Category: Fiction

Saturday Selection

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

I’ve recently finished Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty and am over halfway into The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens. Even though I’ve started The Serpent Pool by Martin Edwards I’m thinking what to read after that. I have a number of books lined up – my birthday books for example, but I have several library books and a couple of new books that are also in the running. They are:

  • The Tapestry of Love by Rosy Thornton. I’ve read one other book by Rosy, which I enjoyed very much – Hearts and Minds, so I was delighted when she asked me if I’d like to read her latest book. I see that other bloggers have already reviewed it with good reports, so I’m sure I’ll enjoy this one too. It’s about Catherine who moves from  England to a rural idyll in a tiny hamlet in the Cevennes mountains, where she sets up in business as a seamstress.  But sometimes a rural idyll isn’t what it seems …
  • Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas. This is a library book.  I surprised myself by borrowing this book as I don’t like to read scary books and the blurb tells me that this is a frightening and surprising novel about a problem with wolves in  the French mountains – possibly involving a werewolf.
  • Yet another book (another library book) with a French connection is All Our Wordly Goods by Irene Nemirovsky. I’m hoping to enjoy this as much as I did her other books – Fire in the Blood and Suite Francaise. It’s the gripping story of family life and starcrossed lovers, of commerce and greed , set against the backdrop of France from 1911 to 1940.
  • I read about Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer on Bernadette’s blog Reactions to Reading and was convinced that I should read it too. Fortunately my library had a copy. Set in South Africa (and translated from Afrikaans) Detective Benny Griessel investigates the disappearance of an American backpacker, whilst trying to stay sober and mentoring the next generation of detectives.
  • And for something completely different I have The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi by Andrew McConnell Stott. This came to me via LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Programme. Grimaldi was the most celebrated of English clowns and this biography not only tells the story of his life but also paints a picture of the theatrical scene in London in Georgian England. Grimaldi was also an acrobat and an innovator, who struggled with depression.

Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty: Book Review

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

Whatever You Love, set in a coastal English town is, as it says in the blurb, an ‘astonishing and emotionally-charged novel’, about Laura whose nine-year old daughter, Betty has been killed by a hit and run driver.  Laura tells her story alternating between events before Betty’s death – how she met and married David, Betty’s father, their subsequent divorce after his affair with Chloe – and after Betty’s death. Laura’s grief is palpable, which makes this a harrowing book to read. It is also startling and shocking in parts.

The ‘after’ chapters are written in the first person narrative, which I’m never completely happy about, but it works quite well in this book, and it does add some clarity to the sequence of events. I think I endured rather than enjoyed this book; ‘enjoy’ is not the right word to described reading it, but it is well written, and the characters, for the most part are well drawn. There is an emphasis on relationships, not only between Laura and David but also between Laura and Chloe, David’s new wife, between Laura and the Sally, whose daughter Willow was also killed in the accident, and between the local people and the immigrant community. As Laura, fraught with grief, tracks down the driver of the car she spirals more and more out of control. 

I found the ending of the book inconclusive and there are some questions left hanging.  It seemed to me a book of two halves – the first dwelling on Laura’s grief and her inability to cope, with the second concentrating on her instability. Just how reliable was Laura, a woman who was pushed to the edge of sanity? Overall, I was impressed by the writing and will look for more by Louise Doughty.

My copy was sent to me by the publishers, Faber and Faber via Library Thing’s Early Reviewers’ Programme.

Birthday Books

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

These are the books I had for my birthday.

The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction is a reference book that I can just dip into. The rest are all books I’d love to read immediately. If you click on the photo you’ll see from the enlarged view showing the creasing on the spine that I’ve already started to read the Creative Writing book. I’m always fascinated by this type of how-to book and already have a few. I saw this at one of the airport bookshops on our recent trip to Stuttgart (see Flickr for some photos) and thought it looked interesting – I’m much better at reading books like this than actually writing anything.

I’ve also read the first few pages of Peter Ackroyd’s Dickens. I’ve read several of Dickens’s books and am currently reading The Mystery of Edwin Drood, so I want to know more about him. This biography begins with his death and the reactions to his death, not only in Britain but also in America.

I’ve read Martin Edwards earlier Lake District Mysteries – they’re excellent. I couldn’t resist reading the startling opening of this latest one, The Serpent Pool:

The books were burning.

Pages crackled and bindings split. The fire snarled and spat like a wild creature freed from captivity to feast on calfskin, linen and cloth. Paper blackened and curled, the words disappeared. Poetry and prose, devoured by flames. (page 7)

This grabs my attention and makes me want to read on immediately.

But there are also the other books I can’t wait to get to:

  •  Susan Hill’s latest Simon Serrailler novel The Shadows in the Street, because I’ve all the others and found them all compelling reading.  This is the fifth one.
  • The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith, the first Isabel Dalhousie book. I’ve read and loved some of the later ones.
  • The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. I’ve read good reports of this book. Margaret Atwood is one of my favourite authors and this book promises to be just as good as her others.

As usual I wish I could read all of them at once!

Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett: Book Review

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

I didn’t write about Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett as soon as I’d finished reading it, which is a pity because I only made a few notes whilst reading and now my memory of it is fading fast. It took me some time to get really involved in the story, which is a mixture of fiction and history. I liked the historical elements very much. The fictional side mixed in quite well but I found some of it a bit too sentimental and somewhat contrived.

It’s the story of Sir Thomas More’s fall from Henry VIII’s favour and that of his adopted daughter Meg Giggs and her love for two men – John Clements, the family’s former tutor, and the painter, Hans Holbein. Bennett puts forward a theory about John Clements’ true identity drawn from an analysis and an interpretation of two paintings by Hans Holbein of the More family and also his painting, The Ambassadors. I was fascinated by this and the detail in the paintings, enhanced by the inclusion in the book of a reproduction of the plan for Holbein’s first portrait of the More Family painted in 1527 -28 and a colour reproduction of  a second portrait of the family attributed to Holbein, even though it is signed ‘Rowlandas Lockey’.

I liked the way Bennett portrayed different aspects of Sir Thomas More’s character; in his early life he was a humanist and friend of Erasmus, later a courtier and Henry VIII’s Catholic chancellor, who persecuted Protestant heretics. This contrasts with his family life, where he is relaxed, generous and gentle and Meg cannot reconcile her knowledge of him as a father with his cruel and fanatical persecution of the heretics.

It combines a love story, art history and historical fiction providing an insight into the Tudor period at a time of great social and religious change.

The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery: Book Review

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

I found The Gourmet an interesting book, maybe an appetiser, or an amuse-bouche, for Muriel Barbery’s later book The Elegance of the Hedgehog (which I haven’t read). It offers tantalising glimpses of food that Pierre Arthens, France’s celebrated food critic recalls as he lies dying, trying to remember the most delicious food he ever tasted. He thinks the flavour of this elusive food is

the first and ultimate truth of my entire life, and that it holds the key to a heart that I have since silenced. I know that it is a flavour from childhood or adolescence, an orginal, marvellous dish that predates my vocation as a critic, before I had any pretension to expound on the pleasure of eating. A forgotten flavour, lodged in my deepest self, and which has surfaced in the twilight of my life as the only truth ever told – or realised. (pages 12-13)

As he remembers back to his childhood his life and character are also revealed through impressions and memories of him from his wife, son and other relations and acquaintances. These are in short chapters building up a picture of Pierre’s character and contrasting with his own thoughts and memories. They are interspersed with Pierre’s florid, over-blown, pretentious ruminations on food, including fish, meat, vegetables, bread, mayonnaise, ice cream and sorbet, none of which provides that elusive taste he is seeking.

I wished the short chapters from his family and friends had been longer and his own shorter – I wanted to know more about the other characters. I know from the extract from The Elegance of the Hedgehog that there is more about Renee, the concierge of the apartement building where Pierre lies dying in that book, so I will read that at some time. I liked the changes in writing style between the characters and Pierre.

All in all, it’s a delightful description of food, mouth-watering, rich and sumptuous, but somehow lacking in substance. By the end it was losing impetus as I began to wonder what it could possibly be that had been tantalising him so much and that was so important to him. The ending was really inevitable and rather sad.

My copy was kindly sent to me from the publishers, Gallic Books.

Teaser Tuesday: The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Share a couple or more sentences from the book you’re currently reading. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

This week I’ve been reading The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery. It’s a slim book, packed with richness – sumptuous, and full to over-flowing with words and images. It is verbose, florid and sensational – meaning that is celebrates all the sensations experienced relating to food.

Here is a description of one of my favourite foods:

… crimson in its taut silken finery, undulating with the occasional more tender hollow, with a cheerfulness about it like a plumpish woman in her party dress hoping to compensate for the inconvenience of her extra pounds by means of a disarming chubbiness that evokes an irresistible desire to bite into her flesh.

… my teeth tore into the flesh to splatter the tongue with the rich, warm and bountiful juice, whose essential generosity is masked by the chill of a refrigerator, or the affront of vinegar, or the false nobility of oil.

The raw tomato, devoured in the garden when freshly picked, is a horn of abundance of simple sensations, a radiating rush in one’s mouth that brings with it every pleasure. The resistance of the skin – slightly taut, just enough; the luscious yield of the tissues, their seed-filled liqueur oozing to the corners of one’s lips, and that one wipes away without any fear of staining one’s fingers, this plump little globe, unleashing a flood of nature inside us: a tomato, an adventure. (from pages 44-5)