Here it is again, a brief gathering of a few books I have read recently that don't make it into longer posts. No reflection on the quality of the book in any way. I just don't have quite as much I want to say about them. Notes taken from my notes as I read ...
Transcription ~ Kate Atkinson
'In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies'.
The quote at the beginning of the book by Winston Churchill is a fair indication of what to expect in this novel of espionage and undercover agents in wartime London, and I was on the alert for things to watch out for.
What to believe...
Who to believe...
Keep an eye on the timelines..
Expect to be duped because this is Kate Atkinson after all and things are never what they seem...
Expect red herrings and the rug to be pulled from under my reading feet...
Expect a surprise and unpredictable denouement other than the certainty that something unexpected will happen...
I wasn't disappointed, I didn't see it coming even though there were plenty of clues and warnings along the way ... 'We believe what we want to believe'...'Never take anything at face value'... and so yet again, another excellent read from Kate Atkinson.
Wild Woman Swimming ~ Lynne Roper
Lynne Roper and her family are well-known locally, indeed Bookhound did a lot of work for them back in the 1990s. Sadly Lynne, a paramedic. died of a brain tumour in 2016 and this book is a tribute to her, and to her passion for wild swimming. The book takes the form of a journal logging Lynne's regular excursions (often with her dog Honey) to many of the most exciting wild swimming places on Dartmoor and around the south west coast. Here's a flavour...
'It's December, the air temperature is 7 degrees, and the water half a degree less. Honey and I stride through the woods, dead leaves squidging underfoot like soggy cornflakes...I dive forwards and the river slashes me like a blade. In her winter guise she has lost her silky, peat-scented enchantment and become a steel-hard witch with the taste and texture of bootleg vodka. My hands, face and neck burn with cold and I feel my blood freezing. A flock of kayakers zip by, one of them shours " People think we're mad!"'
It is 2011. That could so easily have been our Kayaker who regularly paddled the Double Dart in winter.
If you love swimming you will love this book. If you love Dartmoor you will love it too. So many of the places favoured by my Walking Friend and I...Spitchwick, Foggintor, Sharrah, Tavy Cleave, though maybe not always to swim.
'It's a spiritual experience, sliding through wild water. Worries dissolve, my mind is liberated; thoughts flow and glide and play like dolphins. My souls swims wild.'
Here meanwhile is the necessary proof that I did actually get wet this summer, and with my Walking Friend's collie on stand-by as lifeguard...
Bluets ~ Maggie Nelson
240 numbered observations. Snippets about blue embracing both the end of a relationship and a friend's serious injury, Maggie Nelson examines her obsession with the colour and its many connotations. The cover alone will make any blue-obsessive buy the book.
Bluets, visceral in places, touches something deep and often unrecognised by the Blue Obsessive and this (and the cover) may have been why I was drawn to it so immediately. Grief, loss, love and learning are all explored via Joni (Mitchell) Leonard (Cohen) Bille (Holiday) and Andy (Warhol) amongst others and in small increments that create a whole. I need to read this book many more times to really grasp the full extent of its reach.
'And so I fell in love with a colour - in this case, the colour blue - as if falling under a spell, a spell I fought to stay under and get out from under, in turns.'
The Children Act ~ Ian McEwan
I am way behind the curve with this one. In fact about four years behind. But my Reading Friend and the recent film both reminded me that I needed to catch up. Everyone is saying that the film is Emma Thompson at her finest, and I can't go and see it until I've read the book, so I did.
There must be few jobs in life that have the potential and the power to skew perspectives and mess with your personal life as much as Fiona May's as a Judge in the Family Division. Surrounded by conflict, abuse, violence and having to regularly exercise the wisdom of Solomon, it is little wonder that Fiona's marriage is flailing and she is emotionally susceptible to the fatal mistake of becoming too personally involved in a case that comes before her.
I'm still not sure how I felt about the ending...but it did make me realise that I still have a few unread McEwans from his oeuvre to tackle... The Innocent, Black Dogs, The Daydreamer, Saturday, Solar, Sweet Tooth, Nutshell...
Your thoughts...
If Cats Disappeared From the World ~ Genki Kuwamara
One of those little Japanese gems of the philosophical variety that make you see the world at a slant. Entering into a pact with the devil is never going to end well, and when a young man is given months to live and the devil appears in a Hawaiian shirt and makes him an offer it is too tempting to refuse so the consequences become apparent. In return for each extra day of life he must choose to make something disappear from the world. Phones, clocks and movies go and with it come all sorts of previously unconsidered outcomes. It's a bit like the Un-Creation, the creation in reverse, as the consequences of each absence are explored. But then on the Fourth Day it is cats who must disappear and this obviously needs much more careful thought. There is the most delightful insight into a cat's real thoughts...you know when we talk to them and think we know what they are thinking or want. No, we don't have the first clue..
'And what you realize when you've lived with a cat for a long time is that we may think we own them, but that's not the way it is. They simply allow us the pleasure of their company...'
Of course Magnus was completely in accord with all of this when I discussed the book with him...
The Otterbury Incident ~ C.Day Lewis
Last but definitely not least. The Endsleigh theme for October was 'Tribes' and I could think of no better book than one of my childhood favourites, The Otterbury Incident by C.Day Lewis. Published in 1948 this is the post war England of bomb sites and children having plenty of freedom whilst being in awe of authority. The boys in rival gangs play war games and get themselves into all manner of scrapes, but when a crime is suspected they join forces to defeat the baddies and end up heroes.
I read my ancient copy, sent by one of those unofficial aunties we seemed to accumulate as children. This one was a teacher at Delabole Primary School and knew just the right books to send us. Neither the story nor the writing dims with time, though as the years progress I become slightly more incredulous with each read that when it came time for the boys to head home and arm for the battle they all reappear with air guns and sheath knives. Ah yes, 'twas a different world.
So there you have it, your thoughts on any or all of these most welcome.
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