Book Serendipity, Mid-December 2024 to Mid-February 2025
I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better. This is a regular feature of mine every couple of months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. People frequently ask how I remember all of these coincidences. The answer is: I jot them down on scraps of paper or input them immediately into a file on my PC desktop; otherwise, they would flit away!
The following are in roughly chronological order.
- The angel Ariel appears in Through a Glass Darkly by Jostein Gaarder and Constructing a Witch by Helen Ivory.
- The protagonist’s surname is English in Wild Houses by Colin Barrett and The Cannibal Owl by Aaron Gwyn.
- I read scenes of grief over a tree being cut down / falling next to one’s house in Dispersals by Jessica J. Lee and Small Rain by Garth Greenwell, one right after the other.
- A mother who does kundalini yoga in All Fours by Miranda July and Unattached by Reannon Muth.
- The idea that happiness (unlike anxiety and sorrow) leaves no trace in writing or in life appeared for me on the same day in Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks and Small Rain by Garth Greenwell.
- Someone considers suicide by falling but realizes that at the current height they would injure themself but not die in Wild Houses by Colin Barrett, The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham, and The Courage Consort by Michel Faber.
- The homosexual “bear” stereotype appears in The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham and Small Rain by Garth Greenwell.
- A William Blake epigraph in Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt and one of the poems included in Poetry Unbound by Pádraig Ó Tuama.
- A group biography including nine pen portraits (plus the author): Nine Minds by Daniel Tammet, followed in quick succession by Uneven by Sam Mills. (Similar, but with just seven subjects, is a book I’m currently reading about women’s religious conversions, Godstruck by Kelsey Osgood.)
- A book–life serendipity moment: in All Fours by Miranda July there is mention of an elderly cat named Alfie who needs to be given medication several times a day. Snap!
- By chance, I started reading Myself and Other Animals, a posthumous collection of short autobiographical pieces by Gerald Durrell, on his centenary (7 January 2025).
- Guilt over destroying a bird’s nest in The Book of George by Kate Greathead and I’ll Come to You by Rebecca Kauffman.
- The main female character has a birthmark in The Book of George by Kate Greathead and The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt.
- Reading two novels at the same time that open with a new family having to be found for a little boy because his mentally ill mother is presumed to have died by suicide: Unexpected Lessons in Love by Bernardine Bishop and Going Home by Tom Lamont.
The protagonist is mistaken for a two-year-old boy’s father in The Book of George by Kate Greathead and Going Home by Tom Lamont.
- The mother is named Ellen in The Book of George by Kate Greathead and I’ll Come to You by Rebecca Kauffman.
- An ailing elderly father named Vic in Going Home by Tom Lamont and The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.
- A mother is sent to a mental hospital after the loss of her young son in Invisible by Paul Auster and The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.
- A brother and sister share a New York City apartment in Invisible by Paul Auster and The Book of George by Kate Greathead.
- A mention of the Japanese artist Hokusai in While the Earth Holds Its Breath by Helen Moat and The Secret Life of Snow by Giles Whittell.
Adults dressing up for Halloween in The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt and I’ll Come to You by Rebecca Kauffman.
- A second husband named Tim in Unexpected Lessons in Love by Bernardine Bishop and Because We Must by Tracy Youngblom.
- The idea that ‘queers find each other’ in Edge of the World: An Anthology of Queer Travel Writing edited by Alden Jones and My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland.
- Experiencing 9/11 as a freshman in college (just like me!) in Dirty Kitchen by Jill Damatac and The Book of George by Kate Greathead. (There is also a 9/11 section in Confessions by Catherine Airey.)
- An intense poker game in I’ll Come to You by Rebecca Kauffman and Going Home by Tom Lamont.
The main character is expelled on false drug possession charges in Invisible by Paul Auster and Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez.
- Missing the chance to say goodbye before a father’s death, and a parent wondering aloud to their son whether they’ve been a good parent in The Book of George by Kate Greathead and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.
- Someone departs suddenly, leaving her clothes and books behind, in Invisible by Paul Auster and My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland.
- Mentions of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era U.S. immigration policy) and “Two-Buck Chuck” (a nickname for the Charles Shaw bargain wine sold at Trader Joe’s) in Dirty Kitchen by Jill Damatac and Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez.
- A City Hall wedding in New York City in Baumgartner by Paul Auster and Dirty Kitchen by Jill Damatac.
- Polish Jewish heritage and a parent who died of pancreatic cancer in Baumgartner by Paul Auster and The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.
- In Because We Must by Tracy Youngblom, she reads The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo aloud to her son while he is recovering in hospital. I was reading Despereaux at the same time! (Also, in real-life serendipity, Youngblom and I both have a sister named Trish.)
- A code of 1–3 knocks is used in Confessions by Catherine Airey and The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.
A scene of a teacup breaking in Junction of Earth and Sky by Susan Buttenwieser and The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey.
What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?
Reading Snapshot for Mid-January
As I said in my last post, I’m in the middle of a bunch of books but hardly finishing anything, so consider this another placeholder until my Love Your Library and January releases posts next week. People often ask how I read so much. One of the answers is that I generally read 20–30 books at once, bouncing between them as the mood takes me and making steady progress in most. A frequent follow-up question is how I keep so many books straight in my head. I maintain a variety of genres and topics in the stack and alternate between fiction, nonfiction and poetry in any reading session. If I’m going to be reviewing something, particularly for pay, I tend to make notes. Here’s a peek at my current stacks, with a line or two on each book and why I’m reading it.
- Myself & Other Animals by Gerald Durrell [public library] – This is a posthumous collection of excerpts from his published work, including newspaper articles, plus mini essays that he wrote towards an autobiography. We own/have read most of his animal-collecting and zoo-keeping memoirs and this is just as delightful, even in unconnected pieces. His conservationist zeal was ahead of his time.
- The God of the Woods by Liz Moore [public library] – It’s rare for me to borrow something from the Crime section, but this came highly lauded by Laila. Set in upstate New York in 1975, it’s a page-turning missing-girl mystery with a literary focus on character backstory, and it’s reminding me of Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll and When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain.
- Gold by Elaine Feinstein [secondhand purchase] – I’ve enjoyed Feinstein’s poetry before so snapped this up on our second trip to Bridport. The first long poem was a monologue from the perspective of a collaborator of Mozart; I think I’ll engage more with the discrete poems to follow.
- Understorey by Anna Chapman Parker [review copy] – Catching up on one I was sent last year. It’s a one-year diary through ‘weeds’ (wild plants!) she observes and sketches near her home of Berwick upon Tweed, where we vacationed in September. I am enjoying reading a few peaceful entries per sitting.
- A God at the Door by Tishani Doshi [secondhand purchase] – Her Girls Are Coming out of the Woods was a favourite of mine a few years ago when I reviewed it for Wasafiri literary magazine. I found this on my last trip to Hay-on-Wye, and it is just as rich in long, forthright, feminist and political poems.
- The Secret Life of Snow by Giles Whittell [secondhand purchase] – I picked up a few snowy titles when we got a dusting the other week, in case it was the only snow of the year. This is so much like The Snow Tourist by Charlie English it’s uncanny; to my memory it’s more meteorological, though still accessible. The science is interspersed with travels and fun trivia about Norway’s Olympic skiers and so on.
- Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice [gift] – Probably my first book by an Indigenous Canadian, which was reason enough to read it. I’m about 50 pages in and so far it’s a plodding story of mysterious power outages which could just be part of the onset of winter but I suspect will turn out to be sinister and dystopian instead.
- Knead to Know by Neil Buttery [review copy] – Another 2024 book to catch up on. It’s a history of baking via mini-essays on loads of different breads, cakes, pies and pastries, many of them traditional English ones that you will never have heard of but will now want to cram. Lots of intriguing titbits.
- Invisible by Paul Auster [secondhand purchase] – Getting ready for Annabel’s second Paul Auster Reading Week in early February. A young (and Auster-like) would-be poet gets entangled with a thirtysomething professor who wants to fund a start-up literary magazine – and his French girlfriend. Highly readable and sure to get weirder.
- While the Earth Holds Its Breath by Helen Moat [review copy] – Yet another 2024 book to catch up on. Authors are still jumping on the Wintering bandwagon. This is composed of short autobiographical pieces about winter walks near home or further afield, many of them samey; the trip to Lapland has been a highlight so far.
- The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt [review copy] – Also part of my preparation for Paul Auster Reading Week, and boy can you see his influence on her first novel! Iris Vegan is employed by Mr. Morning to record audio descriptions of relics left behind by a possibly murdered woman. Odd and enticing.
- Uneven by Sam Mills [review copy] – A group biography of nine bisexuals – make that 10, as there’s plenty of memoir fragments from Mills, too. I’ve read the chapters on Oscar Wilde, Colette & Bessie Smith, and Marlene Dietrich so far. It is particularly enlightening to think of Wilde as bi rather than a closeted homosexual.
- Unexpected Lessons in Love by Bernardine Bishop [secondhand purchase] – Every year I pick up at least a few “love” or “heart” titles in advance of Valentine’s Day. Bishop was one of my top discoveries last year (via The Street) and this Costa Award-nominated posthumous novel is equally engaging, even after just 50 pages.
- My Judy Garland Life by Susie Boyt [secondhand purchase] – After Loved and Missed, I was keen to try more from Boyt and this Ackerley Prize-shortlisted memoir sounded fascinating. I love The Wizard of Oz as much as the next person. Boyt, however, is a Garland mega-fan and blends biography and memoir as she writes about addiction, mental health, celebrity and the search for love.
- Poetry Unbound by Pádraig Ó Tuama [public library] – I’m gradually making my way through this set of 50 poems and his critical/personal responses to them. Most of the poets have been unfamiliar to me. Marie Howe has been my top discovery.
- The Shutter of Snow by Emily Holmes Coleman [secondhand purchase] – Another incidental ‘snow’ title; this is autofiction about postpartum psychosis, written in a stream-of-consciousness style with no speech marks or apostrophes. It’s hard to believe it was written in the 1930s because it feels like it could have been yesterday.
- Ravens in Winter by Bernd Heinrich [secondhand purchase] – I’ve long meant to read more by Heinrich, who’s better known in the USA, after Winter World. This was a lucky find at Regent Books in Wantage. It’s a granular scientific study of bird behaviour, so I will likely read it very slowly, maybe even over two winters.
- The Book of George by Kate Greathead [review copy] – Linked short stories about an Everyman schmuck (and my exact contemporary) from adolescence up to today. He’s indecisive, lazy, an underachiever. Life keeps happening around him; will he make something happen? (George, c’est moi?) The deadpan tone is great.
- Stowaway by Joe Shute [public library] – I’ve been reading this off and on since, er, June, which is not to say that it’s not interesting but that it’s never been a priority. Like his book on ravens, it’s intended to rehabilitate the reputation of a species often considered to be a pest. He gets pet rats, too!
- The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness [public library] – It’s even rarer for me to borrow from the Science Fiction & Fantasy section of the library, but I’ve been following the series since A Discovery of Witches came out in 2011. I’m halfway through and enjoying Diana’s embrace of her witch heritage in the Salem area.
That’s not all, folks! There’s also the e-books.
- Dirty Kitchen by Jill Damatac [Edelweiss] – I’ll be reviewing this May release early for Shelf Awareness. The author’s Filipino family were undocumented immigrants in the USA and as a child she was occasionally abandoned and frequently physically abused. Recipes and legends offer a break from the tough subject matter (reminiscent of Educated or What My Bones Know).
- My Marriage Sabbatical by Leah Fisher [from publicist] – She Writes Press is a reliable source of women’s life writing. I’ve only just started this but will try to review it this month. Fisher, a psychotherapist, was sick of her psychiatrist husband’s workaholism and wanted to try living differently, starting with a house share.
- I’ll Come to You by Rebecca Kauffman [from publicist] – Another American linked short story collection, moving month by month through 1995 (does that count as historical fiction?!), cycling through the members of an extended family as they navigate illnesses and fraught parenting journeys. I’m getting J. Ryan Stradal vibes.
- Constructing a Witch by Helen Ivory [Edelweiss] – This feminist take on the historical persecution and stereotypes of witches is a good match for the Harkness! I just keep forgetting to open it up on my Kindle.
According to Goodreads, I’m reading 28 books at the moment, so I haven’t even covered all of them. (The rest include library books that would more honestly be classified as “set aside.”)
Whew. It somehow seems like even more when I write them all up like this…
Back to the reading!
Some 2024 Reading Superlatives
Longest book read this year: The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
Shortest books read this year: The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke – a standalone short story (unfortunately, it was kinda crap); After the Rites and Sandwiches by Kathy Pimlott – a poetry pamphlet
Authors I read the most by this year: Alice Oseman (5 rereads), Carol Shields (3 rereads); Margaret Atwood, Rachel Cusk, Pam Houston, T. Kingfisher, Sarah Manguso, Maggie O’Farrell, and Susan Allen Toth (2 each)
Publishers I read the most from: (Besides the ubiquitous Penguin Random House and its myriad imprints,) Carcanet (15), Bloomsbury & Faber (12 each), Alice James Books & Picador/Pan Macmillan (9 each)
My top author ‘discoveries’ of the year: Sherman Alexie and Bernardine Bishop
Proudest bookish achievements: Reading almost the entire Carol Shields Prize longlist; seeing The Bookshop Band on their huge Emerge, Return tour and not just getting my photo with them but having it published on both the Foreword Reviews and Shelf Awareness websites
Most pinching-myself bookish moment: Getting a chance to judge published debut novels for the McKitterick Prize
Books that made me laugh: Lots, but particularly Fortunately, the Milk… by Neil Gaiman, The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs, and You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here by Benji Waterhouse
Books that made me cry: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss
Two books that hit the laughing-and-crying-at-the-same-time sweet spot: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Best book club selections: Clear by Carys Davies, Howards End by E.M. Forster, Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
Best first lines encountered this year:
- From Cocktail by Lisa Alward: “The problem with parties, my mother says, is people don’t drink enough.”
- From A Reason to See You Again by Jami Attenberg: “Oh, the games families play with each other.”
- From The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham: “A celestial light appeared to Barrett Meeks in the sky over Central Park, four days after Barrett had been mauled, once again, by love.”
Best last lines encountered this year:
From The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley: “Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time-travel.”- From Mammoth by Eva Baltasar: “May I know to be alert when, at the stroke of midnight, life sends me its cavalry.”
- From Private Rites by Julia Armfield: “For now, they stay where they are and listen to the unwonted quiet, the hush in place of rainfall unfamiliar, the silence like a final snuffing out.”
- From Come to the Window by Howard Norman: “Wherever you sit, so sit all the insistences of fate. Still, the moment held promise of a full life.”
- From Intermezzo by Sally Rooney: “It doesn’t always work, but I do my best. See what happens. Go on in any case living.”
- From Barrowbeck by Andrew Michael Hurley: “And she thought of those Victorian paintings of deathbed scenes: the soul rising vaporously out of a spent and supine body and into a starry beam of light; all tears wiped away, all the frailty and grossness of a human life transfigured and forgiven at last.”
- From Small Rain by Garth Greenwell: “Pure life.”
Books that put a song in my head every time I picked them up: I’m the King of the Castle by Susan Hill (“Crash” by Dave Matthews Band); Y2K by Colette Shade (“All Star” by Smashmouth)
Shortest book titles encountered: Feh (Shalom Auslander) and Y2K (Colette Shade), followed by Keep (Jenny Haysom)
Best 2024 book titles: And I Will Make of You a Vowel Sound, I Can Outdance Jesus, Zombie Vomit Mad Libs, Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood, This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Best book titles from other years: Recipe for a Perfect Wife, Tripping over Clouds, Waltzing the Cat, Dressing Up for the Carnival, The Met Office Advises Caution
Favourite title and cover combo of the year: I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself by Glynnis MacNicol
Best punning title (and nominative determinism): Knead to Know: A History of Baking by Dr Neil Buttery
Biggest disappointments: The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier (I didn’t get past the first chapter because of all the info dumping from her research); The Year of the Cat by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett; milk and honey by Rupi Kaur (that … ain’t poetry); 2 from the Observer’s 10 best new novelists feature (here and here)
A couple of 2024 books that everyone was reading but I decided not to: Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner, You Are Here by David Nicholls
The worst books I read this year: Mammoth by Eva Baltasar, A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin
The downright strangest books I read this year: Zombie Vomit Mad Libs, followed by The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman. All Fours by Miranda July (I am at 44% now) is pretty weird, too.
My Best Backlist Reads of the Year
Like many bloggers and other book addicts, I’m irresistibly drawn to the new books released each year. However, I consistently find that many memorable reads were published earlier. A few of these are from 2022 or 2023 and most of the rest are post-2000; the oldest is from 1910. These 14 selections (alphabetical within genre but in no particular rank order), together with my Best of 2024 post coming up on Tuesday, make up about the top 10% of my year’s reading. Repeated themes included adolescence, parenting (especially motherhood) and trauma. The two not pictured below were read electronically.
Fiction
Fun facts:
- I read 4 of these for book club (Forster, Mandel, Munro and Obreht)
- 3 (Mandel, McEwan and Obreht) were rereads
- I read 2 as part of my Carol Shields Prize shadowing (Foote and Zhang)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie: Groundbreaking for both Indigenous literature and YA literature, this reads exactly like a horny 14-year-old boy’s diary, but “Junior” (Arnold Spirit, Jr.) is also self-deprecating and sweetly vulnerable. Poverty, alcoholism, casinos: they don’t feel like clichés of Indian reservations because Alexie writes from experience and presents them matter-of-factly. Junior moves to a white high school and soon becomes adept at code-switching (and cartooning). Heartfelt; spot on.
The Street by Bernardine Bishop: A low-key ensemble story about the residents of one London street: a couple struggling with infertility, a war veteran with dementia, and so on. Most touching is the relationship between Anne and Georgia, a lesbian snail researcher who paints Anne’s portrait; their friendship shades into quiet, middle-aged love. Beyond the secrets, threats and climactic moments is the reassuring sense that neighbours will be there for you. Bishop’s style reminds me most of Tessa Hadley’s. A great discovery.
Coleman Hill by Kim Coleman Foote: Is this family memoir? Or autofiction? Foote draws on personal stories but also invokes overarching narratives of Black migration and struggle. The result is magisterial, a debut that is like oral history and a family scrapbook rolled into one, with many strong female characters. Like a linked story collection, it pulls together 15 vignettes from 1916 to 1989 and told in different styles and voices, including AAVE. The inherited trauma is clear, yet Foote weaves in counterbalancing lightness and love.
Howards End by E.M. Forster: Rereading for book club, I was so impressed by its complexities – the illustration of class, the character interactions, the coincidences, the deliberate doublings and parallels. It covers so many issues, always without a heavy touch. So many sterling sentences: depictions of places, observations of characters, or maxims that are still true of life. Well over a century later and the picture of well-meaning wealthy intellectuals’ interference making others’ lives worse is just as cutting.
Reproduction by Louisa Hall: Procreation. Duplication. Imitation. All three connotations are appropriate for the title of an allusive novel about motherhood and doppelgangers. A pregnant writer starts composing a novel about Mary Shelley and finds the borders between fiction and (auto)biography blurring. It’s a recognisable piece of autofiction, with a sublime clarity as life is transcribed to the page exactly as it was lived. A tale of transformation – chosen or not – and peril in a country hurtling toward self-implosion. Brilliantly envisioned.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: This has persisted as a definitive imagination of post-apocalypse life. On a reread, I was captivated by the different layers of the nonlinear story, from celebrity gossip to a rare graphic novel series, and the links between characters and storylines. Mandel also seeds subtle connections to later work. Themes that struck me were the enduring power of art and the value of the hyperlocal. It seems prescient of Covid-19, but more so of climate collapse. An ideal blend of the literary and the speculative.
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan: A perfect novella. Its core is the July 1962 night when Edward and Florence attempt to consummate their marriage, but it stretches back to cover everything we need to know about them – their family dynamics, how they met, what they want from life – and forward to see their lives diverge. Is love enough? It’s a maturing of the author’s vision: tragedy is not showy and grotesque like in his early work, but quiet, hinging on the smallest action, the words not said. This absolutely flayed me emotionally on a reread.
The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro: Linked short stories about a hardscrabble upbringing in small-town Ontario and a woman’s ongoing search for love. Rose’s stepmother Flo is resentful and stingy. She feels she’s always been hard done by, and takes it out on Rose. From early on, we know Rose makes it out of West Hanratty and gets a chance at a larger life, that her childhood becomes a tale of deprivation. Each story is intense, pitiless, and practically as detailed as an entire novel. Rich in insight into characters’ psychology.
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht: Natalia, a medical worker in a war-ravaged country, learns of her grandfather’s death away from home. The only one who knew the secret of his cancer, she sneaks away from an orphanage vaccination program to reclaim his personal effects, hoping they’ll reveal something about why he went on this final trip. On this reread I was utterly entranced, especially by the sections about The Deathless Man. I had forgotten the medical element, which of course I loved. My favourite Women’s Prize winner.
Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang: On a smog-covered planet where 98% of crops have failed, scarcity reigns – but there is a world apart, a mountaintop settlement at the Italian border where money can buy anything. The 29-year-old Chinese American chef’s job is to produce lavish, evocative multi-course meals. Her relationship with her employer’s 21-year-old daughter is a passionate secret. Each sentence is honed to flawlessness, with paragraphs of fulsome descriptions of meals. A striking picture of desire at the end of the world.
Nonfiction
Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood by Lucy Jones: A potent blend of scientific research and stories from the frontline. Jones synthesizes a huge amount of information into a tight narrative structured thematically but also proceeding chronologically through her own matrescence. The hybrid nature of the book is its genius. There’s a laser focus on her physical and emotional development, but the statistical and theoretical context gives a sense of the universal. For anyone who’s ever had a mother.
Stations of the Heart: Parting with a Son by Richard Lischer: Lischer opens by looking back on the day when his 33-year-old son Adam called to tell him his melanoma was back. Tests revealed metastases everywhere, including in his brain. The next few months were a Calvary of sorts, and Lischer, an emeritus professor at Duke Divinity School, draws deliberate parallels with biblical and liturgical preparations for Good Friday. His prose is a just right match: stately, resolute and weighted with spiritual allusion, yet never morose.
A Flat Place by Noreen Masud: A travel memoir taking in flat landscapes of the British Isles. But flatness is a psychological motif as well as a topographical reality. Growing up with a violent Pakistani father and passive Scottish mother, Masud chose the “freeze” option in fight-or-flight situations. A childhood lack of safety, belonging and love left her with complex PTSD. Her portrayals of sites and journeys are engaging and her metaphors are vibrant. Geography, history and social justice are a backdrop for a stirring personal story.
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy: True to her background in acting and directing, the book is based around scenes and dialogue, and present-tense narration mimics her viewpoint starting at age six. Much imaginative work was required to make her chaotic late-1990s California household, presided over by a hoarding Mormon cancer survivor, feel real. Abuse, eating disorders, a paternity secret: The mind-blowing revelations keep coming. So much is sad. And yet it’s a very funny book in its observations and turns of phrase.
What were some of your best backlist reads this year?
Reading the Meow, Part II: Books by Bernardine Bishop and Matt Haig
This is my second contribution to the Reading the Meow challenge, hosted by Mallika of Literary Potpourri, after yesterday’s review of Sleeping with Cats by Marge Piercy. One of the below novels is obviously cat-themed; the other less so, but the cover and blurb convinced me to take a chance on a new-to-me author and I discovered a hidden gem.
The Street by Bernardine Bishop (2015)
Prices are so cheap at my local charity warehouse (3/£1 paperbacks) that I recently did something I almost never do: bought a book I’d never heard of, by an author I’d never heard of, and then (something I definitely never do!) read it almost right away instead of letting it gather dust on my shelves for years. Bishop’s biography is wild. As a new Cambridge graduate, she was the youngest witness in the Lady Chatterley trial in 1960, then published two novels in her early twenties. She married twice, had two sons and a psychotherapy career, and returned to writing fiction after 50 years – prompted by a cancer diagnosis. Unexpected Lessons in Love was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award in 2013, while this and Hidden Knowledge were both published posthumously, after Bishop’s death in 2015.
So: there is a cat on the cover and the blurb mentions it, too: “a beloved cat achieves immortality.” (I should have realized that was a euphemism, but never mind.) The novel opens with news of the death at 90 of formidable Brenda Byfleet, who’d been a Greenham Common woman and taken part in peace protests right into old age. Neighbours quickly realize someone will need to care for her cat Benn (named for Tony Benn), and the duty falls to Anne and Eric, who have also taken in their grandson while his parents are in Canada.
What follows is a low-key ensemble story that moves with ease between several key residences of Palmerston Street, London, introducing us to a couple struggling with infertility, a war veteran with dementia, an underemployed actor who rescues his wife from her boss’s unwanted attentions, and so on. Most touching is the relationship between Anne and Georgia, a lesbian snail researcher who paints Anne’s portrait. Their friendship shades into quiet, middle-aged love.
There are secrets and threats and climactic moments here, but always the reassuring sense that neighbours are a kind of second family and so someone will be there for you to rely on no matter what you face. (I can think of a certain soap opera theme that expresses a similar sentiment…) Bishop’s style reminds me most of Tessa Hadley’s. She is equally skilled at drawing children and the elderly, and clearly feels love and compassion for her flawed characters: “Everything and everyone in the street was bathed in a blessed ordinariness.”
From Brenda onward, Georgia’s rhetorical question hangs over the short novel: “What is a life?” The implied partial answer is: what is remembered by those left behind. The opening paragraph is perfect –
“Sometimes it is impossible to turn even a short London street into a village. But sometimes it can be easily done. It all depends on one or two personalities.”
… and the last page has kittens. This was altogether a lovely read. Dangit, why didn’t I also buy the other Bishop novel that was on shelf at the charity warehouse?! I’ll have to hope it’s still around the next time I go there. (Secondhand – Community Furniture Project, Newbury) 
To Be a Cat by Matt Haig (2012)
This was a reasonably cute middle-grade fantasy and careful-what-you-wish-for cautionary tale. On his twelfth birthday, Barney Willow thinks life couldn’t get worse. His parents are divorced, his dad has recently disappeared, he’s bullied by Gavin Needle, and evil head teacher Miss Whipmire seems to have a personal vendetta against him. His only friend is Rissa Fairweather, who lives on a barge. Little does he know that an idle wish to switch places with a cat he pets on the street will set a dangerous adventure in motion. Now he’s a cat and Maurice the cat has his body. Soon Barney realizes there’s a whole subset of cats who are former humans (alongside “swipers,” proper fighting street cats; and “firesides,” who prefer to stay indoors), including Miss Whipmire, who used to be a Siamese cat and has an escape plan that involves Barney. I felt the influence of Roald Dahl and Terry Pratchett, but Haig doesn’t have their writing chops. Apart from Rissa, the characterization is too clichéd. I’m sure I would have enjoyed this at age eight, though. (Little Free Library) 
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 