I read a lot in April. I mean, yes, I set aside the long Easter weekend to mostly read, and that accounts for 3.5 books. But that still means in the rest of the month I read 5.5 books, more than March or February.

Partly it’s because this has been a cold, wet spring so far. And I think I’ve been better than usual at creating time to read as I really liked most of the books I read this month. I’ve watched half a dozen films with Tim, but none on my own. Admittedly, though, the K-drama I’m watching has 80–90 minute episodes so you could argue I’ve watched eight more films…

April was quite up and down for us. We seem to have a number of friends going through tough times. It can be hard not being able to prevent bad stuff happening to people you love. But it has made me stop to appreciate the good things in my own life, which it’s important to make time to do.

Happy May Day/International Workers Day!

Books read

Sunset by Jessie Cave
I adored this book. It’s about two sisters’ relationship and how one of them copes in the aftermath of a terrible event. It manages to be funny and glib as well as profoundly moving. I think its narrator Ruth will remain with me for a long time.

How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart by Florentyna Leow
This is food writer Leow’s account of the couple of years she spent living in Kyoto and how her relationship with the city will forever be coloured by the falling apart of her friendship with her housemate there. It’s emotionally raw and honest without revealing details – these are real, living people, after all. Leow was paying her way by organising and sometimes leading tours of Kyoto. As a fluent Japanese speaker from Malaysia, she has an interesting outsider/insider perspective. And the way she describes food…well, I can see how that’s become her main living now!

Queen of Codes: the Secret Life of Emily Anderson, Britain’s Greatest Female Codebreaker by Jackie Uí Chionna
Emily Anderson was an Irish linguist who was recruited as a codebreaker for the British during the First World War. Though official records and Anderson’s personal correspondence are patchy, Uí Chionna pieces together what was clearly a remarkable life. To most of the world, including her neighbours and most of her family and friends, Anderson was a musicologist who earned some small fame from translating and publishing the complete letters of Mozart and Beethoven. But over her decades working for the various secret arms of the British Foreign Office, she personally changed the course of wars. I’ve reviewed this for Physics World.

Three Types of Solitude by Brian W Aldiss
In three brief short stories, Aldiss explores the ways in which people can be alone – which does not always equate to lonely, but often can. There is certainly a sad air to his writing. The genres vary from sci-fi to realism but the tone remains consistent. I liked these but fear a novel of his from the same time could be overwhelmingly sad.

Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford
I feel torn about Nancy Mitford these days. While not a Fascist like two of her sisters, she did remain close to them and defended them in ways that are quite hard to square with what we know now. This book is the closest she came to standing against them, a satire of a Fascist youth group in a sleepy countryside village. And it does a good job of depicting why Fascism might appear exciting and desirable to bored teens, and how it inevitably leads to violence. But it veers pretty close to saying all political beliefs are equally bad.

The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
Another great read, albeit one that begins with some horrid scenes that made me wonder if I wanted to continue. This novel’s heroine, Adunni, is married off aged 14 to be third wife to a middle-aged man in a small Nigerian village. It looks like her dreams of education and independence are thoroughly out of reach and she must instead learn to avoid the first wife’s beatings and how to secretly use contraceptives. But with her boldness and humour, Adunni finds a way forward.

The Gigolo by Françoise Sagan
Translated from French by Joanna Kilmartin
In four brief short stories, Sagan looks at romantic relationships from many different angles, all with the slightly languid, sad air of someone who is getting old and feels romance is behind them. The settings underline how much France changed from the 1930s to the 1970s, and yet the emotions remain the same.

Lemon by Kwon Yeo-sun
Translated from Korean by Janet Hong
Another excellent recent novel. This is the story of three young women affected by the death of Kim Hae-on on her way home from school 17 years ago. By turns contemplative, angry and detective novel, parts of Hae-on’s story are pieced together, but this really is about the aftermath, not about Hae-on herself.

Cecily by Annie Garthwaite
This was my book’s group’s choice for our April theme of historical fiction. I don’t read much historical fiction, especially not about real people or set way back in the 15th century, and as feared I initially found the language stilted and the politics tough to follow. But Cecily Neville is an intriguing choice of lead. The novel starts with her as a young teen watching Joan of Arc burn to death. It’s disturbing and ideally chosen to encapsulate Cecily’s character – a woman who will do what needs to be done. It took about half the book for me to start enjoying it, and then for the last quarter I could barely put it down.