R.I.P. Reads, Part I: Apostolides, Dahl, Harkness, Kingfisher & Kohda
Ghosts, witches, vampires, creepy underground things: It can only be Readers Imbibing Peril time of year! Here’s my first five reviews.
The Homecoming by Zoë Apostolides (2025)
This debut novel dropped through my door as a total surprise: not only was it unsolicited, but I’d not heard about it. In this modern take on the traditional haunted house story, Ellen is a ghostwriter sent from London to Elver House, Northumberland, to work on the memoirs of its octogenarian owner, Catherine Carey. Ellen will stay in the remote manor house for a week and record 20 hours of audio interviews – enough to flesh out an autobiography. Miss Carey isn’t a forthcoming subject, but Ellen manages to learn that her father drowned in the nearby brook and that all Miss Carey did afterwards was meant to please her grieving mother and the strictures of the time. But as strange happenings in the house interfere with her task, Ellen begins to doubt she’ll come away with usable material. I was reminded of The Woman in Black, The Thirteenth Tale, and especially Wakenhyrst what with the local eel legends. The subplot about Ellen drifting apart from her best friend, a new mother, felt unnecessary, though I suppose was intended to bolster the main theme of women’s roles. There’s a twist that more seasoned readers of Gothic fiction and ghost stories might see coming. While I found this very readable and perfectly capably written, I didn’t get a sense of where the author hopes to fit in the literary market; she’s previously published a true crime narrative. Full disclosure: I once collaborated with Zoë on a Stylist assignment. 
With thanks to Salt Publishing for the proof copy for review.
The Witches by Roald Dahl (1983)
I’m sure I read all of Dahl’s major works when I was a child, though I had no specific memory of this one. After his parents’ death in a car accident, a boy lives in his family home in England with his Norwegian grandmother. She tells him stories from Norway and schools him in how to recognize and avoid witches. They wear wigs and special shoes to hide their baldness and square feet, and with their wide nostrils they sniff out children to turn them into hated creatures like slugs. When Grandmamma falls ill with pneumonia, she and the boy travel to a Bournemouth hotel for her recovery only to stumble upon a convention of witches under the guise of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The Grand High Witch (Anjelica Huston, if you know the movie) has a new concoction that will transform children into mice at enough of a delay to occur the following morning at school. It’s up to the boy and his grandmother to save the day. I really enjoyed this caper, which I interpreted as being – like Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book – about imagination and making the most of one’s time with grandparents. But in the back of my mind was Jen Campbell’s objection to the stereotypical equating of disfigurement with villainy. The Grand High Witch also speaks with a heavy German accent. It would be understandable to dismiss this as dated and clichéd, but I still found it worthwhile. It also fit into my project to read books from my birth year. (Free from a neighbour) 
The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness (2024)
Somehow I’ve read this entire series even though none of the subsequent books lived up to A Discovery of Witches. What I loved about that first novel was how the author drew on her knowledge of the history of science to create a believable backdrop for a story of witches, vampires and other supernatural beings that took place largely in Oxford and its medieval libraries. Each sequel has elaborated further adventures for Diana Bishop, a witch; her vampire husband, Matthew de Clermont; and their family members and other hangers-on. Their twins, especially Becca, have inherited some of Diana’s power. I read the first half of this last year and finally skimmed to the end last week, so I haven’t retained much. Diana is summoned to the ancestral seat of the Bishops in Massachusetts and finds herself part of a community of gossipy, catty witches. (Dahl was right, they’re everywhere!) She has some fun, folksy interactions but things soon get more serious as she girds herself for a showdown with the darker implications of her gift. Overall, this didn’t add much to the ongoing narrative and the love scenes veered too close to romantasy for my liking. (Public library)
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher [Ursula Vernon] (2025)
The third in the “Sworn Soldier” series, after What Moves the Dead and What Feasts at Night. Alex Easton is a witty, gender-nonconforming narrator, which is why I persist with these novellas even though I’m underwhelmed by the plots. Denton, the American doctor friend from the first book, begs Easton to come to West Virginia: his cousin Oscar has gone missing in a mine after sending a series of alarming letters about a red light he saw in the depths. Easton and their right-hand man, Angus, soon encounter claustrophobia-inducing cave systems, various kinds of bad air and siphonophore-like marine creatures that can assemble to imitate other beings. (Why aren’t these on the cover, huh?!) In other intriguing matters, Denton seems to have something going on with his friend John Ingold, an Indigenous scientist. Though, as Easton frequently reminds themself, that’s none of our business. There are some great set-pieces and funny, if anachronistic, asides (on learning how to flick a lighter just right: “I used to practice it for hours as a teenager, in hopes of impressing girls. Look, girls were more easily impressed in those days. Shut up.”) But my feeling with all three books is that they’re over before they’ve barely begun, and they never deliver the expected horror. Smart-ass, queer fantasy/horror: these will be some people’s perfect books, just not mine. If you’re intrigued, do at least try the first one, which riffs on Poe. (Read via Edelweiss) 
Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda (2022)
A very different sort of vampire novel. Twenty-three-year-old Lydia is half Japanese and half Malaysian; half human and half vampire. She’s trying to follow in her late father’s footsteps as an artist through an internship at a Battersea gallery, which comes with studio space where she’ll sleep to save money. But she can only drink blood like her mother, who turned her when she was a baby. Mostly she subsists on pig blood – which she can order dried if she can’t buy it fresh from a butcher – though, in one disturbing sequence, she brings home a duck carcass. When she falls for Ben, one of her studio-mates, she imagines what it would be like to be fully human: to make art together, to explore Asian cuisine, to bond over losing their mothers (his is dying of cancer; hers is in a care home with violence-tinged dementia). But Ben is already seeing someone, the internship is predictably dull, and a first attempt at consuming regular food goes badly wrong. There are a lot of promising threads in this debut. It’s fascinating how Lydia can intuit a creature’s whole life story by drinking their blood. She becomes obsessed with the Baba Yaga folk tale (and also mentions Malay vampire legends) and there’s a neat little bit of #MeToo revenge. But overall, it’s half-baked. Really, it’s just a disaster-woman book in disguise. The way Lydia’s identity determines her attitudes towards food and sex feels like a symbol of body dysmorphia. I’ll look out to see if Kohda does something more distinctive in future. (Secondhand – Awesomebooks.com) 
More coming up on Halloween (thankfully, including books I liked better on average)!
A Return to the Outer Hebrides & What I Read (Including 20 Books of Summer, 4–5)
Three summers ago, we first explored the Outer Hebrides, moving south from Lewis through Harris to North Uist and Benbecula. It took longer than expected to make it back to the Western Isles. (It’s also taken longer than expected to write up a trip we took in late June. My excuse is we’ve been having work done in the house for a couple of weeks and it’s thrown off routines, plus we’re now away again on a short break.) We kept our word and completed the southern half of the chain this year, staying on South Uist and journeying via Eriskay to Barra and Vatersay. As last time, we combined public transport and car rental. Unlike last time, we had no major transport disasters. We took the train up to Edinburgh, where we rented a car and headed first of all to the edge of the Cairngorms. The village had little to offer apart from riverside scenery, so while my husband did beetle-collecting fieldwork nearby, I spent my time reading in the idyllic B&B grounds. Here the wildlife came to me: seven stags and a red squirrel! I’ve substituted in two of my relevant trip reads to my 20 Books of Summer roster.
20 Books of Summer, #4
The Cone-Gatherers by Robin Jenkins (1955)
Rightly likened to Of Mice and Men, this is an engrossing short novel about two brothers, Neil and Calum, tasked with climbing trees and gathering the pinecones of a wealthy Scottish estate. They will be used to replant the many woodlands being cut down to fuel the war effort. Calum, the younger brother, is physically and intellectually disabled but has a deep well of compassion for living creatures. He has unwittingly made an enemy of the estate’s gamekeeper, Duror, by releasing wounded rabbits from his traps. Much of the story is taken up with Duror’s seemingly baseless feud against the brothers – though we’re meant to understand that his bedbound wife’s obesity and his subsequent sexual frustration may have something to do with it – as well as with Lady Runcie-Campbell’s class prejudice. Her son, Roderick, is an unexpected would-be hero and voice of pure empathy. I read this quickly, with grim fascination, knowing tragedy was coming but not quite how things would play out. The introduction to Canongate’s Canons Collection edition is by actor Paul Giamatti, of all people. (Secondhand – Community Furniture Project, Newbury) 
Then it was a several-hour drive to Oban to take our rescheduled ferry over to Lochboisdale in South Uist for the holiday proper to begin. With a six-night Airbnb stay booked in the home of a local woman, we relaxed into an unhurried pace of life. It’s more about the landscape than any particular indoor attractions here; during rainy spells we toured the excellent museum, tasted gin and rum at the North Uist (Downpour) and Benbecula (MacMillan Spirits) distilleries, took advantage of 5 for £1 books and CDs at the Benbecula thrift shop, and tried a couple of cafes, but for the most part we just made a few short excursions per day.
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- Honesty box with cakes
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- Photos by Chris Foster
We saw acres of machair (wildflower-rich fields), sand dunes undermined by an empire of rabbits, deserted beaches, and rare patches of woodland. We successfully staked out white-tailed sea eagles, red-throated divers, and a red-necked phalarope; watched cuckoos and short-eared owls (who are active in the daytime) as much as possible; and stared at every likely sea loch but failed to find an otter. Each evening we’d heat up a simple supper – pouches of curry and rice; ravioli with tomato sauce – using the microwave and hob. In quite a contrast to the heatwave-mired south of England, we had 12–16 degrees C (54–61 degrees F) most days, with light rain and high winds. The radiators and Rayburn (a big stove like an Aga) were on most of the time.
20 Books of Summer, #5
The Inn at the Edge of the World by Alice Thomas Ellis (1990)
Eric and Mabel moved from the Midlands to run a hotel on a remote Scottish island. He places an advertisement in select London periodicals to lure in some Christmas-haters for the holidays and attracts a motley group: a bereaved former soldier writing a biography of General Gordon, a pair of actors known only for commercials, a psychoanalyst, and a department store buyer looking for a novel sweater pattern. Mabel decides she’s had enough and flees the island just as the guests start arriving. One guest is stalking another; one has history on the island. And all along, there are hints that this is a site of major selkie activity. I found it jarring how the novella moved from Shena Mackay-like social comedy into magic realism and doubt I’ll read more by Ellis (I’d already read one volume of Home Life), though this was light and enjoyable enough. (Secondhand – Awesomebooks.com)
I was pleased that I managed to find two relevant hyperlocal reads. It was so neat to encounter the same place names out the car window and in my books:
To the Edge of the Sea: Schooldays of a Crofter’s Child by Christina Hall (1995)
Hall’s father inherited a South Uist croft and the family struggled so much financially that she was sent to live with her schoolteacher aunts on Benbecula and then Barra. Some things haven’t changed on the islands, such as the rabbits on the machair and the notoriously choppy ferry rides back to the mainland, where she attended a convent school at Fort William. There are some enjoyable pen portraits, such as of an Irish peddler. The most memorable incident was when she ran away from the aunts’ to attend a family wedding on Benbecula. The tone is pleasant, reminiscent of early Diana Athill and Doreen Tovey, but this isn’t one to pick up unless you have a particular interest in the places described. (Public library)
A Summer Like No Other by Martin MacIntyre (2018; 2025)
As World Cup fever ramps up in the summer of 1978, aimless 20-year-old Colin Quinn breaks from his university studies to shadow his uncle, Dr. Ruairidh Gillies, during his locum on South Uist. Between the home medical visits and recording folktales and songs by an eighty-something bard and several other members of the community, Colin gets to know almost everyone – but the person he knows the least well is himself. His involvement with the bard’s great-niece and her abusive husband will change the tenor of the summer for him, and have lasting consequences that only become clear decades later.
The many Gaelic phrases, defined in footnotes, help to create the atmosphere. The chapter epigraphs from the legend of Oisín (son of Fionn Mac Cumhaill) and Tír Na nÓg, the land of eternal youth, heighten the contrast between Colin’s idealism and the reality of this life-changing season. I think this is the first book I’ve read that was originally published in Gaelic and I hope it will find readers far beyond its island niche. (BookSirens)
There’s Something about Mary
My husband would like it known that he was the clever clogs who spotted a theme to our trip: Mary.
1) Our transit through Edinburgh was brief and muggy, but we made sure to leave just enough time to queue for cones at Mary’s Milk Bar, which has the most interesting flavours you’ll find anywhere. Pictured, though half eaten, are my one scoop of Earl Grey and peach sorbet and one scoop of fig and cardamom ice cream. When we returned to Edinburgh to return the car at the end of our trip, I took the train home by myself but C stayed on for a conference, during which he treated himself to another round at Mary’s.
A piper statue at the Airbnb that continually frightened us on the stairs.
2) Our South Uist host was Mary MacInnes, a major mover and shaker in the local Gaelic-speaking community. (Her Alexa even obeyed Gaelic commands.) She is a retired head teacher of one of the schools and had various grandchildren popping in and out. Thanks to her heads-up, we had a unique cultural experience: a local arts venue’s lunchtime ceilidh of live music that was being filmed for BBC Scotland. Between her and others, we heard a lot of spoken Gaelic and got further into the mood by finding Julie Fowlis’s Gaelic-language albums online and playing them in our rental car. Each morning, Mary served us breakfast. We made the mistake of answering “Yes” to the question “D’ye take porridge?” on the first morning and had to slog through a stodgy bowl for five of the next six days. However, she also produced fresh-baked scones on two days and that made up for it. Triangular and baked in a cast-iron skillet, they tasted more like soda bread and were a perfect snack with jam.
3) The final full day of our trip was spent on Barra, a quick hop from South Uist. Whereas Lewis and Harris are staunchly Protestant, the southern islands are Catholic. We’d found a roadside shrine on South Uist, and on this late June day we devoted a couple of hours to climbing up Heaval, Barra’s highest hill as far as the statue of Mary, Star of the Sea. We were taken with this round, rugged island of secluded coves and beach-lounging cows; I can imagine going back to spend more time there. (I’d also like to see a bit more of Eriskay, from which our ferry departed and where the shipwreck that inspired Whisky Galore – one to read next time – took place.) Our hostel room overlooked the harbour where our ferry for the mainland was docked, which was handy as we had to be in the queue by 6:10 the next morning.
My additional reasonably local or otherwise relevant reading:
Four Ducks on a Pond: A Highland Memory by Nicholas the Cat with Annabel Carothers (2010)
A quaint short memoir set in the 1950s on the island of Mull (which we sailed past on our way to and from the Outer Hebrides). It’s narrated in tongue-in-cheek fashion by Nicholas the Cat, who pals around with the farm’s dogs, horse and goats and comments on the doings of its human inhabitants, such as “Puddy” (Carothers), a war widow, and her daughter Fionna, who goes away to school. “We understand so much about them, yet they understand so little about us,” he opines. Indeed, the animals are all observant and can communicate with each other. Corrieshellach is a fine horse taken to compete in shows. The goats are lucky to escape with their lives after a local outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among livestock. Nicholas grows fat on rabbits and fathers several litters. He voices some traditional views (the Clearances: bad but the Empire: good; crows: bad); then again, cats would certainly be C/conservatives. A sweet Blyton-esque read for precocious children or sentimental adults, this passed the time nicely on a long drive. It could do with a better title, though; the ducks only play a tiny role. (Favourite aside: “that beverage which humans find so comforting when things aren’t right. Tea.”) (Secondhand – Benbecula thrift shop)
Katie Morag’s Island Stories by Mairi Hedderwick (1995)
I read half of this large-format paperback before our trip and the rest afterward. It collects four of Hedderwick’s picture books, which are all set on the Isle of Struay, a kind of Hebridean composite that reproduces the islands’ wildlife and scenery beautifully. Katie Morag’s parents run the shop and post office and her mother always seems to be producing another little brother. In Katie Morag Delivers the Mail, the little red-haired girl causes chaos by delivering parcels at random. Sophisticated Granma Mainland and practical Grannie Island are the stars of Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers. Katie Morag learns to deal with her anger and with being punished, respectively, in …and the Tiresome Ted and …and the Big Boy Cousins. Cute stories with useful lessons, but the illustrations are the main attraction. I’ll get the rest of the books out from the library. (Little Free Library) 
Island Calling by Francesca Segal (2025)
The sequel to Welcome to Glorious Tuga, which I reviewed for Shelf Awareness last year. Charlotte Walker is a tortoise researcher who becomes the default veterinarian on this remote South Atlantic island that combines a 1950s English ethos with a cosmopolitan heritage from sailors and settlers. In this volume, Charlotte resolves her troubled love triangle and cements her understanding of her father’s identity. But the main thing that happens is that her posh and entitled mother, Lucinda Compton-Neville, takes a break from her busy job as a QC to travel to the island and demand that Charlotte return to London with her. Motherhood is a strong theme throughout: Natalie Lindo, already a mother of four, has to decide what to do about a high-risk pregnancy; half-feral Annie Goss rejects her mother’s affection, and so on. Some of the characters are lovably quirky, but overall I find the cliché-laden series lackluster, a pointless and indulgent side-track and thus a real waste of talent by Segal (after The Innocents and Mother Ship, especially). If you enjoy romance novels or escapist beach reads, you might feel differently. But I won’t bother reading the third volume.
With thanks to Chatto & Windus (Penguin) for the proof copy for review.
I also made good progress on Storm Pegs by Jen Hadfield, a memoir of life in Shetland – different islands with their own character, but still fitting the hardy Scottish spirit.
I’d finished my first 7 Books of Summer by the end of June, so I was on track as of then. (Reviews of two more coming up on Friday.) I’m in the middle of some designated reads, but it’ll be ages before I finish any. I’ll hope to review another batch by the end of July.
Most Anticipated Books of the Second Half of 2025
My “Most Anticipated” designation sometimes seems like a kiss of death, but other times the books I choose for these lists live up to my expectations, or surpass them!
(Looking back at the 25 books I selected in January, I see that so far I have read and enjoyed 8, read but been disappointed by 4, not yet read – though they’re on my Kindle or accessible from the library – 9, and not managed to get hold of 4.)
This time around, I’ve chosen 15 books I happen to have heard about that will be released between July and December: 7 fiction and 8 nonfiction. (In release date order within genre. UK release information generally given first, if available. Note given on source if I have managed to get hold of it already.)
Fiction
The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley [10 July, Fig Tree (Penguin) / June 24, Knopf]: I was impressed with the confident voice in Mottley’s debut, Nightcrawling. She’s just 22 years old so will only keep getting better. This is “about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a small town on the Florida panhandle. … When [16-year-old Adela] tells her parents she’s pregnant, they send her from … Indiana to her grandmother’s in Padua Beach, Florida.” I’ve read one-third so far. (Digital review copy)
Archive of Unknown Universes by Ruben Reyes Jr. [21 Aug., Footnote Press (Bonnier) / July 1, Mariner Books]: There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven was a strong speculative short story collection and I’m looking forward to his debut novel, which involves alternative history elements. (Starred Kirkus review.) “Cambridge, 2018. Ana and Luis’s relationship is on the rocks, despite their many similarities, including … mothers who both fled El Salvador during the war. In her search for answers, and against her best judgement, Ana uses The Defractor, an experimental device that allows users to peek into alternate versions of their lives.”
Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor [Oct. 7, Riverhead / 5 March 2026, Jonathan Cape (Penguin)]: I’ve read all of his works … but I’m so glad he’s moving past campus settings now. “A newcomer to New York, Wyeth is a Black painter who grew up in the South and is trying to find his place in the contemporary Manhattan art scene. … When he meets Keating, a white former seminarian who left the priesthood, Wyeth begins to reconsider how to observe the world, in the process facing questions about the conflicts between Black and white art, the white gaze on the Black body, and the compromises we make – in art and in life.” (Edelweiss download)
Heart the Lover by Lily King [16 Oct., Canongate / Oct. 7, Grove Press]: I’ve read several of her books and after Writers & Lovers I’m a forever fan. “In the fall of her senior year of college, [Jordan] meets two star students from her 17th-Century Lit class, Sam and Yash. … she quickly discovers the pleasures of friendship, love and her own intellectual ambition. … when a surprise visit and unexpected news brings the past crashing into the present, Jordan returns to a world she left behind and is forced to confront the decisions and deceptions of her younger self.” (Edelweiss download)
Wreck by Catherine Newman [28 Oct., Transworld / Harper]: This is a sequel to Sandwich, and in general sequels should not exist. However, I can make a rare exception. Set two years on, this finds “Rocky, still anxious, nostalgic, and funny, obsessed with a local accident that only tangentially affects them—and with a medical condition that, she hopes, won’t affect them at all.” In a recent Substack post, Newman compared it to Small Rain, my book of 2024, for the focus on a mystery medical condition. (Edelweiss download)
Palaver by Bryan Washington [Nov. 4, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux / 1 Jan. 2026, Atlantic]: I’ve read all his work and I’m definitely a fan, though I wish that (like Taylor previously) he wouldn’t keep combining the same elements each time. I’ll be reviewing this early for Shelf Awareness; hooray that I don’t have to wait until 2026! “He’s entangled in a sexual relationship with a married man, and while he has built a chosen family in Japan, he is estranged from his family in Houston, particularly his mother … Then, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, ten years since they’ve last seen each other, the mother arrives uninvited on his doorstep. Separated only by the son’s cat, Taro, the two of them bristle against each other immediately.” (Edelweiss download)
The Silver Book by Olivia Laing [6 Nov., Hamish Hamilton (Penguin) / 11 Nov., Farrar, Straus and Giroux]: I’ve read all but one of Laing’s books and consider her one of our most important contemporary thinkers. I was also pleasantly surprised by Crudo so will be reading this second novel, too. I’ll be reviewing it early for Shelf Awareness as well. “September 1974. Two men meet by chance in Venice. One is a young English artist, in panicked flight from London. The other is Danilo Donati, the magician of Italian cinema. … The Silver Book is at once a queer love story and a noirish thriller, set in the dream factory of cinema. (Edelweiss download)
Nonfiction
Jesusland: Stories from the Upside[-]Down World of Christian Pop Culture by Joelle Kidd [Aug. 12, ECW]: “Through nine incisive, honest, and emotional essays, Jesusland exposes the pop cultural machinations of evangelicalism, while giving voice to aughts-era Christian children and teens who are now adults looking back at their time measuring the length of their skirts … exploring the pop culture that both reflected and shaped an entire generation of young people.” Yep, that includes me! Looking forward to a mixture of Y2K and Jesus Freak. (NetGalley download)
Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave: My Cemetery Journeys by Mariana Enríquez; translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell [25 Sept., Granta / Sept. 30, Hogarth]: I’ve enjoyed her creepy short stories, plus I love touring graveyards. “In 2013, when the body of a friend’s mother who was disappeared during Argentina’s military dictatorship was found in a common grave, she began to examine more deeply the complex meanings of cemeteries and where our bodies come to rest. In this vivid, cinematic book … Enriquez travels North and South America, Europe and Australia … [and] investigates each cemetery’s history, architecture, its dead (famous and not), its saints and ghosts, its caretakers and visitors.” (Edelweiss download, for Shelf Awareness review)
Ghosts of the Farm: Two Women’s Journeys Through Time, Land and Community by Nicola Chester [30 Sept., Chelsea Green]: Nicola is our local nature writer and is so wise on class and countryside matters. On Gallows Down was her wonderful debut and, though I know very little about it, I’m looking forward to her second book. “This is the story of Miss White, a woman who lived in the author’s village 80 years ago, a pioneer who realised her ambition to become a farmer during the Second World War. … Moving between Nicola’s own attempts to work outdoors and Miss White’s desire to farm a generation earlier, Nicola explores the parallels between their lives – and the differences.”
Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry [2 Oct., Vintage (Penguin)]: I’ve had a very mixed experience with Perry’s fiction, but a short bereavement memoir should be right up my street. “Sarah Perry’s father-in-law, David, died at home nine days after a cancer diagnosis and having previously been in the good health. The speed of his illness outstripped that of the NHS and social care, so the majority of nursing fell to Sarah and her husband. They witnessed what happens to the body and spirit, hour by hour, as it approaches death.”
Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood [4 Nov., Vintage (Penguin) / Doubleday]: It’s Atwood; ’nuff said, though I admit I’m daunted by the page count. “Raised by ruggedly independent, scientifically minded parents – entomologist father, dietician mother – Atwood spent most of each year in the wild forest of northern Quebec. … [She links] seminal moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscape. … In pages bursting with bohemian gatherings … and major political turning points, we meet poets, bears, Hollywood actors and larger-than-life characters straight from the pages of an Atwood novel.”
Tigers Between Empires: The Improbable Return of Great Cats to the Forests of Russia and China by Jonathan C. Slaght [4 Nov., Allen Lane / Farrar, Straus and Giroux]: Slaght’s Owls of the Eastern Ice was one of the best books I read in 2022; he’s a top-notch nature and travel writer with an environmentalist’s conscience. After the fall of the Soviet Union, “scientists came together to found the Siberian Tiger Project[, which …] captured and released more than 114 tigers over three decades. … [C]haracters, both feline and human, come fully alive as we travel with them through the quiet and changing forests of Amur.” (NetGalley download)
Joyride by Susan Orlean [6 Nov., Atlantic Books / Oct. 14, Avid Reader Press (Simon & Schuster)]: I’m a fan of Orlean’s genre-busting nonfiction, e.g. The Orchid Thief and The Library Book, and have always wanted to try more by her. “Joyride is her most personal book ever—a searching journey through finding her feet as a journalist, recovering from the excruciating collapse of her first marriage, falling head-over-heels in love again, becoming a mother while mourning the decline of her own mother, sojourning to Hollywood for films based on her work. … Joyride is also a time machine to a bygone era of journalism.”
A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction by Elizabeth McCracken [Dec. 2, Ecco]: I’m not big on craft books, but will occasionally read one by an author I admire; McCracken won my heart with The Hero of This Book. “How does one face the blank page? Move a character around a room? Deal with time? Undertake revision? The good and bad news is that in fiction writing, there are no definitive answers. … McCracken … has been teaching for more than thirty-five years [… and] shares insights gleaned along the way, offering practical tips and incisive thoughts about her own work as an artist.” (Edelweiss download)
As a bonus, here are two advanced releases that I reviewed early:
Trying: A Memoir by Chloe Caldwell [Aug. 5, Graywolf] (Reviewed for Foreword): Caldwell devoted much of her thirties to trying to get pregnant via intrauterine insemination. She developed rituals to ease the grueling routine: After every visit, she made a stop for luxury foodstuffs and beauty products. But then her marriage imploded. When she began dating women and her determination to become a mother persisted, a new conception strategy was needed. The book’s fragmentary style suits its aura of uncertainty about the future. Sparse pages host a few sentences or paragraphs, interspersed with wry lists.
If You Love It, Let It Kill You by Hannah Pittard [July 15, Henry Holt] (Reviewed for Shelf Awareness): A quirky work of autofiction about an author/professor tested by her ex-husband’s success, her codependent family, and an encounter with a talking cat. Hana P. (or should that be Pittard?) relishes flouting the “rules” of creative writing. With her affectations and unreliability, she can be a frustrating narrator, but the metafictional angle renders her more wily than precious. The dialogue and scenes sparkle, and there are delightful characters This gleefully odd book is perfect for Miranda July and Patricia Lockwood fans.
I can also recommend:
Both/And: Essays by Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Writers of Color, ed. Denne Michele Norris [Aug. 12, HarperOne / 25 Sept., HarperCollins] (Review to come for Shelf Awareness)
Other People’s Mothers by Julie Marie Wade [Sept. 2, Univ. of Florida Press] (Review pending for Foreword)
Which of these catch your eye? Any other books you’re looking forward to in this second half of the year?
Carol Shields Prize Reads: Pale Shadows & All Fours
Later this evening, the Carol Shields Prize will be announced at a ceremony in Chicago. I’ve managed to read two more books from the shortlist: a sweet, delicate story about the women who guarded Emily Dickinson’s poems until their posthumous publication; and a sui generis work of autofiction that has become so much a part of popular culture that it hardly needs an introduction. Different as they are, they have themes of women’s achievements, creativity and desire in common – and so I would be happy to see either as the winner (more so than Liars, the other one I’ve read, even though that addresses similar issues). Both: 
Pale Shadows by Dominique Fortier (2022; 2024)
[Translated from French by Rhonda Mullins]
This is technically a sequel to Paper Houses, which is about Emily Dickinson, but I had no trouble reading this before its predecessor. In an Author’s Note at the end, Fortier explains how, during the first Covid summer, she was stalled on multiple fiction projects and realized that all she wanted was to return to Amherst, Massachusetts – even though her subject was now dead. The poet’s presence and language haunt the novel as the characters (which include the author) wrestle over her words. The central quartet comprises Lavinia, Emily’s sister; Susan, their brother Austin’s wife; Mabel, Austin’s mistress; and Millicent, Mabel’s young daughter. Mabel is to assist with editing the higgledy-piggledy folder of handwritten poems into a volume fit for publication. Thomas Higginson’s clear aim is to tame the poetry through standardized punctuation, assigned titles, and thematic groupings. But the women are determined to let Emily’s unruly genius shine through.
The short novel rotates through perspectives as the four collide and retreat. Susan and Millicent connect over books. Mabel considers this project her own chance at immortality. At age 54, Lavinia discovers that she’s no longer content with baking pies and embarks on a surprising love affair. And Millicent perceives and channels Emily’s ghost. The writing is gorgeous, full of snow metaphors and the sorts of images that turn up in Dickinson’s poetry. It’s a lovely tribute that mingles past and present in a subtle meditation on love and legacy.
Some favourite lines:
“Emily never writes about any one thing or from any one place; she writes from alongside love, from behind death, from inside the bird.”
“Maybe this is how you live a hundred lives without shattering everything; maybe it is by living in a hundred different texts. One life per poem.”
“What Mabel senses and Higginson still refuses to see is that Emily only ever wrote half a poem; the other half belongs to the reader, it is the voice that rises up in each person as a response. And it takes these two voices, the living and the dead, to make the poem whole.”
With thanks to The Carol Shields Prize Foundation for the free e-copy for review.
All Fours by Miranda July (2024)
Miranda July’s The First Bad Man is one of the first books I ever reviewed on this blog back in 2015, after an unsolicited review copy came my way. It was so bizarre that I didn’t plan to ever read anything else by her, but I was drawn in by the hype machine and started this on my Kindle in September, later switching to a library copy when I got stuck at 65%. The narrator sets off on a road trip from Los Angeles to New York to prove to her husband, Harris, that she’s a Driver, not a Parker. But after 20 minutes she pulls off the highway and ends up at a roadside motel. She blows $20,000 on having her motel room decorated in the utmost luxury and falls for Davey, a younger man who works for a local car rental chain – and happens to be married to the decorator. In his free time, he’s a break dancer, so the narrator decides to choreograph a stunning dance to prove her love and capture his attention.
I got bogged down in the ridiculous details of the first two-thirds, as well as in the kinky stuff that goes on (with Davey, because neither of them is willing to technically cheat on a spouse; then with the women partners the narrator has after she and Harris decide on an open marriage). However, all throughout I had been highlighting profound lines; the novel is full to bursting with them (“maybe the road split between: a life spent longing vs. a life that was continually surprising”). I started to appreciate the story more when I thought of it as archetypal processing of women’s life experiences, including birth trauma, motherhood and perimenopause, and as an allegory for attaining an openness of outlook. What looks like an ending (of career, marriage, sexuality, etc.) doesn’t have to be.
Whereas July’s debut felt quirky for the sake of it, showing off with its deadpan raunchiness, I feel that here she is utterly in earnest. And, weird as the book may be, it works. It’s struck a chord with legions, especially middle-aged women. I remember seeing a Guardian headline about women who ditched their lives after reading All Fours. I don’t think I’ll follow suit, but I will recommend you read it and rethink what you want from life. It’s also on this year’s Women’s Prize shortlist. I suspect it’s too divisive to win either, but it certainly would be an edgy choice. (NetGalley/Public library)
(My full thoughts on both longlists are here.) The other two books on the Carol Shields Prize shortlist are River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure and Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin, about which I know very little. In its first two years, the Prize was awarded to women of South Asian extraction. Somehow, I can’t see the jury choosing one of three white women when it could be a Black woman (Lubrin) instead. However, Liars and All Fours feel particularly zeitgeist-y. I would be disappointed if the former won because of its bitter tone, though Manguso is an undeniable talent. Pale Shadows? Pure literary loveliness, if evanescent. But honouring a translation would make a statement, too. I’ll find out in the morning!
Reading Ireland Month, I: Donoghue, Longley, Tóibín
St. Patrick’s Day is a good occasion to compile my first set of contributions to Cathy’s Reading Ireland Month. Today I have an early novel by a favourite author, a poetry collection inspired by nature and mythology, and a sequel that I read for book club.
Stir-Fry by Emma Donoghue (1994)
After enjoying Slammerkin so much last year, I decided to catch up on more of Donoghue’s way-back catalogue. She tends to alternate between contemporary and historical settings. I have a slight preference for the former, but she can excel at both; it really depends on the book. I reckon this was edgy for its time. Maria (whose name rhymes with “pariah”) arrives in Dublin for university at age 17, green in every way after a religious upbringing in the countryside. In response to a flat-share advert stipulating “NO BIGOTS,” she ends up living with Ruth and Jael (pronounced “Yale”), two mature students. Ruth is the mother hen, doing all the cooking and fretting over the others’ wellbeing; Jael is a wild, henna-haired 30-year-old prone to drinking whisky by the mug-full. Maria attends lectures, takes a job cleaning office buildings, and finds a friend circle through her backstage student theatre volunteering. She’s mildly interested in American exchange student Galway and then leather-clad Damien (until she realizes he has a boyfriend), but nothing ever goes further than a kiss.
It’s obvious to readers that Ruth and Jael are a couple, but Maria doesn’t work it out until a third of the way into the book. At first she’s mortified, but soon the realization is just one more aspect of her coming of age. Maria’s friend Yvonne can’t understand why she doesn’t leave – “how can you put up with being a gooseberry?” – but Maria insists, “They really don’t make me feel left out … I think they need me to absorb some of the static. They say they’d be fighting like cats if I wasn’t around to distract them.” Scenes alternate between the flat and the campus, which Donoghue depicts as a place where radicalism and repression jostle for position. Ruth drags Maria to a Tuesday evening Women’s Group meeting that ends abruptly: “A porter put his greying head in the door to comment that they’d have to be out in five minutes, girls, this room was booked for the archaeologists’ cheese ’n’ wine.” Later, Ruth’s is the Against voice in a debate on “That homosexuality is a blot on Irish society.”
Mostly, this short novel is a dance between the three central characters. The Irish-accented banter between them is a joy. Jael’s devil-may-care attitude contrasts with Ruth and Maria’s anxiety about how they are perceived by others. Ruth and Jael are figures in the Hebrew Bible and their devotion/boldness dichotomy is applicable to the characters here, too. The stereotypical markers of lesbian identity haven’t really changed, but had Donoghue written this now I think she would at least have made Maria a year older and avoided negativity about Damien and Jael’s bisexuality. At heart this is a sweet romance and an engaging picture of early 1990s feminism, but it doesn’t completely steer clear of predictability and I would have happily taken another 50–70 pages if it meant she could have fleshed out the characters and their interactions a little more. [Guess what was for my lunch this afternoon? Stir fry!] (Secondhand – Awesomebooks.com)
The Ghost Orchid by Michael Longley (1995)
Longley’s sixth collection draws much of its imagery from nature and Greek and Roman classics. Seven poems incorporate quotations and free translations of the Iliad and Odyssey; elsewhere, he retells the story of Baucis and Philemon and other characters from Ovid. The Orient and the erotic are also major influences; references to Hokusai bookend poems about Chinese artefacts. Poppies link vignettes of the First and Second World Wars. Longley’s poetry is earthy in its emphasis on material objects and sex. Alliteration and slant rhymes are common techniques and the vocabulary is always precise. This was the third collection I’ve read by the late Belfast poet, and with its disparate topics it didn’t all cohere for me. My two favourite poems are naughty indeed:
(Secondhand – Green Ink Booksellers, Hay-on-Wye)
Long Island by Colm Tóibín (2024)
{SPOILERS in this one}
I read Brooklyn when it first came out and didn’t revisit it (via book or film) before reading this. While recent knowledge of the first book isn’t necessary, it probably would make you better able to relate to Eilis, who is something of an emotional blank here. She’s been married for 20 years to Tony, a plumber, and is a mother to two teenagers. His tight-knit Italian American family might be considered nurturing, but for her it is more imprisoning: their four houses form an enclave and she’s secretly relieved when her mother-in-law tells her she needn’t feel obliged to join in the Sunday lunch tradition anymore.
When news comes that Tony has impregnated a married woman and the cuckolded husband plans to leave the baby on the Fiorellos’ doorstep when the time arrives, Eilis checks out of the marriage. She uses her mother’s upcoming 80th birthday as an excuse to go back to Ireland for the summer. Here Eilis gets caught up in a love triangle with publican Jim Farrell, who was infatuated with her 20 years ago and still hasn’t forgotten her, and Nancy Sheridan, a widow who runs a fish and chip shop and has been Jim’s secret lover for a couple of years. Nancy has a vision of her future and won’t let Eilis stand in her way.
I felt for all three in their predicaments but most admired Nancy’s pluck. Ironically given the title, the novel spends more of its time in Ireland and only really comes alive there. There’s also a reference to Nora Webster – cute that Tóibín is trying out the Elizabeth Strout trick of bringing multiple characters together in the same fictional community. But, all told, this was just a so-so book. I’ve read 10 or so works by Tóibín now, in all sorts of genres, and with its plain writing this didn’t stand out at all. It got an average score from my book club, with one person loving it, a couple hating it, and most fairly indifferent. (Public library)
Another batch will be coming up before the end of the month!
A Belated R.I.P., Part III: Hand, Hurley, Kingfisher and Meddings
I meant to post on Halloween but the day got away from me, so here’s my belated third contribution to the Readers Imbibing Peril challenge (the first two are here and here). It’s rare for me to borrow from the horror section of the library and even rarer for me to read sequels, yet here I am with two purple-spotted spines and three books that count as continuations. I’m a little surprised at myself for managing eight R.I.P. reviews this year, but five of those were of very short books or graphic novels so were quick reads. With the possible exception of the dystopian final chapter of the Hurley, none of my selections scared me.
A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand (2023)
Hand was commissioned by Shirley Jackson’s estate to write a sequel to The Haunting of Hill House, which I read for R.I.P. in 2019 (my review). As in the original, four people gather at Hill House; artists rather than ghost-hunters, but they soon grasp the place’s supernatural malevolence. Holly has written a play about a historical witch – to be portrayed by Amanda, an actress of a certain age. Holly’s girlfriend, Nisa, provides music in the form of traditional murder ballads; actor Stevie makes up the quartet. Despite locals’ persistent admonitions, they take out a short-term rental on Hill House, thinking it will be atmospheric to finish the play and conduct read-throughs there. I was solidly engaged with the characters, whom Hand reinforces with traumatic backstories (Amanda’s proximity to an accidental death, Stevie’s molestation as a child actor), but couldn’t take the scary reveals seriously. A tablecloth suddenly soaked in blood? A black hare falling out of a chimney? Such moments just felt silly, plus Hand overplays the warnings versus the quartet’s blithe heedlessness. The ending is actually pretty chilling, but too much that came before strained belief. Do read the Jackson if you haven’t, though; it’s genuinely frightening. (Public library) 
Barrowbeck by Andrew Michael Hurley (2024)
I’ve read all of Hurley’s novels (The Loney, Devil’s Day and Starve Acre), the first two for previous R.I.P. events. Here again, he explores the arcane beliefs and practices of an isolated community: Barrowbeck, a fictional valley on the Yorkshire–Lancashire borders. The 13 chapters, rather like linked short stories, alight at moments along its timeline, from the medieval conflict of “First Footing” all the way through the near-future desolation of “A Valediction.” What connects the vignettes is more tonal than geographical, though, with suspicion, exclusion and the uncanny recurring. There are hints of deadly customs and communion with the departed. As is true of most collections, some stories are more memorable than others, and I felt that a few went too far towards pastiche (e.g., “Autumn Pastoral” of The Woman in Black by Susan Hill). I had a few favourites: “To Think of Sicily,” set after the 15th-century visit of an Italian man bearing mysterious olive oil, introduces the people’s seemingly congenital xenophobia. In “Hymns for Easter,” residents killed in the First World War still join their voices with the choir’s. “Sisters,” about B&B operators trying to get rid of their solitary guest before closing for the winter, was the best of all and reminiscent of the twins in Daniel Mason’s North Woods. You should like this if you’re a Daisy Johnson fan or enjoyed Private Rites by Julia Armfield, though ultimately I found more difference than continuity across the chapters.
With thanks to John Murray Press for the proof copy for review.
What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher (2024)
The second book of the “Sworn Soldier” duology, after What Moves the Dead. Easton has returned from Paris to their native Gallacia to give Miss Potter a fungi-hunting holiday as thanks for helping with the previous adventure. But the caretaker is dead and the home abandoned, so Easton hires a local widow and her grandson, Bors, to look after the property. Bors is soon troubled by the moroi, a ghost-woman who comes in dreams to sit on people’s chests, crushing the breath out of them. She also seems to take the form of moths. And next she comes for Easton. You’d think with all the world-building she’d done in the first book, Kingfisher could pack lots of plot into this novella. But there’s really not much to it. It was over before it began. The winking humour of the first book was worn-out. And the more I thought about it, the more uneasy I was with the negative nature imagery I kept encountering in horror: fungi, moths, rabbits/hares. I understand this is often harkening back to ancient legends, but in a biodiversity crisis we need love rather than fear. (Public library)
The Sad Ghost Club 2 by Lize Meddings (2022)
This teen comic series is not about literal ghosts but about mental health. Young people struggling with anxiety and intrusive thoughts recognize each other – they’ll be the ones wearing sheets with eye holes. In the first book, which I reviewed for R.I.P. last year, SG meets Socks and determines to start a society for people like them. In this sequel, Socks worries that he’s not cool enough for the club and that SG, especially after they meet Rue, will leave him behind. The message is about being there for people even when they think they just want to be alone. By the end, it looks like the club is going to grow further. This barely built on the first book and contained so little incident that it felt unnecessary. Never mind! (Little Free Library) 
Rather a lackluster finish to the challenge there, but the Hurley at least is recommended.
September Releases, Part II: Antrobus, Attenberg, Strout and More
As promised yesterday, I give excerpts of the six (U.S.) September releases I reviewed for Shelf Awareness. But first, my thoughts on a compassionate sequel about a beloved ensemble cast.
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
“People always tell you who they are if you just listen”
Alternative title ideas: “Oh Bob!” or “Talk Therapy in Small-Town Maine.” I’ve had a mixed experience with the Amgash novels, of which I’ve now read four. Last year’s Lucy by the Sea was my favourite, a surprisingly successful Covid novel with much to say about isolation, political divisions and how life translates into art. Oh William!, though shortlisted for the Booker, seemed a low point. It’s presented as Lucy’s published memoir about her first husband, but irked me with its precious, scatter-brained writing. For me, Tell Me Everything was closer to the latter. It continues Strout’s newer habit of bringing her various characters together in the same narrative. That was a joy of the previous book, but here it’s overdone and, along with the knowing first-person plural narration (“As we mentioned earlier, housing prices in Crosby, Maine, had been going through the roof since the pandemic”; “Oh Jim Burgess! What are we to do with you?”), feels affected and hokey.
Strout makes it clear from the first line that this novel will mostly be devoted to Bob Burgess, who is not particularly interesting but perhaps a good choice of protagonist for that reason. A 65-year-old semi-retired lawyer, he’s a man of integrity who wins confidences because of his unassuming mien and willingness to listen and help where he can. One doesn’t read Strout for intrigue, but there is actually a mild murder mystery here. Bob ends up defending Matt Beach, a middle-aged man suspected of disposing of his mother’s body in a quarry. The Beaches are odd and damaged, with trauma threading through their history.
Sad stories are indeed the substance of the novel; Lucy trades in them. Literally: on her visits to Olive Kitteridge’s nursing home room, they swap bleak stories of the “unrecorded lives” they have observed or heard about. Lucy and Bob, who are clearly in love with each other, keep up a similar exchange of gloomy tales on their regular walks. Lucy asks Bob and Olive the point of these anecdotes, pondering the very meaning of life. Bob dismisses the question as immature; “as we have said, Bob was not a reflective fellow.” And because the book is filtered through Bob, we, too, feel this is just a piling up of depressing stories. Why should I care about Bob’s ex-wife’s alcoholism, his sister-in-law’s death from cancer, his nephew’s accident? Or any of the other unfortunate occurrences that make up a life. Bob and Lucy are appealingly ordinary characters, yet Strout suggests that they function as secular “sin-eaters,” accepting confessions. Forasmuch as they focus on others, they do each come to terms with childhood trauma and the reality of their marriages. Strout majors on emotional intelligence, but can be clichéd and soundbite-y. Such was my experience of this likable but diffuse novel.
With thanks to Viking (Penguin) for the proof copy for review.
Reviewed for Shelf Awareness:
Poetry:
Signs, Music by Raymond Antrobus – The British-Jamaican poet’s intimate third collection contrasts the before and after of becoming a father—a transition that prompts him to reflect on his Deaf and biracial identity as well as the loss of his own father.
With thanks to Picador for the free copy for review.
Want, the Lake by Jenny Factor – Factor’s long, intricate second poetry collection envisions womanhood as a tug of war between desire and constraint. “Elegy for a Younger Self” poems string together vivid reminiscences.
Terminal Maladies by Okwudili Nebeolisa – The Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate’s debut collection is a tender chronicle of the years leading to his mother’s death from cancer. Food and nature imagery chart the decline in Nkoli’s health and its effect on her family.
Fiction:
A Reason to See You Again by Jami Attenberg – Her tenth book evinces her mastery of dysfunctional family stories. From the Chicago-area Cohens, the circle widens and retracts as partners and friends enter and exit. Through estrangement and reunion, as characters grapple with sexuality and addictions, the decision is between hiding and figuring out who they are.
Nonfiction:
We Are Animals: On the Nature and Politics of Motherhood by Jennifer Case – Case’s second book explores the evolution, politics, and culture of contemporary parenthood in 15 intrepid essays. Science and statistics weave through in illuminating ways. This forthright, lyrical study of maternity is an excellent companion read to Lucy Jones’s Matrescence.
Question 7 by Richard Flanagan – Ten years after his Booker Prize win for The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan revisits his father’s time as a POW—the starting point but ultimately just one thread in this astonishing and uncategorizable work that combines family memoir, biography, and history to examine how love and memory endure. (Published in the USA on 17 September.)
With thanks to Emma Finnigan PR and Vintage (Penguin) for the proof copy for review.
Any other September releases you’d recommend?
Bodily Harm and Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood (#MARM)
It’s my sixth year participating in the annual Margaret Atwood Reading Month (#MARM), hosted by indomitable Canadian blogger Marcie of Buried in Print. In previous years, I’ve read Surfacing and The Edible Woman, The Robber Bride and Moral Disorder, Wilderness Tips, and The Door; and reread The Blind Assassin. Wish a happy belated birthday to MA, who turned 84 earlier this month. As it happens, today is my husband’s 40th birthday and I am tapping away at this in the passenger’s seat of the car as we hurtle through the freezing fog toward Slimbridge for some wintry birdwatching. I spent much of yesterday making his German chocolate cake (delicious but very involved) from a Hummingbird Bakery cookbook.
Bodily Harm (1982)
I had literally never heard of her fifth novel before I spotted it on the library catalogue and decided to have a go. The fact that nobody talks about it is evidence, I think, of an overbaked plot and more successful treatment of her trademark themes in other books. Nonetheless, it was perfectly readable and had its highlights. Renata Wilford, “Rennie,” is a journalist for hire from Ontario who has recently had her life turned upside down by breast cancer and the departure of her boyfriend, Jake. She flies to the Caribbean island nation of St. Antoine to write a travel piece, coinciding with the first elections since the British left. It’s a febrile postcolonial setting of shantytowns and shortages. Rennie tries to focus on boat trips, cocktails and beach lounging, but Dr. Minnow, who she met on the plane, is determined to show her the reality of his country – cold truths that include assassination and imprisonment.
Alongside the thriller plot are the more expected literary flashbacks to Rennie’s childhood, her life with Jake, and the cancer surgery and her crush on her surgeon. Her old friend Jocasta is an amusingly punky feminist and a counterpoint to Lora, the fellow Canadian and bad girl Rennie meets in St. Antoine. There are no speech marks in the sections set in the past, and there are some passages of direct monologue from Lora recounting her abusive upbringing. I felt Atwood was stretching to make points about cultural imperialism and violence, whereas the title is more applicable to the physical threats women face from illness and misogyny:
“The body, sinister twin, taking its revenge for whatever crimes the mind was supposed to have committed on it. Nothing had prepared her for her own outrage, the feeling that she’d been betrayed by a close friend. She’d given her body swimming twice a week, forbidden it junk food and cigarette smoke, allowed it a normal amount of sexual release. She’d trusted it. Why then had it turned against her?”
(University library) 
Stone Mattress (2014)
I was tempted to call this my first ever audiobook, but that is not technically true: 11 years ago, we had a David Attenborough book on in the car on the way to Cornwall. However, this definitely felt like a landmark. I’d long meant to catch up on Atwood’s last but one story collection, but my library had withdrawn the physical copy and only had the book on CD. How would I fit it into my life, I wondered? Others have told me they listen to audiobooks while commuting, cooking or cleaning … er, I don’t really do any of those! But I amassed a goodly list of tasks involving my hands but not much of my brain to complete while listening to the CDs through my PC speakers:
• Prepared two clothing recycling parcels (37 socks off to the London Sock Company’s Sock Amnesty programme; 3 shirts and 2 sets of pyjamas to Rapanui’s 100% cotton recycling scheme)
• Mended 13 socks, 4 shirts, 3 gloves, 2 cardigans, a shoulder bag strap, and a purse strap and lining
• Framed a photo for a Christmas gift
• Baked the aforementioned German chocolate cake
• Wrapped my husband’s birthday presents
• Wrote a couple of Christmas cards
Nonetheless, I found it frustrating that it took so long to get through a story/disc, surely longer than I would have spent reading with my eyes (and so I have only managed 7.5 of 9 stories so far), and it was slightly harder for me to concentrate. It was also disorienting to not have visual cues, such that I had no idea how much of a story was remaining, and sometimes didn’t know how place or character names were spelt. One interesting novelty, though, was the reader voices. There are five different voice actors on this audiobook, three women (including MA herself on the title story) and two men. It is interesting to ponder how their intonation might affect my reaction to a story. For instance, Rob Delaney’s deadpan delivery really makes “The Freeze-Dried Groom,” a witty work of mild horror in which a fraudulent antiques dealer finds an entire wedding, complete with groom, abandoned in a storage unit.
As in a number of Atwood’s later works, recurring themes of ageing and the writer’s craft intertwine. I most enjoyed the opening linked trio of “Alphinland,” “Revenant” and “Dark Lady,” which orbit SFF writer Constance and her one-time lover, macho poet Gavin. The first story has Constance slipping between her fictional world and the real one, in which a winter storm is impending and her husband Ewan has been dead for four days. In “Revenant,” an elderly Gavin holds court as a scholar comes to interview him. Imagine his ire when he learns she is there to question him about Constance for her PhD research. “Dark Lady” brings the three major women from Gavin’s life into a face-off.
Funniest was “I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth,” a The Robber Bride mini-sequel in which three ageing women fend off an interfering male with the help of a potential reincarnation of their late friend. I was reminded of the setup of Charlotte Wood’s The Weekend, not least for the presence of an annoying dog. Least engaging has been “The Dead Hand Loves You,” about Jack Dace, the author of an international horror classic who has always resented having to share his profits four ways with his early adulthood housemates because of his promise to catch up on his back rent from his creative earnings. I thought this one would never end. In general, though, this has been classic MA, mixing realism and fantasy in clever and witty ways. And I’m sure it won’t be my last audiobook. I was gifted an Audible book for my birthday by a blind friend, to start with. Now to store up some more busy work… (Public library audiobook) 
Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island: Reread and Stage Production
Bill Bryson, an American author of humorous travel and popular history or science books, is considered a national treasure in his adopted Great Britain. He is a particular favourite of my husband and in-laws, who got me into his work back in the early to mid-2000s. As I, too, was falling in love with the country, I found much to relate to in his travel-based memoirs of expatriate life and temporary returns to the USA. Sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective to see things clearly.
When we heard that Notes from a Small Island (1995), his account of a valedictory tour around Britain before returning to live in the States for the first time in 20 years, had been adapted into a play by Tim Whitnall and would be performed at our local theatre, the Watermill, we thought, huh, it never would have occurred to us to put this particular book on stage. Would it work? we wondered. The answer is yes and no, but it was entertaining and we were glad that we went. We presented tickets as my in-laws’ Christmas present and accompanied them to a mid-February matinee before supper at ours.
A few members of my book club decided to see the show later in the run and suggested we read – or reread, as was the case for several of us – the book in March. I started my reread before attending the play and had gotten through the first 50 pages, which is mostly about his first visit to England in 1973 (including a stay in a Dover boarding-house presided over by the infamously officious “Mrs Smegma”). This was ideal as the first bit contains the funniest stuff and, with the addition of some autobiographical material from later in the book plus his 2006 memoir The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, made up the entirety of the first act.
Photos are screenshots from the Watermill website.
Bryson traveled almost exclusively by public transport, so the set had the brick and steel walls of a generic terminal, and a bus shelter and benches were brought into service as the furnishing for most scenes. The problem with frontloading the play with hilarious scenes is that the second act, like the book itself on this reread, became rather a slog of random stops, acerbic observations, finding somewhere to stay and something to eat (often curry), and then doing it all over again.
Mark Hadfield, in the starring role, had the unenviable role of carrying the action and remembering great swathes of text lifted directly from the book. That’s all well and good as a strategy for giving a flavour of the writing style, but the language needed to be simplified; the poor man couldn’t cope and kept fluffing his lines. There were attempts to ease the burden: sections were read out by other characters in the form of announcements, letters or postcards; some reflections were played as if from Bryson’s Dictaphone. It was best, though, when there were scenes rather than monologues against a projected map, because there was an excellent ensemble cast of six who took on the various bit parts and these were often key occasions for humour: hotel-keepers, train-spotters, unintelligible accents in a Glasgow pub.
The trajectory was vaguely southeast to northwest – as far as John O’Groats, then back home to the Yorkshire Dales – but the actual route was erratic, based on whimsy as much as the availability of trains and buses. Bryson sings the praises of places like Salisbury and Durham and the pinnacles of coastal walks, and slates others, including some cities, seaside resorts and tourist traps. Places of personal significance make it onto his itinerary, such as the former mental asylum at Virginia Water, Surrey where he worked and met his wife in the 1970s. (My husband and I lived across the street from it for a year and a half.) He’s grumpy about having to pay admission fees that in today’s money sound minimal – £2.80 for Stonehenge!
The main interest for me in both book and play was the layers of recent history: the nostalgia for the old-fashioned country he discovered at a pivotal time in his own young life in the 1970s; the disappointments but still overall optimism of the 1990s; and the hindsight the reader or viewer brings to the material today. At a time when workers of every type seem to be on strike, it was poignant to read about the protests against Margaret Thatcher and the protracted printers’ strike of the 1980s.
The central message of the book, that Britain has an amazing heritage that it doesn’t adequately appreciate and is rapidly losing to homogenization, still holds. Yet I’m not sure the points about the at-heart goodness and politeness of the happy-with-their-lot British remain true. Is it just me or have general entitlement, frustration, rage and nastiness taken over? Not as notable as in the USA, but social divisions and the polarization of opinions are getting worse here, too. One can’t help but wonder what the picture would have been post-Brexit as well. Bryson wrote a sort-of sequel in 2015, The Road to Little Dribbling, in which the sarcasm and curmudgeonly persona override the warmth and affection of the earlier book.
Indeed, my book club noted that a lot of the jokes were things he couldn’t get away with saying today, and the theatre issued a content warning: “This production includes the use of very strong language, language reflective of historical attitudes around Mental Health, reference to drug use, sexual references, mention of suicide, flashing lights, pyrotechnics, loud sound effect explosions, and haze. This production is most suitable for those aged 12+.”
So, yes, an amusing journey, but a bittersweet one to revisit, and an odd choice for the stage.
A favourite line I’ll leave you with: “To this day, I remain impressed by the ability of Britons of all ages and social backgrounds to get genuinely excited by the prospect of a hot beverage.”
Book:
Original rating (c. 2004):
My rating now: 
Play:
Have you read anything by Bill Bryson? Are you a fan?
Thoughts on Literary Prizes, Sequels, and Finishing Books
I feel like my blogging is all over the place so far this month, but I’ll get back on track in the next couple of weeks with a few thematic roundups. Today, some disparate thoughts.
Literary prize season will soon be in full swing, and can be overwhelming. I’m currently reading Megan Nolan’s Acts of Desperation, doing double duty from the Dylan Thomas Prize longlist and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award shortlist, and enjoying it more than expected given the inevitable Sally Rooney comparisons and messed-up young female tropes. However, I abandoned Here Comes the Miracle (from the latter) after 46 pages because it was just as When God Was a Rabbit as I feared.
Today the second Barbellion Prize winner was announced: Lynn Buckle for What Willow Says, her lyrical novella about communication between a terminally ill woman, her deaf granddaughter, and the natural world. My choice from the shortlist would have been Josie George’s A Still Life, but I can see how the judges might have felt, in an early year when precedents are still being set, that it was important to recognize fiction as being just as valid a way of writing about disability and chronic illness.
Earlier in the week, the Rathbones Folio Prize shortlist was announced. Everyone remarked on the attractive mint green colour scheme! I found myself slightly disappointed; the Prize is usually more various since it includes nonfiction and poetry as well as fiction. Only one nonfiction title here: Philip Hoare going on (again) about whales. I’ve read another of poet Selima Hill’s collections so would gladly read this, too. I’ve already read the Brown and Keegan novellas and Sahota’s novel; I DNFed the Riley. Galgut has already won the Booker Prize. I’m awaiting a library hold of The Magician but I rather doubt my staying power with a 500-page biographical novel. My vote would, overwhelmingly, be for China Room.
I’m more tempted by the Fiction with a Sense of Place shortlist, announced as part of the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards early this month. What an intriguing and non-obvious set of nominees! Elena Knows was on the Barbellion longlist and the Greengrass and Shafak novels were previously shortlisted for the Costa Prize. I plan to try the Heller again this summer.
I’m also delighted to see that Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles is shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award.
I’ve been pondering my predictions and wishes (entirely separate things) for the Women’s Prize longlist and will post them early next month; for now, check out Laura’s.
I believe books should be self-contained and I struggle to engage with ANY series. Unpopular opinion alert: sequels are almost always indulgent and/or money-grubbing on the part of the author. Here are four high-profile literary fiction sequels I plan on skipping this year (in all the cases, I just didn’t like the original enough to continue the story):
- Either/Or by Elif Batuman – The Idiot was bizarre, deadpan and slightly entertaining, but I have no need to spend any more time with Selin.)
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan – A Visit from the Goon Squad didn’t stand up to a reread.- Less Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer – Less, only mildly funny, was hugely overrated by critics.
- Tracy Flick Can’t Win by Tom Perrotta – I read, and saw the Reese Witherspoon-starring movie version of, Election ages ago; this is the one I’d be most likely to change my mind about, if I read good reviews.
I learned via a friend’s Instagram post that there is such a thing as #FinishItFebruary and felt seen. My goal had been to clear my set-aside shelf by the end of January; of course that didn’t happen, but I have been making some progress, reducing it from about 40 to more like 25. I try to reintroduce a part-finished book into my stack every few days. Sometimes it ‘takes’ and I finish it shortly; other times it languishes again, just in a different location. I’ll see how many more I can get to before the end of February.
A reminder of that set-aside shelf, as of early January.
Following any literary prize races this year?
Do you also avoid sequels, and leave books part-read?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 