rachbxl 2023

In a triumph of hope over experience, I’m back. I was entirely absent from LT for the second half of last year (not that I was particularly present during the first half), but I didn’t stop reading - far from it. Reading was my refuge during a very difficult year; I just didn’t have time to post about it here, and, for the first time in 30 years, I didn’t even make a list of what I read. Off the top of my head, I would say that my favourite book of 2022 was L’Arminuta by Donatella di Pietrantonio (A Girl Returned), and Intimacies by Katie Kitamura gets a special mention.

I’m not a planner when it comes to reading, and I have no goals. I just want to enjoy my reading, and, I hope, be a bit more present here in this lovely community which has given me so much over the years.

Read in 2023:

1. The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny (fiction, Canada, 2012)
2. Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman (fiction, USA, 2020)
3. The Women of Troy by Pat Barker (fiction, UK, 2021)
4. Asylum Road by Olivia Sudjic (fiction, UK, 2021)
5. Foster by Claire Keegan (fiction, Ireland, 2010)
6. April in Spain by John Banville (fiction, Ireland, 2021)
7. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (USA, 1963)
8. A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes (UK, fiction, 2019)
9. Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths (non-fiction, 2020)
10. The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy (poetry, UK, 1999)
11. Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers edited by Joyce Carol Oates (anthology, short stories, 2019)
12. Peace Talks by Tim Finch (fiction, UK, 2020)
13. Friend of my Youth by Alice Munro (fiction, short stories, Canada, 1990)
14. Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie (fiction, Pakistan, 2022)
15. Exiles by Jane Harper (fiction, Australia, 2022)
16. Claire of the Sea Light by Edwige Danticat (fiction, Haiti, 2013)
17. Love Marriage by Monica Ali (fiction, UK, 2022)
18. Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood (fiction, short stories, Canada, 2023)
19. Galatea by Madeline Miller (fiction, USA, 2013)
20. Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur (non-fiction, memoir, USA, 2019)
21. Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King (fiction, short stories, USA, 2021)
22. Girl A by Abigail Dean (fiction, UK, 2021)
23. Assembly by Natasha Brown (fiction, UK, 2021)
24. Bleeding Heart Yard by Ellie Griffiths (fiction, UK, 2022)
25. Queen K by Sarah Thomas (fiction, UK, 2023)
26. The Love of my Life by Rosie Walsh (fiction, UK, 2022)
27. Dissident Club: chronique d'un journaliste pakistanais exilé en France by Taha Siddiqui and Hubert Maury (non-fiction, memoir, graphic novel, Pakistan, 2023)
28. Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski (fiction, Poland, 2020)
29. Trespassing by Louise Kennedy (fiction, UK (NI), 2022)
30. Reste by Adeline Dieudonné (fiction, Belgium, in French, 2022)
31. Bodas de sangre by Federico Garcia Lorca (fiction, play, Spain, in Spanish, 1933)
32. L'autre fille by Annie Ernaux (non-fiction, memoir, France, in French, 2011)
33. So Sorry for your Loss by Dina Gachman (non-fiction, USA, 2023)
34. La nuit des pères by Gaelle Josse (fiction, France, 2023)
35. When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà (fiction, Spain, translation (Catalan), 2019)
36. Ils ont surgi de la nuit by Elise Karlin (non-fiction, France, in French, 2023)
37. Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss (UK, 2018)
38. Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard (Czech Republic/UK, play, 2020)
39. Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear (UK, 2023)
40. Euphoria by Lily King (USA, 2014)
41. Clara's War by Clara Kramer with Stephen Glantz (non fiction, 2008)
42. The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: a Very Short Introduction by Martin Bunton (non-fiction, 2013)
43. L’armée du salut by Abdellah Taïa (Morocco, in French, 2009)
44. Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri (Japan, translation, 2014)
45. Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter (UK, 2015)
46. East West Street: on the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity (non-fiction, 2016)
47. Broderies by Marjane Satrapi (Iran, graphic novel, memoir, 2003)
48. Une vie by Simone Veil (non-fiction (memoir), in French, 2007)
49. Varsovie, Varsovie by Didier Zuili (France, in French, graphic novel)
50. La fantaisie des Dieux: Rwanda 1994 by Hippolyte and Patrick de Saint-Exupéry (graphic novel, in French, non-fiction, 2014)
51. I Shall not Hate by Izzeldin Abuelaish (Palestine, non-fiction, 2011)
52. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (USA, non-fiction, 2005)
53. Little Cyclone by Airey Neave (UK, non-fiction, 1954)
54. What Now? by Ann Patchett (US, non-fiction, audiobook, 2008)
55. Belgiques by Myriam Leroy (Belgium, in French, 2022)
56. La juive de Shanghai by Marek Halter (France, in French, 2022)
57. L’eau rouge by Jurica Pavičić (Croatia, translation, in French, 2017)
58. Le chemin plus court by Antoine Wauters (Belgium, non-fiction, in French, 2023)
59. The Feast by Margaret Kennedy (UK, 1950)

An attempt to reconstruct my 2022 reading:

1. The Final Murder by Anne Holt (Norway, translation)
2. Death in Oslo by Anne Holt (Norway, translation)
3. Fear Not by Anne Holt (Norway, translation)
4. What Dark Clouds Hide by Anne Holt (Norway, translation)
5. Hidden Secrets at the Little Village Church by Tracy Rees (UK)
6. A Quiet Life by Natasha Walter (UK)

This is as far as my records got last year. So now, piecing it together from here and there and no doubt forgetting some, here is an idea of what I read for the rest of the year, in no particular order:

7. Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh (India)
8. The New Wilderness by Diane Cook (USA)
9. How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu (USA)
10. Intimacies by Katie Kitamura (USA)
11. French Braid by Anne Tyler (USA)
12. The Maidens by Alex Michaelides (Cyrpus/UK)
13. Sea of Tranquililty by Emily St. John Mandel (Canada)
14. Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy (Australia)
15. The Less Dead by Denise Mina (UK)
16. The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths (UK)
17. One of the Girls by Lucy Clarke (UK)
18. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (UK)
19. The Maid by Nita Prose (Canada)
20. The Man Who Died Twice: a Thursday Murder Club Mystery (UK)
21. The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller (USA)
22. L'Arminuta by Donatella di Pietrantonio (Italy, in Italian)
23. A Beginner's Guide to Murder by Rosalind Stopps (UK)
24. The Hangman by Louise Penny (Canada)
25. Fire in the Stars by Barbara Fradkin (Canada)
26. Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason (Australia)
27. Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler (USA)
28. The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman (UK)
28. an Australian novel with one of those of-the-moment "abstract noun and abstract noun" titles (Sorrow and Bliss, for example)

To take stock: not a huge number of books read, but I don't mind that. What I did mind was that I felt that I was stuck in a contemporary fiction rut and ended up reading lots of ok but entirely forgettable novels, like existing on a diet, not of junk food, not that bad, but of food that's lacking in nourishment and variety - ok for a short spell, but not enough in the long run. I put this list together largely on the basis of the list of e-books borrowed from the library, and I'm shocked by how many of them I have no recollection of at all.
I read no non-fiction and only 1 book not in English, which is bad even by my low standards. That one book in Italian, though (L'Arminuta by Donatella di Pietrantonio (A Girl Returned), was hands-down my favourite of the year. I also particularly enjoyed Katie Kitamura's Intimacies, and I was pleased to discover, at last, the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths, which I will certainly continue with, and, for pure enjoyment, the Thursday Murder Club series.

I'm hoping for more variety and rather more substance in 2023, but ultimately, I'm just pleased to have kept on reading right through a challenging year.

I decided I didn’t need a ‘reading now’ post so I’ve moved ‘read in 2023’ up to >2 rachbxl:.

Hi Rachel - happy new year! Let's hope 2023 is much better than 2022.

I'm so glad you have started a thread, even though I know that you are going to be very bad for adding to my TBR pile. And I hope you do manage to reconstruct your 2022 reading, or the best bits of it.

Glad to see you here! I hope 2023 is a much better year for you.

Welcome back, I hope 2023 is a better year for you! (It is somewhat selfish wish as I always enjoy following your reading -- interesting books chosen and good reviews written.)

So good to see you back, even if you just mention what you're reading, I'm sure there will be lots of inspiration.

Welcome back, Rachel. Take care of you, and Club Read will always be here when you have the time and inclination.

Great to see you hear again. I was just thinking of a quirky title for my thread, and then I saw your clean, minimalist title and I think I'll follow you.

>5 cushlareads: I’ve on leave this week and one of my (many) projects is to sit down and try to put together a list of what I read last year, though I don’t think I’ll be able to remember everything. I’ll post at least some if it here.

>6 japaul22:, >7 ELiz_M:, >8 SassyLassy:, >9 labfs39: Thanks! I’m glad to see you all have threads too.

>10 Nickelini: Funny - I noticed your clean, minimalist title (though you’ve added an extra word ;-) ) when I posted on your thread, but as I hadn’t read this, I didn’t realise I was your inspiration. Having spent a good while casting around in vain for a snappy title, I decided that having a thread at all was more important than what it was called!

Happy New Year, Rachel. Glad you’re posting again. And glad you we’re still reading a lot when you weren’t posting last year.

Happy new year, Rachel. Thanks so much for stopping by at my thread.
You're further along than I am with the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. But you just reminded me that I should read another book in this series.
Happy reading 2023.

>12 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan.

>13 Ameise1: Thanks for the return visit! I usually find myself reading an Inspector Gamache book at this time of year because they fit the bill for cozy reads by the fire perfectly. Then because I enjoy it I’ll go on to the next, which I won’t get far with because it’s too much of a good thing. And that will be it till next time I need a cozy book to curl up with. Actually I found this one a little disappointing (I’ll post my comments shortly) so will not start the next one right way, although I’m sure I’ll read it at some point.

Hello Rachel, I'm glad you've set up a thread for this year.
I hope 2023 will be more gentle on you than 2022 and that you'll have the time and space of mind to enjoy reading and lots of other great things.

Good to see you back! Happy reading.

>15 raton-liseur:, >16 thorold: Thanks!

My first book of the year:

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

I am a fan of this series, although I pace myself very carefully and read only around one per year as I find that the charm wears off in large doses. As long as I space them out, I love them - until now. This one, whilst enjoyable enough, didn’t hit the sweet spot for me. Apart from the first chapter or so it’s set entirely in an isolated Gilbertine monastery in Quebec (the choirmaster has been murdered) to which no visitors have ever previously been admitted. An interesting setting, then, and Penny as usual creates a strong sense of place (I can see the monastery in my mind’s eye as I write), but for me this huis clos is the novel’s downfall too - there’s not enough going on. I found myself skimming over entire paragraphs because they felt like padding. Of course, the extraneous detail (a.k.a. padding) is a large part of the charm in the other novels in the series so far, but the monks with their cloistered lives provide much less fodder for fascinating asides than do the inhabitants of Three Pines (they don’t eat as well, either) so it got rather repetitive. There is also a lot of obvious character development for Gamache and Beauvoir which sometimes felt rather forced; I wonder if this novel is perhaps something of a necessary stepping stone in order to get us to where Penny wants to go next with the series.

I don’t regret reading it, and I will no doubt continue with the series, but I feel a bit cheated out of my annual (more or less) date with Gamache.

Welcome back Rachel, good to see you here. Best wishes for the year ahead!

>19 wandering_star: I was thinking I hadn't seen you around yet! Have you got a thread? Best wishes for the coming year to you too.

For anyone interested (but mainly for myself), I've put together a no-doubt incomplete list of what I read last year; it's in >3 rachbxl:

>18 rachbxl: I must have liked that one more than you did, as I rated it 4 stars back in 2017. It's been a long while, but from what I remember, I think you're right about the character development being necessary to get their relationship to where Penny needed it for the next book.

I loved both Migrations and How High We Go in the Dark. I've been eyeing Intimacies for a while.

Doesn't look like an bad reading year.

>3 rachbxl: It seems like Ghosh is focusing more on climate change these days in his writing. Gun Island is from 2019, and I picked up The Nutmeg's Curse, essays published 2021. I think I liked his historical fiction better.

>20 rachbxl: Yes - just set it up! I'm here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/347468

>1 rachbxl: So glad you are BACK! Happy New Year!

I have the lastest Anne Holt (Selma Falck series ) coming my way

>18 rachbxl: Hi Rachel. I just stopped by to star your thread, and saw your comments about The Beautiful Mystery. It’s interesting, my daughter was reading this one over the Christmas break, and as much as she loves the series, she wasn’t loving this one. I read it so long ago that I don’t really remember it at all. I still love the series, and just finished listening to the newest one.

Good to see you back, Rachel. It can be hard to keep up with LT at times - hope this is a better year for you.

>22 Julie_in_the_Library: Ah, that's good to know. I will definitely persist with the series in that case.

>23 ELiz_M: No, it doesn't look like a bad reading year on paper, but I didn't really enjoy much of what I read. I really disliked How High We Go in the Dark, though I can't remember much about it now, and Migrations was one of the many books last year I liked well enough whilst reading but which immediately became forgettable. I suppose in-the-moment satisfaction and entertainment is also a function of literature, though, so it's not all bad.

>24 labfs39: Yes, it was Ghosh, or rather an article of his in the Guardian in response to Ghosh expressing surprise at the dearth of climate change fiction, which set me off on a climate change fiction binge about 18 months ago (I can't find the article, but to be fair it's a couple of years old now and things have moved on). I've certainly over-dosed on it now, which is perhaps one reason that I didn't really enjoy Gun Island all that much, delighted as I was to meet some of the protagonists from The Hungry Tide (which I loved) again all these years later.

>26 avaland: Thanks, Lois. I do hope you'll be more mobile soon. Annie Holt is someone I want to read more of; I was impressed with what I read at the start of last year.

>27 NanaCC: Hi Colleen! Interesting that your daughter's reaction was similar to mine. I always think of you when I read an Inspector Gamache novel!

>28 AlisonY: Thanks, Alison. I was completely overwhelmed by work for much of last year, but in theory things should be better this year so I'm hoping for a bit more LT time.

>3 rachbxl: >23 ELiz_M: Like Liz, I really loved How We Go in the Dark--one of my top reads last year. (I also liked Sea of Tranquility). On the other hand, of your other reads I hated The Maid. And I have Migrations on my Kindle but haven't gotten to it yet.

>30 arubabookwoman: I think I should have put How High We Go in the Dark aside and picked it up some other time, but it was a library book so I persisted. Or maybe I was always going to hate it, who knows? I have to say that I didn’t much enjoy The Maid either. It wasn’t the best year for me for reading!

Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman

Until a few days ago I hadn’t heard of Laura Zigman, but her new novel Small Islands came up in an article I read listing eagerly-awaited new releases. Separation Anxiety was available at the library, and when I saw that it has a 50-year old female narrator/protagonist, I couldn’t resist.

Judy’s life isn’t working out as she expected. She wrote a best-selling children’s book years ago but success has eluded her since then, and she now ekes out a living writing superficial short texts for a wellness website. Her marriage is over but she and her husband can’t even afford to live separately. Her teenage son barely needs her and she misses the child he was. Her parents both died recently, and her best friend is dying of cancer. She’s sinking under it all, and then one day, clearing out the basement, she finds an old baby-sling. She puts it on…and puts the dog in it. Unexpectedly, wearing the dog brings her great comfort, and before she knows it she can’t function without it. This first part of the book was brilliant - funny, tender, unbearably poignant, and all too believable. I found that the rest, whilst still very readable, didn’t live up to it, as if Zigman didn’t quite trust her original story so added various other sub-plots, resulting in it being all over the place. It became a bit madcap, whereas I liked the realism of the first third or so; I can see how someone could find comfort in wearing a little dog (and Zigman nicely exploits the comic potential there (dog-in-sling at a school event, for example) without over-doing it), but much of what comes later pushed the bounds of credulity too far for me. I’ll read more Zigman though, because when it was good it was very good.

The Women of Troy by Pat Barker

Glorious, every bit as good as The Silence of the Girls. I’m a sucker for these re-tellings from a female point of view (not just Pat Barker), and I love how Barker breathes new life into these stories and makes them feel so modern and relevant. The Women of Troy is narrated mainly by Briseis, once the wife of a Trojan prince, then the concubine (war prize) of Achilles (whose child she is carrying), before being given by Achilles before his death to Alcimus in marriage. It covers the period after the fall of Troy, when the Greeks, impatient to return home after years of war, are unable to set sail for months on end because of the wind, and is set entirely in the Greek camp, seen from the perspective of the women. Highly enjoyable in itself, but it also led me down some enjoyable rabbit holes as I looked various characters up.

Two great reviews.

>33 rachbxl: This is a reminder that I need to get to these retellings by Barker. I loved her Regeneration trilogy, especially the first one, and I also liked Circe by Madeline Miller, so I think I would like Silence of the Girls and The Women of Troy as well.

>33 rachbxl: Ooooh something to look forward to!

>34 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan.
>35 labfs39: I suspect you would like them, Lisa. I had read and liked just about everything Pat Barker had done before, but for me The Silence of the Girls and The Women of Troy are in a different league, even better than Regeneration.
>36 ELiz_M: I hope you enjoy it when you get to it!

I am just back from a wonderful weekend in Cambridge (UK), where I attended a reunion dinner, saw other friends too, and, of most relevance here, spent a long time in bookshops. It made me realise that part of my disillusionment with reading over the last few years stems from the fact that I haven’t been able to go to good English bookshops, or not without a bored child in tow. I’m grateful to have my e-readers and the access to books they give me, grateful that I can borrow e-books from Queens Library in New York, grateful too that I can order books over the internet…but for me nothing beats a browse in a really good bookshop. My last good haul came from Cambridge too, but that must have been about 6 years ago. Here’s what I came away with this time (I was limited by what I could carry or the list would be much longer):

Asylum Road by Olivia Sudjic (I’ve already finished this one)
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney
The Story of English in 100 Words by David Crystal
Death Goes on Skis by Nancy Spain
Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastašić
The Feast by Margaret Kennedy
Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles
Foster by Claire Keegan

I woke up this morning with a bad throat, and the doctor has just signed me off for 3 days. I’ve already finished Asylum Road, and now I just have to decide which to start next as I lie here on the sofa with a sleeping cat on my lap. Life could be worse.

Great haul! Sorry about the sore throat—hope it stays just at the level where you can read and enjoy some inactivity and no worse.

>38 rachbxl: ...but for me nothing beats a browse in a really good bookshop Absolutely.

That Seamus Heaney translation is excellent. I was lucky enough to read it in an edition that was also illustrated with plates of archeological finds from the era, and it was a beautiful book. You could contemplate what you had just read while staring at something that made the saga seem much more immediate.

>40 SassyLassy: I envy you your book store browsing. What a lovely trip you had. Too bad about the sore throat. I'm currently reading Death Goes on Skis. So far it's pretty fun.

Hi Rachel, it's so good to see you here posting again. I've starred your thread.
You brought home a great selection of books. I only read Foster by Claire Keegan and loved it. Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastašić was already on my wishlist.
I hope your sore throat won't bother you too much.

Happy new year! That's a great reading list. I should put Sea of Tranquility into my rotation. I loved Emily St. John Mandel's earlier novel.

>39 lisapeet: Thanks, Lisa. I haven’t been feeling too bad other than the very sore throat and tiredness so I’ve got lots of reading done today - it’s been quite a treat!

>40 SassyLassy: I’d had my eye on the Seamus Heaney for years but it had fallen off my radar until I saw it in the shop - text only, though, of course, not the beautiful edition you read. That must have really added to the experience.

>41 Nickelini: Funny, Death Goes on Skis is the one I picked to read next and I’m now over 100 pages in. It’s a lot of fun. Strange we’re both reading it at the same time given how little-known it is on LT! I assume you discovered it because it is set in the Alps? For me it was just a lucky find in the bookshop; I hadn’t heard of it before.

>42 Trifolia: Thanks, Monica. It’s good to be back, and I’m hoping to last a bit longer this year… I very nearly picked Foster as my next read earlier today, but I decided that whilst I have the time I may as well get my teeth into something longer.

>43 johnxlibris: Thanks for visit. Happy New Year to you too! I’ve read several books by Emily St John Mandel and enjoyed them all. I find that they don’t make a lasting impression on me so I couldn’t tell you much about them, but I’ve really enjoyed them all at the time of reading.

>38 rachbxl: That is a NICE haul!

Great book haul, Rachel! Which bookshops in Cambridge did you visit? I've only been to Heffers and Waterstones there, IIRC.

I look forward to your thoughts on Foster, as I was very fond of Small Things Like These.

I'm sorry that you're not feeling well, and hope that you recuperate quickly and completely.

Three days off to read is almost worth the sore throat ;-)

I know what you mean about going to a bookstore without having to worry about bored kids (or the weather), it's heaven to just browse. Great haul. I read Before the Coffee Gets Cold last year, and it has stayed with me more than I thought it would.

Here you are! I agree about the brilliance of both A Girl Returned and Intimacies.

Looking forward to following your reading this year. I've had stretches of reading mostly escapist stuff and, at least for me, it has been useful for making me really love the good stuff once I get back to it and there's nothing wrong for reading for pure entertainment.

Coming in late, but welcome back and happy reading in 2023. I'll look forward to seeing where your reading takes you over the rest of the year. Cheers!

>44 rachbxl: Strange we’re both reading it at the same time given how little-known it is on LT! I assume you discovered it because it is set in the Alps? For me it was just a lucky find in the bookshop; I hadn’t heard of it before.

It is strange indeed :-)

I heard about Death Goes on Skis from Booktuber Simon Savidge, and when I heard "Alps" I ordered it as soon as it was republished. So you're right!

>46 kidzdoc: Hi Darryl. Yes, it was Heffers (to which I have a sentimental attachment) and Waterstones (to which I don’t). I have just read Foster this afternoon in one sitting. It’s perfect.

>47 labfs39: I agree! I’m rarely ill, but the last couple of times I have been it’s been full-on on-my-knees with Covid or flu kind of thing so no reading. I have long fantasized about having some kind of lurgy which renders me unable to work (or cook, or clean, etc etc) for a few days whilst leaving me able to read, and this is it!

>48 RidgewayGirl: Hello there! I agree, there’s nothing wrong with reading purely for entertainment - as long as it works. My gripe in recent months is that I haven’t even been particularly entertained by much of what I’ve read. In fairness, I was so exhausted by work that I must have become quite hard to please. (Have you read Foster? I thought of you as I read it).

>49 rocketjk: Happy reading year to you too! There are still lots of threads I haven’t made it to this year yet so no need to apologize for coming in late.

>51 rachbxl: Heh, I made the mistake? of reading The Magic Mountain during the early part of COVID and now I kind of want a mild case of TB with the rrquisite months spent in a Swiss sanatorium recovering.

>52 ELiz_M: I'll be right there on the next recliner, looking up from my book only to take in the majestic views as I breathe in the pure fresh mountain air... I confess that this is my REAL fantasy (the thing about a couple of days at home is just the more realistic version), also inspired by books, though in my case not quite as edifying as The Magic Mountain. It's my early obsession with the Chalet School books that put that in my head - someone or other was always popping off for a ridiculously long convalescence in the local sanatorium, where they seemed to do very little other than read and sleep and look at the view - BORING! Except that at some point in the intervening years I must have crossed a line, and what used to seem boring now has great appeal!

The second best option is a snow day, of which I am having one today. Hooray! Only downside is that my reading time is infringed upon by all the snow removal I have to do. Boo!

Asylum Road by Olivia Sudjic

I have a loose personal rule whereby on visiting actual English-language bookshops I can't buy books I already know about or want to read; visiting a bookshop is a chance to browse and see what catches my eye. This is purely practical, just because I then have to get the books back to Belgium. I think I introduced this rule after my daughter's birth - she's bigger now so it's getting easier, but I often travel with her alone so used to have to be able to carry everything myself. Like all the best rules, it can be broken, which is how I ended up buying Beowolf last weekend, for example. All this to say that I picked up Asylum Road just because I liked the look of it; I'd never heard of it or its author.

I'm struggling to talk about it in a way that will do it justice. It was uncomfortable to read, in a good, exhilarating way. It's elliptical, things swirl in and out of focus, come close to the surface and then sink back down again, that which is said is said beautifully and precisely, but just as important is that which is not said - and all the while Anya, the articulate narrator, is unravelling. That probably makes it sound challenging and hard work, but it's not; it's easy to read and I didn't want to put it down. I'll leave it at that.

Foster by Claire Keegan

Another I hadn't heard of, another where that which is said is said beautifully and precisely, even sparingly. It's short, even for a novella - I read it in one sitting earlier this week when my daughter, who's also been unwell, went to sleep on me one afternoon (she's nearly 9, doesn't do this soppy stuff any more unless sick). A young girl's father takes her and leaves her on a farm in rural Ireland with relatives she doesn't know. She has no idea how long she is to stay. Under the care of her foster parents she discovers a new way of living she hasn't previously known, full of love and gentle care, and she blossoms. A story like this could easily be sentimental and full of overblown description, but not here; it's understated and every word counts. I loved it.

April in Spain by John Banville

I was going to say that I hadn't read anything by Banville before this, but LT tells me I read The Sea in 2007. I don't remember it, even having looked at a couple of reviews. I happened upon this as a library e-book last week, and as it was available I thought I'd give it a go. I was enjoying it in a quiet sort of way, because it's a quiet sort of book, but it was overshadowed by my exciting haul of physical books. I made myself go back to it because it would have been a shame to return it unfinished, and I'm glad I did because it merited being read to the end.

Quirke, Ireland's state pathologist (with a known taste for the booze), is on holiday in San Sebastian with his wife when he thinks he spots a young Irish woman from a well-connected family (her uncle is a government minister) who was declared dead several years previously. This leads to his daughter, who was a friend of the (possibly) dead woman's, and an Irish detective flying out to Spain...but a hitman is sent too. It wasn't the plot I liked, though; it was the (lengthy) parts where not much was happening plot-wise that made the novel worth reading for me - the interaction between Quirke and his wife (the trip to the hat shop, trivial bits of dialogue, Quirke and his wife in various cafes and bars as he struggles to relax on holiday), the scenes with his daughter and her wonderfully odious boyfriend. I don't expect the plot to stay with me, but I think some snapshots of the characters will.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

I had never had any desire to read The Bell Jar because I knew what it was going to be like and I wouldn't enjoy it. Until yesterday, that is, when I was suddenly seized by the compulsion to read it right now, and I loved it. (Fortunately, despite not wanting to read it I had had it on my Kindle for over 10 years, just in case a day like yesterday should come along).

I was well aware that this is the semi-autobiographical account of Plath's own road to her breakdown, and I expected it to be hard to read (both the language and the subject) and harrowing. How wrong I was. I had no idea that it was so fresh and accessible, and the biggest surprise of all was that parts of it even made me laugh. Other parts didn't, of course - a lot of it IS difficult to read in terms of the subject matter, but at the same time easy to read because of how it's written, in that I found it completely compelling and had to keep on reading; Esther's is a voice that you can't help but listen to. I think I'm going to be mulling it over for a while to come.

>58 rachbxl: I've read it five years ago and still have strong memories. It's a very good book.

>57 rachbxl: I know what you mean — I read April in Spain last year and couldn’t work out why I’d never read anything by Banville before. I really liked it, but I only have a very vague idea now what it was about, apart from being a lovely quirky portrait of a middle-aged couple on holiday together.

Four great reviews. Glad you read The Bell Jar and that it was so enjoyable. I’m tempted to hunt down my unread copy instead of whatever is next on my tbr list. Also, I’ve been curious about Foster, and you’re made Banville appealing.

>58 rachbxl: I have the same preconceptions as you regarding The Bell Jar, but suddently, I feel that I should give it a try. Too busy with other committed readings at the moment, but I might look for a copy of it. Thanks for this short and great review!

>58 rachbxl: I never had a desire to read The Bell Jar, however, when I was driving my 14 year old grandson to school on Thursday, he had just finished it, and was raving about how great it was. Now you’ve added to pushing me towards adding it to my list.

>55 rachbxl: I have a similar rule for independent bookshops - you have a sense that they have selected the books they display and so it is good to take advantage of that.

>58 rachbxl: I love your description of the "in case" owning of The Bell Jar...

>58 rachbxl: Hmm, The Bell Jar wasn't on my radar but it is now.

Sorry to hear you're poorly and I hope you start feeling better soon, though not *too* soon ;-).

Hi Rachel,

Just catching up - hope your sore throat is gone soon.

I really love John Banville's writing - have you read any of his other Quirke books that he's written as Benjamin Black? I've read the first three and loved all of them - Christine Falls is the first one. And The Untouchable is one of my favourite books since I joined LT. I just looked it up on here, and it was my first book of 2009 and made my top 5 for the year. It's a novel that felt like he was inside Anthony Blunt's head. So if you like reading anything about the Cambridge spies, I'd highly recommend it.

Loved reading about your bookshop visit without your daughter! I remember doing a trip to London when we were living in Basel and the kids were little - I lugged home a lot from the LRB shop and Waterstones.

>51 rachbxl: No, but having read Small Thing Like These, I did pick up a copy of Foster recently. I'll read it on some quiet weekend afternoon.

>61 dchaikin:, >62 raton-liseur:, >63 NanaCC:, >65 rhian_of_oz: And I thought it was just me! Colleen, I love the idea of your grandson telling you about it.

>66 cushlareads: I haven’t read any of the other Quirke books, no, and in fact until about halfway through April in Spain I didn’t know that there were any other - it works really well as a standalone. Given how much I liked what Banville does with the characters in April in Spain I may well give them a go at some point. And The Untouchable does sound like I might like it…

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes

I have been a fan of Natalie Haynes for several years, since a colleague told me about her excellent radio/podcast series Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics - she’s a broadcaster, writer, classicist and comedian, and she uses a combination of her skills to bring the classics to life in the 21st century in a brilliantly effective way. If you only listen to one episode of her podcast, make it the one on The Odyssey, in which she retells the story from memory in less than 25 minutes.

I didn’t intend to read these two books together. I’d already borrowed Pandora’s Jar and was well into it when my hold on A Thousand Ships came through, and actually reading these two books in parallel worked well. Pandora’s Jar is non-fiction, and as the subtitle says it’s a look at women in the Greek myths, with each chapter given over to a scholarly but extremely accessible examination of the role and portrayal of an individual woman in not just the texts from Ancient Greece (Euripides and Homer, of course, but others too) but more recent texts as well, as well as looking at art (my reading experience was enhanced by looking up the works of art Haynes mentions), film and TV - she even mentions Beyoncé. Who were these women who have come down the centuries to us like shadows? Euripides, it turns out, wrote some well-rounded strong women, but unlike the men they have been watered-down, at best (at worst vilified) in subsequent retellings. They have become flat and almost like caricatures of certain vices (or virtues, in the case of the impossibly perfect Penelope (has she perhaps become a male projection of the perfect wife, faithful yet turning a blind eye to her husband’s infidelities, good at weaving, and, crucially, a long way away?)) - but why have we been so ready to accept what we’re told about them? Medusa, for example - we all know she’s a monster with snakes for hair. And yet…over the centuries we have lost sight of the fact that her hair was a punishment from the gods FOR BEING RAPED. Medea - she killed her children! (But not, it turns out, in all early retellings…) But if we do the unthinkable and imagine her as a real human being, a mother, was perhaps killing her children the least bad way out she could find (better that she kill them herself than let them face the mob that was quite possibly going to come for them)?

A Thousand Ships, meanwhile, is fiction, and like Pat Barker’s excellent The Women of Troy, it’s a retelling from the point of view of the women involved of the time immediately after the fall of Troy, though whilst Barker only covers the period between the fall of the city and the departure of the Greek ships, Haynes covers the whole ten long years it takes Odysseus to get home to Ithaca (the period covered by The Odyssey, therefore). I can’t over-state how much I enjoyed this novel or how successful I think Haynes is in breathing life into these women. I loved The Women of Troy (and The Silence of the Girls before it), but even they didn’t succeed in making me see these women as truly real women. Haynes does. The scene where Hecuba says goodbye to her daughters, to give just one example, really drove home to me the enormity of what was happening to the women in a way nothing I’ve read before has. They had gone from being queens and princesses to being slaves, divided up as war spoils between the Greeks, and now they are starting to leave for their new homes with their new owners. They know they will never see each other again. It’s devastating.

A word of caution, though - I don’t think A Thousand Ships is a good place to start for someone wanting to read their first retelling of this kind. It’s not particularly accessible to someone without prior knowledge (I am hardly an expert, but I was glad to have read The Women of Troy recently, to have listened to Haynes’s podcasts and to be reading Pandora’s Jar).

>69 rachbxl: How interesting - I am reading Haynes' Medusa book at the moment Stone Blind and was having the opposite reaction when comparing her approach to the retellings with that of Pat Barker or even Madeline Miller - it’s clever, but I didn’t feel any real emotional weight or connection.

It is a while since I read The Silence of the Girls but I read it quite close to A Thousand Ships and definitely preferred the former.

Life would be boring if we all reacted the same way to things!

>69 rachbxl: I must get to both Haynes and Barker's retellings. I have only read Madeline Miller's. Your fantastic review makes me wish I had one to hand.

>70 wandering_star: Ha, funny. I do think that Barker’s are superior as beautifully written novels (works of art, if you like), and Miller’s too. But I’ve never had the women come alive with Barker and Miller as they did for me in A Thousand Ships. The insight that I’ve gained makes me want to go and read Barker and Miller again.

>72 rachbxl: Both are well worth it! (But start with Barker).

>69 rachbxl: cool pairing. Pandora’s Jar really interests me. One thing i liked about the classical Greek plays (and Shakespeare) is that the women are full characters with some individuality. And i’m not sure the west finds then again for a long time. Boccaccio is kind of a miss. I guess I should hold out on Chaucer until i’ve read him. Of course, women writing women is an empty set - the lost Sappho, Mary of France? Who else?

>58 rachbxl: Now there is a blast from the past....

>69 rachbxl: I have The Silence of Girls waiting on Mount TBR and have read Madeline Miller so these are both appealing.

I've requested Pandora's Jar from my State library (which will likely take a while to become available) and am pleased to see A Thousand Ships at my local library, though I will heed your advice and hold off on this one until I've read the others.

>69 rachbxl: >73 dchaikin: i was just reading how Ovid inspired Chaucer, especially in Chaucer’s undermining of the Aeneid in his House of Fame, where he uses Dido’s voice to undermine Aeneas’s imperial ideals. I had forgotten Ovid’s Heroides.

Anyway, Marion Turner puts it this way: Chaucer takes from Ovid that the “female voice {could} undo the impersonal solidities of epic, and the assurance of accepted, masculine, imperial ideals.” That is Ovid and Chaucer both used women’s voices as subversives aimed at controlling tyrants (Augustus Caesar or Richard II and the European trend of centralizing absolute power in the the king)

>76 dchaikin: Very interesting about Ovid. When I visit my mum I am working my way slowly through her copy of "Ovid's Heroines", a loose modern translation of Heroides by Clare Pollard. That comment about subversion gives me extra perspective on the poems.

>78 wandering_star: ooh. What do you think of Pollard’s version so far?

>79 dchaikin: I’m enjoying them! They feel very modern (of course sometimes this works well and sometimes less so) and I have been curious about how close they are as translations to the original. I think Ovid was deliberately being quite satirical though so some of the things which feel modern actually come from what he wrote.

>80 wandering_star: actually the translation i read felt modern too. Maybe he just uses a more straightforward storytelling structure that translates clean. He was heavily satirical to me in everything i read by him (all in translation). But Heroides felt the least satirical. (The heaviest satire was his love poems. They are always noted as a source of romantic medieval literature and yet they are the most unromantic poems I’ve ever read)

I'm already feeling nostalgic about my 2 weeks of sick leave and all the reading I got done, as well as all the time I spent on LT. I was getting enthusiastic about the Greek myths and thinking of all the books that might lead on to...but I've been back at work for nearly 2 weeks now and feeling more realistic. If I could just maintain a spark of that enthusiasm it would be something!

>76 dchaikin:, >78 wandering_star: I missed a whole conversation, sorry. Clare Pollard's Ovid has gone on the wishlist.

The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy

I don't read poetry in general, just because. It's a gap in my reading that I've been sort of tip-toeing round for a while now, wondering what to do about it. Poetry always seems intimidating, somehow, though I was inspired by a recent comment here on one of the Club Read threads that said something like 'the best way to get comfortable reading poetry is to read poetry'. Natalie Haynes mentions The World's Wife in Pandora's Jar, which seemed like a sign, so I bought it, read it - and really enjoyed it.

Each poem in The World's Wife is about a woman, most often the wife of a famous man (so we have poems entitled "Mrs Sisyphus" and "Mrs Darwin", for example), whilst a few are about what might have been if Mr X had actually been Ms X, how differently she would have gone about things. Many of them made me laugh; lots of them made me think. I particularly liked "Mrs Midas" ("I made him sit / on the other side of the room and keep his hands to himself") and "Mrs Sisyphus", which opens, "That's him pushing the stone up the hill, the jerk", and the brief "Mrs Darwin":

Mrs Darwin

7 April 1852

Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him -
Something about that Chimpanzee over there reminds me of you.

Here's another of my favourites:

Mrs Icarus

I'm not the first or the last
to stand on a hillock,
watching the man she married
prove to the world
he's a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pillock.

I shared these with my dad (not previously known for a love of poetry), and he said he liked them, apart from "Mrs Icarus", which he, formerly a keen amateur pilot, found almost offensive because he understands Icarus and his desire for flight. I was glad we had this conversation because it made me think hard about why I liked this poem. The answer I came up with was that in under 30 words Duffy made me think of a side to the Icarus story that I'd never even thought of before.

>83 rachbxl: The World's Wife sounds interesting to me for all the reasons you mention. I should look for it.

>82 rachbxl: I hated going back to work after covid. ☺️

>82 rachbxl: >78 wandering_star: ok, i can be really oblivious. I only just realized that conversation was with two different people. Not that that changes anything I posted.

>83 rachbxl: I enjoyed the examples. And the Midas line made me laugh.

>82 rachbxl: I guess that's the upside of my not having gotten any sick leave for Covid—no transition necessary...

I'm also interested in that Ovid translation. Also speaking of Covid—the earliest days of the pandemic were how you could tell someone had read Ovid, because they'd pronounce the virus name with a soft "o".

>83 rachbxl: Great review of the Duffy collection. I love her work. I have this massive hardcover of her work and have had it for some time...but I've yet to dive into it. I imagine some it is duplication of the single volumes I have.

Hope all is well, Rachel, and that you have lots of good books to hand.

The best-laid plans and all that... My 2023 thread hasn't fared any better than last year's, though it's not just my thread that's been taking a battering. Work has been nightmarish, to such an extent that I'm now on sick leave with an all-too-predictable burn-out. On top of work pressures I'm also having to deal with a stubborn elderly father 650km away who has steadily shut everyone other than me out of his life and who can no longer cope alone (clear to me but not to him). Oh, and then there's the house renovations which have been underway for over 6 months now (I can hear drilling as I type).

I struggled to read for several months earlier in the year, but it's picking up again. LT for months has felt like just another thing I feel I should do so I've stayed away, but suddenly today I feel like reviving my thread. I'm going to try to piece together what I've read, in no particular order, though I'll undoubtedly miss some books out, which saddens me a little since I've kept a complete reading log for over 30 years now. Here are the library e-books I've read (thank you, library, for the handy timeline of what I've borrowed, returned and put on hold):

Peace Talks by Tim Finch
The chairman of international peace negotiations taking place in a remote hotel in the Alps addresses a monologue, a letter she will never read, to his dead wife. There's not much plot, which did make it feel a bit directionless at times, but there is a sympathetic portrayal of a man lost in grief, and as he looks back at their life together there's humour and lots of little details that makes them come alive. Nice wry observations about the current round of talks, too. It's a few weeks since I read it, and it's proven to be one of those quiet books that didn't make much of an impression as I read it, but which has stayed with me more than I would have expected.

Friend of my Youth by Alice Munro
Exiles by Jane Harper
Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie
Claire of the Sea Light by Edwige Danticat
Love Marriage: a Novel by Monica Ali
Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood
Galatea by Madeline Miller

Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur
I was struggling to find any fiction that grabbed me and I thought I might do better with non-fiction for a change, but why and how this particular memoir I have no idea. In it Brodeur recounts life with her impossible mother, a flamboyant, larger-than-life character, a gifted cook who enjoyed nothing more than entertaining admiring friends, but also a narcissist who poisoned her teenage daughter's life by confiding in her about her extra-marital affair with a family friend and used her to lie for them. Much of what she recounts is mind-boggling to me, but I really liked the way Brodeur writes (enough to put a library hold on her novel). She has also made me want to visit Cape Cod.

Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King
A brilliant collection of short stories.

Bleeding Heart Yard by Elly Griffiths
This turns out to be the third in the Harbinder Kaur series but it was totally accessible without having read either of the first. I read this because I was looking for something not too taxing but well-written, and what little I've read by Elly Griffiths suggested this was a good bet - and it was.

Good to see you back. When life gets busy I think we all understand that LT is something that will fall by the wayside.

Welcome back, even if only for a visit. I hope all those stressors abate over time. I certainly relate to the "stubborn elderly father."

Wasn't Five Tuesdays in Winter wonderful?

It feels to me like a lot of things that have been stalled are ready to move forward again. I hope that proves true for all the stress you have had. My job has also been stressful lately - we are very short staffed - and I keep rethinking my plan to not retire until I am 70. I've got several non-fiction things I'd like to finish, but tonight I feel like ditching it all and maybe doing a free trial of Kindle Unlimited. I have a list from my lists (haha) of books that are available on KU, so maybe I'll see how many I can binge read in a month! Best of luck to you, and it's good to see you.

>90 rachbxl: So good to see you here despite your busy life. I like what you are reading and you remind me that I have not picked up Atwood's most recent. I fear it might be her last book and I'm dragging my feet because I don't want the love affair to end (perhaps I'll save it for the week at the lake in a few weeks.

And that is a Lily King I have not read....

I'm off and on these days, but do drop here in whenever you can XX

>91 AlisonY: thanks, Alison.

>92 RidgewayGirl: You as well…oh dear. Fortunately (for me) it feels like I’m surrounded by people who have similarly stubborn elderly parents so at least I’m not alone. Earlier this year I went to a college reunion and suddenly we were all talking about how to manage our parents. At least, those of us who still have our parents were, which kind of puts it in context, I suppose.

>93 WelshBookworm: What a lovely message, thank you. I’m sorry you’ve been having a stressful time at work as well. We’re short-staffed too, which has been part of the problem. Your list from your lists made me smile (I won’t pretend never to have done that!), and I can relate the urge to ditch your usual reading in favour of a KU binge. I find that I’m reaching for not quite my usual kind of book but I’m enjoying my reading so who cares?

>94 avaland: I think the Atwood would be the perfect lake book. I was conscious when I picked it up that it might be the last…but I read it anyway.

Queen K by Sarah Thomas

As I said in >95 rachbxl:, I’m not really reading my usual kind of thing at the moment because I have the attention span of a gnat and need something a bit lighter…but still well written. A recent trip to a bookshop with a very limited range of English books threw this up, in that it and the other couple of books I bought were pretty much the only books there that weren’t murder mysteries (enough!) or celebrity autobiographies.

Queen K is narrated (unreliably) by Melanie, hired as a tutor for the daughter of a Russian oligarch. I really enjoyed the glimpse into the alien world of the super-rich (Thomas apparently spent several years as a tutor for very rich families), but there’s more to it than that. My favourite character was the most unlikeable Kata, the oligarch’s wife - the passages where she clumsily tries to move up in British society were beautifully vicious and at times truly funny, but mainly I felt sorry for her, this woman who seems to have it all but can’t stop needing more. We’re given a lot of backstory (Kata’s happy childhood in Russia, her miserable adolescence in New York where all her attempts to fit in at school failed, how she met Ivan back in eastern Russia and decided to hitch her wagon to this already-successful young man, how in time she outgrows him and feels held back by his uncouthness and lack of sophistication (whilst spending his millions, of course)). Without the backstory the novel wouldn’t hold together, but I did often question how Melanie knew all this. Thomas covers this by having Alex, the oligarch’s daughter, confide in Melanie and speak to her at great length as though she weren’t there, but it didn’t ring quite true for me. Still, overall I was thoroughly entertained by this debut novel, and that was the point.

>94 avaland: >95 rachbxl: There is another Atwood after Old Babes in the Woods. It is Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004 - 2021, which my book club read for July. Basically it's a series of essays and speeches over that period. It was really interesting, but could get repetitive at times, especially the award thank-you speeches.

>97 SassyLassy: I have Burning Questions as it came out in 2022, but I haven't spent much time with it. Thanks for the review :-)

It's so nice to hear from you, Rachel. I'm sorry you are having a rough time. Why do multiple troubles always seem to come at once? I hope things settle down to a dull roar soon.

"I have the attention span of a gnat" LOL. Me too, although for less valid reasons. I persist in trying to read my normal fare with little success. How did you like the Shamsie and Danticat? They are both authors I like, but I've read neither of these books.

Good to see you, Rachel! I do recognise that feeling when LT just seems like another chore, I'm glad you've taken the pressure off yourself because it's always nice to hear from you.

You've made Queen K sound very intriguing!

Sorry to hear that life is so overwhelming, Rachel. I've been there with the stubborn parent. It's exasperating.

I read Peace Talks a few years ago and loved it, although now I don't remember all that much about it.

Hope your reading picks up. I'm having a somewhat off reading year myself. Maybe when I retire I'll be able to read.

>93 WelshBookworm: Working until 70 sounds like a lot. Part of my problem is that everyone around me is retiring. How do you keep motivated to keep working?

>101 Nickelini: Joyce, I grit my teeth a lot. Seriously, it's hard. Although I do like my job. And it is part-time. I just don't like the hierarchy and putting up with somebody judging me for an annual review. But my income has always been so borderline - living paycheck to paycheck. I do live within my means. I have no debt, except for the house now, but I can't do a lot of travelling for example, which I would like to do. Social Security payments keep going up 8% every year until age 70, so I'm going for the maximum payout. My pension also goes up, but not as much. So that 18 months is another almost $400 in monthly income. I can do a lot of travelling with that, or add a porch to the house, or put up a fence in the backyard, or it is a new car payment. And I expect to live a long time. My grandmother was almost 98. My mother is 93... Now I just have to hope that Social Security doesn't go bankrupt, because I have no savings whatsoever.

Rachel, I am glad my list from my lists made you smile! And I did go for the Kindle Unlimited Trial...

>102 WelshBookworm: Oh, that makes sense. And 18 months seems like you can hold on and ride it out! Enjoy your retirement when you get there!

Hope things are going ok with you and you are getting some time to read.

>90 rachbxl: I so relate... I've been away from here for a bit too, similar combination of work stress and my husband's health issues, and extracurricular activities like LT took a hit. But I also realize, when I think of it, that even these online connections are important to me—I work from home, don't have friends nearby (and all my friends seem to be going through similar rough times), and I start to feel really isolated. So I'm making more of an effort to be here, and here I am.

I'm another work-until-70 person, which gives me 10 more years. I'm kind of wishing it were otherwise right now, but my husband can't work anymore so I'm the breadwinner with my mediocre media salary, and I'm going to do my best to hold out. I love my work intensely but it grinds me down (very uncoincidentally, I'm reading Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone... I'll report back when I finish).

You've got some great reading here, despite outside forces! I'm reading Old Babes in the Wood too, or at least dipping into it—I'm on a short fiction collection judging panel so right now I have to read a few stories apiece out of 20 books, but that's one I think I'll go back to. I have to say I really enjoy stories with older protagonists these days.

My wonderful Dad died last week. Despite not having lived in the same country as each other for over 20 years we were extremely close, and I feel like I've come untethered. I wasn't with him (a doctor had told me 2 days earlier that he might have been able to leave hospital, finally, within a week or so, so I was planning to go then and bring him to stay with us for as long as he needed) but we had a lovely chat on his last morning, and although all seemed to be well I somehow knew it was goodbye and spent the rest of the day waiting for the phone call from the hospital.

I'm taking in refuge in certain friends (not necessarily the most obvious ones, it turns out - I've had some lovely surprises) and in books, both reading and buying. Whilst wandering around Limoges, France earlier this week between meetings with the funeral director and the like, I spent a soothing hour or two in a fabulous independent bookshop, Page & Plume, and came away with this little haul, all in French:

Les déracinés by Catherine Bardon: first in a series of novels about the small community of European Jews who were given visas to the Dominican Republic around the time of WW2. I'd never heard of the author or the books, but (true and fictional) stories about European Jews in the 20th century fascinate me, and I didn't know about the Dominican Republic visas.

Beyrouth-sur-Seine by Sabyl Ghoussoub: I'd almost bought this before (it came out last year) but this time did so purely because of the cover blurb - "My parents' life is like the war in Lebanon. The more I know about it, the less I understand. I can identify the main characters, and then there are a few key moments that I'm clear about, but after that I'm lost. Too many dates, events, gaps, silences, contradictions" (my translation). After a morning spent sorting through Dad's papers (I knew he had kept a lot, but it turns out that he had kept EVERYTHING) this resonated with me.

Un chien à ma table by Claudie Hunzinger: I just liked the look of it.

Paroles de résistants et résistantes ed. Véronique Tixier: this is a collection of already-published interviews with members of the French resistance in the Limousin (my dad's home for the last 20 years). This was a subject which fascinated my dad and one we often discussed. I was delighted to find this little book, published by the Friends of the Limoges Resistance Museum, but a little sad to find it only now.

Reste by Adeline Dieudonné: I was looking out for this, Dieudonné's latest. I started it yesterday. It's very Belgian, as in, quirky and full of black humour whilst having a clearly visible tragic side (having lived here for over 20 years I've come to love my adopted country).

Dissident Club by Taha Siddiqui and Hubert Maury. I was introduced to graphic novels by LT. I haven't read a lot, but I enjoy (and get a lot out of) autobiographical graphic novels like this one. I have already finished it so will post comments later.

Ils ont surgi de la nuit: Quand les objets des victimes des camps nazis sont resitutués à leurs familles by Elise Karline: very recent non-fiction book about the work done by the Arolsen Archives to return the belongings of prisoners held in the Nazi camps to their families.

Les exportés by Sonia Devillers: Devillers looks into her (Jewish) family history - in 1961 they were "exported" from Romania together with hundreds of others, in exchange for agricultural goods.

And then on my return to Belgium, because I hadn't bought enough books this week (actually because I had found the Limoges bookshop so soothing and wanted to recreate it) I spent a quiet hour in a big Brussels bookshop and left with the following:

L'eau rouge by Jurica Pavicic translated from the Croatian

Must I Go by Yiyun Li because I very much enjoyed The Vagrants and Kinder than Solitude

Les abeilles grises (Grey Bees in English) by Andrei Kourkov translated from the Russian (the author is Ukrainian)

La nuit des pères by Gaelle Josse: it has the word "père" (father) in the title so I took it as a sign

L'autre fille by Annie Ernaux: because it was there, and I realised I'd never read anything by Annie Ernaux

East West Street by Philippe Sands, a non-fiction book I have picked up and put down many times before. This time, though, I'd bought so many books this week that one more was going to make little difference.

I also bought a (totally unnecessary, needless to say) beautiful Moleskine book journal with space not just for reviews of books read but also for wishlists etc. Then today my husband suddenly produced a beautiful old fountain pen which belonged to his aunt. Small pleasures…

Rachel, I'm so sorry to hear about your dad's passing, may his memory be a blessing. I'm glad that you were able to have a good conversation with him on his last day and that you have been able to find some solace in books and friends. Small pleasures are important. Take care of yourself.

I’m so sorry for your loss. Take care of yourself

So sorry to hear this news. Glad to hear you've found some good support. Take care.

Rachel, I'm so sorry for your loss. Be gentle with yourself.

My condolences, Rachel.

My condolences for your dad. I hope you find comfort in your friends and in books.

L'autre fille was my way back into Annie Ernaux, a couple of decades after reading my mother's copy of La place. Les déracinés sounds fascinating and I am looking forward to reading your opinion on Les exportés, which I read for my book group earlier this year.

Condolences, Rachel. I'm so glad you were able to have a good conversation with him that day. Look after yourself.

Thank you all for these messages - they mean a lot.

This morning I’m re-organising the big (whole of one wall, built-in) bookcase in the ground floor room we use as an office. When Dad died we had just started turning it into a bedroom for him as he couldn’t have got up the stairs, and I’ve avoided going in there since then. Today, though, it feels like a peaceful place where I want to be.

>116 rachbxl: It sounds like a perfect place to be today. Thinking of you

>117 labfs39: Thanks, Lisa.

Dissident Club: Chronique d'un journaliste pakistanais exilé en France by Taha Siddiqui and Hubert Maury

I'd never read a graphic novel when I joined LT - I had all sorts of preconceived ideas about them and, I think, didn't even realise that they really were for adults too. I still haven't read that many, but I've discovered that I really enjoy - and learn a lot from - non-fiction graphic novels which are a combination of autobiography and current affairs (or history, depending on how long after the events you read the book). The first I read in that vein was Persepolis. In Dissident Club, which caught my eye in the Limoges bookshop 2 weeks ago, and which I read in the car on the long drive home, Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui tells the fascinating story of his life so far, beginning with an idyllic childhood which comes to an abrupt end as his father embraces radical Islam after moving the family to Saudi Arabia, and ending with his arrival in France as an exiled dissident journalist in 2018, forced to flee Pakistan after somehow managing to escape arrest by the regime. In between we see how the author initially follows his father before starting to question things and ultimately distancing himself from him, all against a backdrop of the major events involving radical Islam which have shaped the world in recent years. I don't know if this has been translated into English, but it's highly recommended for those who read French.

My sincere condolences on the death of your father. I hope the wonderful memories will ease your sadness. Take all the time you need.

I also hope you find ways to deal with your burnout. Reading and interacting with books has proven to be a blessing for me and it seems you have taken that path as well.

>119 rachbxl: I haven't really ventured into graphic novels since I was a child, although Lisa's (labfs39) enthusiasm has made me very interested in trying the adult version. Maybe I should follow your example.

>119 rachbxl: That sounds like an excellent book, Rachel. How was the artwork? I too enjoy nonfiction/memoir graphic novels. Some of the best that I've read are

When stars are scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed (Somalian refugee)

Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim (Korean comfort women)

Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey by Ozge Samanci (Turkish coming of age)

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei (American internment camps)

Palestine by Joe Sacco (anything by journalist Sacco is good, imo)

Well, I could go on, but these are a sample of ones I've enjoyed.

Just popping on to my thread to note down 2 books I enjoyed earlier this year but seem to have forgotten to record so far. I’ll come back another time to reply to messages.

Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski
Beautiful novel about a young gay man coming of age and falling in love in communist Poland, a summer of love and freedom in the wilderness followed by a return to real life and the harsh reality of the intolerant regime.

Trespassing by Louise Kennedy
This debut novel from Northern Ireland was recommended by a bookseller in Hatchards in London’s St Pancras Station. She actually recommended it to the customer before me and I half-heard, so when I was my turn I asked her about it, and that led on to a lovely bit of book chat. She was right, this is really good - a love story between a married Protestant man and a younger Catholic woman in 1970s Northern Ireland. I’ve only put Swimming in the Dark and Trespassing because I just put them both away and realised I hadn’t noted them here, but now I realise they have a lot in common - both tell a story of forbidden love set against a vivid backdrop of a troubled, tense, violent society.

I'm just catching up on your thread after most of the summer away, Rachel, and I'm so sorry to hear about your dad. It sounds like you didn't have much unfinished business between you, other than his not making it out to live with you, so I hope there's peace for you somewhere in all this. I love the notebook/fountain pen serendipity... do you know what kind of pen?

>106 rachbxl: I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your father. I am glad that you are able to find comfort in books and bookstores. You will treasure that last conversation with your father.

>120 Trifolia: Thank you. I am slowly and gently returning to something like normal life, and it feels good. I like what you say about "reading and interacting with books has proven to be a blessing for me" - that's the case for me too, exactly; not just reading (although I'm doing a lot more of that than I have for several years, and enjoying it much more too) but also being surrounded by books, touching them, reorganising bookshelves, spending time in bookshops. I've put my trusty Kindle aside for now, because it's not having the same effect as "real books".

Today I'm going, just my book and me, to the spa at Boetfort - do you know it? I didn't think spas were my thing, but I've been a couple of times these last few months and find it a wonderful way to cut myself off from the world for a few hours.

>121 labfs39: Hmm, I've been thinking about your question about the artwork since I originally read your post, Lisa...and I still don't have an answer. It reminds me of those early days on LT when I used to feel ill-equipped to post my thoughts on books (I could have churned out university-style essays, but not pithy comments, though when it comes to art-work I couldn't do essays either!) Anyway, I liked the artwork, particularly the way (for me, anyway) it seemed to be so full of movement. It's all black/white/grey/shades of one other colour, which I thought I might find boring but I didn't at all.

Thanks for the list of graphic novels - they're exactly the kind I like and I haven't read any of them, though Joe Sacco has been on my mental wishlist for ages. (I also saw in the weekend newspaper that Marjane Satrapi has just brought out a new one, Femme, Vie, Liberté, about the new Iranian revolution).

>123 lisapeet: Thank you, Lisa. That's right, we really had no unfinished business. The more I think about our last conversation, the more I marvel at how Dad managed to tidy up all the ends (for someone who invariably followed up a phone call with a message saying, 'I forgot to tell you half the things I wanted to', that's quite something). The pen is a beautiful slim Parker with a gold nib, and it fits in my hand like it was made for me.

>124 WelshBookworm: Thank you.

The good news is that I have a renewed enthusiasm for reading. I've had to reorganise all my books recently, and I've felt excited at TBR books which for the last couple of years had been things I wondered why I had ever bought. I've even read some of them!

Reste by Adeline Dieudonné

This one wasn't from the TBR shelves, it was one of my Limoges haul. It could only be Belgian, which I mean in a good way. It takes the form of a series of letters written by a 40-something woman to her lover's husband. She starts the first letter by saying that the lover is lying dead next to her in bed, and it soon becomes apparent that he hasn't just this minute died. On the surface this is a very readable novel full of mordant humour about a crazy woman who takes her dead lover's body on a road trip round the Alps. But you don't have to scratch very deep to start to feel extremely uncomfortable as the narrator unravels through grief into madness. I read the whole thing with an increasingly tight knot in my stomach, willing the narrator to give up and do the right thing...but what IS the right thing? Does "normal" or "legal" mean "right"? There were a couple of points where I felt that the plausibility wore thin (the involvement of another woman, for example, albeit a hermit who rejects society), but in general I thought Dieudonné did a very good job of portraying a woman teetering between the rational and the irrational.

Bodas de sangre by Federico Garcia Lorca
available in English as Blood Wedding

This leapt out at me as I was rearranging bookshelves, so I sat down and read it in one go. I have read it countless times before, though not for many years, and having studied it both at school and at university I know huge chunks of it off by heart (in fact when I lived in Spain in my 20s one of my party pieces was innocently shoving quotes from Bodas de sangre into everyday conversation); it was good to be reminded how the chunks fit together. I am planning to sit down soon with La casa de Bernada Alba, though Yerma seems to have disappeared.

L'autre fille by Annie Ernaux (2011)

Bought as part of my recent hauls because I hadn't read any Annie Ernaux. This is a very slim book which takes the form of a letter to Ernaux's dead sister...dead before Ernaux's birth. Ernaux, an only child, found out by overhearing an adult conversation that the sister had existed and that she was "nicer" than Ernaux, causing her to see her whole life through a different lens from then on - does she only exist because the sister died, is she simply a replacement daughter? Which of the two is the "other daughter" of the title? This is a book about family, about the strange hidden ways in which families operate, about telling the truth and about hiding it. It took me a long time to read despite its brevity because I kept going back and re-reading bits, marvelling at the way Ernaux constructs her sentences. Her style isn't easy but it's not unnecessarily difficult either, in that EVERYTHING is there for a reason.

(I am always fascinated to note coincidental links between the books I read back-to-back or at the same time, as I usually have several on the go. Here, both Reste and L'autre fille are epistolary).

So Sorry for your Loss: How I Learned to Live with Grief, and Other Grave Concerns by Dina Gachman

Dina Gachman is a writer who was prompted by the death of her mother to write this book. It's a mixture of personal experience and research into what grief is, why we feel it, why we feel it in different ways, with first-hand accounts of her family's experience interspersed with interviews with an interesting selection of not-entirely-predictable experts on the subject: psychiatrists, psychologists, funeral directors, etc. Gachman has a warm, friendly style and her book kept me company when I needed it.

La nuit des pères by Gaelle Josse

Gaelle Josse is a (French) poet, and it shows in her writing, full of images. The main narrator, Isabelle, returns after years away to her home village in the Alps (another of those coincidental links to a recently-read book - Reste is also set in the Alps) to see her brother and the difficult father whose temper overshadowed her childhood and from whom she has distanced herself. If she is back now, it is only because her brother fears that their father doesn't have long to live. Most of the book is written in the second person as Isabelle addresses a monologue to her father (not quite a letter, as in Reste and L'autre fille, but almost), looking back at their life together and her life since she left home. Isabelle has no explanation as to why their father was as bad-tempered (or downright unpleasant) as he was (is?), or as to why her sweet-natured, long-dead mother stayed and endured it. I almost put this book aside about a third of the way through as I was irritated by the repetition and the slightly overworked style, but it kept itching away at me and I carried on, and I'm glad I did. I was, however, a bit surprised when the brother suddenly took over as narrator for a brief chapter, and then the father later - it seemed as if the author knew she needed to get another viewpoint across and couldn't see another way out. An enjoyable little book overall though, though I suspect it won't stay with me for long.

When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà
Translated from the Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem

This marvellous book is hard to talk about as I'm not sure I've read anything quite like this before. It's set in the Spanish Pyrenees (see? Mountains again), and the thread running through it is the episodic story of the tragic life of Domènec's wife and children in the years and decades after he, Domènec, is killed by lightening high up in the mountains. These people are fully-formed characters, when they have the stage...but the stage (the mountains) isn't fully theirs; it belongs too to everyone who has ever lived in or even just passed through this majestic setting - the women cast out as witches centuries ago, the Republicans trying to escape to France, steps away, in the aftermath of Spain's Civil War, local people who have died more recently, for in this place the dead are as real as the living - as well as to all the animals that live there - the deer, the bears - and even the plants - the trees, the black chanterelles - and the weather. All of these have voices and narrate sections of this polyphonic book - but this isn't one of those books where the author makes it easy for the reader by telling them at the start of each section who is narrating. No, here the reader has to persevere and work it out. The effect is dizzying, sometimes bewildering, utterly immersive. It's not just the narrators that shift, either, it's time, too. Irene Solà does something very strange with time here, switching imperceptibly between a time so ancient that nobody could tell whether it were history or myth and the present day, with other times thrown in in between (the experience of reading the book also did something strange to my own perception of time, as I read it over 2 days but by the end was convinced that there were things in it I had known for ages, in the real sense of ages). It wasn't always entirely clear to me who or what was narrating, or from when, but as I read I realised that a bigger picture was forming in my mind from all the fragments. Brilliant.

Ils ont surgi de la nuit: quand les objets des victimes des camps nazis sont restitués à leurs familles by Elise Karlin
Non-fiction

A very-recently published book by a French journalist nominally about the Arolsen Archives, the modern incarnation of an incredible organisation based in Germany which ever since the end of WW2 has, in one form or another, been working tirelessly, in part thanks to volunteers, to elucidate the fate of the millions who disappeared at the hands of the Nazis and to return the possessions with which they entered the camps to their families, even now. I say that the subject of the book is "nominally" the Arolsen Archives because at the same time it's a very personal book about the author's family; Karlin admits that she had never been in the least bit curious about her family, but in 2019 her father happened to be in his doctor friend's office when the latter took delivery of a small parcel from the Arolsen Archives, containing his mother's brooches. Karlin started researching the Arolsen Archives from a journalistic perspective, still without associating what she was doing with her own family, but before long her own ancestors broke through and took up the space they had been denied. Each chapter of the book is about a particular family or individual, sometimes someone who died in the camps and whose final months or years have been pieced back together and their possessions (yellowing photographs, pieces of jewelry, wallets, letters...) returned to their grandchildren/great nephews and nieces, etc; sometimes one of the Arolsen Archives volunteers; sometimes a contemporary family member. And then there are the chapters about Karlin's own grandparents and great-grandparents and the work of memory and restitution that she, with the help of the Arolsen Archive, has undertaken. Fascinating and very moving.

>132 rachbxl: Wow, this looks like a book I'd love. Thanks for the terrific review. In a way, your review puts me in mind of We, the Drowned, except the subject is the ocean (specifically the North Atlantic) rather than the Pyrenees.

Hi Rachel,

I just opened up your thread to catch up on 8 months of LT. I'm so sorry to read about your Dad. I'm glad that books and bookshops are helping.

And as usual, you've reviewed so many great books. I am resisting the urge to go look them up in the library catalogue but I think I already own Swimming in the Dark and it's upstairs somewhere...

I’m really sorry for your loss, and apologize because I only just learned. I’m also grateful for you that you had such a close relationship with your dad, which I’m sure meant the world to him.

>34 dchaikin: I keep thinking about When I Sing, Mountains Dance - can't get it out of my head. I'll be interested to see what you make of it if you do decide to read it. I hadn't heard of We, the Drowned but it's now on my wishlist - thanks!

>135 cushlareads: Thanks, Cushla - it's good to hear from you. Swimming in the Dark is another that has really stayed with me.

>136 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. Don't be sorry that you only just learned - I have been so absent from LT these last few months, I can hardly expect my CR friends to rush to my thread the moment I show up ;-)

I'm glad you've not only found solace in books, but that the book gods have been kind and you've read some wonderful ones lately. I've added several to my list. I'm so glad you're back on LT!

>139 labfs39: Thanks, Lisa. The book gods are being kind to me, yes, but it’s also me, I think. I’m much more receptive than I have been for ages, whilst at the same time being far more discerning about what I pick up, and what I decide not to finish. For a couple of years now I’ve been relying heaving on library ebooks, contemporary fiction, some of it excellent but too much of it…just not, but I’ve read it anyway. A bit like persisting in eating too much sugar when you know your body needs something else (I’ve been guilty of that too). My recent reorganisation of my bookshelves has reminded me of just how many fabulous-looking books I have on my TBR shelves; for the last couple of years they’ve just sat there glowering at me, adding to my to-do list, but within the last month or so I feel inspired to read some of them. That goes hand-in-hand with being back on LT, which leads to diversions and more books, but it all feels exciting and good, and I hadn’t felt like that about reading (or about much else, really) for a couple of years.

>140 rachbxl: That sort of positive energy is a blessing. I'm so glad we get to share in it here on LT.

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

Having been really impressed by what I'd read by Sarah Moss so far, I snapped this up when I saw it at a book sale when I was in the UK at Christmas, and now I'm even more impressed.

The narrator, 17-year old Sylvie, has been forced to join her father and mother on a recreation of an Iron Age camp with a group of archeology students and their professor. Her father, who takes it all frighteningly seriously (I mean that literally), is not an academic; he is a bus driver with a passion for and encyclopaedic knowledge of the early Britons. He is a brilliant character - what tenacity he must have to have educated himself in this, albeit very restricted, way, how resilient he must be to deflect the inevitable scorn and mockery of his workmates...and how unpleasant he is. I felt an almost physical repulsion whenever he appeared on the page which can only have mirrored the feelings of Sylvie and her mother - and yet thanks to Moss's skill I still felt a sneaking sympathy for, or at least understanding of, this boorish man trying to hold his own with the academics. Nothing is black and white, and Moss makes us think about how far into the grey we will go. This is a short novel during which Sarah Moss imperceptibly builds up the sense of menace, under the surface but unmistakably present. It's a long time since something I read made me feel so anxious.

>142 rachbxl: I read this a few years ago and it remains one of my favourites

When I Sing, Mountains Dance looks like it might be my kind of book, and happily my library has an e-copy. Also, agreed on Ghost Wall—it's a beautiful, uncomfortable story.

So good to have you back! Am enjoying your reviews. I've liked most of the Moss books I've read. The lowest rating was for Cold Earth (3 1/2 stars, I had a few beefs with that one)

Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard

The book I read recently about the Arolesen Archives led me to pick up East West Street, a non-fiction book which traces the lives of 4 men born in the last years of the 19th century (one of them the author's father), all of whom had a link to Lwow/Lviv/Lemberg in modern Ukraine. I'm still reading East West Street (at least I would be if I could find it, but it's disappeared - frustrating, as I can't wait to get back to it), but what struck me fairly early on was how all roads lead to the Jewish community in Vienna (which turns out to have been called Leopoldstadt). This same Jewish community got several mentions in the book on the Arolsen Archives. So, when I learnt about Tom Stoppard's play Leopoldstadt from LolaWalser's thread the other day (Lola read it in January but I had some catching up to do), I bought and read it immediately.

Leopoldstadt follows the fortunes of several generations of a Jewish family in Vienna from turn of the 19th/20th century until after WW2, and it's by turns funny (family members talking over each other at complete cross-purposes, like family members do), touching, sad, and devastating (who and what is left at the end made me cry). In my comments on Ghost Wall I said it was a long time since I had felt so anxious reading something, but that turned out to be nothing next to the way I felt on reading Leopoldstadt, because despite much evidence that many of the characters are Jewish in name only, an accident of birth, if you like, the outcome was inevitable. If ever I have the chance to see the play performed, I'll go, but it lends itself well to being read so I don't feel short-changed. It was also the perfect complement to my recent non-fiction reading - it may be fiction, but it brought the real (non-fictional) characters I've been reading about to life, gave them a setting and another layer of context.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

I enjoyed this first book in the Maisie Dobbs series, particularly for its portrayal of a time I don't know much about - the First World War, yes, lots of history lessons, lots of books set during the war, but the aftermath and the scars, both physical and psychological, that it left on people afterwards, not so much. What bothered me, though - and this is a bugbear of mine which I'm already aware of, rather than being a particular fault with the book - was the transcription of the speech of many of the characters, ie the less educated ones. It never fails to irritate me. I understand why it's being done but it doesn't make me want to read on. I would, however, like to see what the indomitable Maisie gets up to next so I think I will try listening to the next one.

>146 rachbxl: sounds fantastic. I’m noting. Probably for the second time.

>142 rachbxl: glad you enjoyed Ghost Wall. Good stuff. Lots left for the reader to think about

>148 dchaikin: I'd definitely have noted it had I seen it sooner, but then the title would have joined many, many others on my wishlist - but this was the book gods working in my favour as I saw the post just at the right time and jumped on it. I keep thinking about it and I suspect I will go back to it soon and read it again.

>148 dchaikin: Yes, that's one of the things I like about Sarah Moss, what I've read of her, anyway - there's always room left for thought.

Euphoria by Lily King

Lily King only came to my attention (thanks, Club Read) within the last couple of years with her novel Writers and Lovers, but it turns out that she has written 5 novels, the first of which was published in 1999 (and an excellent collection of short stories, Five Tuesdays in Winter, which I read earlier this year). Euphoria came out in 2014. It's set in the 1930s, and whilst entirely fictional, it takes inspiration from events in the life of the anthropologist Margaret Mead, covering a short period in the lives of 3 young anthropologists out in the field in Papua New Guinea. The plot kept me reading very happily, but what I really liked were the characters (not that I necessarily warmed to them all, but I liked what King did with them) and how they interact - forwards, backwards, a sidestep here, a pause there, realistic.

>146 rachbxl: I very much want to read this, having seen the play (which was fantastic).

>150 rachbxl: I really liked this one. I'm the daughter of an anthropologist who worked with Margaret Mead (I have a baby cup given to me by her when I was born!), so I'm a sucker for tales of anthropologists behaving badly. Not that there are many of those books out there... but you know what I mean. I still need to read Gods of the Upper Air.

>125 rachbxl: I have never heard of Boetfort, but it sounds relaxing. It's a good thing that you found something to relax.

>127 rachbxl: It could only be Belgian, which I mean in a good way. LOL in combination with the rest of your post. I am sometimes surprised by the reputation of Belgium and Belgians in the rest of the world.

>129 rachbxl: I read Ernaux' The Years last year and I loved it. I had hoped to read more of her books but it hasn't happened yet. This one looks tempting.

>132 rachbxl: >133 rachbxl: >142 rachbxl: >146 rachbxl: >150 rachbxl: These look very interesting for various reasons! Your thread is both delightful and dangerous.

>150 rachbxl: "anthropologists behaving badly" - LOL. I love the detail about your baby cup from Margaret Mead! I hadn't heard of Gods of the Upper Air but I just had a look, sounds interesting so it's gone on the wishlist.

>152 Trifolia: Thank you - "delightful and dangerous", I like it :-)

Clara's War by Clara Kramer with Stephen Glantz

A memoir based on Kramer's diaries from the 18 months in 1944-45 she spent with up to 17 other Jewish people hiding in a dug-out bunker under the floorboards of a house in the small town of Zolkiew, then in Poland (now Zhovkva in Ukraine). They were hidden by Valentin Beck, an unlikely hero, a womanising heavy drinker widely known for his apparent anti-semitic views, his wife Julia and their daughter Ala. The Becks fraternised with the Nazis, hosting rowdy dinner parties that lasted well into the small hours, the guests little knowing who was hiding just centimetres beneath their feet. The story of these people's survival is quite incredible, both from the point of view of how they managed to keep sane for so long in such a small space with limited food and even limited water (the Becks could only supply them with water when nobody else was in the house, in which the Nazis had requisitioned rooms for their soldiers), unable to empty the buckets which served as toilets until the house was empty yet aware that if they waited too long the smell would give them away, driven crazy by lice, bedbugs, prickly heat, not to mention boredom (there were four young children among them), as well as from the point of view of just how they managed to escape capture when so many other Jews in hiding locally were betrayed, even in the very last days of the Nazi occupation.

I only became aware of this book recently, on reading East West Street: on the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, in which Philippe Sands traces the history of four men born around 1900, one of them his father, born in Zolkiew into a thriving Jewish community, the same community that is colourfully described at the start of Clara's War - a community that no longer exists, the few Jews who survived WW2, like Clara and her family and their companions, having been forced to flee because of continued anti-semitism.

>151 lisapeet:

Ooo, Margaret Mead! I became a huge fan when I read her Samoa book as a teen (whatever later corrections had to be made).

>154 rachbxl:

Thank you for bringing Philippe Sands' book to my attention.

>154 rachbxl: What a remarkable story.

>154 rachbxl: Wow... that one's noted.

>155 LolaWalser: I finally finished East West Street today. It’s going to take a while for me to collect my thoughts on it, I reckon, though I stick to my original impression of an excellent book.

The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: a Very Short Introduction by Martin Bunton
Non-fiction

Thanks to Lisa (labfs39) for recommending this recently on her thread. It’s exactly what the title says, and it was exactly what I was looking for, a clear, brief-ish (200 pages) account of the background to the conflict. Obviously 200 pages were never going to make me an expert, but I certainly feel a little less clueless. I also feel bemused as I think back to my school history lessons on this very subject when I was 14 or so, with a teacher I had huge respect for as a historian…no mention was made of Britain’s shameful role in the whole sorry mess.

(Slightly off-topic, this book is part of a huge series of Oxford Very Short Introductions covering a delightfully varied range of subjects. The juxtaposition of the subjects really appealed to me - mental note to look out for more).

>159 rachbxl: I'm glad you found it helpful, Rachel. I certainly did. I too am intrigued by the series and purchased, but have not read, Samurai: A Very Short Introduction.

Today I started listening to Apeirogon read by the author, Colum McCann. It's about two bereaved fathers, one Israeli, one Palestinian. So far it is excellent. I guess our reading is following our thoughts these days.

>160 labfs39: I've been fantasising about all the subjects I could become an armchair expert in ;-) When I started training as an interpreter someone told me that interpreters make excellent cocktail party guests as we have an extremely superficial knowledge about a vast range of subjects (the point being that at a cocktail party (when did I last go to one anyway?) no conversation would be long enough for the limits of our knowledge to be exposed) - with the help of this series I might even become a passable dinner guest!

>160 labfs39: And I've borrowed I Shall not Hate: a Gaza Doctor's Journey from the library, though I haven't started it - was that a recommendation from you as well? I hope to start it later today.

L'armée du salut by Abdellah Taia
available in English as Salvation Army

A slim coming-of-age novel narrated by a gay Moroccan man. I almost abandoned it on page 2 when he started talking about his mother's sexual desire and his parents' sex life (to be fair, I should have been prepared, given that the cover blurb includes this quotation: Our family reality was very sexual in nature, as if we had all been each other's partner. ) I was never really sure where this was going (which isn't always a problem - today I'm also planning to write up my thoughts on Cold Enough for Snow, where I certainly didn't know where it was going but felt that I was in good hands, unlike here). The first part is about family life in the village, then the narrator meets a Swiss academic and starts a relationship with him, then he pitches up in Switzerland on a bursary and has nowhere to stay...all a bit inconclusive. I also disliked the way the only women who appear in the novel (I don't think a single one gets a mention in Switzerland, other than one who shouts at him for mis-use of a pedestrian crossing (the inference, or at least what I inferred, was that no woman should have dared speak to him like that)) are at best objects (his mother, there for the gratification, whatever form it may take, of the men in the family), if not figures of hate (the woman his older brother announces he's going to marry). Possibly a true reflection of reality, but not what I prefer to read about. What I did like was the portrayal of the Moroccan environment - the village, Tangier, the seaside resort all came to life for me. But not enough to make me want to seek out more of Taia's work.

>161 rachbxl: Lol. Are cocktail parties even still a thing? To me they sound very 50s, but what do I know. Certainly aren't common in Maine! I borrowed my first VSO, but bought Samurai, as I'll be able to highlight it rather than take copious notes, as I did with The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.

I Shall Not Hate is indeed an excellent book I like to promote to my reading friends, but there are other members of CR who do as well, so I can't take credit. I hope you find it as worthwhile as I did.

Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri
translated from the Japanese by Morgan Giles (whose name appears on the cover - I like that)

An impulse buy in Brussels Waterstones a few weeks ago - I knew nothing about the book or the author. Yu Miri was born in Japan to Korean parents. It's perhaps thanks to this insider/outsider status in Japan that she can write a novel like this one, which presents a view of the underbelly of Tokyo, far removed from the gleaming skyscrapers and modern efficiency we usually get to see. The narrator, Kazu, is dead, a sad and lonely ghost who haunts his old hangouts in a park next to Tokyo's Ueno Station, where he had lived as part of a loose community of homeless people, having voluntarily abandoned his family so as not to be a burden on them. Kazu was born in the same year as the emperor, and his son was born on the same day as the emperor's son...but how different are their lives. A sense of melancholy pervades the novel as Kazu alternates accounts of what he sees around him (the homeless people being told to clear the area for a royal visit, for example), and flashbacks to his earlier life; even as a younger man he was lonely, missing out almost entirely on family life as he was always working away out of necessity (particularly poignant were the accounts of his years with his wife between his retirement and her death - almost a honeymoon (and not a second one) for this couple who had been living apart for decades). I suspect that there were a lot of things that went over my head because of my ignorance of Japanese culture, but although I didn't fall in love with this novel I liked it enough (and I particularly liked Yu Miri's restrained yet damning style of writing) to want to read more by this writer.

>163 labfs39: I ended up with so much of The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict highlighted that it's almost the non-highlighted bit that stand out!

Cocktail parties certainly aren't a thing around here, either. Though that's perhaps a shame since I'm sort of scared of dinner with my husband's crowd, since all too often it doesn't end until about 2 or 3am - maybe cocktail parties would have more of a time limit on them?

...I've been fantasising about all the subjects I could become an armchair expert in ;-) ...

Danger, danger!

>164 rachbxl: The life of Koreans in Japan is explored well in Pachinko, a novel by Min Jin Lee and also a tv series on Apple+. Although only the first part of Pachinko has been released, I thought it was well done, as opposed to many tv adaptations.

Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter

A story in verse about grief. A Ted Hughes scholar and his two young sons find themselves navigating uncharted territory following the sudden death of their wife/mother. Just as the flow of well-wishers bearing casseroles starts to dry up, Crow appears, to stay for as long as needed and help them with their grief. I don't think I know my Ted Hughes well enough to fully appreciate what Max Porter has done here, but what I can appreciate is the portrayal of grief per se - one person's grief bears no relation to another's, and how one person experiences grief can and does change. There are no rules.

>167 labfs39: I read Pachinko several years ago but I didn't know there was a TV series - I'll have a look for that. Yu Miri's Korean father worked in a pachinko parlour, I discovered this morning.

>132 rachbxl: Happy to see all the love for When I Sing, Mountains Dance - I thought it was fantastic!

I'll see if I can find Ils ont surgi de la nuit: quand les objets des victimes des camps nazis sont restitués à leurs familles, it sounds very interesting.

Shame about the Abdellah Taia. I don't know if it's because it is an early work and he's evolved since then, or if it's the book's main character/narrator who is creepy and misogynistic, but when I've read/heard him recently, he came across as feminist and quite close to his mother and sisters.

>161 rachbxl: "I've been fantasising about all the subjects I could become an armchair expert in ;-) "

Ha! You've reminded me of a review I wrote several years ago and that I just happened to stumble upon the other day while looking for something else. The book is called Leaves in the Wind and is a collection of newspaper columns originally published in 1919 as World War I was coming to an end. The writer was A.G. Gardiner, who went in the paper by the pseudonym Alpha of the Plow. The the essay "In Defense of Ignorance," I quoted this:

"When I was young I was being driven one day through a woodland country by an old fellow who kept an inn and let out a pony and chaise for hire. As we went along I made some remark about a tree by the wayside and he spoke of it as a poplar.'Not a poplar,' said I with the easy assurance of youth, and I described to him for his information the characters of what I conceived to be the poplar. 'Ah,' he said, 'you are thinking of the Lombardy poplar. That tree is the Egyptian poplar.' And then he went on to tell me of a score of other poplars--their appearance, their habits, and their origins--quite kindly and without any knowledge of the withering blight that had fallen upon my cocksure ignorance. i found that he had spent his life in tree culture and had been forester to a Scotch duke. And I had explained to him what a poplar was like! But i think he did me good, and I often recall him to mind when I feel disposed to give other people information that they possibly do not need.

And the books I haven't read, and the sciences I don't know, and the languages I don't speak, and the things I can't do--young man, if you knew all this you would be amazed. But it does not make me unhappy. On the contrary I find myself growing cheerful in the contemplation of these vast undeveloped estates. I feel like a fellow who has inherited a continent and, so far, has only had time to cultivate a tiny corner of the inheritance. The rest I just wander through like a boy in wonderland. Some day I will know about all these things. I will develop all these immensities. I will search out all these mysteries. In my heart I know I shall do nothing of the sort. I know that when the curtain rings down I shall be digging the same tiny plot. But it is pleasant to dream of future conquests that you won't make."

>171 rocketjk: That's a great quote. I think "Lombardy poplar" could be a good private safe word(s), when one realizes that one is selfsplaining.

>168 rachbxl: I've wanted to read that Max Porter for a while. Books on grief beckon to me lately... there seems to be such a lot of it floating around the world, and certainly now and again in mine.

>170 Dilara86: I keep thinking about L'armée du salut. I think the bottom line is that I just found the narrator irritating. I'm not someone who has to "like" characters in order to rate a book, but I couldn't really get beyond how much he bugged me and only persisted because the book is short. But maybe that was the point, maybe he was meant to be an insufferable little creep. In the novel he is called "Abdellah Taia", but I don't necessarily think that that's who he is, if you see what I mean (or rather, that that's who Abdellah Taia the writer is).

>171 rocketjk: Ouch! I'm afraid to admit that that reminds me of my younger self. (Slightly) older now, I love the last few lines:

In my heart I know I shall do nothing of the sort. I know that when the curtain rings down I shall be digging the same tiny plot. But it is pleasant to dream of future conquests that you won't make.

>172 lisapeet: Yes, it had been on my radar for a good while too, without (it turns out) me actually knowing much about it. I didn't know what to expect but even so I was surprised. It's another that my mind keeps going back to.

East West Street: on the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity by Philippe Sands

This book has caught my eye a couple of times in bookshops over the last couple of years, and until recently I'd always thought that there was no point buying it because I so rarely manage to get on with non-fiction, despite wanting to. Something has changed recently, and non-fiction and I are the best of pals so this book got read as soon as it came into the house (I even ended up with 2 copies of it because I temporarily misplaced the first and couldn't wait to get on with it so bought an e-book).

Philippe Sands is an Anglo-French lawyer specialising in international law. That's his day job, and on the side he has written numerous books about international law. I don't know about his other books (but I will be trying more before long), but whilst "international law" might sound dry and, well, a bit heavy on the "law" part, East West Street is anything but, partly because of the subject matter but mainly because of how Sands tells his story. In essence the book is about the lives of 4 men who were born around 1900, all of them linked to Lviv/Lwow/Lemberg, now in Ukraine, thought part of Poland at the outbreak of WWII. One is Sands' grandfather Leon, a Jew born in Zolkiew (the small town near Lviv that Clara Kremer, of >154 rachbxl: Clara's War was from and where she hid from the Nazis). In common with many of the former concentration camp inmates whose belongings are returned to their descendants in >133 rachbxl: Ils ont surgi de la nuit, Leon spoke very little, if at all, about his early life, and particularly about his experiences during WWII, and Sands' mother was no more communicative about her father's life. Thanks to meticulous research (the level of detail into which Sands delved never failed to astound me, no stone left unturned), Sands pieces his grandfather's life together, his move to Lviv/Lwow/Lemberg (Sands consistently refers to the city by whatever name it went by at the time of which he is talking), a later move to Vienna, and then, during the war, a move to Paris - but this last move he made alone, without wife and child, who remained in Vienna, raising all sorts of questions for Sands...questions which, over a period of years, he steadfastly seeks out answers to, putting family members back in touch with their family history and sometimes with each other.

On to the next two "official" subjects (I say that because along the way the book meanders off into fascinating digressions as the answers to Sands' original questions throw up more questions as well as answers, leading to, for example, a section entitled "Miss Tilney of Norwich". Sands has discovered that his mother, only a year or 2 old, was sent to join her father in Paris during the war (her mother remained in Vienna, which throws up another investigative digression - why would a Jew choose to stay in Vienna at that point? When her husband and child are elsewhere?...), and he learns that his mother was taken to Paris by "Miss Tilney" (the only other thing anyone recalls was that she was from Norwich). What motivated the mysterious Miss Tilney to undertake something so risky as taking a Jewish child to relative safety? Sands manages to answer that question, and what he found led to Miss Tilney being recognised as Righteous among the Nations).

Like the book, I digress. Back to the next 2 official subjects, this time for real, both of them Jews. The first is Hersch Lauterpacht, born in Zolkiew (Sands establishes links between his own family and Lauterpacht's that he wasn't aware of when he set out on his research). He studied law in Lemberg then moved to Vienna before finding saftey in the UK, where he became a professor of International Law at Cambridge University. His work and convictions led him to coin the term "crimes against humanity" (ie crimes against the individual), and he successfully pushed for the concept to be included in the Nuremberg trials. Just as he did with Leon, Sands pieces together Lauterpacht's life in fascinating detail, the personal just as much as the professional (that's one reason I enjoyed this book so much).

The second is Rafael Lemkin, who also studied law in Lemberg. He is not known to have coincided with Lauterpacht there, but they had many of the same teachers. After a tortuous journey Lemkin finally found safety during the war in the USA, where he both charmed people (Sands notes with humour just how many references he found in archive material to how successful Lemkin was with the ladies) and made a complete pain in the neck of himself in trying to get the concept of "genocide" recognised. His experience and work had taken him to a different conclusion to that of Lauterpacht; genocide is persecution of a group because of the group identity, whereas crimes against humanity are against the individual, regardless of what group(s) they belong to. Lauterpacht and Lemkin were both well-connected, but whilst Lauterpacht seems to have been universally respected and admired, and his ideas were adopted fairly easily, Lemkin had more of a struggle; he sounds like a fascinating character who wriggled his way on to the US prosecution team at Nuremberg (possibly by dint of not taking no for an answer), and who the rest of the team spent considerable effort trying to sideline. It was touch-and-go, but in the end "genocide" was indeed included in the trial.

The fourth official subject isn't Jewish. Rather, it's Hans Frank, Nazi Governor General of Occupied Poland, the man personally responsible for sending millions of Jews (including the families and friends of Leon, Lauterpacht and Lemkin) to their deaths. Sands pays him the same attention, makes the same effort to document his early life, the personal as much as the public persona. He portrays him as a human being, but that doesn't mean that he apologises for him; he is meticulous in his recording of just what Frank did. In doing this, he makes an unlikely friend in Hans Frank's son Niklas (Sands doesn't stop at documents and old photos - he tirelessly tracks down people too), a man who has had to live with the burden of being his father's son.

All of these stories would be riveting in their own right, but what I really admired was that Sands doesn't tell one story and then move on to the next. Instead, he weaves them all together, the threads becoming ever-more intertwined as the book goes on. My mind boggles at how he could possibly manage to keep track of all these threads, but he does, and he does so with eloquence, with clarity, with compassion, with great humanity and with humour.

This must be the longest review I have written in all my years on LT, but it was either that or limit myself to something like "an excellent book". I felt that this outstanding book merited a little more.

>174 rachbxl: "(Slightly) older now, I love the last few lines:

"In my heart I know I shall do nothing of the sort. I know that when the curtain rings down I shall be digging the same tiny plot. But it is pleasant to dream of future conquests that you won't make.'"

Oh, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now. :)

>175 rachbxl: A wonderful review! And it does sound like a wonderful book.

>175 rachbxl: Excellent review, you've made me make a note of the book even though I don't generally read non-fiction. Your comment that, "Something has changed recently, and non-fiction and I are the best of pals," gives me hope.

>175 rachbxl: Excellent review. I'm looking forward to finding a copy and reading it myself.

>150 rachbxl: I have just started Euphoria and came across your post. I used to be fascinated by Margaret Mead’s observations of different tribes in New Guinea, and with her relationships with men.

>161 rachbxl: I had it on hold at my library and while waiting decided on another Lilly King novel - Happiness Falls as I was needing something not too heavy having come down with the flu. Happiness Falls was disappointing, but I’m a little intrigued by this writer so have started Euphoria. I am reading the audio version and one of the narrators is Simon Vance who is an excellent narrator.

>151 lisapeet: Anthropologists behaving badly - love it!

>177 FlorenceArt: Thanks! It is indeed a wonderful book IMO.

>178 RidgewayGirl: I’ve been wanting to read more non-fiction for ages but had just about come to accept that it’s just not who I am - I did try now and again, but with the very odd exception my mind would start wandering and I had no idea what it was I was reading, which doesn’t happen when I read fiction. And then suddenly things changed, though I have no idea how, what or why. So there’s still hope for you ;-)

>179 labfs39: If there’s one person here that I am confident would like this book as much as I did, it’s you, Lisa. (Now you will hate it, of course…)

>180 kjuliff: I first became aware of Lilly King within the last couple of years, when I read Writers and Lovers (which I enjoyed but can’t remember much about). In my mind, for some reason, I was reading the debut novel of a young writer (nothing to do with the book), so I was surprised to discover that she’s actually 60-ish and has published 5 novels as well as one collection of short stories, Five Tuesdays in Winter, which I thought was excellent when I read it earlier this year. I hope you enjoy Euphoria (I was only vaguely aware of Margaret Mead before I read it but now it seems she pops up everywhere!) - and I hope you get over your flu soon.

Having joined CR late I took some time catching up on your thread. Lots of interesting reads here.
I added the very short introduction about the Israelo-Palestinian conflict to my wishlist.

>181 rachbxl: If there’s one person here that I am confident would like this book as much as I did, it’s you, Lisa. (Now you will hate it, of course…)
Now I have to find a copy!

Although I was not in love with Five Tuesdays in Winter, which I read for my book club earlier this year, I did pick up a copy of Euphoria at a library sale after reading your review. I might like her novel better, as I tend to prefer longer works in general.

>175 rachbxl: I have listened to an audio adaptation of this book a while back, and loved it. I learnt a lot and thought I might read the book one day. I feel it's too much of a commitment for me, but your review shows that I should give it a try. Thanks for this great review!

>183 labfs39: I’m well into Euphoria and enjoying it so far. So much more crafted than Happiness Falls. I think Lily King might have taken on to much in Happiness.
>182 chlorine: For an emotional insight into both sides and the effect on individual lives, I recommend Apeirogon, in my top five of books read this year.

>182 chlorine: Thanks for visiting. I know, it takes a while to get round all the threads, doesn’t it? I was away from CR for much of the year and I’m still catching up.

>184 raton-liseur: It’s a long book, certainly, but I found I got through it quite quickly because it was so gripping - I do a lot of my reading in the evening and had several late nights because I couldn’t put it down. Go for it!

>185 kjuliff: I’m confused! Happiness Falls seems to be by Angie Kim… But I’m glad you’re enjoying Euphoria. (And I’ve added Apeirogon to my wishlist - it looks interesting (a fictionalised version of true stories, is that right?))

>186 rachbxl: it’s me who is confused. Yes, two different authors. I’m visually impaired. Thanks for pointing it out.

Re Apeirogon - yes

Broderies by Marjane Satrapi
Available in English as Embroideries

A short graphic novel from 2003 in Satrapi’s trademark style about the women in her family when she was a child, and how and what they talked (and laughed -how they laughed!) about together at home over tea and cakes every afternoon. I’ve read several reviews which dismiss this book as ‘just a bunch of women talking about their sex lives, what’s so special about that?’ To my mind what’s special is that these are Iranian women. I don’t think it’s meant to be taken particularly seriously - the title means ‘Embroideries’, which I take to mean that it’s ‘just’ a little flourish, a bit of light relief…but interesting nonetheless for a behind-the-curtain (or veil?) look at this hidden female world.

Une vie by Simone Veil

It has long been a source of discomfort to me (I was going to say shame, but that’s going a bit far) that all I knew for sure about Simone Veil was that she was a French Auschwitz survivor who later became president of the European Parliament. Obviously it’s quite a leap from one to the other, but other than being vaguely aware that she did a lot for women’s rights in France, I would have struggled to fill the gap. In my professional life hers is a name that crops up every now and then (rooms named after her, etc), but I still managed to ignore my discomfort (which reached a peak a couple of years ago when on a daily basis I walked under a huge photo of her on the esplanade outside the European Parliament in Brussels). I think it’s ratonliseur that I have to thank for leading me to this memoir (modestly entitled ‘A Life’, but what a life), thanks to which I have a much better idea of who this inspirational woman was.

>173 rachbxl: I see exactly what you mean!
>175 rachbxl: This was a very enlightening review and another title for my ever-expanding wishlist...

>189 rachbxl: Une vie by Simon Veil - We have a copy of that book in the house and my wife has read it from cover to cover. I should really get to it some time.

Varsovie Varsovie by Didier Zuili
Graphic novel, in French

When I returned Une vie and Broderies to my local library yesterday I wasn’t meaning to borrow any books given the silly number of library e-books I’ve ended up borrowing simultaneously (I’d reached my holds limit, and borrowing holds that come through frees up space for new holds, right?) But it was cold outside and I had half an hour to kill, which led to me coming away with 3 more graphic novels including this wonderful one about the Warsaw Ghetto and an archive that was assembled there during the war, and then buried in several parts (in milk cans, amongst others) when the ghetto was being liquidared, by a group led by historian Emanuel Ringelblum. With great prescience they understood that what they were living through must be documented, or the world would never believe it. An editor’s note at the start of the book makes it clear that this is a fictionalised account and identifies the main fictions, including having the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising start with a bomb thrown at the car containing Himmler when he visited the ghetto in January 1943 (the Uprising actually started in the April). At first I wondered why Didier Zuili had done this, but I came to the conclusion that it doesn’t much matter - call it artisitc licence, call it wishful thinking, call it what you will. The time I spent reading this graphic novel was an hour well spent in that I learnt about something I was in total ignorance of (the Ringelblum archive), but also because of the detailed beauty of the artwork (particularly the haunting scenes of ghetto life). There’s also a useful 3-page historical note by Georges Bensoussan at the end.

>191 baswood: I’m glad I did. There were some parts of it I found less interesting than others (whilst I was interested in her early political career because of her groundbreaking work on changing the abortion laws in France, I skimmed over the part about her later political career, back in France after her stint at the European Parliament, because it was purely about the French political scene at the time - you might be more interested in that bit than I was), but all in all it was fascinating, and easy to read because written in a conversational style, as if she were sitting with you telling you about her life.

>189 rachbxl: If it's any consolation to you I think I'm almost as ignorant of Simone Veil's life as you are, but curiously I know different facts. I was only vaguely aware that she was a Auschwitz survivor (in the sense that when I read it in your review, this definitely rang a bell, but I don't think I would have remembered it on my own), and am aware of her as the person who legalised abortion in France. I did not know that she became president of the European parliament. :D

It seems like I'll have to get to Une vie at some point! :)

Broderies and Varsovie Varsovie also seem quite interesting.

>194 chlorine: Ha, funny. Like two pieces in a jigsaw puzzle ;-) I suppose it makes sense really - you knew the more ‘French’ stuff and I knew the less specifically ‘French’.

La fantaisie des Dieux: Rwanda 1994 by Hippolyte and Patrick de Saint-Exupéry
Graphic novel, non-fiction

A damning look by French journalist Patrick de Saint-Exupéry (yes, he’s related to the creator of Le petit prince, a cousin of his grandfather’s) at France’s support for the Hutus in the massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, the beauty of the images of the countryside at odds with the events taking place. Saint-Exupéry, who was present in Rwanda, notes that although we think of nightmares as being dark, this nightmare took place under relentless clear blue skies. There is, therefore, a lot of blue and green (the hills) in the book, but what should be beautiful is menacing and full of danger. Every now and then black and white photos are used between Hippolyte’s illustrations, some from 1994, some from a return visit in 2014, serving to reinforce the point that this is real. The recent photos show a couple of Tutsi survivors, whose stories provide some of the content for the book, against a backdrop of the hills of Bisesero, the scene of such terrible atrocities in 1994, at the time full of homes and people, now empty. Life goes on - one of these men, a teacher before the genocide, now works for a local tea company. Another, the guard at the local memorial, speaks of how his village of over 1000 people was destroyed, leaving only a handful of survivors, yet he is clear about the need to go on, to rebuild. Very powerful.

I Shall not Hate: a Gaza Doctor’s Journey by Izzeldin Abuelaish
Non-fiction

An extraordinary man and an extraordinary book. The author was born and grew up in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. His family were poor, having been forced off their land and resettled, but he was encouraged by teachers to work hard at school and eventually made it to medical school in Cairo, having taken every last scrap of a job along the way to help provide for his family whenever he could. He tells us right at the start of the book that he lost his wife, mother of their 8 children, to leukemia, only to see, just months later, 3 of their daughters and his niece killed in their home by Israeli bombs during the 2009 Gaza war (this book was published in 2011). And yet he remains a calm yet passionate advocate not just for peace but for non-hatred of the Israeli people.

As well as talking frankly about life-shattering events such as these deaths, Izzeldin Abuelaish goes into a lot of detail about daily life in Gaza in a bid to set the scene, to help people outside Gaza understand what it’s like. He talks in particular about how hard it is for Gazans to leave Gaza (he has extensive personal experience of this having been the first Gazan doctor employed in an Israeli hospital, meaning that for years he spent 4 days a week in Israel, crossing the border - or not - twice a week). Even if the border is open (it may or may not be, and if it isn’t there will be no reason given), it can take hours (not one or two hours, but truly crazy lengths of time) even when there is no queue. Everything is arbitrary, and the fact that he is known to the guards is not a guarantee that he will get through, either smoothly or at all. Getting through the Gazan exit procedures doesn’t mean that he will get through the Israeli entry procedures several hundred metres further on (across wasteland over which travellers have to lug all their baggage themselves, no trolleys, no porters). All of this he bears with the utmost patience and grace because he says it’s the only way (he’s not a saint - I like the way he admits to having lost his temper at home on occasion; he’s a human being).

I’m adding my voice to the Club Read chorus that recommends this book.

>197 rachbxl: Great review - noting this. I watched recently on Netflix a documentary on children of Gaza from 2014 (when there was unrest and shelling) and it was harrowing but really opened my eyes.

There can't be many other places in the world where people are literally stuck living in a small strip of land with next to no freedom of travel and such horrors unfolding from year to year. I don't want to get political as it's obviously a sensitive and complex subject and there are terrible stories on both sides, but at a basuc human level it was so desperately bleak seeing in the eyes of 10 year olds whose friends had been blown up in front of them and who themselves had been injured having already lost belief in life.

Enjoyed your review of I shall not hate. It seems to be a lesson for us all. I am tempted with this one.

>196 rachbxl: >197 rachbxl: Very interesting reviews of La fantaisie des dieux and I shall not hate. Noting in particular La fantaisie des dieux as I am currently very interested in the role of France on international events in Africa.

These sound like important books but you may need something uplifting after these two!

>197 rachbxl: We'll make a nonfiction reader out of you yet! I'm so glad you liked this, I thought it was pretty special when I read it back in 2011 as an Early Reviewer book.

>198 AlisonY: What I really appreciated about I Shall not Hate was exactly that, that it opened my eyes to the reality of everyday life in Gaza, and everyday life includes trauma we can’t imagine as well as lesser (though still significant) irritations we would find unacceptable (the book came out in 2011 but things certainly haven’t improved).

>199 baswood: Definitely a lesson for us all. I managed to suppress my eye-rolling in the supermarket queue yesterday as it seemed quite insignificant all of a sudden.

>200 chlorine: I think La fantaisie des Dieux would be a good one for that. Of course it doesn’t tell the whole story but there are lots of things in it that could lead you on to further reading if you were so inclined.

Time for something uplifting, you say? I can’t seem to do uplifting at the moment! I’m currently reading The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion’s memoir of her husband’s sudden death and it’s aftermath, at a time when their only child was seriously ill in intensive care), and a fairly grim Swedish climate change novel - neither at all uplifting…

>201 labfs39: We’ll make a nonfiction reader out of you yet!

It certainly seems that way! It’s really strange - I’ve got shelves full of TBR novels but suddenly I want non-fiction, and I’m enjoying my reading more than I have for years.

>203 rachbxl: These books don't seem very uplifting but of course do whatever works for you!

>203 rachbxl: Will be interested in your thoughts on the Joan Didion book as I keep circling around it but never committing to buying a copy.

I've also had a big increase in non-fiction reading in the past few years, partly as there's do much I don't know and want to learn about and also as it suits my reading mood of having less available concentration time. You can dip in and out more easily than with fiction.

>198 AlisonY: & >202 rachbxl: Another very good, though also depressing and infuriating, book about daily life in Gaza is Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting and Everything in Between by journalist Laila El-Haddad. The edition I read was published in 2010 by a relatively small publisher, though it looks (from the LT cover images available) that it's been republished since. My review is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/347158#8110702.

>206 rocketjk: Great review of that title, Jerry. Will take a look at the one, as I Shall Not Hate seems to not be readily available for a while although still in print (curious as to why given current issues).

Although I too liked Gaza Mom, I think I Shall Not Hate is exceptional. Perhaps they will reissue it now, given the current situation. I hope so, but there is quite a bit of backlash here in the US, such as Florida Governor (and Presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis ordering Florida state universities to forcibly disband the student group, Students for Justice in Palestine, claiming it is a matter of national security. In a climate like that, I can't see many publishers sticking their necks out to publish books that are pro-Palestine in any sense. I hope I'm wrong.

So many reviews within a few days. And so many interesting reads!

>188 rachbxl: I like your take on this graphic novel. It's been a while since I've read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I'll check if I can find it in a library close to me.

>189 rachbxl: Great that you've read Une Vie, and I'm glad if I contributed to that. Actually I've not read it myself, but I've watched the biopic made from it and released last year. The biopic is really interesting, difficult at some point, but a figure of resilience and of courage! I'll read the book at some point, for sure.

>192 rachbxl: Oh, and another graphic novel to look for!

>196 rachbxl: and >197 rachbxl: And the non-fiction about Rwanda and Gaza sound interesting, but not my cup of tea right now... I need to read some things with more distance in time at the moment (hence reading right now a book about the Rwandan massacres, but the 60-70's one... Is that so different...)

I am glad you're enjoying your reading. It's always strange to say you enjoy bleack books, but I think they are eye-openers and they can be rewarding read, hance the "enjoyement".

>196 rachbxl: Sounds like like La fantaisie des dieux: Rwanda 1994 would be a good companion to the older Shake Hands with the Devil: the Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, a devastating book.

>197 rachbxl: A good reminder that I should read this. I heard Dr Abuelaish being interviewed a couple of times: very soon after the bomb killed his daughters, and again after the publication of his book, when he had moved to Toronto. His passion for his work (in medicine and peace) and his people came through strongly both times.

>203 rachbxl: I'm a huge Joan Didion fan. The Year of Magical Thinking was among the most personal of her books, in that she actually revealed some of her emotions, cracking that persona of hers. It's hard to measure a book written in such circumstances.

>210 SassyLassy: I've added Shake hands with the devil to my ever growing wishlist.

>211 chlorine: Excellent! C'est aussi disponible comme J'ai serré la main du diable: La Faillite de l'humanité au Rwanda.

I can't say "enjoy", but it is a very powerful personal first hand and informed account of the war.

>212 SassyLassy: Was the book originally written in English or in French?
Yes it's hard to say "enjoy" about this type of books, though they are important...

>213 chlorine: I think Roméo Dallaire wrote in English and then it was translated to French.
I have had this book on my shelves almost since it has been published in France but never found enough courage to start reading it. Would it make an interesting group read for early 2024?

>214 raton-liseur: I'm not used to group reads but that's a very interesting idea!

That's some good reading—I'm noting a few of those titles, particularly Une Vie. It's probably time that I stop conflating in the back of my mind (even though I know fully well that they're two different people) Simone Veil and Simone Weil.

>205 AlisonY: I think for me too the increase in non-fiction reading is at least in part because there’s so much out there I want to know more about, and having had that same big birthday you just had (last year, in my case) I suddenly feel I want to get on with it.

>206 rocketjk: Gaza Mom duly noted, thanks, Jerry.

>209 raton-liseur: You can still take credit for having led me to Une vie ;-) I think you mentioned seeing the biopic (with your daughter?), and that Veil was seen writing Une vie in the film…I must have stored that away in some corner of my brain, so when I happened to see Une vie in the library, it meant something to me.

>210 SassyLassy: I’ve added Shake Hands with the Devil to my wishlist - thanks.

>210 SassyLassy: He’s clearly an extraordinary man, and that passion you mention comes across clearly in I Shall not Hate. I keep thinking I will look Izzedin Abuelaish up as I would like to hear him speak.

>210 SassyLassy: This was my first Joan Didion - she’d been on my vague ‘must check out sometime’ list for a long time. Is there any particular book you would recommend as a first taste of the rest of her work?

>214 raton-liseur: I like the idea but my problem with group reads is that no matter how much I think I want to read a book, as soon as “group read” is mentioned I find a million reasons not to read it (I’m not in a book club, for this reason!)

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

I had got bogged down in a flabby novel (DNF) when I picked this up. What a contrast. Didion’s cool intellect and her ability to analyse the world around her as well as her inner world, and her clear, refined writing style made starting this feel like I had walked outside into the fresh air after too long in a stuffy over-heated room. This is a very personal book written 20 years ago after the sudden death of Didion’s husband, fellow writer John Dunne, a death which came at a time when their only child, Quintana, was in intensive care (she would be seriously ill for much of the next year). The narrative structure mirrors the way our minds work in grief, spiralling, moving on and then being plunged into memories triggered by something we happen to see or hear, constantly circling back to those moments we have deemed to be key (what if I had done something differently? Would he still be alive if I had…?) I’ve read some reviews which complain that The Year of Magical Thinking isn’t personal enough, that Didion’s intellectual approach creates distance between her and the reader, but I found it raw and direct.

Little Cyclone by Airey Neave
Non-fiction

This was one of my Dad’s, the true story of a young Belgian woman, Andrée de Jongh (known as ‘little cyclone’ to her father because of her boundless energy), who set up one of the most important escape routes in occupied Europe in the Second World War, the Comet Line. De Jongh and her numerous colleagues smuggled dozens of British and American airmen from Belgium, where their planes had been brought done, through France and over the Pyrenees into Spain, where they were delivered to the British Consulate in Bilbao. Needless to say, the danger to de Jongh and her colleagues was constant and immense, and Airey Neave, who wrote this book shortly after the war (he himself had escaped from Colditz), successfully gets across the tense atmosphere with potential threats all around. He also does a good job of portraying the human nature of these heroes - their fear and occasional desperation, but also their hope, the moments of laughter, and their resourcefulness, as well as their staggering bravery. De Jongh herself was arrested and interned but survived (and lived into her 90s), but many, many of her colleagues were executed by the Nazis, and many others were sent to concentration camps, where yet more died. My beef with this book is that it’s non-fiction but reads like a novel in that there are lots of details which can only have been added by the author - for example, Neave tells us what the last thoughts of a particular individual were just before he was executed - and the effect of this was to make me wonder what else was embellished. However, I can turn a blind eye to that and say that I’m glad I read Andrée de Jongh’s story.

>218 rachbxl: You are absolutly right. What a good memory you have! So, I'll take credit for recommanding a book I have not read :)

>220 rachbxl: Although it does sounds like this book blurs the line between fact and fiction, it's about a segment of the resistance that I have not read about and am interested in. Thanks to you and your dad, onto the list it goes.

>222 labfs39: I wasn’t aware of the Comet Line either. The book also brought me up short, made me realise how little I know about the resistance, or indeed the war experience in general, in my adopted country (despite - or perhaps because of - the many (EXTREMELY LENGTHY) stories told by my now-deceased Belgian father-in-law about growing up in Brussels during the war). I got a bit of a shock to read that a Brussels square I pass through regularly was the point to which the airmen were brought from elsewhere in Belgium, to be handed over to the Comet Line inside the big church there, and another on reading that the man who succeeded de Jongh as leader of the Comet Line was married to a woman whose mother lived on Rue Froissart, a street I walk down almost every working day as it’s now in heart of the EU area.

>223 rachbxl: "The book also brought me up short, made me realise how little I know about the resistance, or indeed the war experience in general, in my adopted country"

A book you might find of great interest is one I read and reviewed back in 2009 called Under the Iron Heel. It was written in 1941 by an American named Lars Moen. Moen, a chemist and former journalist, was caught in Antwerp when the Nazis invaded. It was six months before he could get out of Belgium. (This was before Pearl Harbor, so the U.S. was still technically a neutral country.) Moen wrote this book immediately upon getting out of Belgium about his experiences there under Nazi occupation. Because he could speak French, Flemish and German, he was able to talk to civilians and German soldiers. It's a fascinating, first-hand account. You can find my full review on my 2009 50-Book Challenge thread (https://www.librarything.com/topic/54150#1531894) and on the book's work page.

>224 rocketjk: That sounds good too, Jerry.

>224 rocketjk: That does sound interesting - thanks! I’m paraphrasing, but I like what you say at the end of your review about how much you can learn from an obscure book that’s been on your shelves for years, ever since you picked it up somewhere or other on your travels. I often look at my TBR shelves and wonder which the hidden gems are.

>226 rachbxl: "I often look at my TBR shelves and wonder which the hidden gems are."

I'm sure you agree that that's a big part of the fun of having a large TBR collection. Every book a mystery! Until you read it. And then it's a mystery solved. When I owned by used bookstore I used to get stuck after closing sometimes just walking around and looking at the books. Not even taking them down off the shelves, but just staring at the spines. Every used book has a multitude of stories, including the story the book tells, the story the POV of the book tells about the era in which it was written, and the usually unknowable mystery of the story of whoever previously owned the book.

>227 rocketjk: Oh yes, I agree…and the story of where and how I acquired a particular book as well. Knowing how easily it is to let time go by staring at the spines of my books, I can well imagine how you could get “stuck” in the bookstore after hours. I’ve been extremely grateful for my Kindle these last few years (lockdowns and Brexit made it harder to get the books I wanted), but those e-books only tell one story.

What Now? by Ann Patchett
Audiobook read by the author

Dan gets the credit for this one, for reminding me to go back to Ann Patchett. This audiobook was immediately available at the library so I jumped right in. I wasn’t going to list it here as I didn’t think it was really a book, given its brevity, but in the epilogue Patchett speaks repeatedly of “this book”, and if it’s a book in her eyes then it’s a book in mine. What Now? is an extended (I think) version of the Commencement address Patchett was invited to give at her alma mater, Sarah Lawrence, and the epilogue is a charmingly self-deprecating account of how it’s not at all the speech she was planning to give - she originally wrote a serious, impersonal speech which she was confident would do the job. A former teacher of hers with whom she had maintained contact 20 years on asked if he could read it so she sent it off to him and waited for the praise. Instead, he told her it was terrible and suggested that the only salvageable bit was the bit about her father (a single sentence or so!) So she took the bit about her father and around it wrote more or less what she reads here, a very personal, moving, insightful and at times wryly funny speech. She reads it beautifully - a real pleasure to listen to.

Belgiques: Out of Office by Myriam Leroy
In French, not translated

Two birds with one stone here - I finally got to the “Belgiques” project (more in a minute), and at long last I read something by Belgian writer Myriam Leroy, both often praised by the culture supplement of the Belgian newspaper I read, Le Soir.

5 or 6 years ago Belgian publisher Ker Editions launched their “Belgiques” (Belgiums) project, bringing out 3 or 4 new ones with each rentrée littéraire (ie every autumn). They invite different writers to submit a book which represents their personal Belgium (or Belgiums), and all of these Belgiums layer over each other to create an image of a country with multiple facets and personalities (so far only French-speaking Belgian writers have been involved, but there is a plan to extend it to Flemish writers in translation, as well as to non-Belgians who know Belgium well). The rules are strict: no exceeding the limited character limit, and subtitles are only grudgingly allowed, and will only ever appear inside the book, never on the cover (the idea being for all the books in the series to have the same title of which each provides an interpretation).

Myriam Leroy’s contribution takes the form of 7 short pieces, mainly short stories plus one play. I found that the quality was variable (perhaps because of the need to provide material that all fits the “Belgiques” bill?), but what was good was outstanding, particularly the short play “Le communiqué de presse” (“The press release”), a joy to read because of how realistic the dialogue is. The matter in hand is serious (a minister, his assistant and a press attaché discuss the wording of a press release to refute allegations of sexual harassment), but the digressions, meanders and non-sequiturs are glorious. I read it the day after a birthday dinner with 7 Belgians, and it struck me that what I was reading (the frivolous bits, not the allegations of sexual harassment) was exactly what I was hearing around the table the night before, same vocabulary, same slang, same cultural references.

Oo Les Belges - Enjoyed your review of a writer new to me.

>230 rachbxl: What a wonderful project that is. I guess I'll have to move to Belgium and improve my French first.

>230 rachbxl: This sounds as a fascinating project!
I don't know much about Belgium and the relationships between the French-speaking and Flemish-speaking communities, but I find the fact that this project has focused on French-speaking writers only a bit suprising (I understand that plans are made to extend to Flemish writers but going on for 5 or 6 years without including them seems deliberate).
I'm curious about the reasons for that, do you know if it is because there are more French-speaking writers, or something else?

>218 rachbxl: re Joan Didion: Salvador and After Henry are both excellent essay collections. Salvador deals with a trip to El Salvador, After Henry is more wide ranging.

>220 rachbxl: Airey Neave is not an author mentioned often on LT. My father also had his books.

>233 chlorine: I don’t find it surprising (I think it’s just pragmatic), and yes, I assume it was a deliberate choice, but not perhaps in the way you mean, and I don’t think you should read into it anything about relations between the language communities. I think that if this were a huge flagship project, or political in nature, or in some way official, or had government funding (from one of Belgium’s many governments), etc etc, or if it made claims to represent some kind of definitive “Belgium”, you would have a point; limiting its scope to writers who write in French would be surprising and also controversial. But this is a small private-sector project really of interest only to the local equivalent of CR members (one individual’s pet project, I think, is how it started out), and if even little projects like this had to consider both language communities (and what about the German-speaking minority?), then the poor Belgians, nothing would ever get done! I imagine that they started small because they had to - it was never going to be a great money-spinner, and of course as soon as you start to invite Flemish writers to take part you’re looking at translation costs as well, which I imagine was a factor. As I said in >230 rachbxl: this was the first “Belgiques” book I had read, but I’ve been keeping an eye on the project since its inception because I love the idea of it, and I’d honestly never seen the fact that it was limited to French-speaking writers as anything other than practical. I was, however, pleased when I read last week that it will perhaps be extended to include Flemish writers because as well as potentially making “Belgiques” even more interesting, I took it as a sign that the project is doing well.

>234 SassyLassy: Noted, thank you!

No, Airey Neave doesn’t come up much on LT, you’re right. Funny that your father had his books too - have you read any of them?

>236 rachbxl: Just two: They Have Their Exits, and Nuremburg. Both were read a long time ago from my father's collection.

>237 SassyLassy: As I said in >220 rachbxl: I was frustrated by the blurring of the line between fact and fiction, but Airey Neave could certainly tell a story! Little Cyclone is still vivid in my mind’s eye. An interesting character as well.

La juive de Shanghai by Marek Halter
In French - not translated into English

I’ve been laid up with a horrible virus my daughter passed on, neither flu nor Covid, but similar, and it won’t go away - it just keeps changing its form to fool me into thinking that it’s over. I’ve had to put aside a couple of good books as I can’t concentrate and turn to lighter stuff. This compelling story of a young Jewish seamstress’s flight from Berlin to Shanghai during the Second World War is unlikely to make it on to my “best of” list, but it was what I needed right now and I enjoyed it. I also learnt a little - I’ve long been drawn to books about the fate of the Jews under the Nazis, and this book took that theme in a different direction. I was vaguely aware that some European Jews had fled to Shanghai, but the novel piqued my curiosity and I did a bit of further reading and learned that there were in fact more than 20,000 of them (I read somewhere that that was the highest number of Jews taken in by any city in the world, though I don’t know if that’s true). In 1943 the Japanese occupiers imposed restrictions on the Jews and forced them into the Shanghai ghetto.

Marek Halter is an extremely prolific Polish-born French writer (also quite a controversial one, having been accused of several instances of lying about his past), though this is the first of his books I’ve read. La juive de Shanghai is a historical novel in which the main characters are fictional. Their story is something that could have happened, woven around events, people and places that really existed. It was easy to read and written in a lively style thwart kept it motoring along, but I found it strangely flat, in that whilst I was happy to carry on reading, I felt quite distant from the characters’ and their fate. I also couldn’t help questioning just how plausible the plot was (2 young women, one a Polish Jew, the other a German communist, meet in Berlin, albeit in extreme circumstances, and despite only spending a few hours together they never stop thinking of the other, and their “friendship” drives them on through thick and thin)…and as for the coincidences needed to make the plot work…! I decided to turn a blind eye and enjoy the ride, but I couldn’t help feeling that I was being treated as a very gullible reader by a writer who has churned out so many books that he knows the winning formula.

>235 rachbxl: Thanks for clarifying about the Belgiques project and I hope you're finally getting over your virus!

>240 chlorine: Thanks. I’m feeling much better, though, frustratingly, still not 100%. Lots of people here are complaining about something similar, something that drags on long after you think you should have forgotten all about it.

Have finally caught up on your reading. Good stuff, as always. Hoping you will be 100% soon.

Sneaking in at the last minute to note my last couple of books this year:

L’eau rouge by Jurica Pavičić
Translated

In a fishing village near Split in the final years of Tito’s Yugoslavia, a 17-year old girl gets ready for a night out. Her family never see her again. A police investigation is launched but is inconclusive, and her family and friends are left to get on with their lives without knowing what happened to Silva. The novel takes a look at what this means for each of them, the consequences rippling out over the years and even the decades, whilst also examining the changing policital, social and cultural context - the fall of Tito’s regime, the war in Yugoslavia, the creation of different states out of what had been Yugoslavia. I found it a little lengthy but I understood what the author was trying to do and admired it.

I’m quite sure there was another book after L’eau rouge but I can’t think what it was. In any case I finished the year in style, this morning, with this little gem:

The Feast by Margaret Kennedy

What a treat this was. It’s set in and around a small hotel on the Cornish coast in 1947 (it was written in 1950). We know from the first pages that a cliff has collapsed, destroying the hotel and killing several of the guests, and we also know that there are survivors, though we don’t know who. After the first chapter the narrative jumps back a week, taking us through the 7 days leading up to the disaster, the viewpoint switching between the various guests. The reader sees the characters blithely going on with their lives, knowing that for many of them the axe is about to fall. If that sounds a bit dark it’s because it is, but it’s also insightful, witty and utterly charming. I liked it so much I bought a second novel by Margaret Kennedy this week. A splendid way to end what turned out to be a most enjoyable reading year.

Glad you ended the year with a good book!

>244 rachbxl: I just read The Feast and loved it too!
What other book by Margaret Kennedy did you buy?

The Feast sounds like a book I would really enjoy. On the list it goes!

I sincerely wish you health, happiness, contentment and many exciting books.

Happy New Year!

>245 chlorine: Thanks! It was nice for once to finish a book on the last day of the year as well, though it wasn’t planned. And a good one to boot!

>246 arubabookwoman: I bought The Constant Nymph, and I imagine I’ll read it quite soon. Have you read any other of Margaret Kennedy’s novels? I hadn’t heard of her when I bought The Feast; it was a happy find in a bookshop in Cambridge in January.

>247 japaul22: I think you’d like it, Jennifer. (And I’m glad I managed to make you think you might like it, as I dashed off my comments in a rush yesterday and didn’t feel they did the book justice!)

>248 Ameise1: Thanks! You too.

I’ve remembered that the other book I read recently was:

Le chemin plus court by Antoine Wauters

Antoine Wauters is another Belgian writer I’ve been wanting to get to for some time. Having read a recent newspaper interview with him about his latest book Le plus court chemin, I decided to start with this one and to do it right away. I’m glad I did. My first impression was slight surprise on flicking through the book that lots of the pages have no more than a few lines on them, making this a much slighter book than it seems. In fact, the book is made up of a series of unconnected fragments, some of them a couple of pages long, some a couple of lines, each starting on a new page. Many of the fragments are the writer looking back at his childhood in a village in the Belgian Ardennes, and they soon become a cry, or rather a howl, for a lost world (even though Wauters is only in his early 40s), not just nostalgia for a lost childhood but for a slower, less connected world. In others he talks about his writing, how he writes, and why, and about his reading. I very much enjoyed this honest, contemplative book, which I read in small bursts over a couple of weeks (I had intended to read it in one or two sittings but it seemed to ask for a slower approach).

>249 rachbxl: I hadn't heard of her either, but I saw a favorable reference to the book somewhere, and when I checked my library had it so I checked it out and read it. And just now when I clicked on The Constant Nymph, it's available for Kindle for only 99 cents, so I bought it.