Category Archives: Recommended

April 15, 2025 · 4:59 pm

Shy Creatures – Clare Chambers

Shy Creatures – Clare Chambers

I have put all of my unread books into a spreadsheet (all 240!) and I am using a random number generator to select a book to read. If I don’t want to read it, then I have to move it on.

Shy Creatures was selected first. I enjoyed Small Pleasures, and so happily bought a large paperback version of this one.

Here’s the blurb …

In all failed relationships there is a point that passes unnoticed at the time, which can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park.

Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is in her thirties and an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with a charismatic, married doctor.
One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance from a derelict house not far from Helen’s home. A mute, thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, with a beard down to his waist, has been discovered along with his elderly aunt. It is clear he has been shut up in the house for decades, but when it emerges that William is a talented artist, Helen is determined to discover his story.

Shy Creatures is a life-affirming novel about all the different ways we can be confined, how ordinary lives are built of delicate layers of experience, the joy of freedom and the transformative power of kindness.

This was an interesting book, I enjoyed the insight into mental hospitals in the 1960s – it seemed a nice place to stay and the staff were kind (no Nurse Ratched!).

There was casual misogyny (as you would expect) and a bit of judgement around mental illness.

‘You mean a mental asylum?’ her mother had said when Helen called to tell her about her new appointment at Westbury Park. ‘Oh Helen.’

The characters are complex – Gil kind thoughtful and caring to his patients thinks nothing of cheating on his wife. William’s aunts, who obviously had their own issues, were trying to keep him safe, but denied him a normal life.

I think it is about our duty to fellow humans, to be kind and not to judge too quickly.

Here is one of my favourite quotes:

It surprised him how much time was taken up with the business of living; half the morning gone already and he hadn’t picked up a book or pencil. He experienced a belated appreciation for the many invisible offices performed without thanks by Aunt Elsie and Aunt Louisa. The jobs women did weren’t difficult, but they certainly ate up the hours.

A review

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April 9, 2025 · 2:12 pm

Three Days in June – Anne Tyler

Three Days in June – Anne Tyler

How is Anne Tyler still writing? And still writing well? I have been a fan for quite some time.

Here’s the blurb …

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start with, she loses her job – or quits, depending who you ask. And then her ex-husband Max turns up at her door expecting to stay for their daughter’s wedding. He hasn’t even brought a suit. Instead, he brings with him memories, a calm maturity, a shared sense of humour – and a cat looking for a new home.

Over the course of the three busy days of the wedding, the past is stirred up for Gail, even as the future – in the shape of the happy couple Debbie and Kenneth – is already underway. But ‘happy’ takes many forms, and sometimes the younger generation has much to teach the older about secrets, acceptance and taking the rough with the smooth.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humour, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a feast of a novel to savour in a single sitting.

People don’t tap their watches anymore; have you noticed?

This is the opening sentence and soon after we hear how Marilee has to have her heart re-started to get it beating correctly. There is definitely a theme of re-starts and second chances.

The story is told from Gail’s point of view, and unusually, I didn’t find her to be sympathetic, she is lacking empathy.

I wondered why it was that I had so many irritating people in my life.

Possibly it’s you Gail.

It’s beautifully written, with all of those ordinary things made extraordinary. Will Gail finally be able to express her feelings to Debbie and Max?

A review.

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April 6, 2025 · 10:33 am

The Island of Missing Trees – Elif Shafak

The Island of Missing Trees – Elif Shafak

I really enjoyed There are Rivers in the Sky. I leapt at the opportunity to read this one.

Here is the blurb …

A rich, magical new book on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.

Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited — her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.

A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.

First, I knew nothing about Cyprus and the Greek and Turkish struggle over it. The writing is beautiful – how does someone write so well in a second language? I particularly enjoyed the chapters from the point of view of the fig. The story moves around in time, so what you think you know about the characters turns out to be a false assumption. We get to knows the characters slowly, like what would happen if you meet them in person. Ada’s mother has died, then we understand her mother was unwell, then that she drinks too much, and finally that her death might have been suicide.

Some of my favourite quotes

A map is a two-dimensional representation with arbitrary symbols and incised lines that decide who is to be our enemy and who is to be our friend, who deserves our love and who deserves our hatred and who, our sheer indifference.

Her voice was like a flying carpet that lifted her up and carried her against her will.

Because that is what migrations and relocations do to us: when you leave your home for unknown shores, you don’t simply carry on as before; a part of you dies inside so another part can start all over again.

If families resemble trees, as they say, arborescent structures with entangled roots and individual branches jutting out at awkward angles, family traumas are like thick, translucent resin dripping from a cut in the bark. They trickle down generations.

You don’t fall in love in the midst of a civil war, when you are hemmed in by carnage and by hatred on all sides. You run away as fast as your legs can carry your fears, seeking basic survival and nothing else. With borrowed wings you take to the sky and soar away into the distance. And if you cannot leave, then you search for shelter, find a safe place where you can withdraw into yourself because now that everything has failed, all diplomatic negotiations and political consultations, you know it can only be an eye for an eye, hurt for hurt, and it is not safe anywhere outside your own tribe.

Because in real life, unlike in history books, stories come to us not in their entirety but in bits and pieces, broken segments and partial echoes, a full sentence here, a fragment there, a clue hidden in between,

It’s a beautiful, engrossing story full of hope and love, but also sadness and acknowledgement of the terrible things people do to one another.

A review

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March 31, 2025 · 2:56 pm

Bury Your Dead – Louise Penny

Bury Your Dead – Louise Penny

Another Chief Inspector Gamache book! I love these novels.

Here’s the blurb …

It is Winter Carnival in Quebec City, bitterly cold and surpassingly beautiful. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has come not to join the revels but to recover from an investigation gone hauntingly wrong. But violent death is inescapable, even in the apparent sanctuary of the Literary and Historical Society – where an obsessive historian’s quest for the remains of the founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, ends in murder. Could a secret buried with Champlain for nearly 400 years be so dreadful that someone would kill to protect it?

Although he is supposed to be on leave, Gamache cannot walk away from a crime that threatens to ignite long-smoldering tensions between the English and the French. Meanwhile, he is receiving disquieting letters from the village of Three Pines, where beloved Bistro owner Olivier was recently convicted of murder. “It doesn’t make sense,” Olivier’s partner writes every day. “He didn’t do it, you know.” As past and present collide in this astonishing novel, Gamache must relive the terrible event of his own past before he can bury his dead.

For this one Gamache and Beauvois, both recovering from terrible injuries, separate and solve different murders. Beauvois in Three Pines looking into the Hermit’s murder (A Brutal Telling), and Gamache gets swept up into an investigation in Quebec City. Once again, the descriptions are magnificent – I want to go to Quebec City now.

The structure of this one was interesting as well. We know something terrible has happened, Gamache and Beauvois are both on leave, but the story is unfolded gradually told from their different perspectives.

A review

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March 14, 2025 · 3:51 pm

The Loom of Time – Robert D Kaplan

The Loom of Time – Robert D. Kaplan

One of the women in my book club mentioned this book and as I thought I should be better informed about the Middle East, I decided to read it.

Here’s the blurb …

A stunning exploration of the Greater Middle East, where lasting stability has often seemed just out of reach but may hold the key to the shifting world order of the twenty-first century

The Greater Middle East, which Robert D. Kaplan defines as the vast region between the Mediterranean and China, encompassing much of the Arab world, parts of northern Africa, and Asia, existed for millennia as the crossroads of empire: Macedonian, Roman, Persian, Mongol, Ottoman, British, Soviet, American. But with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have endeavored to maintain stability in the face of power struggles between factions, leadership vacuums, and the arbitrary borders drawn by exiting imperial rulers with little regard for geography or political groups on the ground. In the Loom of Time, Kaplan explores this broad, fraught space through reporting and travel writing to reveal deeper truths about the impacts of history on the present and how the requirements of stability over anarchy are often in conflict with the ideals of democratic governance.

In The Loom of Time, Kaplan makes the case for realism as an approach to the Greater Middle East. Just as Western attempts at democracy promotion across the Middle East have failed, a new form of economic imperialism is emerging today as China’s ambitions fall squarely within the region as the key link between Europe and East Asia. As in the past, the Greater Middle East will be a register of future great power struggles across the globe. And like in the past, thousands of years of imperial rule will continue to cast a long shadow on politics as it is practiced today.

To piece together the history of this remarkable place and what it suggests for the future, Kaplan weaves together classic texts, immersive travel writing, and a great variety of voices from every country that all compel the reader to look closely at the realities on the ground and to prioritize these facts over ideals on paper. The Loom of Time is a challenging, clear-eyed book that promises to reframe our vision of the global twenty-first century.

It is clear that Kaplan has spent a lot of time travelling in the Middle East (over a number of years), thinking about it and researching it. Although it was recently published, it was before Trump’s second presidency, which I think will have a profound impact on world politics.

I thought about anarchy and autocracy and how the latter might be preferred. There is information about the history – country by country – the revolutions, the ethnic groups, and the religions.

A review

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February 1, 2025 · 5:55 pm

Dusk – Robbie Arnott

Dusk – Robbie Arnott

I was going to Tasmania for a holiday and I wanted to read a Tasmanian author (I think Robbie Arnott is from Launceston). I read The Rain Heron, so I was familiar with his work.

Here’s the blurb …

In the distant highlands, a puma named Dusk is killing shepherds. Down in the lowlands, twins Iris and Floyd are out of work, money and friends. When they hear that a bounty has been placed on Dusk, they reluctantly decide to join the hunt. As they journey up into this wild, haunted country, they discover there’s far more to the land and people of the highlands than they imagined. And as they close in on their prey, they’re forced to reckon with conflicts both ancient and deeply personal.

This is set in Australia because there are kangaroos, but I couldn’t say where. I laughed about the pumas being imported to hunt something else introduced, but preferring to eat the sheep instead – very Australian, cane toads anyone?

The descriptions of the landscape are magnificent, and I particularly enjoyed Iris’s connection to the highlands (her sense of peace and stillness).

The conflict between pastoralists and nature, pastoralists and the first people is a feature of this novel, but not in an overt manner (we’re not being beaten over the head here).

It does have an ambiguous ending, but I am imagining everyone happily living in Brazil.

Some quotes

And perhaps it was this mixture of wine and song; perhaps it was the hours spent in the company of cold mountains and still water, perhaps it was her lingering awareness of the ghostly grove surrounding the tavern; perhaps it was because she was momentarily free of Floyd, while knowing he was safe; perhaps it was the fatigue at the end of a hard day; perhaps it was all of it combined that made Iris lean back on her stool and feel a thin but taut connection to these things that were new to her, that were bright and strange, that she did not understand.

But it was not a claustrophobic feeling; there was pleasure in moving through it all, as if she was slowly discovering the right way – or perhaps just her way – to move through an old world.

She felt like a broom had been pulled through her, stiff bristles raking her straight, clean, her mind filling with a sense of unhurried purpose.

That last one in particular! How good is he at putting words together?

A review

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January 18, 2025 · 10:52 am

Offshore – Penelope Fitzgerald

Offshore – Penelope Fitzgerald

The theme for my book club this time is Rivers. I loved There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak and I will definitely talk about that novel, but I wanted to read something else as well. I googled novels about rivers and this came up. I have read and watched The Book Shop, so this was the perfect choice.

Here’s the blurb …

Penelope Fitzgerald’s Booker Prize-winning novel of loneliness and connecting is set among the houseboat community of the Thames, with an introduction from Alan Hollinghurst.

Offshore is a dry, genuinely funny novel, set among the houseboat community who rise and fall with the tide of the Thames on Battersea Reach. Living between land and water, they feel as if they belong to neither…

Maurice, a male prostitute, is the sympathetic friend to whom all the others turn. Nenna loves her husband but can’t get him back; her children run wild on the muddy foreshore. She feels drawn to Richard, the ex-RNVR city man whose converted minesweeper dominates the Reach. Is he sexually attractive because he can fold maps the right way? With this and other questions waiting to be answered, Offshore offers a delightful glimpse of the workings of an eccentric community.

As I haven’t read the introduction yet, I might be missing some of the more literary or subtle points.

I stayed in Battersea on my recent trip to London, and suffice to say this stretch of the Thames has been gentrified.

This is one of my photos – from the Chelsea side of the river

I would call this an ensemble novel, no one major character or view point. For a short period of time we follow the lives of a small house boat community – the boats (apart from one) are all a bit battered as are the people by life and circumstances, but they are kind and look out for each other.

The writing is beautiful, evocative of the place and time, insightful, and, at times, witty.

Here are some of my favourite quotes

And each one of them felt the patches, strains and gaps in their craft as if they were weak places in their own bodies.

I’m afraid I can’t claim to know much about knitting

Tilda cared nothing for the future, and had, as a result, a great capacity for happiness.

She was still at the RSM then, violin first study, and she fell in love as only a violinist can.

A review

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January 15, 2025 · 2:55 pm

A Great Reckoning – Louise Penny

A Great Reckoning – Louise Penny

I came across this while searching my husband’s audible library – I haven’t read any of the previous novels (this is novel 12), so I have probably spoiled the earlier ones for myself. I liked it, I am planning on reading the first one while on a road trip.

Here’s the blurb …

When an intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, it at first seems no more than a curiosity. But the closer the villagers look, the stranger it becomes.

Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. To an old friend and older adversary. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec to places even he is afraid to go. But must.

And there he finds four young cadets in the Sûreté academy, and a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map.

Everywhere Gamache turns, he sees Amelia Choquet, one of the cadets. Tattooed and pierced. Guarded and angry. Amelia is more likely to be found on the other side of a police line-up. And yet she is in the academy. A protégée of the murdered professor.

The focus of the investigation soon turns to Gamache himself and his mysterious relationship with Amelia, and his possible involvement in the crime. The frantic search for answers takes the investigators back to Three Pines and a stained glass window with its own horrific secrets.

For both Amelia Choquet and Armand Gamache, the time has come for a great reckoning.

Number-one New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny pulls back the layers to reveal a brilliant and emotionally powerful truth in her latest spellbinding novel.

I loved the setting, the characters and the plot. I loved the map and the Three Pines community. The emphasis on kindness and empathy, and not believing everything you think. It’s about second chances and that there is always a road back.

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January 2, 2025 · 3:00 pm

Just for the Summer – Abby Jiminez

Just for the Summer – Abby Jimenez

I have a paper copy and an audible version of this novel – in the end I listened to it.

I have to say I think the cover is misleading – there wasn’t frolicking in the water.

Here’s the blurb …

Justin has a curse, and thanks to a Reddit thread, it’s now all over the internet. Every woman he dates goes on to find their soul mate the second they break up. When a woman slides into his DMs with the same problem, they come up with a plan: They’ll date each other and break up. Their curses will cancel each other’s out, and they’ll both go on to find the love of their lives. It’s a bonkers idea… and it just might work.

Emma hadn’t planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially when they get to rent an adorable cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka.

It’s supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma’s toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they’re suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected–including catching real feelings for each other. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?

I enjoyed this novel, it has more heft than you would expect from the cover. It’s witty, well-written, and moving. It touches on some serious issues – abandonment and mental illness, but does so in a respectful thoughtful manner. And Justin is a fabulous hero.

A review.

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December 28, 2024 · 3:41 pm

Cuddy – Benjamin Myers

Cuddy – Benjamin Myers

As I read and enjoyed The Offing, I was keen to read this one.

Here’s the blurb …

Cuddy is a bold and experimental retelling of the story of the hermit St. Cuthbert, unofficial patron saint of the North of England. Incorporating poetry, prose, play, diary and real historical accounts to create a novel like no other, Cuddy straddles historical eras – from the first Christian-slaying Viking invaders of the holy island of Lindisfarne in the 8th century to a contemporary England defined by class and austerity. Along the way we meet brewers and masons, archers and academics, monks and labourers, their visionary voices and stories echoing through their ancestors and down the ages. And all the while at the centre sits Durham Cathedral and the lives of those who live and work around this place of pilgrimage – their dreams, desires, connections and communities.

This is definitely experimental – each section is written in a different style.

The first part is like the image above, plus there are quotes from (genuine) history books – that are ordered in a way that keeps the story moving.

There’s a section that’s in second person, a play, a diary, and contemporary fiction.

I think it’s successful, an alternative history of Durham Cathedral through the eyes of some of the people involved in its long history.

The writing is beautiful, here are some of my favourite quotes;

Down there, getting grubby on the bed of waxen leaves. Drunk on the flavour. Dizzy on the fist of it. Sweaty in the grip of it. Biting on the bone of it.

Sanctury is granted and the Galilee bell rung to mark the moment, and the seeker then made to wear a robe that bears the yellow sign of our Cuthbert sewn onto one shoulder to show the world the generosity of our saint who offers his home without judgement. The fugitive is then given quarters and food and the time in which to pray for forgiveness, give confession and make peace with himself, then say farewell to the city, for then he is made to leave and guaranteed safe passage by a chaperone acting on the king’s orders.

He made this for you, over many hours, days, many weeks, maybe. You have never before been given something that serves no purpose other than to express – what exactly? Love? His love for you?

Counting imposes a system of order and breaks the day into increments. Counting is a form of control. It is calming, like prayer.

I was a little bit disappointed it the ending. I wanted more for Michael, but I guess that is the point, events (history) moves inexorably forward. This is a fabulous book, full of great detail, characters and descriptions. Written (successfully) in a variety of styles.

A review

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