supernatural series and I received it and also the first in another series by the same author as a free promotion. I approached it with a slightly snobby ‘well, if they have to give it away for free, it can’t be that good’ attitude (despite me using the same tactic with Blood and Snow free promotions(!)) but I was actually, for the most part, pleasantly surprised. The storytelling was at times genuinely funny (also sometimes a bit cringeworthy) and the plot made sense and rattled along at a never boring pace with enough complexity to stay interesting without getting needlessly complex. I didn’t like the two main characters of men in their thirties ogling over a 17 year old girl and the very sexualised language used to describe her. I get that one man was supposed to be a morally corrupt rock star, but still, with our enlightened modern sensibilities it just jarred with me. That aside, I did enjoy listening to the book and I may buy more in the series to listen to (not decided yet).

The Porpoise – Mark Haddon – 10.08.20

I have enjoyed other books by Mark Haddon, so was looking forward to this one. I didn’t really know what to expect and I was very quickly drawn into the book’s exciting opening scenes of a dramatic plane crash. Then the story follows a father bereaved of his wife and left with a newborn daughter – this part of the book is told with beauty and sensitivity although it delves into the dark world of incest and sexual abuse. I wasn’t expecting the next turn, when a character is suddenly transported to ancient Greece with no explanation and who quickly forgets he had any other life and becomes the character of Pericles, Prince of Tyre. I found this sudden switch disconcerting, to begin with, but quite quickly became entranced with the historical fiction adventure story. I wasn’t familiar with the story, or the Shakespeare play about it, so the afterword by the author explaining how his novel mirrors the original telling, where the insestual relationship between a king and his daughter acts as the springboard for Pericles adventure story was helpful in my appreciation of the book. It was a well written and gripping (if at times slightly confusing!) read and I enjoyed it very much.

Shadowplay – Joseph O’Connor – (Audiobook) – 07.08.20

I just finished listening to this audiobook, and I have a kind of mixed reaction. First, it has a lot to commend it: based on the life of Bram Stoker, mostly during the time when he worked as a stage manager at the London Lyceum Theatre with the famous actors, Sir Harry Irving and Ellen Terry, the language is rich and lyrical and the setting of theatre life and London life at the time of the Ripper is very evocative – you can almost hear the cockney voices and smell the greasepaint and smog. The theme of the book seems to be one of sadness and unfulfilled yearnings. Bram longed to be a successful author and husband but his books did not do well in his lifetime, and his marriage fell apart. All the characters seemed to struggle with inner demons and feelings of insufficiency and failing to reach their self-imposed ideals. For me, as well as the slightly depressing tone, I found the book at times a little confusing and slow (maybe due to listening on Audiobook, as then if I’m not fully paying attention to a paragraph, I can’t just read over it as I would if I was reading on Kindle). Definitely well written and interesting, and yet I just didn’t totally love it.

The Torment of Others (Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, Book 4) – Val McDermid – 04.08.20

I’m not a huge fan of crime thriller books, although, oddly enough I do enjoy a moody crime thriller series on the tv (Just binge watched all four series of Cardinal and loved it). Jan McDermid is a good writer though, and one of the few crime thriller writers I enjoy. This book had lots to recommend it – interesting and well developed characters, a plot which kept me guessing almost right up the the reveal, and it was never boring or annoying. Yet, I finished reading this feeling sullied (or maybe just a bit depressed) because the story takes you into the mind of a serial killer and includes some nasty gory details and it’s just a bit too bleak and dark maybe for my tastes. I finished it quite late at night, but had to read some of Billy Connolly’s funny monologues before going to sleep just to get my head into a better place. I’ve already bought more in the series (they were on offer on Amazon one day) so I will read more, but I need to space out the series with lighter things in between.

The Shell Collector – Anthony Doerr – 28.07.20

This was my book group read for August, and I probably wouldn’t have read it otherwise as I’m generally not a fan of short stories, although I do love Anthony Doerr’s novels – All The Light We Cannot See, and About Grace. Well, I’m glad I did read it as the writing was really beautiful and compelling and the stories were long enough and rich enough to draw me into the world of their protagonists and really care about what happens to them. There is a theme of man’s relationship to nature which runs through the stories, with quite an emphasis on hunting (especially fishing) which might have put me off if I’d known ahead of reading, but actually didn’t detract from my enjoyment. There are some magical realism elements (yay!) with a blind man’s uncanny ability to find rare shells, and a woman who discovers after marrying a hunter that she can feel the last thoughts and emotions of recently dead animals, as well as seeing the dreams of sleeping animals (and humans). I really enjoyed reading this book.