Guest review by Cindy Jefferies: THE NEEDLE'S EYE by Margaret Drabble

 

"A master of her craft."

First published in 2001 for children, Cindy Jefferies found success with her Fame School series with Usborne Books, obtaining 22 foreign rights deals. Latterly writing fiction for adults as Cynthia Jefferies, her first title The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan was published in 2018, followed a year later by The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne, set during the English Civil Wars, followed in 2019. Both titles are now available in paperback.

I admired Margaret Drabble’s work so much that I read each of her novels, one after the other, through my late teenage years. Eventually, in 1972, the year The Needle’s Eye was first published, her sixth novel, I married and took myself off to the West Coast of Scotland, burying myself in the Highlands while I raised twins. I don’t think I have read anything from her since then. Then, last year on my birthday, one of those twins, my daughter, gave me The Needle’s Eye as a present. It took a while to reach the top of my reading pile but eventually it got there and I devoured it!

Reading her for the first time in fifty-odd years I was struck how different her writing is from my memory of it. In the 70’s I read each novel almost as a thriller. I couldn’t put them down. I had totally forgotten the reflective pace of her work, the many words used to set the scene. But then, this novel is a world away from our shiny, frenetic pace of life today. It is the world of my youth, of draughts, knitting children’s jumpers, coal dust, washing up at the sink, not possessing a car. It was a world where sexual equality was a toddler, constantly falling over. It was also a world where I was thirsty for literature.

Fifty years on, it took me a few pages to get into The Needle’s Eye. I found myself impatient for ‘something to happen’. Had I really galloped through her books in my twenties? If so, what a lot I had missed, and yet, I remember stopping to read a word, a phrase, a sentence several times, sometimes aloud to savour the taste of it, thrilled to read a master at work. The truth is, half a century on, one is not the same person. I couldn’t possibly read it as if I were twenty. But then I relaxed and decided to read with no prior expectations, as if I’d never read any of Margaret Drabble’s work. And the miracle happened. The long, slow unwinding of the plot that demands you attend to the depth of her writing. There it is, and it felt like coming home.

Rose marries against her parents wishes and renounces her inheritance. Her marriage is difficult and she eventually separates from Christopher. When she meets Simon, an unhappily married barrister, they become friends and he is able to give her legal advice. He can’t understand why she insists on living in a run down street. Is she simply stubborn? As he gets to know her better he admires her more. She fights for her children, distraught that she might lose them. She wishes to live a real life, as other people do, not a life of privilege. Her family and estranged husband might view her intransigence as stubborn foolishness but Simon eventually sees the real depth of her character.

Margaret Drabble is a master of her craft. I love the way she can paint a brief picture of something that will have little effect on the story but which lives with me, long after I have finished the book. The woman in a shop, telling of the pram cover she was knitting, rather than getting on with the purchase. The boat, seen out at sea, then glanced at again, closer in, and then, when only the author is left to see, it disembarks several disorientated men who scuttle away. We are left to wonder whether they are perhaps refugees, or illegal migrants of one sort or another. They are part of a different story, one that has not been told, at least not in this book. Each time, these glimpses of other lives enrich the novel, giving it a depth that remains unexpected, every time it happens.

In contrast, we get enough detail about Simon and Rose to feel we know them very well from their thoughts as well as their decisions, although there will always be things about them we will never know, things maybe they don’t know themselves.

There are a few later novels from this writer that I have never read. I now want to revisit The Millstone, one I have read before, but also I will find one that I can come to honestly fresh. Thank you, lovely daughter, for reintroducing me to a writer I didn’t know how much I had missed!

The Needle's Eye is published by Canongate.

More reviews by Cindy:

The Master by Colm Toibin  

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier

Guest review by Cindy Jefferies: LISTEN WITH FATHER - HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE CLASSICAL MUSIC by Caroline Sanderson

 

"A wonderful journey full of fascinating asides."

First published in 2001 for children, Cindy Jefferies found success with her Fame School series with Usborne Books, obtaining 22 foreign rights deals. Latterly writing fiction for adults as Cynthia Jefferies, her first title The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan was published in 2018, followed a year later by The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne, set during the English Civil Wars, followed in 2019. Both titles are now available in paperback.

Caroline Sanderson has written a very touching and erudite hymn to her father. I should say at once that I have a personal interest in this book because I know Caroline. She is a kind and generous person, is easily moved and when she does a thing she does it to the best of her ability. This book is a perfect example of that. All the same, I wouldn’t have chosen to review it if I hadn’t been so impressed by it.

When she was a little girl, Sanderson adored her Father and enjoyed listening with him to the classical music he liked so much. As she grew older she still loved her Dad but came to prefer David Bowie’s take on music. It wasn’t until after her Father had died that she began to wonder what exactly he had loved so much about classical music. She decided to choose some of his favourite CDs and listen again. That decision and what followed became a paean to her much loved Father and a new appreciation for her of classical music.

A short overture sets the scene and then she begins with Mozart. The book has chapters on 8 composers and one singer, the unforgettable Kathleen Ferrier. It would be entirely possible to use this book as a primer, a way in to music one has never appreciated before, but there is much more to it than that. This well researched book will tell you about the composers and their lives, as well, importantly, how Sanderson felt when she heard the pieces again as an adult. The audience reaction to the first performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is fascinating, as is Sanderson’s unsettling memory of watching Fantasia with her Dad. How brave of her to re-visit Stravinsky’s work after such a disturbing introduction!

I love the way Sanderson is so down to earth about her musical journey while also thrilled when she realises she is beginning to hear the music at a different level. I also enjoyed the little asides, the realisation, for instance, that she’s probably particularly enjoying the triangle while at a concert, simply because she enjoyed playing the instrument at primary school. Her attention wavers; she notices what members of the audience are wearing, she wishes her Dad were with her to explain why he loved Brahms so much. And yet, she sticks at it and slowly gets there. The hard work of deep listening pays off. And more, she finds other pieces that her Dad didn’t introduce to her, but for which she develops an affection all by herself.

Listen With Father is a wonderful journey full of fascinating asides. There are people and books between these pages as well as music. It is a private journey that is also a wonderful signpost to the world of classical music.

Sanderson doesn’t forget the bibliography, arranged by composer. To complete the work, a useful note of the recordings Sanderson listened to is also there. What a perfect volume to enjoy and maybe to set one off on one’s own journey into deep listening and a new love of music.

Listen with Father is published by Boundless.

More of Cindy's choices:

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall

The Master by Colm Toibin

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Guest review by Cindy Jefferies: FORBIDDEN NOTEBOOK by Alba de Céspedes

 

"... such a strong feminist novel. The 1950s are a world apart from the 2020s but that is not to say that feelings were any different then from ours now."

First published in 2001 for children, Cindy Jefferies found success with her Fame School series with Usborne Books, obtaining 22 foreign rights deals. Latterly writing fiction for adults as Cynthia Jefferies, her first title The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan was published in 2018, followed a year later by The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne, set during the English Civil Wars, followed in 2019. Both titles are now available in paperback.

Set in post war Rome, and published in 1952, Forbidden Notebook has at its centre the daily life of Valeria Cosseti. She is a typical wife and mother. She washes the family clothes and cleans the house regularly. She shops for food and cooks it for her husband and two grown children. She also has a job in an office to help keep the family afloat.

The story begins when Valeria is going to the tobacconist one early Sunday morning to buy some cigarettes to put on the night table for her husband Michelle to find when he wakes. He always sleeps late on a Sunday. While at the shop she sees some notebooks with shiny black covers. On a sudden whim she asks for one but the tobacconist tells her that he is only allowed to sell tobacco on a Sunday and certainly not notebooks. Perhaps it is the act of being denied, but suddenly she is desperate to have a notebook and begs the tobacconist to sell one to her. He agrees, but tells her to hide it under her coat in case the police see it.

Valeria feels furtive. What on earth impelled her to do such a thing? And where can she put it? She wants to keep this impulse buy to herself but doesn’t have even a drawer for her own personal use. Nowhere is hers alone in the small house. Her daughter Mirella likes to go to her wardrobe and borrow clothes, the linen cupboard isn’t safe, the desk has been taken over by her son Riccardo … in the end, feeling more and more agitated by what she has done she throws it in the ragbag in the kitchen.

Ostensibly a novel about the daily chores and activities of the Cosseti family it is very much more. Writing in the notebook becomes a guilty secret for a woman who has never kept secrets from her family. She moves it from place to place, desperate for it not to be found because it quickly becomes an account of her internal thoughts, wishes and fears. She is at the heart of her family and it is apparent that they all love her, but the demands on her are many. She sometimes struggles to be the person they all think she is. No one seems to expect her to have an internal life of her own. If she differs from their expectations of her they smile indulgently and tell her to rest, which is almost impossible for one who has so much to do.

This book is such a strong feminist novel. The 1950s are a world apart from the 2020s but that is not to say that feelings were any different then from ours now. I found Valeria in turns heroic, pathetic, irritating and impressive. She is a woman of her time, in a country that has recently lost a bruising war. She has great self doubt as she starts to write, but finds herself putting down on paper not only her concerns about her daughter and the company she keeps, her son’s career and her husband but also her innermost thoughts about her own life, which she has hardly allowed herself to recognise up until now. Where the notebook leads her, what she does with her life and whether the notebook is discovered, all play out while she sits up late, after everyone has gone to bed, which is virtually the only time she has to put her thoughts down without being interrupted. Valeria lived with me for a long time after I finished the novel. 

Alba de Céspedes achieved something very special when she created Forbidden Notebook. The Financial Times called it ‘an exquisite, tormented howl,’ and it certainly is a tour de force. Is it about a life wasted, or a life found? I still find it hard to decide. Read it and ponder …

Forbidden Notebook is published by Pushkin Press, and was also chosen by Nick Manns in our Books of the Year feature.

BOOKS OF THE YEAR Part 1 - chosen by our contributors

 

This is the first of three round-ups by our reviewers. Each has chosen their own best read of the year (or one of them) which did not necessarily have to be published during 2025. It's also our chance to thank our wonderful contributors for supporting us throughout the year - we couldn't possibly do this without you. Thank you all!

Susan Elkin chooses Orbital by Samantha Harvey: Nothing I’ve read this year quite surpasses this 2023 novel. The setting is the International Space Station which orbits Earth sixteen times a day. That means a continuously unfolding display of Earthly sunrises and sunsets, 250 miles below. Two Russians, one American, one Brit, one Japanese and one Italian maintain the vehicle internally and externally, servicing lab mice and plants, obeying a strict exercise routine to prevent muscle loss. Each is instructed by ground crew and there’s email contact with home. “Swimming” round the capsule, they hook themselves into hanging sleeping bags at night like bats.

Meanwhile the profound beauty and wonder rotates beneath them. Orbital is a heartfelt hymn of praise to the glory and wonder of our richly coloured planet and a timely reminder that national boundaries and all the hostility they cause are irrelevant. Succinct, poetic, philosophical and breath-taking, Orbital is a veritable Everest (visible from the ISS, apparently) of imaginative writing.

Susan Elkin's latest publication is a short story collection, Unheard Voices: Tales from the Margins of Literature

Lizzie Enfield chooses Purge by Sofi Oksanen: As a travel writer and novelist, I always seek out fiction set in the places I visit. Novels reveal the emotional texture of a landscape and the hidden histories of those who live there in a way guidebooks cannot. When I travelled to Estonia for the first time this year, Sofi Oksanen’s Purge offered a powerful introduction to a country with a scarred yet optimistic spirit. The novel intertwines the lives of two women - Aliide, an elderly survivor of Soviet oppression, and Zara, a young victim of modern trafficking - whose fates converge amid a legacy of fear, shame and endurance. Oksanen’s taut, lyrical prose captures both the brutality of history and the fragile strength of those who endure it. Reading Purge while exploring Tallinn and its countryside lent every ruined farmhouse and quiet forest a deeper resonance. It’s a haunting, unforgettable story of survival, memory and the resilience of the human spirit - both painful and positive. 

Lizzie Enfield is the author of Living With It. She has also written these BBC articles about Estonia.

Sheena Wilkinson's choice is By Any Other Name, by Jodi Picoult: We’ve all heard the theories that William Shakespeare may not have written all the plays attributed to him. I never wanted to believe this: the myth of the Bard’s humble beginnings and preternatural understanding of human experience at its deepest and widest was so romantic. But I have been entirely convinced by the thesis underpinning Jodi Picoult’s novel By Any Other Name. Building on compelling evidence that some of the plays could have been written by Emilia Bassano, an educated Italian Jew who, at thirteen, was given to the Lord Chamberlain as his mistress, Picoult fictionalises Emilia’s eventful life, setting it in counterpoint to that of a modern-day woman playwright: times have changed, but women still struggle to have their voices heard as loudly as men’s.

Bold, readable, wearing its considerable research lightly, By Any Other Name turned what I thought I knew on its head.

Sheena Wilkinson's latest publication is Miss McVey Takes Charge.  

From Lesley Glaister: I adore eccentric characters and the eponymous narrator of Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker, is exactly that. Monstrously selfish, devasted by her twin sister’s chance of happiness in marriage, which she tries to sabotage, she’s melodramatic, pedantic, impatient, witty, really a terrible person, and one of the most engaging and enraging narrators I’ve read for a long time. This claustrophobic novel is darkly funny and shocking in parts. I loved it! Much gentler is an audiobook that kept me spellbound: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. This family saga set in Sri Lanka, spans the first 77 years of the twentieth century. I found it deeply moving, almost unbearably sad, and with an intriguing theme of medical discovery. A quick round-up of other favourite reads this year: The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller; Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst, Liars and Saints by Maile Meloy and Clever Girl by Tessa Hadley.

Lesley Glaister's latest publication is A Particular Man.

Cindy Jefferies' choice is The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn: This novel embraced me, as if I were another child living in that gently crumbling house. I eavesdropped on the adults, listened to stories and was part of the close knit group of children, whose lives were a mystery to their parents. There is a melancholy in being ignored one moment and admonished the next. But childhood is not where this novel ends. Once the dead whale is found, its bones eventually turned into an outdoor theatre, Cristabel, who found it, also finds purpose for herself and the others.

Time moves on while plays are written, costumes made and props obtained. Adults attend, years pass and war comes.

I wouldn’t have missed reading this book for anything. If the hallmark of a good book is that the characters live on after the last page is turned…then this is certainly it!

Cindy Jefferies' latest publication is The Honourable Life of Thomas Cheyne.   

Laura Parker chooses Clear by Carys Davies: If you can read a book in one evening, it’s either very short, or very good. Clear is both. It feels timeless, even though it is set in a specific era and in a very particular place. Its historic backdrop is the Scottish Clearances and the formation of the Free Church of Scotland, but, much more urgently, it is about two men on an island: Ivar, who lives in isolation, and John, who is sent to evict him. From the moment Ivar finds John unconscious on the beach, the story moves at a fine pace, yet still manages to be a slow drama of two people getting to know each other and revealing our basic human needs: survival, trust, and love. It deals with several moral dilemmas, and right up to the end, it is impossible to predict what is going to happen. Profound, and deeply satisfying.

Laura Parker's current project has the working title Drystone Country.

Sue Purkiss recommends The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese: a richly textured family saga set in what is now Kerala. It begins with a young girl who is sent to marry a much older man, a widower. Surprisingly, the two gradually come to love each other, and they are at the heart of their small village, Parambil, as it grows and thrives.

Meanwhile, a parallel story tells of a talented young Scottish surgeon, who comes to India to work. His promising career is blighted by a tragic accident. It’s not evident for some time how these stories will link, but eventually they do.

It’s a long book, full of drama and with its fair share of tragedy. And yet it’s also full of warmth and humour – and hope. I found it to be a riveting read – the sort of book you really don’t want to end.

Sue Purkiss runs two blogs: A Fool on a Hill, her book reviews, and Let's Write! with ideas for creative writing.

Catherine Butler chooses 100 Tales from the Tokyo Ghost Café by Julian Sedgwick and Chie Kutsuwada: In 2021, Julian Sedgwick and Chie Kutsuwada published Tsunami Girl, a novel about a quarter-Japanese English girl, Yuki surviving the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and coming to terms with its aftermath. Tsunami Girl, which was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, was formally audacious, switching between a conventional novel (written by Sedgwick) and a manga (authored by Kutsuwada). Its hybrid telling, reflecting Yuki’s own cultural hybridity, worked unexpectedly well.

Two years later, the same pair produced 100 Tales from the Tokyo Ghost Café. This book plays even more radically with form. Sedgwick and Kutsuwada are not only authors but characters in the story, shepherding a stray child (who may or may not be a ghost) from a yokai-haunted café in Tokyo to his home in Aomori Prefecture, and encountering many creatures and stories (some traditional, some brand new) in the process – including a brief encounter with Yuki from Tsunami Girl. If you enjoy Lafcadio Hearn’s tales of Japan’s spirit world, or a cleverly told story of any sort, I highly recommend this one.

Catherine Butler is Professor of English Literature at Cardiff University. Her latest publication is British Children's Literature in Japanese Culture.

Chosen by Yvonne Coppard: Kent Haruf's The Tie that Binds. Haruf never sets out to shock or mystify: his writing is so beautiful there is no need for tricks of the trade. Instead, the reader is folded into his story-telling arms and gently immersed in the sleepy rural town of Holt, Colorado, where the intertwining tale of ordinary folk in extraordinary situations gradually unfolds. It is April, 1977. Edith Goodnough, 80 years old, lies in a hospital bed under police guard. She has lived an apparently drab, quiet life on a farm on the outskirts of town. But Edith is about to face trial on a charge of murder. Her life, and her family’s, will be laid bare.

If you like this, move on to Haruf’s trilogy: Plainsong, Eventide and Benediction. They are all perfect reads to turn to after a run of spooks, spies, thrillers and impenetrable award winners.

Yvonne Coppard has retired from a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship and is now working towards becoming a Lady who Lunches.

Chosen by Miriam Halahmy: The Painter's Daughters by Emily Howe. A 2025 debut novel about the daughters of the 18th century painter, Thomas Gainsborough, this book won the Mslexia prize for unpublished novels. It is always difficult to bring alive great art in fiction. Not every author can achieve it. But Emily Howe has given us a deep and satisfying window into this great artist, as well detailed descriptions of everyday life at the time. It’s a smorgasbord of colour, smell, light, people and landscape.

But this is not the main focus of the story. Peggy, Gainsborough's youngest daughter, lives in fear that sister Molly’s mental health affliction with be discovered. It blights their lives from childhood. When the family moves to Bath and the girls enter society, things get worse. This is a family coping in silence with a stricken child, while the artist struggles to keep his patrons on side. A story of family life in all its complexities, deep sisterly love and severe illness without medical support. I thoroughly recommend it.

Miriam Halahmy's latest title is Pomegranates for Peace, published in November.

And finally for this first batch, Celia Rees picks Vianne, by Joanne Harris, the prequel to Chocolat. Vianne is a young woman, barely out of her teens. She is pregnant and alone, after recently losing her mother. She finds herself in Marseille, a city she doesn’t know. She is broke and finds work in a bistrot, even though she can’t cook. The people she meets and recipes they share teach her more than cookery. Vianne learns to love food and through the Provençal dishes she prepares in the bistrot and the chocolates she learns to make, she discovers how to love people because food is made to share. Food is on nearly every page and is described so vividly one longs to share it, whether the salty pungency of pissaladière, or the delicacy of a rose fondant. There is also a sprinkle of magic, as there is in Chocolat, as tantalising and mysterious as my favourite ingredient: xocolatl spice.

Celia Rees's latest novel is Miss Graham's War, first published as Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook.

What's your Book of the Year? Please tell us in the comments, and come back next week for more great recommendations in Part Two!

Guest review by Cindy Jefferies: THE HUMMINGBIRD by Sandro Veronesi, translated by Elena Pala

 

"Funny, serious, clever, controlled, sometimes a little demanding but always rewarding."

First published in 2001 for children, Cindy Jefferies found success with her Fame School series with Usborne Books, obtaining 22 foreign rights deals. Latterly writing fiction for adults as Cynthia Jefferies, her first title The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan was published in 2018, followed a year later by The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne, set during the English Civil Wars, followed in 2019. Both titles are now available in paperback.

 
Sandro Veronesi is an Italian writer who is the only person who has won the Premio Strega prize twice. His is a formidable talent, but he wears his skill lightly. His work is funny, serious, clever, controlled, sometimes a little demanding but always rewarding. He has every right to demand our attention, because what he writes, and how he writes it is often unexpected and usually brilliant.

His hero in this novel, Marco Carrera, is a man whose life seems to stand still. A series of misfortunes happen and he has to deal with them. He doesn’t always want to, they affect him deeply, but he invariably does what he can to help. His life is both ordinary and extraordinary, as many human lives are. Veronesi relates the entire life of this man, bringing in along the way many fascinating thoughts and facts, which, because they interest the writer, also interested this reader.

Did you realise that not many languages in Europe have a word to describe what you become if your child dies? Widow, widower, orphan, that’s it. We have to look to Sanskrit, many of the African diaspora languages, Hebrew, Arabic or ancient and modern Greek to find a word to describe it. Who knew? In case you worry that Veronesi is irredeemably gloomy he also quotes Lady Bracknell.

Did you know that the BBC, along with several countries, banned the 1933 song Gloomy Sunday, because it had inspired people to kill themselves? It was only unbanned in 2002. There are many versions of it around now, from Bjork to Billie Holliday.

There are some fascinating thoughts about seeing. Marco is an Ophthalmologist.

Marco loves Luisa all his life.

His father collected sci-fi novels.

Oddly, I can’t remember much about Marco’s mother except that she called him The Hummingbird because he stopped growing. Medical intervention eventually helped, after she had objected strenuously to her husband insisting on taking their son for treatment.

There is something about the direct way Veronesi tells us Marco’s story that is very touching, and the nearer we get to the end, the more touching it is.

The only other thing I can say, except to urge you to read this novel, is that the first paragraph said something conversationally, to me as a writer, that I so agreed with I had to put the book down and walk around for a few minutes before going on. That doesn’t often happen, but when it does it is curiously electrifying.

Thank you Sandro Veronesi, for the whole book: the plot, the characters, the musings and facts, even the occasional lists. And last, but by no means least, thank you for your fascinating and useful acknowledgements. I’m sure I shall have cause to refer to them again.

The Hummingbird is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Guest review by Cindy Jefferies: ORBITAL by Samantha Harvey

 

"This jewel of a book is out there, like our beautiful planet in space; silent, modest, wonderful, waiting to be found."

First published in 2001 for children, Cindy Jefferies found success with her Fame School series with Usborne Books, obtaining 22 foreign rights deals. Latterly writing fiction for adults as Cynthia Jefferies, her first title The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan was published in 2018, followed a year later by The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne, set during the English Civil Wars, followed in 2019. Both titles are now available in paperback.

I can’t think of a more divisive recent novel. Friends and acquaintances either loved or loathed this 2024 title. Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, written in 2007 attracted similar strong emotions. Both are novellas, both were shortlisted for the Booker Prize but McEwan, having won in 1998, dipped out in 2007, while Harvey went on to win in 2024.

Major prize winners are always open to a superfluity of opinions. It goes with the territory. Critics are asked for their reviews, book groups, along with huge numbers of the general, book reading public rush to buy or borrow, so they can see what the fuss is about. So what was the fuss about in 2024?

The major complaint seemed to be that ‘nothing happens’ in Orbital. I beg to differ. Admittedly, in spite of it’s 136 pages I didn’t find it a quick read. Orbital demands attention. Once one does pay the story the compliment of starting off with an open mind, and being ready to concentrate; it, for me at any rate, repays every reading moment. What is there to be said about orbiting the Earth multiple times for nine months? Well, quite a lot as it happens. There are the many facts sprinkled through the narrative. Harvey thanks NASA and ESA for the wealth of information made available and my goodness, these facts don’t disappoint, nor does the way she relates them with her quiet, authority.

The novel rotates with the space station, passing developing weather patterns, ambling past the ink dark Atlantic, or brilliantly lit Europe, over and over again, measuring the hours of astronaut time as if they are living Earth sunrises and sunsets, though at seventeen and a half thousand miles an hour. The pace of the novel suggests Earth time, while for the astronauts the days pass quickly, with so much to do, so much essential exercise, experiments, housekeeping. Hanging in their sleeping bags, asleep, head over heels over head…

And of course there are other stories, the astronaut’s stories. Each individual is out of reach of a loved one to embrace, short of Earth knowledge, though seeing the planet more entirely than anyone living on its surface. Such a disconnect at so much distance, such possible domestic disasters, and yet not one wants to go home early. Hidden illness, the death of a Mother, and yet somehow, the six of them are sufficient unto each others’ equilibrium.

Don’t expect great drama, fallings out, or violence in the space station. A hand’s breadth away from disaster, the metal holds, in spite of its age. And, so do the six men and women within it. This jewel of a book is out there, like our beautiful planet in space; silent, modest, wonderful, waiting to be found.

Orbital is published by Vintage. 

See also Samantha Harvey's The Shapeless Unease, reviewed by Graeme Fife

More of Cindy's choices: 

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Katherine Rooney

Guest review by Cindy Jefferies: LILLIAN BOXFISH TAKES A WALK by Kathleen Rooney

 

"Lillian charmed me into her life."

First published in 2001 for children, Cindy Jefferies found success with her Fame School series with Usborne Books, obtaining 22 foreign rights deals. Latterly writing fiction for adults as Cynthia Jefferies, her first title The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan was published in 2018, followed a year later by The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne, set during the English Civil Wars, followed in 2019. Both titles are now available in paperback.

Two words. Flâneuse, something I certainly am, though perhaps not to the extent Lillian Boxfish is: and anhedonia, something I don’t suffer from but a word I had come across for the first time in an online article I was reading recently. I had never seen the word before, but being distracted for a moment I neglected to look it up. Then, with the serendipity I so love in life, a few days later, there it was again, in the book I was reviewing. Wikipedia will give you a useful definition if you don’t know the word but I won’t enlighten you here, because to do so might spoil your pleasure a little, in reading Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk.

Kathleen Rooney’s novel was a slow burn for me. There was the happy anticipation of encountering a character who shares my enjoyment of wandering alone through the streets. Also, it is always a pleasure to handle a Daunt paperback. The substantial cover and the high quality of the paper, smooth and sensuous to the touch, both delight. However, there was no street map, to help me with Lillian’s walk through Manhattan on her cold, New Year’s Eve night. I thought it would be essential, and mourned the lack as soon as riffling through the pages revealed it.

My only experience of New York is being driven through the city at speed to try and catch a plane. (Fortunately for me it had been delayed and I caught it.) My feet have never walked these streets and I feared that my lack of knowledge would spoil the novel experience. So, I started to read, a little disengaged; but as the book had been a present from my daughter I felt I should give it a go. I’m very glad I did. The wistfulness at the lack of a street plan was soon forgotten, as Lillian charmed me into her life.

Lillian Boxfish is inspired partly by the real, highest paid female advertising copywriter in the world during the 1930’s. The author’s notes expand on this but I won’t here. Suffice it to say that in this unusual and enjoyable novel there are written adverts, poetry, humour, memories and walking. Take a trip to your local, independent bookshop; walking if possible, and seek out this book.

I was going to leave you with one of the rhymes scattered through its pages, but decided instead on one sentence that has, sadly, perhaps never been more true.

People who command respect are never as widely known as people who command attention.

Lilian Boxfish Takes a Walk is published by Daunt Books.

More of Cindy's choices for Writers Review:

Buddha Da by Anne Donovan

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller

Guest review by Cindy Jefferies: BUDDHA DA by Anne Donovan

 

"I was hooked. Before I’d read the first half a page I knew I was going to enjoy the ride."

First published in 2001 for children, Cindy Jefferies found success with her Fame School series with Usborne Books, obtaining 22 foreign rights deals. Latterly writing fiction for adults as Cynthia Jefferies, her first title The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan was published in 2018, followed a year later by The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne, set during the English Civil Wars, followed in 2019. Both titles are now available in paperback.

For some reason unclear to me I missed Anne Donovan’s first novel, Buddha Da, the first time around. It was published in 2003, but I didn’t come across it until I was recently away for a few days and found it in an Oxfam book shop.

I wonder if I did notice it when it was published but rejected it because it’s written in Glasgow vernacular? I enjoyed James Kelman’s How Late it is, How Late, but didn’t get on with Irving Welsh’s Trainspotting. Of course, reading the vernacular always demands a bit more effort from the reader. It’s difficult, now, to remember if it was the vernacular or the subject that put me off Trainspotting. Be that as it may, the premise of Buddha Da certainly appealed and I was happy to give it a go.

As a writer, where I find my reading is always of interest. Libraries and charity bookshops enable me to take a punt on half a dozen novels and to discover someone new to me that I love enough to seek out at full price in one of our wonderful independent bookshops. Anne Donovan is definitely now on my independent bookshop list.

So back to the vernacular. Some readers take exception to it. Done well, however, I rather enjoy it and in the case of Buddha Da it really lifted the novel to another level. Here’s the very beginning of the book.

“Ma Da’s a nutter. Radio rental. He’d dae anythin for a laugh so he wid; went doon the shops wi a perra knickers on his heid, tellt the wifie next door we’d won the lottery and were flittin tae Barbados, but that wis daft stuff compared tae whit he’s went and done noo.”

I was hooked. Before I’d read the first half a page I knew I was going to enjoy the ride.

Buddha Da is told by the three main characters. Anne Marie the daughter aged 12, Ma Liz, who works in the local doctor’s surgery and Da, Jimmy, a self employed painter and decorator. Their small family is like countless others, getting on well enough, working hard and enjoying a night out at the weekend. Never in a dozen lifetimes would it have occurred to Jimmy’s family or friends that he would set foot in the local Buddhist centre, but he does. It seems even less likely that he would go back time and again. He hasn’t even been to church for years. What’s going on with him?

This is a domestic novel that comes at one slantwise. There’s no wayward husband having an affair, no daughter getting into trouble; and yet, the family are thrown totally off balance. When Jimmy starts to give up some of the things that were an integral part of their lives, everything falls apart.

The story is funny, sad and sometimes thought provoking. Problems tend not to be solved, questions remain largely unanswered but I found it satisfying in an unexpected way, like much of life.

Buddha Da was Anne Donovan’s first novel, and was at the time shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Award. Taking note of those listings, perhaps you’ll enjoy it too.

Buddha Da is published by Canongate

More of Cindy's choices:

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller

Guest review by Cindy Jefferies: WHEN THE DUST SETTLES by Lucy Easthope

 

"For the lay reader this is an extraordinary book. For a writer it is gold."

First published in 2001 for children, Cindy Jefferies found success with her Fame School series at Usborne Books, obtaining 22 foreign rights deals. More recently she has written fiction for adults as Cynthia Jefferies. Her first title under that name, The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan, was published in 2018, followed a year later by The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne. Both titles are set during the English Civil Wars.

I don’t usually review non-fiction. Not because I don’t read it. I read a lot for research but perhaps that’s it. I tend to review the novels I read for relaxation, while non fiction, however interesting, for some reason gets lumped with work, which is very unfair. This book, by Lucy Easthope, has propelled me out of my curmudgeonly attitude and made me determined to review more of the excellent non-fiction out there. In addition, this book would be a brilliant resource for many novelists. How could I not review it?

I came across Lucy Easthope’s name when I saw she had been booked to appear at our local Stroud book festival in November 2022. The strapline on the book is “Stories of love, loss and hope from an expert in disaster.” That intrigued me, and I booked tickets. It was electrifying! Lucy is a very engaging person. Cheerful, and yes…funny; a great speaker and absolutely devoted to her career in disaster management. But there’s much more to her than that, and she also seemed comfortable in referring occasionally to the ups and downs in her personal life. I learnt a lot that evening and my partner queued afterwards to buy a book and get it signed. I asked if I could borrow it some time but for that most prosaic of reasons, forgetfulness, it just didn’t happen. A year drifted by, then one day I happened to notice the book on his table.

“Oh! I meant to read that,” I said. “I’m going away on a writer’s retreat soon. Do you mind if I borrow it now?” And so I did.

Lucy Easthope has an engaging style and I was instantly hooked. She was telling me so much that I didn’t know. What a disaster expert is, for starters. And, chillingly, what the dust in the title can refer to. So much important work is done, even months and years after a disaster, analysing the dust created in a disaster such as the twin towers in the USA. Loved ones left behind want and need a body to say farewell to, but of course this is often impossible. DNA testing of such dust and fragments can result in tiny particles being found and identified long after the initial trauma has passed. Families are left with the horrific prospect of receiving minute amounts of matter several times, sometimes years apart. Then they have to decide whether to have yet another funeral to honour the person they loved and lost. One thing Easthope feels very strongly is that the people left behind have to be considered much more. What is vital to her is to help a person and a community to begin to recover, or at least start to move forwards.

In the hours and days after a disaster, whether a plane crash, a tsunami, a terrorist attack or a fire, multiple agencies swing into action. Police, ambulance workers, firemen, and all the science that goes with police work in a crime scene. We are all used to seeing these people on our TV screens and I had known that these things are rehearsed from time to time. Now I was reading an expert’s account of how what happens afterwards can make or break the recovery of those left behind. A blood-smeared cinema ticket could mean the world to someone who has almost nothing else to remember their loved one by. Such things, rather than being maudlin, can comfort, in the knowledge that the person was doing what they loved just before they died.

The blurb on the flyleaf of the this book tells us just how experienced Lucy Easthope is. She is the UK’s leading authority on recovering from disaster. From the 2004 Tsunami, 9/11, the 7/ 7 bombings, the Salisbury poisonings, Grenfell and the Covid 19 pandemic; she is the one who has answered the call, packed her bag and gone to support everyone involved. She holds authorities and government to account. She lets us see into the briefing rooms, how politics can get in the way and how simple thoughtlessness, or lack of understanding can make it so much harder for those left behind to begin to turn towards recovery. I am writing this during the Covid 19 enquiry. I have no doubt that Lucy Easthope will figure somewhere, unknown to most of us but vital to the process. For this was the overdue disaster, the one we really should have been ready for and weren’t.

For the lay reader this is an extraordinary book. For a writer it is gold. Between the pages we have an insight into exactly what goes on during, after and long after a disaster has happened. Any thriller writer who has a disaster in their plot would be well advised to read it.

I couldn’t take it in one breathless sitting. Occasionally it almost became tedious in the awful inevitability of what happens over and over again, although every disaster is also unique. But I was drawn back to it after a short break and never felt like abandoning her story. I simply had to read it to the end, and then sit and ponder.

Her matter of fact style helps to stop what she says ever being sensational or overwhelmingly ghastly. But we are dealing here with torn bodies and traumatised people. The people who pick up the pieces are so often heroic and almost broken by what they do. That Lucy Easthope is still standing is a testament to her desire as a young child, growing up near Hillsborough, to help, and she does this in spite of her own issues. We can thank her for thinking about us so carefully, and seeing through experience what works best to help us recover. We can all hope that a disaster never engulfs us, but if it does, she will be there somewhere: in the notes the recovery workers study, in the plans she has drawn up and usually in person, whether in a pop-up mortuary or a warm and welcoming place for families to gather. She strives to make sure the materials are there to ensure the proper collection and labelling of the remains of lives, so that eventually, those left behind can grieve and begin their own recovery. Little do we know how much we need her - so thank you, Lucy Easthope.

When the Dust Settles is published by Hodder.

Guest review by Cindy Jefferies: UNSETTLED GROUND by Claire Fuller

                                                    

"These characters are beautifully drawn by Fuller with their frailties and difficulties with the modern world laid bare."

First published in 2001 for children, Cindy Jefferies found success with her Fame School series with Usborne Books, obtaining 22 foreign rights deals. Latterly writing fiction for adults as Cynthia Jefferies, her first title The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan was published in 2018, followed a year later by The Honourable Life of Thomas Chayne, set during the English Civil Wars. Both titles are now available in paperback.

Unsettled Ground took me back to my teenage years, when I was made melancholy by reading some of the Russian classics. There is something of the plight of those serfs here. But while they suffered grinding poverty with no recourse to a better life, this is a very modern, English tale of two marginalised country dwellers.

Jeanie and Julius are fifty-one year old twins, living with their mother in a cottage that hasn’t been updated, perhaps ever. They do have a solid fuel Rayburn, but no bathroom and an earth closet outside. They scrape a living from their large garden, producing fruit and vegetables for sale, as well as eggs. Julius gets occasional work, but nothing permanent, while Jeanie has a weak heart and has never been employed outside the home. When their mother dies suddenly the twins are thrust into the horror of having no money for any sort of funeral, and their precarious existence begins to implode.

This novel made me both sad and angry at the plight of these two characters, especially Jeanie, who has few resources to cope in a society where data is king and electricity for charging gadgets essential. I have known people like this and these characters are beautifully drawn by Fuller with their frailties and difficulties with the modern world laid bare.

There was a point at which I wondered if I could bear to carry on reading but I’m glad I did. There are secrets in this family to be unravelled and they are revealed with skill. Unsettled Ground settles at last into an ending I could believe in without giving me sleepless nights. The gentle, unquestioned love between sister and brother is beautifully done throughout the novel. Highly recommended.

Unsettled Ground is published by Fig Leaf

More of Cindy's choices:

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall

The Master by Colm Toibin

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frasier

Virtual Costa Book Awards Part 2: Celia Rees and guests

The second part of our Virtual Award nominations by guests past, present and future. Part  3 next week!

HELENA PIELICHATY nominates Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus for the Virtual Costa First Novel Prize:

It was Penny Dolan’s enthusiastic review on this blog that alerted me to this sublime novel, which I have no hesitation in nominating as my book of the year, not only in the debut category but as overall winner, too. Lessons in Chemistry captivated me from start to finish. In Elizabeth Zott, the book’s main character, Garmus has created a heroine, not only for the 1960s, when the book is set, but for today. Zott is every bright woman who has been told to ‘know her place’, who has had her ideas ignored or stolen by male colleagues, and has had to forge on through adversity. Garmus takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride of emotions with verve, wit and warmth. It is everything fiction should be and I applaud her for it. Read it. Read it now.

PHILIP WOMACK nominates The Young Accomplice by Benjamin Wood for the Virtual Costa Novel Prize:

Benjamin Wood's latest novel, The Young Accomplice, is a mature, reflective and immersive piece of work. Set on a farm in Surrey run by an architect with utopian ideals, the book details how the arrival of two young offenders disrupt the status quo. Exquisitely written, it marks Wood out as one of our best young writers.

CINDY JEFFERIES nominates Treacle Walker by Alan Garner for the Virtual Costa Novel Prize:

Living where I do, how could I not select Treacle Walker as the best novel in 2022? The rag and bone man no longer plies his trade here, but the scrap metal man does, his call echoing around the hilly streets as he passes. And this Christmas month a local college offered 'meditation, ritual and an appreciation of Garner's books, to find the crossing place that brings us home.'

Treacle Walker is both difficult and simple, profound and teasing. It has comics and donkey stones, magic and misunderstanding. Is it the only novel ever shortlisted for the Booker prize to be also suitable for children? (excepting the odd word certain adults might not approve of) Will my seven year old granddaughter understand it? Do I? We will travel its pages together, helping each other along the way.

I didn't go to the college's session, but the end of Treacle Walker feels very much like coming home. You don't need a scrap metal merchant's cry echoing in your ears to enjoy this book; you just need to feel the past, the present and the future in your heart.

LINDA SARGENT nominates Light Rains Sometimes Fall: A British Year Through Japan’s 72 Seasons by Lev Parikian for the Virtual Costa Biography Award (which may be stretching the category somewhat, but these are our awards and we'll distribute them as we wish!)

As a friend once wisely observed, “sometimes we forget what we’re good at”, a kind of disconnection perhaps. It could be said that in 2020 the world was given a chance to reconnect with the minutiae of our natural world. And this beautifully poetic and humorously written book is one reminder of how we might pick up those threads. Here the author follows the ancient Japanese model of the seasons, seventy-two in all. Imitating the Japanese approach with chapter headings ranging from Woodpeckers Start Drumming, Flying Ants Fill the Sky, to Leaves Lie Thick on the Grass, he covers just a few days at a time, detailing his daily walks in the local cemetery, common or his own garden, finding joy in the small things and gently guiding the reader to follow, wherever they live, during the same period. A gem of a book.

It would be nice to hear an owl.

I do not hear an owl.

But the air is damp and soft, and not as cold as I imagined, and I head back home considerably calmed by the experience.

BERLIE DOHERTY nominates The Boy Lost in the Maze by Joseph Coelho for the Virtual Costa Poetry Prize:

The Boy Lost in the Maze is a novel told in poems. It's not a verse novel. Each episode is a new complete poem, distinct in form and content. There are two narrators, Theo and`Theseus, both sixteen: one a boy from today, one the mythical future Greek king. Theo is estranged from his father and desperate to find him. He is fascinated by the story of Theseus, and his search for his own father. Both boys have been lied to about their past and are determined to unravel the lies and find the truth. Theo's journey echoes emotionally and physically, the 'labours' of Theseus. The adventures of the two youths are graphically told in a sequence of fine poems that are sometimes free-form, sometimes rap, sometimes highly structured.

This powerful, painful, and exciting poetry novel is illustrated by Kate Milner. Her artwork is dramatic and balletic, a fitting complement to an exceptional book for older teenagers and adult readers.

LINDA NEWBERY nominates The Flames by Sophie Haydock for the Virtual Costa First Novel Prize:

Who could resist a novel set in Vienna, exploring the viewpoints of four women who modelled for that most provocative of artists, Egon Schiele? Certainly not me. Sophie Haydock's assured first novel conveys the atmosphere of bohemian Vienna in the years leading up to the First World War in her depiction of the troubled relationships and rivalries, of Schiele's driving ambition and the place he established for himself alongside his better-known mentor, Gustav Klimt; and, of course, the women themselves and their often unconventional lives. You'll certainly want to see more of Schiele's work after reading this, and his depictions of these four women: see Sophie Haydock's egonschieleswomen on Instagram for images and background.

PIPPA GOODHART nominates Three Little Monkeys Ride Again, by Quentin Blake with illustrations by Emma Chichester Clark, for the Virtual Costa Children's Book Prize:

This is such a joy of book! We’ve met the three exuberantly naughty little monkeys before, and it’s very clear that Blake and Chichester Clark love playing with them and their host Hilda, and that eternally deliciously enjoyable quality of naughtiness in others. This time, extravagantly hatted Hilda Snibbs takes those three little monkeys to visit her old mother at her ‘calm and peaceful’ house. But whenever boredom hits, the spectacular, yet relatable, monkey naughtiness ensues. What chaos! What protestations that Hilda will never take on holiday again! But then all comes good. ‘Thank goodness I brought you on holiday.’ But we’re left with one last dollop of gorgeously illustrated ducks in the sink, frogs in the rice pudding, pond weed everywhere, naughtiness to show that nothing so very much has changed!

 

CELIA REES nominates Bad Actors by Mick Herron for the Virtual Costa Novel Prize:

My choice is Mick Herron's Bad Actors precisely because as a genre novel, 8th in a series and a recently aired big budget TV production it would NEVER have been nominated for the actual late lamented Costas. It is, however, MY Best Novel of 2022.

Adele Geras and I are both massive Mick Herron fans and look forward to each new Slough House book. We are never disappointed. Mick Herron is one of the few writers who can make me laugh out loud and he is the only writer I know who even attempts to examine the current British political scene, faithfully chronicling our times from terrorist attacks through Brexit to the pandemic with all the accompanying betrayals, back stabbings, political missteps, coverups, bare faced lying, Whitehall shenanigans, astounding inefficiency and corruption. I hesitated to use the word 'satire' when applied to his books because, given what has happened in the months since Bad Actors was published, even Mick Herron couldn't make it up. He is the Jonathan Swift de nos jours and I can't wait to read the book he must be working on now...

I urge anyone who hasn't already, to read the Slough House books from the beginning. You have a treat in store.

 Click here for Part 1 ...