In this profound, groundbreaking narrative, Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes weaves together stories of heritage and heartache. His unique memoir celebrates the beauty of Ethiopian culture while mourning its erosion – first under colonial forces, and later through internal conflict. Framing his work via the Ethiopian belief in the four elemental stages of human experience – water, fire, soil and wind – this is an essential exploration of the human condition, connecting readers to a nation of people whose sagacity and spirit have endured through generations.
This is beautifully written (and the poems in Amharic are visually beautiful as well). The sections of memoir are interspersed with poetry. This made me think about colonisation in a different way. Not so much a violent overthrow, but a more insidious erasure of culture – because, of course, everyone wants to be ‘modern’. Also, I didn’t know anything about Ethiopia, so I enjoyed learning about that as well (all I knew was the terrible famine in 1984). It is also about the immigrant experience, being caught between two worlds, and how would you feel when your new home expects you to be grateful?
I have continued my Sherlock Holmes adventure with number two. Also read by Stephen Fry.
Here’s the blurb …
Sherlock Holmes is bored and case-less, and relieving his boredom by alternating morphine and cocaine. Enter the charming Miss Mary Morstan, with whom Watson is instantly smitten. She requests the assistance of Holmes and Watson to solve the mysterious disappearance of her father, and the subsequent invitation to ‘have justice’ by an anonymous letter writer.
Holmes and Watson happily accompany her to see the anonymous letter writer; only to become deeply embroiled in a mystery concerning treasure, murders, India, escaped convicts and small savages with poisoned blowpipes.
I enjoyed this – the interesting locations; India, and the Andaman Islands, there is treasure, a man with a wooden leg, an Indian uprising, and a murder in a locked room.
It had the same structure as number one – first half solving the crime and the second half from the criminal’s perspective. Is this the standard Sherlock Holmes’ structure?
Dr Watson meets Mary! What happens now? How can he continue to live with Sherlock?
I am having a bit of a pause while I listen to Bad Actors by Mick Herron (I always like a Slough House novel).
This is my latest book club book. I had it in my digital pile, having bought it thinking I would read all of the Booker prize shortlist for 2025 (I am still going). This won.
Here’s the blurb …
A propulsive, hypnotic novel about a man who is unravelled by a series of events beyond his grasp.
Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour – a married woman close to his mother’s age – as his only companion. These encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that István himself can barely understand, and his life soon spirals out of control.
As the years pass, he is carried gradually upwards on the twenty-first century’s tides of money and power, moving from the army to the company of London’s super-rich, with his own competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth winning him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely.
Spare and penetrating, Flesh is the finest novel yet by a master of realism, asking profound questions about what drives a life: what makes it worth living, and what breaks it.
This has a pared back, direct writing style. It is also like a group of short stories connected together with István being the connection. Each chapter has him in a new place or a new phase of his life, and we don’t know how he got there. In the bits we read he seems very passive, but he joins the army, moves to England, moves back to Hungary so he has some agency. This is a biography told through relationships; the older neighbour, his mother, Helen, Thomas, and his son. He seems attracted to women who have power over him (Helen and the neighbour). Despite not being a sympathetic character, I did feel for him in the end.
The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands – Sarah Brooks
A friend recommended this novel and I noticed that Miss P had a copy (I believe I bought it for her 🙂 )
Here’s the blurb …
It is said there is a price that every passenger must pay. A price beyond the cost of a ticket.
It is the end of the 19th Century and the world is awash with marvels. But there is nothing so marvellous as the Wastelands: a terrain of terrible miracles that lies between Beijing and Moscow.
Nothing touches this abandoned wilderness except the Great Trans-Siberian Express: an impenetrable train built to carry cargo across continents, but which now transports anyone who dares to cross the shadowy Wastelands.
On to the platform steps a curious cast of characters: a grieving woman with a borrowed name, a famous child born on the train and a disgraced naturalist, all heading for the Great Exhibition in Moscow.
But the old rules are changing, and there are whispers that the train isn’t safe. As secrets and stories begin to unravel the passengers and crew must survive their journey through the Wastelands together, even as something uncontrollable seems to be breaking in . . .
I would describe this as historical fantasy – is that a thing? It is set in Europe/Asia on a train voyaging between Beijing and Moscow during the 1800s. The train travels through the ‘wastelands’. On a previous crossing something terrible happened – no one on that voyage can remember what happened. On this crossing everyone is nervous, the wasteland is evolving, but how and into what?
The world building is fabulous, the characters well described. The plot, like many a fantasy novel, could have been a bit tighter (a bit of editing?), but I suspect I am in the minority on that.
One of the lovely women in my stitching group lent this to me.
Here’s the blurb …
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. A visit from the doctor is always a sign of bad things to come.
His youngest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.
But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.
This is beautifully written – is Niall Williams a poet? I could feel the damp and the humidity, not to mention the small town lack of anonymity. The baby doesn’t arrive until about halfway through the novel. Prior to that we are observing the daily lives of these ordinary people, which is made extraordinary simply by the observation. The doctor goes a bit mad when he tries to concoct a plan to keep the baby – this is Ireland in 1962, no one is going to let an unmarried woman keep the baby. However, after getting the curate drunk, sending money for a ticket to a young man in New York, crashing the car, willing an old lady to die, and Ronnie running away only to return – they concoct a good plan. This all sounds very dramatic, but it is a quiet, introspective novel with a real sense of place and character.
I found this in our Audible library and thought why not? The narrator, Mel Hudson, was brilliant.
Here’s the blurb …
A race for survival among the stars… Humanity’s last survivors escaped earth’s ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?
WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age – a world terraformed and prepared for human life.
But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind’s worst nightmare.
Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?
I really enjoyed reading this. There are two narratives that join at the end – one from each civilization and I found both fascinating. I particularly enjoyed the conclusion (no spoilers). I was a bit worried I would have to commit to the next book in the series, but this ended at a good place – I can continue if I want to, but I feel the story has reached a satisfying end.
I selected this because it was short listed for the Booker Prize. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was short, so I didn’t have to commit to too much.
Here’s the blurb …
What’s left when your kids grow up and leave home?
When Tom Layward’s wife had an affair he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest daughter turned eighteen. Twelve years later, while driving her to Pittsburgh to start university, he remembers his pact.
He is also on the run from his own health issues, and the fact that he’s been put on leave at work after students complained about the politics of his law class – something he hasn’t yet told his wife.
So, after dropping Miriam off, he keeps driving, with the vague plan of visiting various people from his past – an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son – on route, maybe, to his father’s grave in California.
This is told from Tom’s perspective and I feel he is an unreliable narrator. His wife, Amy, (who admittedly did have an affair) is portrayed very unsympathetically. Also, Tom is clearly unwell. He wakes up every day with a puffy face and oozing eyes and tells everyone there is nothing wrong, but middle age, and yes he has had tests. And finally, there is white man fragility – good men aren’t getting jobs because of diversity hiring, etc.
Tom is on a road trip; to drop his daughter at College, and then he keeps driving. He visits his brother Eric, who seems to be another lost soul, his college mate (one of the sad white men), his college girlfriend (not sad) and finally his son in L.A.
All of the relationships are beautifully portrayed, and the descriptions of being on the road; the diners, the houses, the basketball courts are great.
It’s about middle age, family, regrets and missed opportunities. There is emotional heft to this novel, particularly the end (no spoilers).
I bought this in November of 2024, and then it languished. However, it is my next book club book, so I have read it!
Here’s the blurb …
The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story.
There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine
Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back.
Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?
Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, “The Konkatsu Killer”, Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.
This novel was extremely popular when it first came out in English. I remember seeing the bright yellow colour everywhere.
I haven’t read much Japanese fiction (one of the coffee going cold books and The Housekeeper and the Professor, which I really enjoyed), so I didn’t know what to expect. This novel is very sensuous. There are many mentions of the sensations of eating; the nuttiness of the rice, the butter coating the inside of her mouth, the feeling of warmth in her body, etc.
There also seems to be an obsession with thinness
And
And this from Rika’s boyfriend after she has gained some weight from all of the good eating
I am not sure about the time setting of this novel. There are mobile phones, but also DVD rental stores (or is that a Japanese thing?)
And this idea about taking care of oneself
And this idea of trying to live well
This was fascinating. How both Rika and Reiko became enamored by Kaji to the point of psychological distress. Everyone had trauma, disappointments and disillusionments. Rika’s untangling of food, cooking and her father’s death was well-written. To me this novel feels more introspective than a western novel.
It is fascinating, intriguing and well worth reading.
I was browsing our Audible library and came across this one. I enjoyed Scrublands and Silver.
Here’s the blurb …
The blast hits them, a shock wave … glass smashing … Somewhere a woman screams. A second explosion, and Martin looks towards the hall, what’s left of it, flames roaring and smoke pouring skywards.
Someone is targeting Martin Scarsden. They bomb his book launch and shoot up his hometown.
Fleeing for his life, he learns that nowhere is safe, not even the outback. The killers are closing in and it’s all he can do to survive.
But who wants to kill him and why? Can he discover their deadly motives and turn the tables?
In a dramatic finale, he finds his fate linked to the disgraced ex-wife of a football icon, a fugitive wanted for a decades-old murder, and two nineteenth-century explorers from a legendary expedition.
Martin Scarsden’s most perilous, challenging and intriguing assignment yet.
This is Australian noir, you know the genre, a small town in the outback, it’s hot and there is a murder in the past. There is also a little bit of spy stuff, deep fake pornography, secret treasure and lost explorers. It had different view points (Ecco and Martin) and the journal of a missing (a fugitive) young woman.
I enjoyed it the setting was beautifully described and the murderer was unexpected. I also liked the machinations around Martin – who wants him dead and discredited?
I have always liked the Phryne Fisher mysteries, but I haven’t read one in a long time and I certainly haven’t read them all. I received this one in the family ‘book flood’ and I read it in a couple of days.
Here’s the blurb …
When Phryne Fisher is invited to Bendigo to witness the investiture of her old friend Lionel, who is being made a Bishop, her expectations of the solemn and dignified ceremony do not include a murder.
Phryne quickly involves herself with perspicacious local Constable Watson and eagle-eyed Detective Inspector Mick Kelly as they identify the murder victim – an overzealous deacon with a nose for trouble.
Applying her quick wits and magnetic charm, Phryne and her expanding team of sleuths discover murky layers of church politics, social scandals and business scams and blackmail. Soon, various suspects begin to populate a long list, each with excellent motives to kill.
Meanwhile the clock is ticking … Will Phryne be able to bring to light the proof she needs before the murderer strikes again or disappears completely?
I love all of the historical references; the clothes, cars, architecture …The crime was intriguing as well – a deacon murdered during a service (no one noticed anything) and the murderer has vanished (how did he/she get out of the cathedral?). The Deacon had something of serious import to tell the Bishop, is that why he was murdered?
This is a cozy crime – like from the golden age of crime.
This will be the last Phryne Fisher mystery as Kerry Greenwood sadly died earlier this year.
