Tom Rachman strikes again. I loved this just as much as The Imperfectionists. Rachman is just so damn good at writing completely believable charactersTom Rachman strikes again. I loved this just as much as The Imperfectionists. Rachman is just so damn good at writing completely believable characters, those I love and those I hate. I listened to this read by Sam Alexander (who read it exceptionally well), and I loved it so much I'm going to have to buy the physical book. It is the life of Charles (Pinch) Bavinsky, and we first meet him when he is five in his father's painting studio in Rome in 1960. Bear Bavinsky is a famous, philandering, egotistical, larger-than-life painter and Pinch is both terrified of him and in awe to him, and really remains so for the whole of his life. And yet although everyone crumples in the path of Bear - his several wives, his many children and so on - Pinch has the last laugh, although it's still not funny. For the most part Pinch's life is a sad one (the cover might say this book has some dark humour, but I didn't find it), solitary, unfulfilled, dissatisfied, but so real. I wanted to shake him. I loved him. ...more
I can't remember where I came across a mention of The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman - quite possibly on some 'best of' list. But wherever it was it I can't remember where I came across a mention of The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman - quite possibly on some 'best of' list. But wherever it was it deserves to be there - this was wonderful and is going on my definite possibles for my books of the year. It was published in 2010, so maybe you read it years ago - if so, why didn't you tell me about it! It's a short story collection written as a novel, with eleven 'stories' each one focusing on a character working for (or associated with) an English language paper set up in Rome in the 1950s. But it's now the 2000's and the paper is floundering, as are all the people we meet. Lloyd is the Paris correspondent in desperate need of a story; Kathleen, the editor is contemplating an affair; Abby, the financial officer mixes work and pleasure. A couple of the character studies were maybe weaker than the others, but I still loved this for the people, the writing, and for contemplating the end (probably) of print journalism. Highly recommended. ...more
Twenty-one-year-old Lucie Blackman, from England, disappeared in Japan in 2000. She'd been working as a hostess in a nightclub and had gone with an unTwenty-one-year-old Lucie Blackman, from England, disappeared in Japan in 2000. She'd been working as a hostess in a nightclub and had gone with an unknown man to the seaside. Her father, Tim, worked hard to keep her disappearance in the newspaper headlines, until finally her body was discovered buried in a cave some months later. This is the story of what kind of person Lucie was, how her disappearance and the search for her unfolded, and what happened after she was discovered. Lloyd Parry is a master at giving us all the details but without any sensationalism, yet still in a way that the story is told as a full narrative that makes us want to read on. Utterly compelling, and highly recommended if you like true crime. I'm not sure if I want to watch the Netflix documentary, given this is so good. If you've read this and watched the documentary, should I? ...more
My goodness, what a story: coming to terms with a horribly abusive father, while at the same time finding out the truth behind the family story that CMy goodness, what a story: coming to terms with a horribly abusive father, while at the same time finding out the truth behind the family story that Cumming's maternal grandfather died in a shooting accident. ...more
I really enjoyed Glide - a literary mystery. I love Alison Jean Lester's writing and I don't know why this has sat on my shelves for so long. Leo's wiI really enjoyed Glide - a literary mystery. I love Alison Jean Lester's writing and I don't know why this has sat on my shelves for so long. Leo's wife, Liv is in Norway visiting her mother, when a stranger with a birthday cake knocks on the door of Leo's and Liv's Massachusetts home, saying he is Morten, Liv's half brother come to celebrate her birthday. But Liv doesn't make her scheduled flight home, and then gradually everything Leo has assumed is undermined, even while Morten has got under his skin. Great characterisation and writing, and a very fast read. (Leo is a photographer and the novel has black and white photographs by Lester's husband, Andrew Gurnett. And while I enjoyed these, I'm not sure having one on the cover helps to give any indication of what a rich and clever novel this is.)...more
A group of six inseparable teenage friends hang out together in a small town in Ireland in 2003. But when Kala - the lynchpin of the group - goes missA group of six inseparable teenage friends hang out together in a small town in Ireland in 2003. But when Kala - the lynchpin of the group - goes missing, the friendships unravel. Fifteen years later two of the group, Helen and Joe independently return to the town and a little while later human remains are discovered on a nearby building site. There was lots to enjoy in this: the characterisation, the dialogue, the writing. It's described as a literary thriller and that's correct, but maybe that's its downfall. Not quite pacey enough for a true thriller, but such a high body count (past and present day) to make it a little too unbelievable to be fully literary. But I'd be really interested to read anything else that Wash writes. ...more
Crying on the M25. Not very safe, but I was listening to the ending of The Great Believers and I couldn't help it. So good. So good I went out and bouCrying on the M25. Not very safe, but I was listening to the ending of The Great Believers and I couldn't help it. So good. So good I went out and bought a physical copy so that I can more easily go back to it. The novel begins with Nico's funeral in Chicago in 1985. He has died of AIDs his younger sister, Fiona and his friends - including Yale - are devastated. We follow Yale through his work acquiring art for a gallery and his relationships as those around him die, and his friendship with Fiona. And thirty years later we follow Fiona's trip to Paris to try and find her estranged daughter. I guess underlying all of this story (and brilliant writing) is the question of how much responsibility we have for keeping alive the memory of those who have died. Highly recommended. ...more
Lessons is the story of the life of Roland Baines, cash poor, house rich, part-time bar pianist, looking back to when he was eleven and went to boardiLessons is the story of the life of Roland Baines, cash poor, house rich, part-time bar pianist, looking back to when he was eleven and went to boarding school, moving forward into his seventies, and sometimes sideways into other people's lives. And throughout there is comment on the times Roland is living through. The novel is ambitious, sweeping, and wonderful. Roland and all the people who come and go in his life have filled my head for several days as I read voraciously during any spare moment. I hope they will stay for longer. Roland has three significant women in his life: his piano teacher, Miriam, his ex-wife Alissa, and his second wife, Daphne. There is a reckoning to be done with all of them, although the last is really not her fault (there is a brilliant scene where he fights over her ashes with a junior minister on a bridge in Yorkshire and loses). Miriam seduces Roland when he is only fourteen and changes the course of his life. Alissa walks out on him and their eight month old baby, and becomes a famous and successful novelist. McEwan clearly draws much on his own life with this novel (North Africa, boarding school, discovered brother) but has Alissa says, everything is fair game. I liked how McEwan plays with this, and I also love the questions he raises around a woman leaving a husband and baby in order to create a masterpiece. It doesn't happen often, is it worth it? Will certainly be in my top ten reads of the year. ...more
Power, privilege, and #MeToo, and how it's too easy for a murdered woman to become nameless, one of thousands. Bodie Kane is nearly forty when she takPower, privilege, and #MeToo, and how it's too easy for a murdered woman to become nameless, one of thousands. Bodie Kane is nearly forty when she takes a two-week job at her old New Hampshire boarding school to teach a podcasting course. Returning brings back all her difficult teenage memories of being an outsider, and the murder of her roommate Thalia, when they were both seventeen. Two of Bodie's students take on Thalia's murder as a subject for their podcast, looking at whether the conviction of Omar - the school's sports technician - was correct, and Bodie can't help but fall down her own rabbit hole of who killed Thalia. It's a literary thriller, slow in all the right places, and very satisfying. My only quibble is that all the backstory and even the court case is reported or memories. I think it might have been even more thrilling if the reader had been allowed to experience the action some more, but of course then it would have been a different book. ...more
This is an usual coming-of-age story about a thirteen-year-old girl called Flynn who runs away from home with her brother Sam. They team up with threeThis is an usual coming-of-age story about a thirteen-year-old girl called Flynn who runs away from home with her brother Sam. They team up with three others who have run away from the care system, and together the five of them set off across the fields. It's so hard to say much more without spoilers, but what I can say is that Myerson writes children and young people so well. Amongst the group is a six-year-old girl called Mouse - irritating, persistent, loveable - so perfectly written, she jumps off the page. There is an ambiguity at the heart of this novel and if that kind of thing annoys you, if you want answers to the questions that novels raise, then this book probably isn't for you, but if you're happy to be there for the brilliant characterisation, the great sense of place, and general weirdness, and I so am, then do read this. ...more
How many pages do you read before you give up on a book? For me - especially if it's a proof that I haven't requested - it might be as few as one or tHow many pages do you read before you give up on a book? For me - especially if it's a proof that I haven't requested - it might be as few as one or two. I might have given up on The Namesake if I wasn't reading it for my book group and thought that I should press on. And I'm so glad I did - when I was just past page 100 I was hooked. Up until then I felt that it didn't stop and examine any one thing closely enough - it was just this happened, and then this happened, and then this. Something seemed to change with Gogol the main character finds his first serious girlfriend, and everything slowed and became much more enjoyable. Really very enjoyable. It's the story of Gogol's life (and before - his parents' lives) - the first child of Bengalis who have emigrated to American, and how he is torn between his heritage and parents' culture, and his American life. ...more
Ten short stories in this second collection from Meloy, and I enjoyed them all. All of them have an underlying sadness: people who don't quite connectTen short stories in this second collection from Meloy, and I enjoyed them all. All of them have an underlying sadness: people who don't quite connect, families that never quite say the right thing, people trying their hardest but not getting it right. In my favourite, The Girlfriend Leo is questioning a teenage girl in a hotel room about the man who murdered his daughter. The girl tells him more than he would ever want to know. As always there were some that didn't work so well for me, but across them all, the writing is superb. Highly recommended. ...more
The book opens with a young mother, Kim Jiyoung having some psychotic episodes when she believes she is one of her friends who has died. We then go baThe book opens with a young mother, Kim Jiyoung having some psychotic episodes when she believes she is one of her friends who has died. We then go back to Jiyoung's childhood, studies, first jobs, and when she has her child. Everything is shown through the lens of the misogyny and sexism Jiyoung faces in South Korea, which although shocking, is written in such a dry and stilted style, it is hard to get into the story. Perhaps this was the wake-up call South Korea needed because it has been a bestseller there. ...more
Charming and moving and very well written, this memoir by the actress (and musician) Minnie Driver is a series of ten essays which start in childhood Charming and moving and very well written, this memoir by the actress (and musician) Minnie Driver is a series of ten essays which start in childhood when she is an unhappy boarder at her school in Hampshire (not too far from where I live), and finish with the poignant and wise (without being sentimental) essay about the death of her mother. In between are her first break into acting, the end of a significant relationship, and the birth of her son. Don't expect a celebrity tell-all, this is so much more. I'm looking forward to see what she writes next. I listened to it as an audio book, read by the author, which has a bonus interview at the end, but sadly (of course) not the photograph of Driver's mother which is included at the end of the other editions. I would have loved to see Gaynor, standing with her hands on her hips. ...more
I've only read a couple of books from the Booker Prize long list so far, and already I can see this winning. It's layered, clever, uncomfortable, incrI've only read a couple of books from the Booker Prize long list so far, and already I can see this winning. It's layered, clever, uncomfortable, incredibly accomplished in its writing, subtle in its message - although it's also clearly there, and still a great story. There are four parts to it, each of them detailing a death in a white South African family. In the first - Ma - we meet the family, made up of the surviving husband, three children, aunt, uncle and various others. The youngest child hears her father promise her dying mother that he will give Salome, the family's black maid, her house. This is the titular promise, but also of course a way of looking at race in South Africa and what has been promised, and who should even be allowed to promise something, when it might not have been theirs in the first place. In terms of the writing, Galgut plays fast and loose with time and point of view - moving locations and times almost within a sentence, and roaming from third person into second and back again, making it feel like the reader is part of this often racist and troubled family. I kept trying to watch to see how he did it, but then finding myself swept up in the story and characters. Tremendous. ...more
My librarian husband and I have started a project (we like projects). Every day for past 37 days we have read one of these stories to each other, markMy librarian husband and I have started a project (we like projects). Every day for past 37 days we have read one of these stories to each other, marked them out of five, and talked about what we thought about them - what we felt worked and what didn't. Surprisingly perhaps, we were mostly agreed: those that scored five usually got a five from both of us. And there were three that we were completely agreed on to stop reading because we weren't enjoying them. Unfortunately there were quite a few that neither of us liked, and those that we loved were by authors we generally already knew and loved: Raymond Carver, Joy Williams, Denis Johnson, George Saunders, and Lauren Groff. But there were also a few stories by authors that which have already inspired us to go and read more of their short fiction, including Stuart Dybek, Tobia Wolff, and Julie Otsuka. Thanks to Eric Anderson for the inspiration for this project. We're going to read a short story collection, rather than anthology, next. But which one...?...more
In a series of short episodes, Schwille details the lives of the people of a fictionary small East Texas town following the Columbia space shuttle disIn a series of short episodes, Schwille details the lives of the people of a fictionary small East Texas town following the Columbia space shuttle disaster. Body parts and shuttle parts have rained down on the town and the surrounding area, affecting individuals in all sorts of ways sometimes while searching for debris in the woods, sometimes years later. Schwille is so tender with her characters, intimate, exact - she gets inside their heads and made me understand what it might be like to be them. She describes alcoholism, family relationships, failing marriages, and senior abuse. These aren't happy stories but they are beautifully told. And the final snippet of an astronaut's joy as he looks at the Earth was very moving. (I listened to it as a audio book, and although it was very well read by a number of people, at times it was a little hard to follow because some of the pieces were so short. I would love to get a physical copy at some point.)...more
A book about memory and whether we pass on trauma to our children. Ouellette cleverly jumps time in the way she writes sections of her traumatic childA book about memory and whether we pass on trauma to our children. Ouellette cleverly jumps time in the way she writes sections of her traumatic childhood memories, the men she knew, the husband she left, and the children she had. I liked how this structure echoed how memory also jumps and is not linear. The writing is beautiful, with many perfect metaphors. My favourite section by far was her time with her husband when her children were young. After this, we hear the voice of one of her children, as well as her own, and this didn't work quite so well for me. ...more
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