Short Nature Books for #NovNov by John Burnside, Jim Crumley and Aimee Nezhukumatathil
#NovNov meets #NonfictionNovember as nonfiction week of Novellas in November continues!
Tomorrow I’ll post my review of our buddy read for the week, The Story of My Life by Helen Keller (free from Project Gutenberg, here).
Today I review four nature books that celebrate marvelous but threatened creatures and ponder our place in relation to them.
Aurochs and Auks: Essays on Mortality and Extinction by John Burnside (2021)
[127 pages]
I’ve read a novel, a memoir, and several poetry collections by Burnside. He’s a multitalented author who’s written in many different genres. These four essays are rich with allusions and chewy with philosophical questions. “Aurochs” traces ancient bulls from the classical world onward and notes the impossibility of entering others’ subjectivity – true for other humans, so how much more so for extinct animals. Imagination and empathy are required. Burnside recounts an incident from when he went to visit his former partner’s family cattle farm in Gloucestershire and a poorly cow fell against his legs. Sad as he felt for her, he couldn’t help.
“Auks” tells the story of how we drove the Great Auk to extinction and likens it to whaling, two tragic cases of exploiting species for our own ends. The second and fourth essays stood out most to me. “The hint half guessed, the gift half understood” links literal species extinction with the loss of a sense of place. The notion of ‘property’ means that land becomes a space to be filled. Contrast this with places devoid of time and ownership, like Chernobyl. Although I appreciated the discussion of solastalgia and ecological grief, much of the material here felt a rehashing of my other reading, such as Footprints, Islands of Abandonment, Irreplaceable, Losing Eden and Notes from an Apocalypse. Some Covid references date this one in an unfortunate way, while the final essay, “Blossom Ruins,” has a good reason for mentioning Covid-19: Burnside was hospitalized for it in April 2020, his near-death experience a further spur to contemplate extinction and false hope.
The academic register and frequent long quotations from other thinkers may give other readers pause. Those less familiar with current environmental nonfiction will probably get more out of these essays than I did, though overall I found them worth engaging with.
With thanks to Little Toller Books for the proof copy for review.
Kingfisher and Otter by Jim Crumley (2018)
[59 pages each]
Part of Crumley’s “Encounters in the Wild” series for the publisher Saraband, these are attractive wee hardbacks with covers by Carry Akroyd. (I’ve previously reviewed his The Company of Swans.) Each is based on the Scottish nature writer’s observations and serendipitous meetings, while an afterword gives additional information on the animal and its appearances in legend and literature.
An unexpected link between these two volumes was beavers, now thriving in Scotland after a recent reintroduction. Crumley marvels that, 400 years after their kind could last have interacted with beavers, otters have quickly gotten used to sharing rivers – to him this “suggests that race memory is indestructible.” Likewise, kingfishers gravitate to where beaver dams have created fish-filled ponds.
Kingfisher was, marginally, my preferred title from the pair. It sticks close to one spot, a particular “bend in the river” where the author watches faithfully and is occasionally rewarded by the sight of one or two kingfishers. As the book opens, he sees what at first looks like a small brown bird flying straight at him, until the head-on view becomes a profile that reveals a flash of electric blue. As the Gerard Manley Hopkins line has it (borrowed for the title of Alex Preston’s book on birdwatching), kingfishers “catch fire.” Lyrical writing and self-deprecating honesty about the necessity of waiting (perhaps in the soaking rain) for moments of magic made this a lovely read. “Colour is to kingfishers what slipperiness is to eels. … Vanishing and theory-shattering are what kingfishers do best.”
In Otter, Crumley ranges a bit more widely, prioritizing outlying Scottish islands from Shetland to Skye. It’s on Mull that he has the best views, seeing four otters in one day, though “no encounter is less than unforgettable.” He watches them playing with objects and tries to talk back to them by repeating their “Haah?” sound. “Everything I gather from familiar landscapes is more precious as a beholder, as a nature writer, because my own constant presence in that landscape is also a part of the pattern, and I reclaim the ancient right of my own species to be part of nature myself.”
From time to time we see a kingfisher flying down the canal. Some of our neighbors have also seen an otter swimming across from the end of the gardens, but despite our dusk vigils we haven’t been so lucky as to see one yet. I’ve only seen a wild otter once, at Ham Wall Nature Reserve in Somerset. One day, maybe there will be one right here in my backyard. (Public library)
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (2020)
[160 pages]
Nezhukumatathil, a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Mississippi, published four poetry collections before she made a splash with this beautifully illustrated collection of brief musings on species and the self – this was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize. Some of the 28 pieces spotlight an animal simply for how head-shakingly wondrous it is, like the dancing frog or the cassowary. More often, though, a creature or plant is a figurative vehicle for uncovering an aspect of her past. An example: “A catalpa can give two brown girls in western Kansas a green umbrella from the sun. Don’t get too dark … our mother would remind us as we ambled out into the relentless midwestern light.”
The author’s Indian/Filipina family moved frequently for her mother’s medical jobs, and sometimes they were the only brown people around. Loneliness, the search for belonging and a compulsion to blend in are thus recurrent themes. As an adult, traveling for poetry residencies and sabbaticals exposes her to new species like whale sharks. Childhood trips back to India allowed her to spend time among peacocks, her favorite animal. In the American melting pot, her elementary school drawing of a peacock was considered unacceptable, but when she featured a bald eagle and flag instead she won a prize.
These pinpricks of the BIPOC experience struck me more powerfully than the actual nature writing, which can be shallow and twee. Talking to birds, praising the axolotl’s “smile,” directly addressing the reader – it’s all very nice, but somewhat uninformed; while she does admit to sadness and worry about what we are losing, her sunny outlook seemed out of touch at times. On the one hand, it’s great that she wanted to structure her fragments of memoir around amazing animals; on the other, I suspect that it cheapens a species to only consider it as a metaphor for the self (a vampire squid or potoo = her desire to camouflage herself in high school; flamingos = herself and other fragile long-legged college students; a bird of paradise = the guests dancing the Macarena at her wedding reception).
My favorite pieces were one on the corpse flower and the bookend duo on fireflies – she hits just the right note of nostalgia and warning: “I know I will search for fireflies all the rest of my days, even though they dwindle a little bit more each year. I can’t help it. They blink on and off, a lime glow to the summer night air, as if to say, I am still here, you are still here.”
With thanks to Souvenir Press for the free copy for review.
Any nature books on your reading pile?
Nonfiction Week of #NovNov: Short Memoirs by Lucille Clifton, Alice Thomas Ellis and Deborah Levy
It’s nonfiction week of Novellas in November, which for me usually means short memoirs (today) and nature books (coming up on Wednesday). However, as my list of 10 nonfiction favorites from last year indicates, there’s no shortage of subjects covered in nonfiction works of under 200 pages; whether you’re interested in bereavement, food, hospitality, illness, mountaineering, nature, politics, poverty or social justice, you’ll find something that suits. This week is a great excuse to combine challenges with Nonfiction November, too.
We hope some of you will join in with our buddy read for the week, The Story of My Life by Helen Keller (free to download here from Project Gutenberg if you don’t already have access). At a mere 85 pages, it’s a quick read. I’ve been enjoying learning about her family history and how meeting her teacher was the solution to her desperate need to communicate.
My first three short nonfiction reads of the month are all in my wheelhouse of women’s life writing, with each one taking on a slightly different fragmentary form.
Generations: A Memoir by Lucille Clifton (1976)
[87 pages]
After her father’s death, Clifton, an award-winning poet, felt compelled to delve into her African American family’s history. Echoing biblical genealogies, she recites her lineage in a rhythmic way and delivers family anecdotes that had passed into legend. First came Caroline, “Mammy Ca’line”: born in Africa in 1822 and brought to America as a child slave, she walked north from New Orleans to Virginia at age eight, became a midwife, and died free. Mammy Ca’line’s sayings lived on through Clifton’s father, her grandson: she “would tell us that we was Sayle people and we didn’t have to obey nobody. You a Sayle, she would say. You from Dahomey women.” Then came Caroline’s daughter, Lucy Sale, famously the first Black woman hanged in Virginia – for shooting her white lover. And so on until we get to Clifton herself, who grew up near Buffalo, New York and attended Howard University.
The chapter epigraphs from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” call into question how much of an individual’s identity is determined by their family circumstances. While I enjoyed the sideways look at slavery and appreciated the poetic take on oral history, I thought more detail and less repetition would have produced greater intimacy. 
Reissued by NYRB Classics tomorrow, November 9th, with a new introduction by Tracy K. Smith. My thanks to the publisher for the proof copy for review.
Home Life, Book Four by Alice Thomas Ellis (1989)
[169 pages]
For four years, Ellis wrote a weekly “Home Life” column for the Spectator. Her informal pieces remind me of Caitlin Moran’s 2000s writing for the Times – what today might form the kernel of a mums’ blog. In short, we have a harried mother of five trying to get writing done while maintaining a household – but given she has homes in London and Wales AND a housekeeper, and that her biggest problems include buying new carpet and being stuck in traffic, it’s hard to work up much sympathy. These days we’d say, Check your privilege.
The sardonic complaining rubbed me the wrong way, especially when the subject was not finding anything she wanted to read even though she’d just shipped four boxes of extraneous books off to her country house, or using noxious sprays to get rid of one harmless fly, or a buildup of rubbish bags because they’d been “tidying.” These essays feel of their time for the glib attitude and complacent consumerism. It’s rather a shame they served as my introduction to Ellis, but I think I’d still give her fiction a try. (Secondhand purchase, Barter Books) 
The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy (2018)
[187 pages]
In the space of a year, Levy separated from her husband and her mother fell ill with the cancer that would kill her. Living with her daughters in a less-than-desirable London flat, she longed for a room of her own. Her octogenarian neighbor, Celia, proffered her garden shed as a writing studio, and that plus an electric bike conferred the intellectual and physical freedom she needed to reinvent her life. That is the bare bones of this sparse volume, the middle one in an autobiographical trilogy, onto which Levy grafts the tissue of experience: conversations and memories; travels and quotations that have stuck with her.
It’s hard to convey just what makes this brilliant. The scenes are everyday – set at her apartment complex, during her teaching work or on a train; the dialogue might be overheard. Yet each moment feels perfectly chosen to reveal her self, or the emotional truth of a situation, or the latent sexism of modern life. “All writing is about looking and listening and paying attention to the world,” she writes, and it’s that quality of attention that sets this apart. I’ve had mixed success with Levy’s fiction (though I loved Hot Milk), but this was flawless from first line to last. I can only hope the rest of the memoir lives up to it. (New purchase) 
Keep in touch via Twitter (@bookishbeck / @cathy746books) and Instagram (@bookishbeck / @cathy_746books). We’ll add any of your review links in to our master posts. Feel free to use the terrific feature image Cathy made and don’t forget the hashtag #NovNov.
Any short nonfiction on your reading pile?
Open Water & Other Contemporary Novellas Read This Year (#NovNov)
Open Water is our first buddy read, for Contemporary week of Novellas in November (#NovNov). Look out for the giveaway running on Cathy’s blog today!
I read this one back in April–May and didn’t get a chance to revisit it, but I’ll chime in with my brief thoughts recorded at the time. I then take a look back at 14 other novellas I’ve read this year; many of them I originally reviewed here. I also have several more contemporary novellas on the go to round up before the end of the month.
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson (2021)
[145 pages]
I always enjoy the use of second person narration, and it works pretty well in this love story between two young Black British people in South London. The title is a metaphor for the possibilities and fear of intimacy. The protagonist, a photographer, doesn’t know what to do with his anger about how young Black men are treated. I felt Nelson was a little heavy-handed in his treatment of this theme, though I did love that the pivotal scene is set in a barbershop, a place where men reveal more of themselves than usual – I was reminded of a terrific play I saw a few years ago, Barber Shop Chronicles.
Ultimately, I wasn’t convinced that fiction was the right vehicle for this story, especially with all the references to other authors, from Hanif Abdurraqib to Zadie Smith (NW, in particular); I think a memoir with cultural criticism was what the author really intended. I’ll keep an eye out for Nelson, though – I wouldn’t be surprised if this makes it onto the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award shortlist in January. I feel like with his next book he might truly find his voice.
Readalikes:
- Assembly by Natasha Brown (also appears below)
- Poor by Caleb Femi (poetry with photographs)
- Normal People by Sally Rooney
Other reviews:
Other Contemporary Novellas Read This Year:
(Post-1980; under 200 pages)
Somebody Loves You by Mona Arshi
Assembly by Natasha Brown
Indelicacy by Amina Cain 
A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself by Peter Ho Davies
Blue Dog by Louis de Bernières 
The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans 
Anarchipelago by Jay Griffiths
Tinkers by Paul Harding
An Island by Karen Jennings
Ness by Robert Macfarlane
Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
Broke City by Wendy McGrath 
A Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid Nunez
In the Winter Dark by Tim Winton
Currently reading:
- Inside the Bone Box by Anthony Ferner
- My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
- The Cemetery in Barnes by Gabriel Josipovici
What novellas do you have underway this month? Have you read any of my selections?
Novellas in November (#NovNov) Begins! Leave Your Links Here
I always look forward to November’s reading. Since 2016 I’ve been prioritizing novellas in this month, but this is only the second year that Cathy of 746 Books and I have co-hosted Novellas in November as a proper reading challenge.
We have four weekly prompts and “buddy reads” as below. We hope you’ll join in reading one or more of these with us. The host for the week will aim to publish her review on the Thursday, but feel free to post yours at any time in the month. (A reminder that we suggest 150–200 pages as the upper limit for a novella, and post-1980 for the contemporary week.)
1–7 November: Contemporary fiction (Cathy)
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson – including a giveaway of a signed copy!
8–14 November: Short nonfiction (Rebecca)
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller (free to download here from Project Gutenberg. Note: only the first 85 pages constitute her memoir; the rest is letters and supplementary material.)
15–21 November: Literature in translation (Cathy)
Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima
22–28 November: Short classics (Rebecca)
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (free to download here from Project Gutenberg)
Leave links to any of your novellas coverage in the comments below or tag us on Twitter (@bookishbeck / @cathy746books) and/or Instagram (@bookishbeck / @cathy_746books) and we’ll add them to a master list.
Enjoy your reading!
Ongoing list of Novellas in November 2021 posts:
Five novellas: de Kat, Lynch, Mingarelli, Sjón, Terrin (reviewed by Susan at A life in books)
The Fell by Sarah Moss (reviewed by Dr Laura Tisdall)
The Disinvent Movement by Susanna Gendall (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
Four novellas with screen adaptations (a list by Diana at Ripple Effects)
Contemporary novellas from the archives (a list by Annabel at Annabookbel)
Moral Hazard by Kate Jennings (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
A Child in the Theatre by Rachel Ferguson (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
The Death of the Author by Gilbert Adair (reviewed by Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings)
Come Closer by Sara Gran (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
Five novellas: Burley, Capote, Hill, Steinbeck, Welsh (reviewed by Margaret at BooksPlease)
Often I Am Happy by Jens Christian Grøndahl (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
Vertigo by Amanda Lohrey (reviewed by Nancy Elin)
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
Open Water & Other Contemporary Novellas Read This Year
An Island by Karen Jennings (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop (reviewed by Anokatony at Tony’s Book World)
Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal (reviewed by Karen at BookerTalk)
A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler (reviewed by Imogen at Reading and Watching the World)
I’m Ready Now by Nigel Featherstone (reviewed by Nancy Elin)
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
The Lonely by Paul Gallico (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
The Love Child by Edith Olivier (reviewed by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home)
Murder Included by Joanna Cannan (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald: From Novella to Movie (reviewed by Diana at Ripple Effects)
The River by Rumer Godden (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
The Rector and The Doctor’s Family by Mrs Oliphant (reviewed by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home)
Less than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis (reviewed by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best)
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson (reviewed by Laura at Reading in Bed)
Foe by J.M. Coetzee (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
The Writer’s Cats by Muriel Barbery (reviewed by Davida at TCL Book Reviews)
Short Non-fiction from the archives (a list by Annabel at Annabookbel)
Nonfiction November: Book Pairing – Novellas and Nonfiction (a list by Cathy at 746 Books)
Casanova’s Homecoming by Arthur Schnitzler (reviewed by Marina Sofia at Finding Time to Write)
Which Way? by Theodora Benson (reviewed by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home)
Short Memoirs by Lucille Clifton, Alice Thomas Ellis and Deborah Levy
Aimez-vous Brahms? by Françoise Sagan (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
The Writer’s Cats by Muriel Barbery (reviewed by Annabel at Annabookbel)
Burning Secret by Stefan Zweig (reviewed by Chris at Calmgrove)
The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
The Birds of the Innocent Wood by Deirdre Madden (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
Baron Bagge by Alexander Lernet-Holenia (reviewed by Grant at 1streading)
The Poor Man by Stella Benson (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
Somebody Loves You by Mona Arshi (reviewed by Davida at TCL Book Reviews)
Short Nature Books by John Burnside, Jim Crumley and Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Hiroshima by John Hersey (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
Short nonfiction by Athill, Herriot and Mantel (reviewed by Margaret at BooksPlease)
The Fell by Sarah Moss (reviewed by Susan at A life in books)
The Story of Stanley Brent by Elizabeth Berridge (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
The Parakeeting of London by Nick Hunt and Tim Mitchell (reviewed by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home)
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
Taking a Look Back at Novellas Read in 2021 (a list by JDC at Gallimaufry Book Studio)
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (a review by Mairead at Swirl and Thread)
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
The Faces by Tove Ditlevsen (reviewed by Anokatony at Tony’s Book World)
Coda by Thea Astley (reviewed by Nancy Elin)
I’d Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel (reviewed by Karen at The Simply Blog)
Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
The Fell by Sarah Moss (reviewed by Clare at Years of Reading Selfishly)
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (reviewed by Susan at A life in books)
The Looking Glass by Carla Sarett (reviewed by Davida at TCL Book Reviews)
Daisy Miller by Henry James (reviewed by Diana at Thoughts on Papyrus)
Heritage by Vita Sackville-West (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
One Billion Years to the End of the World by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (reviewed by Chris at Calmgrove)
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (reviewed by Tracy at Bitter Tea and Mystery)
We Kill Stella by Marlen Haushofer and Come Closer by Sara Gran (reviewed by Marina Sofia at Finding Time to Write)
Tea and Sympathetic Magic by Tansy Rayner Roberts (reviewed by Nancy Elin)
Passing by Nella Larsen, from Novella to Screen (reviewed by Diana at Ripple Effects)
The Employees by Olga Ravn and A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers (reviewed by Annabel at Annabookbel)
Maigret in Court by Georges Simenon (reviewed by Karen at BookerTalk)
No. 91/92: A Diary of a Year on the Bus by Lauren Elkin (reviewed by Rebecca at Reading Indie)
Six Scottish Novellas: Gray, Mackay Brown, Mitchison, Muir, Owens, Smith (reviewed by Grant at 1streading)
Cain by José Saramago (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
The Pear Field by Nana Ekvtimishvili (Booktube review by Jennifer at Insert Literary Pun Here)
Tinkers by Paul Harding (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
Concrete by Thomas Bernhard (reviewed by Emma at Book Around the Corner)
Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg by Emily Rapp Black (reviewed by Imogen at Reading and Watching the World)
Utility Furniture by Jon Mills (reviewed by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home)
Symposium by Muriel Spark (reviewed by Chris at Calmgrove)
Griffith Review #66, The Light Ascending, annual Novella Project edition (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
SixforSunday: Novellas Read in 2021 before November (reviewed by Davida at TCL Book Reviews)
The Silent Traveller in Oxford by Chiang Yee (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
The Spoke by Friedrich Glauser (reviewed by Marina Sofia at Finding Time to Write)
Dinner by César Aira (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
The Scrolls from the Dead Sea by Edmund Wilson (reviewed by Reese at Typings)
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller (reviewed by Laura at Reading in Bed)
The White Riband by F. Tennyson Jesse (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
Translated fiction novellas from the archives, including Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima (reviewed by Annabel at Annabookbel)
I Don’t Want to Go to the Taj Mahal by Charlie Hill (reviewed by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home)
Miss Peabody’s Inheritance by Elizabeth Jolley (reviewed by Karen at BookerTalk)
Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
Crusade by Amos Oz (reviewed by Nancy Elin)
Barbarian Spring by Jonas Lüscher (reviewed by Marina Sofia at Finding Time to Write)
My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson (reviewed by Susan at A life in books)
The Fell by Sarah Moss (reviewed by Eric at Lonesome Reader)
Winter Flowers by Angélique Villeneuve (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
Particularly Cats by Doris Lessing (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima
Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
The Murder Farm by Andrea Maria Schenkel and The Peacock by Isabel Bogdan (reviewed by Annabel at Annabookbel)
Assembly by Natasha Brown (reviewed at Radhika’s Reading Retreat)
Ludmilla by Paul Gallico (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
The Woman from Uruguay by Pedro Mairal (reviewed by Susan at A life in books)
An interview with Stella Sabin of Peirene Press (by Cathy at 746 Books)
Behind the Mask by Kate Walter
The Pigeon and The Appointment
In the Company of Men and Winter Flowers
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
The Deal of a Lifetime by Fredrik Backman (reviewed by Karen at The Simply Blog)
Carte Blanche by Carlo Lucarelli (reviewed by Tracy at Bitter Tea and Mystery)
Inspector Chopra & the Million Dollar Motor Car by Vaseem Khan (reviewed by Chris at Calmgrove)
Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton (reviewed by Diana at Ripple Effects)
Father Malachy’s Miracle by Bruce Marshall (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
Ignorance by Milan Kundera (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
Rider on the Rain by Sébastien Japrisot and The Saint-Fiacre Affair by Georges Simenon (reviewed by Annabel at Annabookbel)
Hotel Splendid by Marie Redonnet and Fear by Stefan Zweig (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
Some classics from my archives (reviewed by Annabel at Annabookbel)
The Cardinals by Bessie Head (reviewed by Marina Sofia at Finding Time to Write)
These Lifeless Things by Premee Mohamed, A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, The Deep by Rivers Solomon (reviewed by Dr Laura Tisdall)
Four novellas, four countries, four decades (reviewed by Emma at Book Around the Corner)
Daphnis and Chloe by Longus (reviewed by Reese at Typings)
The Invisible Host by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
In Youth Is Pleasure by Denton Welch (reviewed by Imogen at Reading and Watching the World)
The Newspaper of Claremont Street by Elizabeth Jolley (reviewed by Nancy Elin)
Six Short Cat Books: Muriel Barbery, Garfield and More
Catholics by Brian Moore (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
I’d Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa (reviewed by Karen at BookerTalk)
The Witch of Clatteringshaws by Joan Aiken (reviewed by Chris at Calmgrove)
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (reviewed by Margaret at BooksPlease)
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
Three to See the King by Magnus Mills (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
Touring the Land of the Dead by Maki Kashimada and Stranger Faces by Namwali Serpell (reviewed by Dr Laura Tisdall)
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (reviewed by Davida at TCL Book Reviews)
Love by Angela Carter (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay (reviewed by Margaret at BooksPlease)
Novellas in November 2021 Wrap Up (by Carol at Reading Ladies)
A Guide to Modernism in Metroland by Joshua Abbott and Black London by Avril Nanton and Jody Burton (reviewed by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home)
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (reviewed by Karen at The Simply Blog)
Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera (reviewed by Karen at BookerTalk)
Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali (reviewed by Imogen at Reading and Watching the World)
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (reviewed by Davida at TCL Book Reviews)
Clara’s Daughter by Meike Ziervogel (reviewed by Chris at Calmgrove)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s: from Novella to Screen (reviewed by Diana at Ripple Effects)
Child of All Nations by Irmgard Keun (reviewed by Marina Sofia at Finding Time to Write)
Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima (reviewed by Laura at Reading in Bed)
Three Contemporary Novellas: Moss, Brown and Gaitskill (reviewed by Cathy at 746 Books)
Seven Final Novellas: Crumley, Morris, Rapp Black; Hunter, Johnson, Josipovici, Otsuka
In Pious Memory by Margery Sharp (reviewed by HeavenAli)
Murder in the Dark by Margaret Atwood, The Story of Stanley Brent by Elizabeth Berridge, Under the Tripoli Sky by Kamal Ben Hameda (reviewed by HeavenAli)
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (reviewed by She Reads Novels)
Caravan Story by Wayne Macauley (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
I Am God, a Novel by Giacomo Sartori (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo (reviewed by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home)
The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay (reviewed by Erdeaka at The Bookly Purple)
Second-Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta (reviewed by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home)
The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares (reviewed by Emma at Words and Peace)
The Fell by Sarah Moss (reviewed by Callum McLaughlin)
Women & Power by Mary Beard and Come Closer by Sara Gran (reviewed by Callum McLaughlin)
The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler and I Was Jack Mortimer by Alexander Lernet-Holenia (reviewed by Madame Bibi Lophile)
Things I Don’t Want to Know and The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy (reviewed by Madame Bibi Lophile)
Touch the Water, Touch the Wind by Amos Oz (reviewed by Kim at Reading Matters)
The Woman in the Blue Cloak by Deon Meyer (reviewed by Kim at Reading Matters)
The White Woman by Liam Davison (reviewed by Kim at Reading Matters)
Boys Don’t Cry by Fiona Scarlett (reviewed by Kim at Reading Matters)
Fludd by Hilary Mantel (reviewed by Margaret at BooksPlease)
Pietr the Latvian by Georges Simenon (reviewed by Margaret at BooksPlease)
In Translation by Annamarie Jagose (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
The Red Chesterfield by Wayne Arthurson, The Book of Eve by Constance Beresford-Howe, Tower by Frances Boyle, Winter Wren by Theresa Kishkan, and The Santa Rosa Trilogy by Wendy McGrath (reviewed by Naomi at Consumed by Ink)
An essay on Kate Jennings’ Snake (reviewed by Whispering Gums)
Life in Translation by Anthony Ferner and Friend Indeed by Katharine d’Souza (reviewed by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home)
Every Day Is Gertie Day by Helen Meany (reviewed by Whispering Gums)
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au (reviewed by Brona’s Books at This Reading Life)
A Dream Life by Claire Messud (reviewed by Brona’s Books at This Reading Life)
Why Do I Like Novellas? Barnes, Brown, Jones, Ravn (reviewed by Stargazer)
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (reviewed by Callum McLaughlin)
Foster by Claire Keegan (reviewed by Smithereens)
The Light in the Piazza by Elizabeth Spencer (reviewed by Anokatony at Tony’s Book World)
King City by Stephen Pennell (reviewed by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home)
Missus by Ruth Park (reviewed by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers)
Inseparable by Simone de Beauvoir (reviewed by Anokatony at Tony’s Book World)
I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven (reviewed by Robin at A Fondness for Reading)
Maigret Defends Himself by Georges Simenon (reviewed by Chris at Calmgrove)
My Week with Marilyn by Colin Clark (reviewed by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best)
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (reviewed by Margaret at BooksPlease)
Miguel Street by V.S. Naipaul (reviewed by Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home)
The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey, Naturally Supernatural by Wendy Mann, The Hothouse by the East River by Muriel Spark, Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham (reviewed by Simon at Stuck in a Book)
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (reviewed by Laura at Reading in Bed)
Assembly by Natasha Brown, Treacle Walker by Alan Garner, All the Devils Are Here by David Seabrook, Space Exploration by Dhara Patel (reviewed by Annabel at Annabookbel)
Bellow, Powell, Wolkers, Bomans, al-Saadawi, de Jong, Buck, Simenon, Boschwitz (reviewed by Sarah at Market Garden Reader)
More Ideas of Novellas to Read for #NovNov
Still in need of ideas for what to read in November? Here are our novella-friendly lists of authors and publishers that fit the bill!
Authors who tend(ed) to write short books:
- James Baldwin
- J.L. Carr
- Barbara Comyns
- Alice Thomas Ellis
- Penelope Fitzgerald
- Paul Gallico
- Kaye Gibbons
- Susan Hill
- Denis Johnson – Train Dreams was one of our most-reviewed books last year
- Gabriel Josipovici
- Claire Keegan
- Shena Mackay
- Ian McEwan
- Sarah Moss’s three latest
- Jean Rhys
- Georges Simenon
- Muriel Spark
- John Steinbeck
- Nathanael West
- Jacqueline Woodson
In nonfiction – nature books:
- Jim Crumley
- John Lewis-Stempel
In nonfiction – animal/pet books:
- Derek Tangye
- Doreen Tovey
UK publishers that specialize in novellas:
Fitzcarraldo Editions (especially their early releases)
Penguin’s Little Black Classics series
Worldwide publishers that specialize in novellas:
Fish Gotta Swim Editions (Canada)
Melville House – “The Art of the Novella” series (USA)
Nouvella (USA) – Take a look at the last couple of rows on their merchandise page!
Quattro Books (Canada)
UK publishers that specialize in novellas in translation:
Charco Press – contemporary Latin American literature
Fitzcarraldo Editions
Holland Park Press
Les Fugitives – translations from the French
Lolli Editions (thanks to Annabel for this one)
Peirene Press – Cathy will be hosting an interview with them during translation week!
Pushkin Press
UK sources of short nonfiction:
Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series
Fitzcarraldo Editions – some of their longform essays are under 200 pages
Penguin’s Great Ideas series
Little Toller Books – mostly nature and travel monographs
The School of Life – most of the ones in this particular series are under 200 pages
Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introductions series
Wellcome Collection Books – a number of their recent releases are under 200 pages
You could also check out some of last year’s Novellas in November content: 89 posts from 30 bloggers, including single reviews, multi-reviews and favourites lists.
Still stumped? Try these articles:
(Note: not all of the suggestions stick to our definition of a novella.)
- Brona’s list of Australian novellas
- “20 of the Best Short Classic Books” (Book Riot)
- Novellas: A Life List (Fish Gotta Swim)
- “10 Best Books Shorter than 150 Pages” (Publishers Weekly)
- “50 Must-Read Short Books in Translation” (Book Riot)
- “50 Must-Read Short Books under 250 Pages” (Book Riot)
- “50 Short Nonfiction Books You Can Read in a Day (or Two)” (Book Riot)
And, if you’re looking for a bit of context, the other year Laura F. put together a history of the Novellas in November challenge.
Planning My Reading Stacks for Novellas in November 2021
Not much more than a week until Novellas in November (#NovNov) begins! I gathered up all of my potential reads for a photo shoot. Review copies are stood upright and library loans are toggled in a separate pile on top; all the rest are from my shelves.
Week One: Contemporary Fiction
Week Two: Short Nonfiction
Week Three: Novellas in Translation
A rather pathetic little pile there, but I also have a copy of that week’s buddy read, Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima, on the way. (The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind would be my token contribution to German Literature Month.)
Week Four: Short Classics
Last but not least, some comics collections that don’t seem to fit in one of the other categories. Of course, some books fit into two or more categories, and contemporary vs. classic feels like a fluid division – I haven’t checked rigorously for our suggested 1980 cut-off date, so some older stuff might have made it into different piles.
Also available on my Kindle: The Therapist by Nial Giacomelli, Record of a Night too Brief by Hiromi Kawakami, Childhood: Two Novellas by Gerard Reve, and Milton in Purgatory by Edward Vass. As an additional review copy on my Nook, I have Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg by Emily Rapp Black, which is 140-some pages.
Plus … I recently placed an order for some new and secondhand books with my birthday money (and then some), and it should arrive before the end of the month. On the way and of novella length are Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns, Bear by Marian Engel, The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy, and In the Company of Men by Véronique Tadjo.
I also recently requested review copies of Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (128 pages; coming out from Faber today) and The Fell by Sarah Moss (160 pages; coming out from Picador on November 11th), so hope to have those in hand soon.
Remember that this year we have chosen a buddy read for each week. I’m again looking after short nonfiction in the second week of the month and short classics in the final week. We plan to post our reviews on the Thursday or Friday of the week in question. Feel free to publish yours at any time in the month and we’ll round up the links on our review posts.
Superman Simon is thinking of reading a novella a day in November! Taken together, I’d have enough novellas here for TWO per day. But my record thus far (in 2018) is 26; since then, I’ve managed 16 per year.
I have no specific number in mind this time. Considering I also plan to read one or two books for Margaret Atwood Reading Month (and perhaps one for AusReading Month) and have a blog tour date, as well as other review books to catch up on and in-demand library books to keep on top of, I can’t devote my full attention to novellas.
If I can read all the review copies, mop up the 4–5 set-aside titles on the pile (the ones with bookmarks in), maybe manage two rereads (the Wharton plus Conundrum), make a dent in my owned copies, and get to one or more from the library, I’ll be happy.
Karen, Kate and Margaret have already come up with their lists of possible titles. Cathy’s has gone up today, too.
Do you have any novellas in mind to read next month?
Get Ready for Novellas in November!
Novellas: “all killer, no filler”
~Joe Hill
For the second year in a row, Cathy of 746 Books and I are co-hosting Novellas in November as a month-long challenge with four weekly prompts.
New this year: each week we will take it in turns to host a “buddy read” of a featured book we hope you will join in reading. We’re announcing the challenge early to give you plenty of time to get your stack ready.
(We suggest 150–200 pages as the upper limit for a novella, and post-1980 as a definition of “contemporary.”)
1–7 November: Contemporary fiction (Cathy)
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson – including a giveaway of a signed copy!
8–14 November: Short nonfiction (Rebecca)
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller (free to download here from Project Gutenberg. Note: only the first 85 pages constitute her memoir; the rest is letters and supplementary material.)
15–21 November: Literature in translation (Cathy)
Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima
22–28 November: Short classics (Rebecca)
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (free to download here from Project Gutenberg)
We’re looking forward to having you join us! Keep in touch via Twitter (@bookishbeck / @cathy746books) and Instagram (@bookishbeck / @cathy_746books) and feel free to use the terrific feature images Cathy has made and the hashtag #NovNov.
A Look Back at 2020’s Reading Projects, Including Rereads
Major bookish initiatives:
- Coordinated a Not the Wellcome Prize blog tour to celebrate 2019’s health-themed books – in case you missed it, the winner was Sinéad Gleeson for Constellations.
- Co-hosted Novellas in November with Cathy (746 Books).
- Hosted Library Checkout each month.
Reading challenges joined:
- 12 blog tours
- Six Degrees of Separation: I started participating in February and did nine posts this year
- Paul Auster Reading Week
- Reading Ireland month
- Japanese Literature Challenge
- 1920 Club
- 20 Books of Summer
- Women in Translation Month
- Robertson Davies Weekend
- Women’s Prize winners (#ReadingWomen)
- 1956 Club
- R.I.P.
- Nonfiction November
- Margaret Atwood Reading Month
This works out to one blog tour, one reading project, and one regular meme per month – manageable. I’ll probably cut back on blog tours next year, though; unless for a new release I’m really very excited about, they’re often not worth it.
Buddy reads:
Crossing to Safety with Laila (Big Reading Life)- 6 Carol Shields novels plus The Trick Is to Keep Breathing, Deerbrook, and How to Be Both with Marcie (Buried in Print)
- A Visit from the Goon Squad and The Idea of Perfection with Laura T.
- Mother’s Milk with Annabel
- 666 Charing Cross Road with Liz
Self-set reading challenges:
- Seasonal reading
- Classic of the Month (14 in total; it’s only thanks to Novellas in November that I averaged more than one a month)
- Doorstopper of the Month (just 3; I’d like to try to get closer to monthly in 2021)
- Wainwright Prize longlist reading
- Bellwether Prize winners (read 2, DNFed 1)
- Short stories in September (8 collections)
- Young Writer of the Year Award shortlist reading
- Thematic roundups – I’m now calling these “Three on a Theme” and have done 2 so far
- Journey through the Day with Books (3 new reviews this year):
- Zennor in Darkness by Helen Dunmore
Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen- [Up with the Larks by Tessa Hainsworth – DNF]
- [Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer – DNF]
- Three-Martini Lunch by Suzanne Rindell – existing review
- The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński – read part of
- Eventide by Kent Haruf
- Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler – existing review
- Talk before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg – existing review
- When the Lights Go Out by Carys Bray
- Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb
- Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys
- Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay – existing review
- Sleeping Arrangements by Laura Shaine Cunningham
- The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe
- Bodies in Motion and at Rest by Thomas Lynch – read but not reviewed
- Silence by Shūsaku Endō
- Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez – read part of
- The Four in a Row Challenge – I failed miserably with this one. I started an M set but got bogged down in Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin (also a bibliotherapy self-prescription for Loneliness from The Novel Cure), which I had as a bedside book for much of the year, so only managed 1.5 out of 4; I also started an H quartet but set both Tinkers and Plainsong aside. Meanwhile, Debbie joined in and completed her own 4 in a Row. Well done! I like how simple this challenge is, so I’m going to use it next year as an excuse to read more from my shelves – but I’ll be more flexible and allow lots of substitutions in case I stall with one of the four books.
Rereading
At the end of 2019, I picked out a whole shelf’s worth of books I’d been meaning to reread. I kept adding options over the year, so although I managed a respectable 16 rereads in 2020, the shelf is still overflowing!
Many of my rereads have featured on the blog over the year, but here are two more I didn’t review at the time. Both were book club selections inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. (We held a rally and silent protest in a park in the town centre in June.)
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama: Remember when there was a U.S. president who thought deeply, searched his soul, and wrote eloquently? I first read this memoir in 2006, when Obama was an up-and-coming Democratic politician who’d given a rousing convention speech. I remembered no details, just the general sweep of Hawaii to Chicago to Kenya. On this reread I engaged most with the first third, in which he remembers a childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, gives pen portraits of his white mother and absentee Kenyan father, and works out what it means to be black and Christian in America. By age 12, he’d stopped advertising his mother’s race, not wanting to ingratiate himself with white people. By contrast, “To be black was to be the beneficiary of a great inheritance, a special destiny, glorious burdens that only we were strong enough to bear.” The long middle section on community organizing in Chicago nearly did me in; I had to skim past it to get to his trip to Kenya to meet his paternal relatives – “Africa had become an idea more than an actual place, a new promised land”. 
now
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot: This Wellcome Book Prize winner about the use of a poor African-American woman’s cells in medical research was one of the first books to turn me onto health-themed reads. I devoured it in a few days in 2010. Once again, I was impressed at the balance between popular science and social history. Skloot conveys the basics of cell biology in a way accessible to laypeople, and uses recreated scenes and dialogue very effectively. I had forgotten the sobering details of the Lacks family experience, including incest, abuse, and STDs. Henrietta had a rural Virginia upbringing and had a child by her first cousin at age 14. At 31 she would be dead of cervical cancer, but the tissue taken from her at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins hospital became an immortal cell line. HeLa is still commonly used in medical experimentation. Consent was a major talking point at our book club Zoom meeting. Cells, once outside a body, cannot be owned, but it looks like exploitation that Henrietta’s descendants are so limited by their race and poverty. I had forgotten how Skloot’s relationship and travels with Henrietta’s unstable daughter, Deborah, takes over the book (as in the film). While I felt a little uncomfortable with how various family members are portrayed as unhinged, I still thought this was a great read. then / now
I had some surprising rereading DNFs. These were once favorites of mine, but for some reason I wasn’t able to recapture the magic: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, and On Beauty by Zadie Smith. I attempted a second read of John Fowles’s postmodern Victorian pastiche, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, on a mini-break in Lyme Regis, happily reading the first third on location, but I couldn’t make myself finish once we were back home. And A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan was very disappointing a second time; it hasn’t aged well. Lastly, I’ve been stalled in Watership Down for a long time, but do intend to finish my reread.
In general, voice- and style-heavy fiction did not work so well for me on rereading. Autobiographical essays by Anne Lamott and Abigail Thomas worked best, but I also succeeded at rereading some straightforward novels and short stories. Next year, I’d like to aim for a similar number of rereads, with a mixture of memoirs and fiction, including at least one novel by David Lodge. I’d also be interested in rereading earlier books by Ned Beauman and Curtis Sittenfeld if I can find them cheap secondhand.
What reading projects did you participate in this year?
Done much rereading lately?
Novellas in November Wrap-Up
This is the first year that Novellas in November ran as an official blogger challenge. Cathy and I have been bowled over by the level of response: as of the time of this writing, 30 bloggers have taken part, publishing a total of 89 posts. (I’ve collected all the links on this master post.) Thank you all for being so engaged and helping to spread the love of short books!
We’re already thinking about how to adapt things for next year if we host #NovNov again.
A few specific books were reviewed more than once: The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey, The Spare Room by Helen Garner, and Train Dreams by Denis Johnson.
Three different novellas by Georges Simenon featured, and two by Hubert Mingarelli.
Other novellas discussed more than once were Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan, and Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton.
Aside from the above, here are other frequently mentioned authors who tend(ed) to write short books perfect for Novellas in November: James Baldwin, J.L. Carr, Penelope Fitzgerald, Jean Rhys, Muriel Spark, John Steinbeck, Nathanael West, and Jacqueline Woodson.
Along with Charco Press and Peirene Press, two more UK publishers whose books lend themselves to this challenge are And Other Stories and Fairlight Books. (If you have more ideas of authors and publishers, let me know and I’ll update these sections.)
And here’s my statistics for 2020:
Total number of novellas read this month: 16 (the same as 2019; vs. 26 in 2018)
Favorites: Dear Ijeawele by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (nonfiction); La Symphonie Pastorale by André Gide & Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan (in translation); The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris
What’s the best novella you read this month?
Miscellaneous Novellas: Murdoch, Read & Spark; Comics; Art Books
Novellas in November will be coming to a close on Monday and has been a great success in terms of blogger engagement. I’ve been adding review links to the master post nearly every day of the month, and I’m sure there are some I have missed. Although I still have a couple of novellas on the go, I don’t see myself finishing them this month, so I’m going to end with this set: three short classics to continue the week’s theme, two graphic novels, and a pair of nature/art/music/poetry books.
Classics:
Something Special by Iris Murdoch (1957)
[51 pages]
A Murdoch rarity, this appeared in a 1950s anthology and in an English-language textbook in Japan, but was not otherwise published in the author’s lifetime. I think it’s her only short story. I’m counting it as a novella because it was published as a stand-alone volume by Vintage Classics in 2000. Twenty-four-year-old Yvonne Geary doesn’t know precisely what she wants from life, but hopes there might be more for her than a conventional marriage to Sam, her beau. “Can’t I live my life as I please since it’s the only thing I have?” she asks her hen-pecking mother. “I can’t see him as something special and I won’t marry him if I can’t.” Maybe she’ll escape to England. But for now she’s off for a night on the town in Dublin with Sam, going from a rowdy pub to the quiet of a locked-up park. Sam may be dull, but he seems sensitive, solicitous and well-meaning. Yvonne’s feelings for him flip-flop over the course of the evening. I’ve noticed before that Murdoch is a bit funny about Jewishness, but this is still a brisk, bittersweet story in the direct lineage of Sally Rooney’s Normal People. (With striking black-and-white woodcut-style illustrations by Michael McCurdy.)
The Fairacre Festival by ‘Miss Read’ (1968)
[80 pages]
I’m not sure why I’d never tried anything by ‘Miss Read’ (the pseudonym of Dora Jessie Saint, a teacher turned author who was based not far from me in Berkshire) until now. She wrote two series of quaint novels set in the fictional villages of Fairacre and Thrush Green; this is #7 in the Fairacre series. Miss Read, her narrator, is a schoolteacher who records her wry observations of all the local happenings. After an autumn storm damages the church roof, the parishioners are dismayed to learn the renovations could cost £2000. No amount of jumble sales, concerts and tea dances will raise that much. So they set their sights higher, to an Edinburgh-style festival with a light show and an appearance from a famous opera singer. But it’s not going to be smooth sailing now, is it? This was cozy, quaint fun, and if I wished it had been a full-length book, that means I’ll just have to begin at the beginning with 1955’s Village School.
The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark (1970)
[107 pages]
Lise has her “glad rags” on – bright new clothes in clashing patterns that strangers can’t help commenting on. The 34-year-old single woman has worked in an accounting office for the last 16 years and is now off to the South (Italy?) for a long-awaited vacation. This will be no blissful holiday, though. Just 11 pages in, we get our first hint that things are going to go wrong, and in the opening line of Chapter 3 Spark gives the game away. Clearly, her intention is to subordinate what happens to why it happens, so the foreshadowing of the early chapters is twisted to ironic effect later on. Lise is an unappealing character, haughty and deceitful, and the strangers she meets on the flight and at the hotel, including a man obsessed with the macrobiotic diet, are little better. I felt I didn’t have enough time to change my mind about Lise before we’re asked to have pity. Of course, this is meant to be a black comedy, but it was a little abrasive for my taste. This was my third and probably last from Spark, as I haven’t particularly enjoyed any of her work; I do love this pithy description of The Ballad of Peckham Rye, though: “An entertaining tale of satanism in South London.”
Graphic Novels:
Why Don’t You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It? A Mother’s Suggestions by Patricia Marx, illus. Roz Chast (2019)
[81 pages]
I loved Chast’s graphic memoir Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant? and figured this would have the same witty approach to an elderly parent’s decline. Apart from a brief introduction to her mother (from Philadelphia, outspoken, worked as a guidance counselor and for her husband’s office supplies company), there is hardly any text; the rest is just illustrated one-liners, sayings her mother had or opinions she espoused. Many of these have to do with fashion no-nos, dinner party etiquette, grammar pedantry, avoiding the outdoors and exercise, and childrearing. “My mother never hesitates to say what other mothers would not even think to think. She calls it constructive criticism.” She reminds me of Bess Kalb’s grandmother in Nobody Will Tell You This but Me, an overall much funnier and more complete picture of an entertaining figure.
The Exciting World of Churchgoing by Dave Walker (2010)
[90 pages]
A third set of Church Times comics, not as memorable as the original Dave Walker Guide to the Church. Once again, Walker pokes fun at bureaucracy, silly traditions, closed-mindedness, and the oddities of church buildings and parishioners’ habits. You really need to be familiar with the UK churchgoing scene, and specifically with Anglican churches, to get much out of the cartoons. I loved “According to legend, there is a lady who changes the teatowels in the church kitchen from time to time” and the “Infestations” spread that starts with bats and wasps and moves on to Charismatics. Most striking are two pages on church proceedings during swine flu – what was meant to be a joke doesn’t seem so funny now that it literally describes in-person services during COVID-19: “Shaking hands during the peace should be replaced by a friendly wave,” “Administration of anti-bacterial gel should take place,” etc.
Art Books:
The Lost Words: A Spell Book by Robert Macfarlane, illus. Jackie Morris (2017)
[112 pages]
Macfarlane’s work has been hit or miss for me and I was suspicious of this project in general, thinking it would be twee or juvenile, but the beauty of the artwork and playful energy of the poems won me over. It’s common knowledge that this book arose as a response to news that many words to do with nature had been removed from the latest version of a junior dictionary published in the UK, to be replaced by technology vocabulary. Macfarlane spotlights these omitted words through acrostic poems alive with alliteration (“Fern’s first form is furled, / Each frond fast as a fiddle-head”), wordplay and internal rhymes. He peppers in questions, both rhetorical and literal-minded, and exclamations. Conker, Dandelion, Lark and Otter are highlights. Morris’s wildlife paintings are superb, with a Giotto-like gilt portrait facing each poem and two-page in situ tableaux in between.
The Lost Words Spell Songs (2019)
[112 pages]
I followed up immediately with this companion book to the 14-track album a group of eight folk musicians made in response to The Lost Words. We were already fans of Kris Drever (mostly via Lau), Karine Polwart and Beth Porter (via the Bookshop Band), and became familiar with a few more of the artists (Kerry Andrew, Julie Fowlis and Rachel Newton) earlier this year through the online Folk on Foot festivals. This volume includes six additional poems, four of which directly inspired songs on the album, plus brief bios and words on the project from each artist (each portrayed by Morris as a relevant bird, with the musician serving as the “spirit human” for the bird) the complete lyrics with notes from whoever took the lead on a particular song, and short essays by Macfarlane, Morris (also an interview) and Polwart.
It was interesting to compare the different approaches to the project: five songs directly set Macfarlane’s poetry to music, two of them primarily in spoken word form; five are based on Macfarlane “extras,” like the new spells and the “charm against harm” he wrote during anti-tree felling campaigns like the one in Sheffield; a few are essentially pop songs based around major lines from Dandelion, Goldfinch and Lark (these plus “Selkie-Boy,” based on Grey Seal, ended up being my favorites); one is a traditional song from Seckou Keita’s native Senegal that also incorporates the bilingual Fowlis’s Gaelic to mourn the words that are lost with the past; and one is a final blessing song that weaves in bits from multiple spells. The artists all bring their individual styles, but the collaborations are strong, too.
Are you squeezing in any more novellas this month?
Do you like the sound of any of the ones I’ve read?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
