Category Archives: 4

March 19, 2026 · 2:25 pm

Bellman & Black – Diane Setterfield

Bellman & Black – Diane Setterfield

I loved Once Upon a River, and so when I saw this one at the local second hand book shop, I couldn’t resist. That book shop closed a few years ago – it just took me a while to get to this.

Here’s the blurb …

As a boy, William Bellman commits one small cruel act that appears to have unforeseen and terrible consequences. The killing of a rook with his catapult is soon forgotten amidst the riot of boyhood games. And by the time he is grown, with a wife and children of his own, he seems indeed, to be a man blessed by fortune. 
Until tragedy strikes, and the stranger in black comes, and William Bellman starts to wonder if all his happiness is about to be eclipsed. Desperate to save the one precious thing he has left, he enters into a bargain. A rather strange bargain, with an even stranger partner, to found a decidedly macabre business. 
And Bellman & Black is born.

I love historical fiction and this had a bit of magical realism thrown in as well. Set in Victorian times during the Industrial Revolution, I enjoyed all the mill references – improving the mill, improving the dying techniques, feeding the workers to keep them loyal, etc. And then the Bellman & Black emporium – an emporium for mourning – everything you could possibly need or want, coffin?, stationery? a mute to follow the coffin? All possible.

There is also chapters about rooks – different collective nouns, behaviours, two mythical rooks called Thought and Memory (‘They know everything and they do not forget’). I enjoyed the part about the rooks playing on the thermal air currents.

What does it mean to be alive? Who will tell our story when we are gone? What does it mean to be successful? All big questions tackled by this novel.

One of my favourite quotes

Dora will be sad and happy and ill and well. She will live the best she can for as long as she can and when she can do that no longer, she will die.

Sounds like a good formula.

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March 11, 2026 · 11:39 am

In the Margins – Gail Holmes

In the Margins – Gail Holmes

I bought this solely for the cover!

Here’s the blurb …

England, 1647. As civil war gives way to an uneasy peace and Puritanism becomes the letter of the law, Frances Wolfreston, a rector’s wife, is charged with enforcing religious compliance by informing on her parishioners. This awful task triggers memories of her mother, Alice, who inspired Frances’ love of books and secretly practised Catholicism at great risk. Conflicted, she doesn’t report a reclusive and mysterious midwife to delay her going to gaol.

 As Frances takes increasingly bold steps to help the women and children of the parish, she attracts the ire of a patron of the church who questions why Frances collects books that she charges are entertainment. When her mother is gaoled for religious crimes, the secrets Frances hides from her husband begin to surface, and she is faced with an impossible choice: comply with the strict dictates of the new laws, or risk everything to free the women she cares for. 

I like historical fiction and this is the first thing I read set around the time of the English civil war. I was intrigued by the recusancy laws, how quickly a woman could be accused of being a witch, and the restriction on women’s lives.

This novel is well-researched, but wears the research lightly. Society, living conditions etc are just revealed naturally as the story progresses. Being a book lover myself, the sections about Frances’ books and visiting the book seller were lovely (and some of her collection is still around today!). The relationships with her mother and her two boys are very touching.

A review

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March 3, 2026 · 3:13 pm

Trials of Hope – Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes

Trials of Hope – Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes

This book won the Hungerford award in 2024.

Here’s the blurb …

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?

An interview.

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Filed under 4, Australian, Hungerford, hungerford, Memoir, Non-Fiction, Paper, Poetry

· 7:52 am

The Sign of Four – Arthur Conan Doyle

The Sign of Four – Arthur Conan Doyle

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).

Wikipedia The Sign of the Four

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March 2, 2026 · 11:41 am

Flesh – David Szalay

Flesh – David Szalay

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.

Service 95 – David Szalay Interview

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February 24, 2026 · 8:46 pm

The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands – Sarah Brooks

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.

A review.

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February 12, 2026 · 1:46 pm

Time of the Child – Niall Williams

Time of the Child – Niall Williams

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.

A review

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February 1, 2026 · 11:10 am

Children of Time – Adrian Tchaikovsky

Children of Time – Adrian Tchaikovsky

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.

A review.

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January 11, 2026 · 1:39 pm

The Rest of Our Lives – Ben Markovits

The Rest of Our Lives – Ben Markovits

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).

A review

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January 9, 2026 · 4:22 pm

Butter – Azako Yuzuki

Butter – Asako Yuzuki

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.

A review

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