Reading Light

Bringing the year to an end with some comforting reading and some challenges.

This was a cosy treat – quite a predictable story of a well-educated young man getting lots of chances (and being brave and confident enough to take them) and making his mark. Funny and frank and a great insight into a period in British television I can well remember. Who knew the writer of the hugely popular “Yes Minister” began his writing life “On the Buses”? I’m not sure it provides much of a primer for writers starting out, the world of media and entertainment is so changed, but he’s engaging company for a couple of hours.

I’m fated never to read big books at the time they’re big – mostly because there’s too much on my book pile so I feel I can’t chase the shiny new thing. This results in me looking blank when everyone’s raving about the latest hit, and then months – years – later, kicking myself mentally for wasting all this time. And time spent without Queenie in your life IS time wasted. She’s gorgeous and funny, tragic and resilient. Anyone who’s been a young woman living in a city will identify with some of her experiences, though her story is unique and specific. Very funny, warm and moving.

A cool slim book filled with cool slim characters. Reading in translation adds another level of separation but this lovely book grips and moves. It is harder to identify with the reluctant reader of the story when you don’t know the books she’s discovering, but the challenge and succour of reading is universal, as are friends, families, longing and loss.

Hughes’ kitchen was already full of dogs and short-term rescues when she finds a tiny bird, thrown from the high nest. Through study and painful experiment she is able to raise George the magpie. He irritates her partner and teases her dogs by hiding food out of their reach, and Hughes is very clear about the wrenching guilt of raising (and domesticating) a wild animal. She knows he must go, though for a while he returns for food and comfort. This book is full of painful, beautiful writing about the household and garden and about wild things interacting with humans. There are tiny tantalising glimpses of Hughes’ parents (Ted and Sylvia) but it is George who is the star here, illuminated by his foster-mother’s patience and clarity. 

This is the recently republished first Moomin book and if you’re a fan* of the lugubrious Moomintrolls and their dark forest world you’ll be interested to see the origin story. Published in 1945 the themes of separation and loss are close to the surface but you see the outlines of the charming friends you’re going to find in the later books. *I am.

This is the wintery version of Uncle Paul. Scary, with the itchy claustrophobic quality of a house full of unwanted guests, which is the nightmarish scenario of the novel. Fremlin captures the complications of grief very well, and she’s incredibly detailed about families. She pulls a fast one, too. You won’t see it coming.

I romped through this book at the end of the year. Orlean works so hard and makes it feel so easy, so simple. She leads us on a journey from childhood visits to the library where she reminds us of our first experiences of freedom and choice. I have such fond memories of the library, stretching to watch the librarian’s fingers flickety-flick through the narrow drawers of cards, the little cardboard envelope bulging with the book cards. What a day it was when I moved from the beige envelope of the children’s department to the deep mature turquoise of adult.

Using the lens of the 1986 fire which badly damaged the beautiful 1920s building, Orlean gives us a history of the array of colourful characters (many of them women) who brought the library service to Los Angeles, (later than in most major American cities.)

The fire might have been arson, or it might have been a result of woeful maintenance failings and corridors as filled with piles of books and papers as the average reader’s bedside area. There might, therefore, have been a culprit, and someone was interviewed for the crime but there was simply no evidence to hold him. His story weaves through the history of the library and the development of its services. Harry Peak was handsome and troubled, he worked on the outside fringes of the film business and was constantly on the verge of his big break – or so he told everyone. Orlean shows us a person trying to be a character, trying out different roles and scripts constantly. Everyone talks about his charm, and his inability to stick to one story and he wouldn’t be the only member of LA’s demi-monde who depended on the library for shelter.

The descriptions of the library are gorgeous and will send you to the internet for a virtual tour. Restocking the library after the fire brought out the best in everyone, and the whole story is filled with hope and joy.

I’m going to end with some lines from the book (in case someone from the local council might be reading.)

“…how necessary and how full of hope it is to collect these books and manuscripts and preserve them. It declares that all these stories matter, and so does every effort to create something that connects us to one another, and to our past, and to what is still to come.”