This book was fascinating and challenging but I felt excluded. The writer explicitly states she’s writing for women in their 40s and 50s so older women don’t form part of her analysis. The examples are chilling, but the last person I want to disagree with is another feminist. A good read though, well written, equally engaging and enraging.
Have you ever been driven somewhere in a car much better than your own? Maybe even a limo? It purrs along and you put your head back, relax, look out of the window as the scenery flashes by. That’s what a Richard Osman book is like. You know someone’s in charge and you are just along for the trip; warm and safe, great upholstery. That’s not to disparage, not at all. Sometimes we need to walk, sometimes we want a comfy ride. Don’t think for a minute there won’t be bumps in the road. If you set a novel in a retirement complex, your characters are always close to death. Or worse. The crime strand is very strong, and the characters are charming and funny. Osman himself is bringing the car to a stop for the time being, but if you haven’t traveled his way before, start now.
Robin Ince is well known to Radio and TV audiences and I was surprised at how hard he works for tiny bookshop audiences the length and breadth of the county. I was exhausted reading about it, he must need a complete physical overhaul when it ended. Like all book-lovers he can’t go into a bookshop without buying something and his special delight is a copy (sometimes a duplicate or better version) of something rare and strange which he’s been seeking for years. The book made me laugh out loud in parts, and covered lots of towns with bookshops I knew, which was a lovely trip down memory lane, and gave me some new places to explore. A delightful read from a charming and slightly unsettling writer.
A gorgeous book, in which nothing much happens, but a family structure shifts and creaks and never returns to quite the same shape. Everyone’s in the same place at the same time, but they are all having a uniquely intimate experience of the time and of each other. It was fascinating to see how tight the budget was for a normal working family, but their delight in the vacation, the little games and traditions they’d built and the lovely melancholy of the closing days of the holiday felt very familiar and painful. If you ever had a traditional family holiday by the sea you’ll recognise so much.
This was an odd choice for holiday reading, but it flows along nicely and Hannah Fry (another writer better known to audiences than readers) is a clear and gentle teacher. I know much more about algorithms than I expected to learn, and I’m much clearer about AI and the dangers therein. Fry doesn’t duck the difficult stuff, but she does it with a dose of good humour and even optimism.
I’m a huge fan of mid-century mass fiction which is gradually, (through publishers like Persephone and Dean Street Press among others) becoming more widely available. This didn’t disappoint. Our heroine is the youngest member of a family which we can clearly see is full of sharp and selfish characters, and it is that – and not her perceived lack of personality – which makes her feel like an outsider. We follow her to London in her one good dress where she has a disappointing encounter and fails to confide in her cool and clever sister. We know who the good people are and if the skewering of the privileged intellectuals and bored socialites is a bit broad we can identify with the plainer homebodys who finally get their just desserts. A real pie, not one containing petals.
Suzy D Harris 