Adèle Geras, Celia Rees and Linda Newbery are the hosts of Writers Review. Here we each share two books that have impressed us recently and one or more titles we're planning to read next.
Linda's choices:
In The Lost Rainforests of Britain, Guy Shrubsole has almost single-handedly raised public awareness of the temperate rainforests we have in Britain – often in damp microclimates where a deep gorge creates the right conditions of moistness and protection from wind. He’s an engaging writer and the book ranges widely, recounting expeditions with his partner or friends to remote places in Wales or the West Country, describing in detail the species found in these ecosystems, and exploring references in poetry and folklore. We justifiably criticise other countries for destroying their rainforests, but Shrubsole points out that we're largely unaware of how much of our own has been lost. His campaign has resulted in government acknowledgment of these precious habitats and a commitment to protecting and restoring them.
I went straight on to Guy Shrubsole's more recent The Lie of the Land (clever title) - an angrier but equally informative book that looks at who owns land in Britain (the wealthiest 1% owns 50% of it), what they do with it, and how they deny access to the rest of us. You won't be surprised to hear that Guy Shrubsole was a leading figure in the successful challenge to Dartmoor landowner Alexander Darwall when he attempted to ban wild camping. Shrubsole is outraged about the (mis)management of huge areas of moorland for grouse shooting, which includes practices such as burning moorland and the illegal slaughter of birds of prey, foxes and anything classed as 'vermin' which might reduce grouse numbers - all this subsidised by taxpayers. The mass release of pheasants each year, again in the interests of the shooting minority, receives equal condemnation - in what other circumstance would the widespread release of a non-native species into the countryside be considered acceptable, at a time when bird flu is rife and we're all aware of the risks of another pandemic? As recent parliamentary debates have shown, it's down to the lobbying power of those with vested interests in shooting estates. More optimistically, Shrubsole looks at instances of communal purchase of land for the benefit of all and for nature restoration.
As for the books I'm looking forward to, I'm treating myself to a re-reading of Judith Allnatt's touching and beautifully-written The Poet's Wife, which tells the story of poet John Clare's descent into madness from the point of view of Patty, his wife. I first read this ten or more years ago and am now delighted to see it reissued in our own imprint, Writers Review Publishing. With wonderful evocations of the Northamptonshire countryside and rural life, it begins with Patty's deep concern when her husband John, who's walked eighty miles from a lunatic asylum in Epping Forest, appears to believe that he's still married to his first love, Mary. How will Patty cope, as his behaviour becomes increasingly delusional?
I'm also tempted by Anna Hope's Albion, having been captivated by the abridged version as Radio 4's Book of the Week. With a funeral, a will, a privileged family, a big country house, complex relationships and a big surprise sprung on the gathered relatives, it has elements in common with my own novel, which Celia's kindly chosen below. Here, no spoilers, but the revelation brought by outsider Clara shocks the family out of its smugness and leaves them with a difficult dilemma to face.
And I can't omit to mention that I'm currently in thrall to Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead. It's been sitting on my reading pile for some time but now that I've started, I can't wait to get back to it - a marvellous and moving novel whether or not you're familiar with David Copperfield, which it cleverly shadows.
Celia's choices:
I have been reading…
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. The house of the title is in Elk Park, a prosperous suburb of Pennsylvania. It is A large mansion, built in the 1920s, with a glass frontage ‘as big as storefront windows’. The use of glass in the design makes it possible to see right through it, which cannot be said of the characters who come to live there. The house is more than a setting – it is a powerful and enduring presence in the novel with a deep and lasting effect on those who inhabit it. The characters change. The house does not. It is named, not for the design, but for the Van Hoebeeks, the originally owners. It is acquired in 1946 by Cyril Conroy, a real estate developer, who buys it and moves in with his wife and two children, Danny and Maeve. He leaves the contents intact including a library of Dutch books no-one can read and large portraits of the Van Hoebeeks. Nothing about the house changes. It is as if his family have no impact on it. The house affects them, however. The mother loathes it and leaves house, husband and children. Cyril quickly installs a young widow, Andrea, with two children of her own. Danny and Maeve are pushed out, underlining the book’s fairy tale quality. Told over five generations, Pratchett continually plays on fairy tale elements and archetypes: rags to riches, absent fathers, neglectful mothers, abandoned children, wicked stepmothers, faithful retainers but it is done with such skill and delivered with such laconic, casual insouciance by narrator, Danny, that it all seems completely natural.
Our own Linda Newbery also has an iconic house, Wildings, and more importantly an iconic and beautiful garden in her novel The One True Thing. The garden is created by Bridget, a renowned gardener, who is married to Anthony who owns the house. There are two narrators, Bridget herself and her daughter, Jane. With echoes of E.M Forster’s Howard’s End and Dickens' Bleak House, the novel revolves around a death and a quirky will which leaves the future of house (and garden) in doubt. Her mother having pre-deceased her father, daughter Jane is doubly bereaved. The garden and the idyllic rural surroundings are so beautifully described that the reader begins to feel the imminent loss as acutely as Jane does. She is forced to confront not only the threat to her home, but a complex set of revelations that strike at her core beliefs about her family. The skilfully handled dual narrative gradually reveals the lies, evasions and emotional complexities of the past, leading to a resolution where past and present can be reconciled.
This year, I have discovered a writer I'd never heard of before and I really want to introduce her to readers of this blog. Her name is Laurie Colwin and she died in 1992 at the age of 46. She was mainly known as a short story writer and especially a food writer during her lifetime but her novels are wonderful and deserve the attention of anyone who is interested in the texture of life and relationships, food and houses, animals and children .... I'm highlighting her last novel, which was published posthumously in 1993. It's called A Big Storm Knocked it Over and it's about a woman preparing for her own wedding, while also working at a publishing house where she is the editor in charge of illustrations in adult books. Her run ins with recaltricant writers who will not listen to her excellent advice, her beautifully depicted dealings with her fiancé and her friends and the toings and froings with regard to the wedding...everything takes you straight in, and you're part of the proceedings which are described with grace, humour and attention to detail. She's comparable to Anne Tyler in her ability to absorb you into what's happening on the page, seemingly without any effort. Her writing, sentence to sentence, is elegant and considered and engaging. Here is a tiny example, picked at random: "The enormous manuscript of In the Polar Regions by Hugh Oswald-Murphy, had been placed on Jane Louise's desk three times and taken back three times by Erna Hendershot. Then, just as Jane Louise felt she had a grip on what this thing should look like, Erna would appear in a tearing rush and inform her that the author had added to it or taken something away, or that most likely it had been pushed off the spring list or that he had decided that some Eskimo artist would do little line cuts to be scattered throughout, and furthermore that his photographs -still to come- would have to be keyed in.
I really loved this book and have also read Home Cooking and More Home Cooking which are superb and also contain recipes in plenty. She's a writer to take to your heart.
If you’ve not come across the four police procedural novels of Simon Mason (The Wilkins and Wilkins books) then I urge you to find them and read them in the right order. I don’t think nearly enough readers have discovered them and they’re very good indeed.
Even fewer readers will know about the Finder novellas. These are short, spare books in which a man, who calls himself The Finder, turns up in a place (in the case of The Woman Who Laughed it’s a rather drab suburb of Sheffield) and sets about finding someone who has disappeared. In Sheffield, a young sex worker who was murdered some time ago is seen on a bus…. Then she disappears again…. The Finder begins to follow threads which lead into many strange places.
He always takes a novel with him when he travels. In this book, it’s Persuasion by Jane Austen. His reflections on the novel add to this reader’s pleasure.
My advice? Read Simon Mason!
Two books I’m looking forward to:
I’ve just downloaded Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. His name seems to suit the subject very well. It’s about fungi which have complicated networks of communication and which behave in all kinds of very fascinating ways. I love books that open up a whole new world and I am looking forward greatly to learning much more about mushrooms than the fact that they’re delicious when they’re not poisonous.
And I’m about to start on a new novel by Stephen King. It’s called Never Flinch and is a follow up to a terrific and very gory thriller starring the private detective Holly Gibney. That’s called Holly. This story involves a murderer who embarks on a plan to kill 12 innocent people, to avenge the death of a prisoner who has just been stabbed to death in gaol…. but who was falsely imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit.
One thing is sure: never a dull moment in a King book, and this one looks terrific!
Happy reading and have a great summer….
No comments:
Post a Comment