Books
by Jon McGregor
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If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things |
It took me a while to get into this, but I felt justly rewarded for sticking with it. It minutely examines an afternoon on a particular street in England and the movements and actions of the residents of the houses and flats in a small stretch. From the outset it's obvious that something shattering has happened, but you don't know what until the end. In the meantime, finding out the residents' stories is very involving.
(Julie Higgins - bwl 21 November 2003) |
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If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things |
I found this first novel gripping. The setting is a residential street in a Northern England town, the inhabitants identified by their house number (no names). A summer's day gradually unfolds, overshadowed by a terrible event that we know is imminent. Sometimes I could hardly bear to go on reading, so great was the suspense. A few loose ends have left me still wondering weeks later what became of some of the characters.
(Wendy Swann - bwl 37 December 2006) |
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Reservoir 13 |
A thirteen-year-old girl goes missing from a village under the moors. Seamlessly intertwining snippets from the lives of the villagers with minute observations of the natural world over the course of the next ten years, McGregor weaves a sort of intricate, cumulative tapestry which becomes deeper and richer as the seasons go by and the lives of the villagers evolve, the shadow of the missing girl nagging at the edge of memory. Absolutely magical.
(Annabel Bedini - bwl 91 Winter 2019) |
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Reservoir 13 |
A child goes missing, and it serves as the launching point for a story of a generation of inhabitants of a village in Derbyshire. The years come and go, but more importantly, the seasons. Nature provides the signposts for the passage of time. Nature is permanent, and people are transient. The characters are a bit of a jumble at first, but over the years, you sort them out and follow them. Another permanence is the village itself. The terrain doesn't change. Beautiful.
(Herb Roselle - bwl 116 Spring 2025) |
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So Many Ways to Begin |
Museum curator David's life is not what he hoped or expected - his identity is, shockingly, undermined, depression strikes his young wife, he loses his beloved job. 'Curating' relics of his mother's life, listening to his wife's childhood stories, the past piece by piece illuminates the present. This is a story of ordinary people surviving disappointments and how a deep-rooted love can survive these - and the greatest disappointment of all (read it to see!).
(Annabel Bedini - bwl 60 Spring 2011) |
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