Welcome to a new regular post where I review the books I’ve read in the previous month. This was supposed to start at the beginning of the year and suddenly it’s April, so today’s edition includes everything I’ve read so far this year.
The way I’m going (remember that whole multi-passionate thing?) future posts will likely only have a couple of books. Please note that clicking on each book image will take you to Amazon, and the links in this post are affiliate links.
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
I came to this by way of Amazon’s ‘Customers who viewed this item also viewed’ feature, and the description was so compelling that I downloaded it immediately.
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things peeks into the lives of a group of very different people who live on the same street in England. From the Kindle page, we are told this novel captures the world of “a street in a town in the North of England, [where] ordinary people are going through the motions of their everyday existence – street cricket, barbecues, painting windows… A young man is in love with a neighbour who does not even know his name. An old couple make their way up to the nearby bus stop. But then a terrible event shatters the quiet of the early summer evening. That this remarkable and horrific event is only poignant to those who saw it, not even meriting a mention on the local news, means that those who witness it will be altered for ever.”
Intriguing, no?
I was immediately drawn in by McGregor’s beautiful prose and his knack for capturing tics and other small details about his characters, although the story meanders quite a bit which I found off-putting. I was still intensely curious about the ‘remarkable and horrific event’ so kept on going until the end, which was not disappointing.
McGregor’s characters are whole and well-developed, with insight into each person’s history, motivations and inner landscape. Even so, I think this book could have been shortened somewhat without losing any of that richness.
Courage and Consequence
I’m quite ignorant of American politics so found some of the discussion around policy (particularly financial policies) very dry and quite hard going.
The sections where Rove talks about campaigning were very compelling, though, and he is clearly a very shrewd and intelligent operator. I wish I had paid more attention to US politics just so I had some awareness of the particular issues or scandals that Rove explores in detail (often defending himself or setting the record straight), but I found these passages supremely interesting nonetheless.
Similarly, my only impressions of George ‘dubyah’ before I read this book were coloured by mainstream media, so like everyone else I bought into this idea that he was something of a bumbling idiot (although clearly if you consider it, a person like that couldn’t make it to President you wouldn’t think. Anyway).
This book is peppered with little wisdoms about policy development, campaigning and media strategies, and relationship management that, while based in a political arena, could be applied more broadly.
Perhaps someone more interested in American politics would form a different impression, but I thought this was a well-written memoir with a lot of appeal.
& Sons
This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I’m glad it came my way. Because I’m terrible at describing plots, I again to defer to the almighty Amazon, which describes the novel as “the panoramic, deeply affecting story of an iconic novelist and the heartbreaking truths that fiction can hide.
“The Manhattan funeral of Charles Henry Topping would have been a minor affair but for the identity of the eulogist: reclusive author A. N. Dyer, whose novel ‘Ampersand’ stands as a classic of teenage angst. Now Andrew Newbold Dyer takes stock of his own life, the people he’s hurt and the novel that will endure as his legacy. He realises he must reunite with his three sons before it’s too late.” It’s a story of family, of new relationships, and love, of death, and writing.
As soon as I finished this one, I wanted to read it again.
Told by one of Charles’s sons, who has always been desperate to be part of the Dyer clan yet is persistently pushed aside, & Sons weaves in and out of the character’s lives, switching from Andrew’s college days to Andy’s romantic exploits and everywhere in between.
Unlike If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, & Sons meanders so carefully that the reader is carried smoothly along.
This one is definitely worth reading – or re-reading!
N is for Noose
I keep all of this series on my Kindle because they are easy to read without making me feel like I’m dumber for doing so. Each book in this so-called ‘alphabet series’ is a classic whodunit solved by Kinsey Milhone, a likeable no-bullshit private detective.
In N is for Noose, Kinsey is asked to travel to Nota Lake following the death of a local police officer. While he died from a heart attack, the policeman’s wife is convinced he was keeping secrets from her before he died and has hired Kinsey to look into what he might have been working on.
Like Grafton’s earlier books, Kinsey works her way through a series of clues and interviews a variety of townsfolk working towards the answer that kept me guessing all the way until the end.
These books are well written in straightforward prose and craftily put together so that you never know what will happen.
The Post-Birthday World
I’ve read most of Lionel Shriver’s books and when I saw this at a book market I excitedly picked it up to add to my collection.
The Post-Birthday World follows Irina, an illustrator, who is tempted by her long-time boyfriend’s friend following his traditional birthday dinner. From here the story splits into two: in one version, Irina resists temptation and returns home to Lawrence, a solid and dependable man who specialises in terrorism at a think tank. In the other, she succumbs and embarks on an affair with Ramsey, a famous snooker player who lives a rockstar life and enjoys dramatic relationships to match.
Paralleled by a children’s book Irina writes, each choice has its strengths and shortcomings, and at the end of the day it’s difficult to say which is ‘right’ or better.
This book was quite painful to read, partly because I didn’t especially like or identify with Irina and found her choices frustrating. Like Shriver’s other work, this book depicts the ugly and sometimes painful realities of life without any softening. In that way, it is very effective because it did make me feel so strongly about the characters and events.
That said, I’d put it low on my Shriver fan-girl list, just because it made me uncomfortable and I didn’t like any of the characters enough for it to be worth it.
