My reading week: 8/52

Currently Reading

I’m reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and listening to The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak.

Recently Completed

Having not finished any books last week, I’ve managed to complete four this week.

The first was Mr Cadmus by Peter Ackroyd.

Two apparently harmless women reside in cottages one building apart in the idyllic English village of Little Camborne. Miss Finch and Miss Swallow, cousins, have put their pasts behind them and settled into conventional country life. But when a mysterious foreigner, Theodore Cadmus – from a Mediterranean island nobody has heard of – moves into the middle cottage, the safe monotony of their lives is shattered.

Soon, long-hidden secrets and long-held grudges threaten to surface, drawing all into a vortex of subterfuge, theft, violence, mayhem . . . and murder.

I’ve never read anything by Peter Ackroyd before and was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable and entertaining the first two thirds to three quarters of this novel was. Then it took a decidedly bizarre turn – and not in a positive way – and I didn’t know quite what to make of it. Judging by its reviews on Goodreads, I wasn’t alone in my response!

This will fulfil prompt 11 of the 52 Book Club Reading Challenge: A book with less than 2022 Goodreads’ ratings.

I also finished listening to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, which was chosen for my March book club.

Tom Sawyer and his friends seek out adventure at every turn. Then one fateful night they witness a murder. The boys swear never to reveal the secret and run away to be pirates and search for hidden treasure. But when Tom gets trapped in a cave with the murderer, can he escape unharmed?

It’s taken me a long time to have my first encounter with this children’s classic. It was better than I expected but I felt pretty ambivalent towards it.

Prompt 39 of the Challenge: A middle-grade novel.

I also listened to Black Vodka, a collection of ten short stories by Deborah Levy.

‘Elisa said Yes and I said Yes. We said Yes in all the European languages. Yes. We said yes we said yes, yes to vague but powerful things, we said yes to hope which has to be vague, we said yes to love which is always blind, we smiled and said yes without blinking.’ (‘A Better Way to Live’) ———– How does love change us? And how do we change ourselves for love – or for lack of it? Ten stories by acclaimed author Deborah Levy explore these delicate, impossible questions. In Vienna, an icy woman seduces a broken man; in London, a bird mimics an old-fashioned telephone; in adland, a sleek copywriter becomes a kind of shaman. These are twenty-first century lives dissected with razor-sharp humour and curiosity, stories about what it means to live and love, together and alone.

I enjoy Deborah Levy’s writing (Hot Milk is one of my favourites) and these stories were interesting. I think I would have preferred to read them so I could ponder them more.

Prompt 43: An author who’s published in more than one genre.

My final completion was The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin.

No-one knows that better than seventeen-year-old Lenni. But as she is about to learn, it’s not only what you make of life that matters, but who you share it with.

Dodging doctor’s orders, she joins an art class where she bumps into fellow patient Margot, a rebel-hearted eight-three-year-old from the next ward. Their bond is instant as they realise that together they have lived an astonishing one hundred years.

To celebrate their shared century, they decide to paint their life stories: of growing old and staying young, of giving joy, of receiving kindness, of losing love, of finding the person who is everything.

Although this novel has a thread of sadness woven through it, it is an enjoyable and life-affirming read. The convergence of an unlikely selection of characters makes for an endearing story.

Prompt 8: Involving the art world.

Reading Next

I’ll probably return to At the End of the Matinee by Keiichiro Hirano.

My reading week: 7/52

I made a trip to the library this week, for the first time in over two years, and was seriously impressed at the restocking they seem to have done. I found many books that I’ve been wanting to read so it was hard to limit these to what I can read in three weeks. As a result, I now have several books on the go!

Currently Reading

I’ve temporarily set aside At the End of the Matinee by Keiichiro Hirano. This is one I’ve bought so I’ll return to it soon.

In its place I’m reading Mr Cadmus by Peter Ackroyd, which I hadn’t heard of but am enjoying and have almost finished.

I’m still listening to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, but I also borrowed a hard copy.

I’m also still reading Emotional Agility by Susan David and will spread this one over a few weeks.

Another library find was Five-Minute Watercolour: Super-quick Techniques for Amazing Paintings by Samantha Nielsen.

Recently Completed

Nothing has been finished this week.

Reading Next

Surprisingly, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke was available in the library so this might be next on the list.

My quotation this week comes from Emotional Agility and contains an important truth:

The paradox of happiness is that deliberately striving for it is fundamentally incompatible with the nature of happiness itself. Real happiness comes through activities you engage in for their own sake rather than for some extrinsic reason, even when the reason is something as seemingly benevolent as the desire to be happy.

Susan David

My reading week: 6/52

Currently Reading

I’m listening to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, which has been chosen for my March book club.

I’m reading Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life by Susan David because who doesn’t need to do this?

Recently Completed

I finished three novels this week. The first was No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood.

As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms “the portal,” where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats–from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness–begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal’s void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. “Are we in hell?” the people of the portal ask themselves. “Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?”

Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: “Something has gone wrong,” and “How soon can you get here?” As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.

This novel is divided into two parts, the first of which focuses on the world of the ‘portal’, which is simultaneously humorous, absurd and hits disturbingly home. It made me question my relationship to an online life and how far I want to delve into this parallel reality. I felt slightly ambivalent to this section, recognising it contains important messages but not particularly gripped.

In stark contrast, the second part shifts to a very real event in the very real world and is hard-hitting and incredibly moving. My response to the first half was knocked sideways and this novel became a great work, in my opinion. At one point, I had tears in my eyes and I am grateful I stuck with it.

I listened to this novel but I feel it is one that I should have read.

I will use it for prompt 31 of the 52 Book Club Reading Challenge: Technology-themed.

I also read The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa.

Nana is on a road trip, but he is not sure where he is going. All that matters is that he can sit beside his beloved owner Satoru in the front seat of his silver van.

Satoru is keen to visit three old friends from his youth, though Nana doesn’t know why and Satoru won’t say. Set against the backdrop of Japan’s changing seasons and narrated with a rare gentleness and striking humour, Nana’s story explores the wonder and thrill of life’s unexpected detours.

This easy-to-read novel explores the importance of friendship, both human and feline, and the impact that we have on the lives of others. I sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the pleasant, comfortable journey, until I neared the end when it became incredibly moving and emotional.

This fits prompt 34 of the Challenge: Author’s photo on the back cover.

My final completion was Three Sisters by Heather Morris.

When they are little girls, Cibi, Magda and Livia make a promise to their father – that they will stay together, no matter what. Years later, at just 15, Livia is ordered to Auschwitz by the Nazis. Cibi, only 19 herself, remembers their promise and follows Livia, determined to protect her sister, or die with her. Together, they fight to survive through unimaginable cruelty and hardship.

Magda, only 17, stays with her mother and grandfather, hiding out in a neighbour’s attic or in the forest when the Nazi militia come to round up friends, neighbours and family. She escapes for a time, but eventually she too is captured and transported to the death camp. In Auschwitz-Birkenau the three sisters are reunited and, remembering their father, they make a new promise, this time to each other: That they will survive.

This is a fictional account of a remarkable true story by the author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which I haven’t read. I found I wanted to pick this up and follow the sisters on their heartbreaking and horrific journey. The account of their time in Auschwitz-Birkenau is a harrowing portrayal of the evil inflicted during this dark period in history.

I therefore feel unjust in the criticism that is to follow but for me it was about 100+ pages too long and I think it would have been better to stop writing at a certain point, omit the final part, and tell the remainder of the story as a biographical summary. I also felt that at times it slipped through the gap between fiction and biography. Having said that, it is well worth reading.

This will suit several prompts but I’m going to choose number 10: A book based on a real person.

Reading Next

This will probably be another Japanese novel, At the End of the Matinee by Keiichiro Hirano.

My thought-provoking quotation this week comes from Three Sisters:

Is that it? she thinks. They went through all that horror, and now they’re just being sent home, on a bus, as if nothing had happened? Rage spikes her body. Who is going to say sorry? Who is going to atone for their suffering, the senseless deaths?