bwl 108 - Spring 2023
Fiction
| Jean-Baptiste Andrea - A Hundred Million Years and a Day
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| This French prize winning novel follows a palaeontologist and his companions as they search the high Alps for a dinosaur skeleton rumoured to be hidden by a glacier. The effort takes the palaeontologist to his limits, driving him into deeper introspection about his life and reinforcing his obsessive quest. Tensions develop as the dangers increase and winter approaches then things take a dangerous and dramatic turn, full of twists and surprises. The story keeps you gripped, partly by its spare but superb evocation of the icy world. Wouldn’t recommend reading this during a cold spell! (Tony Pratt)
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| Carys Davies - West
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| In the early 19th C. a man moves west, first to the USA in pursuit of a better life, then out west searching for creatures which have captured his imagination. Accompanied by an Indian himself displaced westwards, like his tribe, but in their case by white settlers, the man leaves behind a young daughter now exposed to the perils of growing up. Told with great economy, this gripping tale seems like a tragic allegory but gives complexity its due. A rather too neat ending does not detract from the impact of a beautifully written and compelling story. (Tony Pratt)
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| Charles Dickens - David Copperfield
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| Having just read Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead I had to re-read this classic to find out just how close the two were. What struck me most was how fresh and alive the writing still is and how even the most absurd or grotesque characters come across as real and believable human-beings and what a cracking story-teller Dickens was and is. No wonder people rushed out to buy the latest instalment as it appeared every week.
(Jenny Baker)
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| Anthony Doerr - All the Light we Cannot See
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| The bare bones: WWII, the parallel, back and forth, stories of blind French girl Marie-Laure and German orphan radio buff Werner, fate bringing them together in the siege of S.Malo in 1945. The bones are fleshed out with gripping story telling, characters you care about and luminously imaginative writing – how about 'flames scamper up walls'? This is not a new book (2015 Pulitzer Prize winner) but definitely worth finding. I couldn't put it down. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Jean-Paul Dubois - Not Everybody Feels the Same Way
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| This short novel won the Prix Goncourt in 2019. Paul Hansen, an unassuming everyman, is in prison for an unknown crime and shares his cell with a violent Hell’s Angel who is terrified of mice. Paul reflects on his ordinary life, from childhood with his eccentric parents, falling in love and the death of his wife, and finally to the reason for his imprisonment. He knows he should feel remorse, but simply cannot. Heartbreaking but wonderful. (Denise Lewis)
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| Frances Hardinge - Unraveller
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| The latest journey into the rich imagination of Frances Hardinge. Enter Raddith and the misty marsh-woods, the Wilds - the home of the spider like Little Brothers who will seek out those filled with anger or hate and bequeath them a curse. Kellen is unique – he can unravel a curse often with difficult consequences. But there is a mystery to solve, and Kellen is the one to solve it. Totally immersive – keep your wits about you.
(Ferelith Hordon)
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| Ruth Jones - Love Untold
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| A writer best known for her TV work, Ruth Jones is a great story teller. Covering four generations of women in South Wales, each chapter is told from one of their viewpoints, going backwards and forwards in time from the 1950's to the present day. It covers sensitively the varied relationships between women, life and death and of course love, tying up a lot of loose threads at the end. It's funny and sad, with a twist that I hadn't guessed - and a happy ending! (Mary Standing)
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| Claire Keegan - Small Things Like These
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| A short book telling a huge story. Taking the true scandal of the Magdalen Laundries in Ireland as a theme - they were all closed down by 1996 - the story is centred round Bill Furlong, a coal merchant, and takes place just before Xmas 1985. Bill, now married with five daughters, had an unusual upbringing and wants to discover his real father. The writing is so beautiful, simple and lyrical, with an unmistakable soft Irish lilt. I now want to read more Claire Keegan. (Mary Standing)
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| Hannah Kent - The Good People
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| Nóra, newly widowed, cares for her disabled grandson but this is 19 C rural Ireland where folklore and superstition are rife, crops are failing, livestock are dying, people whisper - is he really a changeling? With her maid Mary, she turns to Nance who has healing powers and knowledge of the old ways. If they go to the river will they get her real grandson back? A compelling and heartbreaking story based on true events. (Jenny Baker)
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| Barbara Kingsolver - Demon Copperhead
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| A brilliant reimagining of the story and characters in David Copperfield transported from poverty-stricken Victorian London to a poor community in the southern Appalachians in the midst of the opioid crisis. Demon is born to a single mother in an abandoned trailer 'like a little blue prizefighter'. He will need that fighting spirit, buckets of charm and a quick wit to survive. Epic, fantastic, gripping, angry, powerful, electrifying - all of these!
(Jenny Baker)
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| Andrey Kurkov - Death and the Penguin: translated by George Bird
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| I thought I should read a Ukranian author and, having heard him speak about the invasion, I decided on Kurkov. This is the story of Victor, a writer of obituaries, and his pet penguin, Misha. They live together in Victor’s flat. Although often darkly comic, it is not without warmth and humanity, particularly when a young girl, Sonya, is left with him. However, oppression and fear mount and Victor flees alone. Bizarre but worth the read. (Christine Miller)
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| Pierre Lemaitre - The Mirror of our Sorrows
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| The final volume of a trilogy which began with The Great Swindle (bwl 96) followed by All Human Wisdom (bwl 102). It’s 1940 and the phoney war in France is ending. Everyone is displaced, from Paris, from the collapsed front, from prison – or simply away doing their duty or engaged on a personal quest. As their world descends into chaos, paths cross and people change. At times it feels contrived but this is a vivid story which keeps you reading and illuminates the experience of a time in France’s story often overlooked. (Tony Pratt)
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| Elif Shafak - The Island of Missing Trees
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| Set in Cyprus and London, this novel explores the lives, loves and griefs of a family forced to flee as a result of the clash of cultures during the withdrawal of Britain, decades of civil war and administration by the United Nations. Charming and tender and ultimately hopeful, the story is based on personal experience and extensive historical research into the conflict. The weight of human and environmental damage are elicited with compassion and skill. (Margaret Teh)
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| Georges Simenon - The Misty Harbour
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| Maigret escorts an amnesiac from Paris to the fogbound Channel port where he is the harbour master. The amnesiac is promptly murdered. Rain sweeps constantly as his investigation is hampered by a conspiracy of silence, violent sailors and hostile local bourgeoisie. Simenon’s classic virtues are on display: sense of place, atmosphere, insight into how lives get complicated, humanity and economy. A mystery story - the mystery to me is why Simenon doesn’t seem to be more popular. (Tony Pratt)
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| Inga Simpson - Willowman
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| The Willowmen are the bat craftsmen of course. This is a clever tale, interweaving history of the game and the craft, with the personal heartaches and triumphs of two main protagonists, one a young gifted batsman and the other a bat maker, who would have been a classical musician if fate had not intervened. After a slow start - with more details of matches that I had to skim a bit - I found it a very satisfying mixture of fact and fiction. (Margaret Teh)
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| Josephine Tey - The Daughter of Time
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| Adam Grant - in a hospital bed - is investigating the criminality of Richard III. The crime, history, and research all tied up and presented to us with an unexpected (?) conclusion, one shared by more than a few historians. Is British royalty ever boring? No. This is a good detective yarn. Tey had a very successful play, Richard of Bordeaux, which featured a young actor and director by the name of John Gielgud. He and Tey remained lifelong friends. (Herb Roselle)
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| Simon Kurt Unsworth - The Devil's Detective
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| This is a detective thriller not for the squeamish. We are in Hell – literally for that is the setting imagined and described with all the relish and detail of Hieronymus Bosch. Meet the Fool – selected to be the “detective” and fixer of crimes committed in Hell….There is something unsettling going on – “deaths” that should not occur. Will the Fool succeed – and survive? Very clever, very gory, with a real twist at the end.
(Ferelith Hordon)
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| Hanya Yanagihara - To Paradise
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| A long, complex, alternative history of America set in three cleverly linked time frames. 1893 when people live and love as they please, 1993 during the Aids epidemic, and 2023, a dystopian future, governed by totalitarian rule, devastated by climate change and ongoing pandemics. Throughout all of this, is love enough to protect against discrimination, be it on grounds of sexuality, race, politics or social position? Sounds bleak, but it’s engrossing and unforgettable and I loved it. (Denise Lewis)
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Non-Fiction
| Tracy Borman - Crown and Sceptre: A New History of the British Monarcy from William the Conqueror to Charles III
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| Two chronologies I have trouble untangling are the Thirty Years War and the Kings and Queens of England. This book offers a bit of hope with a few pages of highlights and history for each monarch, along with the big players of each reign. An entertaining read, with improbable but true stories of accident, murder, mayhem, deceit, barbarism, and other features of government. Even after reading it, you still won't be sure who followed Henry I, or which one was nicknamed "Longshanks" - (hint - it wasn't Victoria). (Herb Roselle)
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| Margaret Leigh - Spade Among the Rushes
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| Leigh takes over a croft in the hidden glen of Smirisary, Moidart, only reached by footpath or the unreliable sea. She spends the war years taming it, helped by the other crofters and hindered by the war and bureaucracy. We share her successes and failures as she struggles, often hilariously, with the hard work of crofting. Sadly, now, with crofters gone and the few remaining cottages second homes, this book is a kind of elegy for a past world. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Caroline Moorehead - Human Cargo: A Journey among Refugees
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| Over a two year period Caroline Moorehead travelled the world investigating the issue of asylum seekers and economic migrants. She interviewed various officials and organisations involved in the process; a process which currently in the UK lacks all humanity in proposing that arrivals on these shores be shipped off abroad. Her research is meticulous. The migrants' stories are terrifying and need to be heard. This is a book to share with as many people as possible for positive action to happen. (Lynda Johnson)
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| Neil Oliver - Wisdom of the Ancients
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| Here in a series of what are separate essays or if they had appeared online “blogs”, the archaeologist and historian, Neil Oliver, looks at the deep past and the emergence of homo sapiens to identify ideas, relationships, questions that are still important today, though all too often subsumed by the speed with which we live now. Organised under six thematic headings this is a personal, thoughtful book and worth dipping into.
(Ferelith Hordon)
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| Christina Patterson - Outside the Sky is Blue
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| What made Patterson a successful writer and broadcaster? The odds were stacked against her: childhood overshadowed by her sister's schizophrenia, painful, incapacitating disease, recurring breast cancer, the deaths of beloved family members and the inability to find a loving partner. Scouring through copious family records Patterson reconstructs the passages of her courageous and moving evolution from facing adversities to – thank heavens! – happiness. I ended up full of admiration and affection for this wise, wìtty, intelligent woman. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Kieron Pim - Endless Flight: The Life of Joseph Roth
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| The author seamlessly weaves together Roth’s mercurial, self-mythologising personality with summaries of his extensive writings to produce a forensic analysis of the tortuous peripatetic existence of the author of The Radetzky March (bwl 80). Both Roth’s religion and birthplace (Jewish and Galicia respectively) haunted him, compelling him to deny, and escape from, both in endless self-deception and ultimately to a sad early death. A proper recognition of his exceptional literary brilliance was alas only achieved post mortem. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Sophy Roberts - The Lost Pianos of Siberia
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| Not only a treasure hunt for pianos and their long-dead owners, but a treasure of another kind with music, exile and landscape the most important elements. The glowing descriptions of people, the talent she has to bring that past to life, the many and informed allusions to literature, painting and music, the light but all the more chilling mention of war-torn cities and clinical glimpses of present-day existence, all combine seamlessly to help unlock the enigma which has always been, and still is, Russia.
(Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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Poetry
| T S Eliot - The Waste Land: a facsimile & transcript of the original drafts including the annotations of Ezra Pound edited by Valerie Eliot |
| I have been much drawn back to this masterpiece - which has lived with me since my teens - by a superb Arena documentary and much editorial coverage in its centenary year 2022. There is perhaps no better way to fully appreciate it than by studying the facsimile transcript of the original drafts annotated by Ezra Pound and Vivien Eliot which was published in 1969. ”On Margate Sands, I can connect nothing with nothing” How bleak, how contemporary! (Jeremy Miller) |
| Feedback |
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| Just finished Lily (Rose Tremain) and checked it on bwl - 103 and 104. What contrasting views and how interesting. Personally I’m on Team Jenny here! (Sue Pratt).
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