bookswelike

bwl 116 - Spring 2025

Fiction

Margaret Atwood - The Testaments

I usually love her books but found this one hard going I think possibly because I found the change of character in each passage did not make the story flow. However I persevered but it just didn't hold my concentration. (Anne Bloor)

Pat Barker - The Voyage Home

The ten-year long sacking of Troy told through the women's eyes is an entertaining reconstruction of the times, although during the first few chapters, which are laced with present-day expletives, I confess, I was tempted to abandon it. It is however a fascinating mix of ancient history become mythology, giving voice to those who survived the desecration and slaughter of their men and children. (Margaret Teh)

Tracy Chevalier - The Glassmaker

A history of Venetian/Murano glassmaking from the 15th Century to the present is told through the experiences of a fictional family. It is impeccably researched and, unusually, follows one female who ages about 10 years for every century, justified on the basis of Venetian art being timeless. Odd but effective. Interesting for one person to experience the plague and Covid. I didn’t always have empathy with the characters but enjoyed the history and atmosphere. (Ros Cook)

Damien Dibben - The Colour Storm

This is a tale of painters and their patrons in Renaissance Venice. A painter searches for a new pigment and becomes embroiled romantically with his patron’s wife. I found the adventure rather farfetched but enjoyed the description of the painter’s workshop, his relationship with other painters and his apprentices and of daily life in Venice with plague an ever-present threat. (Ros Cppl)

Cornelia Funke - The Green Kingdom

This is aimed at a younger audience – Year 6 perhaps. It is an attractive read with no magic or fantasy. Rather we have a treasure hunt – or rather riddles that send the young protagonist, Caspia, on a search for different plants – the Green Kingdom of the title. Using these riddles the author introduces the reader to fact, folklore, mythology, the language of flowers, medicinal properties. An attractive read. (Ferelith Hordon)

Damon Galgut - The Promise

A snapshot of a family, shown from the funerals of a mother, father, sister, and brother. We examine their lives, and most of all, their flaws. Narration of events is often interspersed with asides and comments, often written quite poetically. It reminds one of Middlemarch, but in modern dress. The setting is South Africa, and some history does intrude, but not in the forefront. It is people and not events which drive this story. Compelling. (Herb Roselle)

V V Ganeshananthan - Brotherless Night

A very well written book about siblings in the Sri Lankan Civil War. I knew little of this war despite being the same age as these siblings, studying for A and O levels, and learnt a lot. It gives historical and political perspective but also tells very human stories of how individuals cope when unimaginable horror visits their young lives. It attempts to explain, without condoning, why people sometimes turn to terrorism. (Ros Cook)

David Guterson - Snow Falling on Cedars

I have just read this novel after many years of procrastination – and was completely drawn into this snow filled world of San Piedro Island with its tight knit community. It reminded me of the TV series Trapped set in a isolated Icelandic town. It is not just a murder mystery, it is so much more. Reading Jenny’s review of 15 years ago, I can only endorse her comments wholeheartedly (Ferelith Hordon)

Kristan Hannah - The Nightingale

WW II - Paris has fallen, France has surrendered, the whole country is now occupied. Two sisters, one headstrong Isabelle and the other down-to-earth Viane are both drawn into the Resistance movement. The one guiding downed British airman over the Pyrenees, the other hiding Jewish children from deportation into the Nazi death camps. Based in part on the true-life story of The Comet Line, a route organised by a young Belgian woman - Andrée de Jongh, this is a truly unputdownable read. (Jenny Baker)

Victoria Hislop - The Figurine

A ‘quick read’ despite its size and lots of threads: archaeology and theft, Greek unrest and coup, romance, diverse peoples, ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. Sometimes it felt as if the author was writing to a plan that must include certain aspects, like the districts of Athens, the gay scene, the confidence of Eton scholars…Sometimes it seemed that one sentence didn’t quite follow the previous one. Certainly a very full and varied novel that I raced through and am glad to have read. (Lesley Bond)

Ferdia Lennon - Glorious Exploits

This book is set around a grizzly event in the Peloponnesian War (412 BC) when the Syracusians starved to death their Athenian prisoners of war, in disused quarries. Two out of work potters, who speak in Dublin vernacular, take to offering food to prisoners who can recite Euripides, eventually deciding to put on a play and hatch a daring plan to free the stars of the show. Quirky, uncomfortable in places but engrossing. (Ros Cook)

Rebecca Makkai - The Great Believers

The first chapter already made me cry; the story is about a group of young friends in Chicago during the AIDS crisis, and it brings back all those wonderful men (and women) who died from the lack of interest and funding. The novel moves between the 1980s and 2015 examining the commitment, pain and trauma of the women who cared for them, lost them and survived them. It’s sad but also funny at times, very human, beautiful and necessary. (Sally Gutierrez)

Rebecca Makkai - I Have Some Questions for You

The plot is a layered, emotional, powerful story about a professor/blogger in her early 40s, who goes back to a posh high school which she both hated and loved, and begins to delve into a murder case of a teen-age student who died when they both studied there. There are other subplots, such as the media today, what it means to be a teenager (or an adult), how trauma works, and the beauty and strength of friendships in every generation. (Sally Gutierrez)

Jon McGregor - 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)

Joseph O'Connor - My Father's House

In occupied Rome an Irish Monsignor in the Vatican, which remained neutral, runs an escape line for allied soldiers, disguised as running a choir. It is based on a true story. During the relatively short Roman occupation (Sept ’43 to June ’44) the Gestapo’s actions were horrific. The risks taken by the ‘Choir’ are immense and the suspense is gripping, building to a climax at Christmas ’44. I couldn’t put it down (Ros Cook)

David Peace - Munichs

A fictional recounting of the 1958 Manchester United Munich plane crash which killed half the young, outstanding team, staff and attendant journalists. We follow injured victims, bereaved families and the club as it battled to rebuild, concentrating on a few individuals - Bobby Charlton among them. It's strength lies in the often moving if sometimes repetitive telling of individual stories and the evocation of a time when news from abroad was far from instant. The tragedy of youthful promise cut short sets the mood. (Tony Pratt)

Ron Rash - The Caretaker

Jacob elopes with barely literate chambermaid Naomi. Not what his parents planned for their only son. When he is wounded in Korea they make their plans. I won't spoil things – it's a real page-turner – but as guardian angel, there is Blackburn, the polio-disfigured caretaker of the cemetery. No overt pushing of the theme of society's outcasts, but oh my was I on their side. I hadn't previously heard of this unprepossessingly-named American writer, but I'm a convert! (Annabel Bedini)

Sally Rooney - Intermezzo

There was a lot of hype when this book came out last autumn. Justified? I'm not sure. Peter and Ivan are brothers over ten years apart, both entangled in complicated relationships with women. Set in Dublin, it begins at their father's funeral. Throughout the story there are intense emotions - grief, sibling rivalry and love. I think the book unnecessarily long and Rooney's lack of speech marks during dialogue can be irritating. The title is clever - Ivan is a competitive chess player and intermezzo (apparently) is a chess move! (Mary Standing)

Elif Shafak - There are Rivers in the Sky

This is one of those books that will absorb you completely or have you screaming! I loved it, most of my book group didn't. See the review by Christine in bwl 115 to find out what it is all about! (Jenny Baker)

Leo Tolstoy: translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volkhonsky - The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories

The spare elegance of Tolstoy’s ‘Death of Ivan Ilyich’ has fascinated me for decades, and continues to lure me back for yet another reading. In this masterful short story, Tolstoy describes the despairing and bewildered thoughts of a successful man coming to grips with his own imminent (and, to him, inconceivable) death. Family and friends, equally self-absorbed, are more concerned with their own lives than with his approaching death. Tolstoy is unflinching in his portrayals. (Sharron Calkins)

Anne Tyler - Three Days in June

Set in Baltimore around a wedding are three days of mixed emotions and memories for Gail, our protagonist and mother of Debbie, the bride. Gail's ex-husband Max, who together with a rescue cat, turns up unannounced on the doorstep seeking accommodation. Then Debbie arrives in a highly agitated state with news that could jeopardise the wedding. As always with Tyler there is humanity, pathos and gentle humour throughout this short but brilliant novel - with a very clever and satisfying ending! (Mary Standing)

Jean Webster - Dear Enemy

Everyone knows Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster, but is the sequel as well-known? It deserves to be, both books are as fresh to read now as when they were published, and the sequel in which frivolous socialite and best friend of (former) Jerusha Abbott, Sallie McBride, is catapulted into caring for the 113 orphans of the John Grier House, is a terrific pick-me-up for a rainy day. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)

Niall Williams - Four Letters of Love

A delightful tale that weaves together the separate lives and trials of two isolated individuals, until they eventually meet. Their future is predicted, but not actually apparent, even as the tale ends. In that peculiarly Irish way, Williams blends the quizzical interrogation of the intentions of God, with the prosaic and a bit of magic realism, all set in the wilds of the West coast. (Margaret Teh)

Nial Williams - This is Happiness

It is indeed (happiness!). I read it straight through twice in pure delight at Williams' enchanting prose and insight into the human heart. Now old, Noel (Noe) remembers Easter-tide spent with his grandparents in an Irish village, it's stopped raining, the 'electrics' are coming, there's first love for Noe, heartbreak-repairing for Christy, and a wonderful supporting cast of doctor with beautiful daughters, priests and villagers. Not to mention night-time bicycle rides in search of music......ahhhhh!!!! (Annabel Bedini)

Non-Fiction

Sarah Bakewell - At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails

This irresistible title, with its whiff of Parisian allure and intellectualism, readied me for an intoxicating read, and did not disappoint. Sarah Bakewell‘s presentation of Existentialism is wonderfully readable, and her brief biographies of its leading proponents: Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, Heidegger, Jaspers, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and others, are both welcome and insightful. With reflections on her own discovery of the Existentialists, Bakewell brings the past into the present. (Sharron Calkins)

Ned Boulting - 1923:The Mystery of Lot 212 and a Tour de France Obsession

Boulting commentates on Grand Tours. During Covid he bought a damaged Pathé news reel and had it repaired, discovering it shows part of a stage of the 1923 Tour de France. He obsessively researches the leading rider and the stage. Despite 1934 being between the wars, Boulting describes on-going political unrest and acts of aggression, concluding that the stage marked the end of WW1 hostilities and started the build up to WWII. Interesting and well researched/written. (Ros Cook)

Anne Edwards - Maria Callas

This very readable biography is impeccably researched, fast-moving, recreating the rich opera and music world of the time with long-forgotten cultural highlights, but above all does homage to the greatest opera diva of the twentieth century. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)

Kathleen Jamie - Cairn

'Cairn' because of the way these mini-essays, prose-poems and poetry build up, like a cairn. Jamie has a poet's precise eye and her own particular sensitivity to the nature of her native Scotland. But this is more than a collection of nature notes, it's an on-going contemplation of change in the natural world and in humans within their environment. So both thought-provoking and providing moments of utter delight in her way with words. Thank you Jamie!!! (Annabel Bedini)

Arathi Prasad - Silk:A history in three metamorphoses

This fascinating and meticulously researched book describes the silk-making capabilities of the silk worms, molluscs and spiders of the world, thus the three metamorphoses of the title. It charts the cultural use of silk by civilisations ancient and modern and tells the stories of the attempts by pioneers to harness this natural process. It has elements of history, natural history, ethnobiology, medical and physical sciences and probably more. (Ros Cook)

John Lewis Stempel - The Running Hare

A delightful and well written tale of working some land in Herefordshire in the old ways to encourage wildlife. Easy to read and informative with some chuckle-moment anecdotes. (Lesley Bond)

Kate Summerscale - The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place

A run down inner London suburb was the setting for a notorious serial murderer, Christie, and the enduring question of whether Timothy Evans was unjustly hanged for murder. Tabloid crime reporters were unscrupulous and influential players in this story but the seedy and perverted Christie is the centrepiece of the book. Much of the appeal of true crime writing lies in the insight it gives into lives and ways of life and how they differ from now, and Kate Summerscale is a skilled guide in this territory. (Tony Pratt)

Alwyn Turner - Little Englanders: Britain in the Edwardian Era

A brief period from the death of Victoria and the Boer War to the trouble in Ireland and the Great War with personalities such as Churchill, Lloyd George, and the Pankhursts. Turner does them justice but never presents them as the whole story. Politics played only a small part in life which included the music hall, a growing popular press, fraudsters, Elgar, P G Wodehouse and Conan Doyle. A still powerful Empire encouraged feelings of superiority but the new chauffeured car owners were outnumbered by those whom the first old aged pensioners saved from the workhouse. An entertaining read. (Tony Pratt)