My reading last month was boosted by the Easter long weekend, sunny evenings in the garden and a short holiday in Bannau Brycheiniog (the Brecon Beacons).

We had fantastic luck with the weather considering it was a holiday in the UK in April. It was gorgeously sunny and warm while still early enough in the year that the UV was only high for brief periods each day. Which meant I could be outside for hours at a time without triggering a lupus flare. Cue 3-4 hour walks in peaceful countryside with picnics or pub lunches. Then getting back to our holiday cottage mid-afternoon to sit in the garden with books, wine and snacks.

On holiday we stumbled across Hy Brasail, a strange house that looks like a hybrid of ordinary Victorian house and an Italian villa. Which is basically exactly what it is. There is some mystery surrounding it, but what seems agreed on is that it was owned by a local lawyer, Mr James, in 1912. He made some quirky additions to the building after he went on holiday to Italy. He may have fallen in love with a contessa and promised to build her a house reminiscent of her Tuscan childhood. She may even have lived there with him. Though more likely she broke his heart and never came to Wales.

It’s not an epic love story, but it is a very odd building to spot as you walk in the Welsh countryside. And it felt ripe to be the setting for a novel. Has an author already written it? If they have I’d love to read it.

After all that sunshine, May has dawned with clouds and rain showers. Which just means curling up inside with books rather than taking them outside. Happy reading folks!

Book read in April

The Water Book by Alok Jha
A thorough popular-science study of everything we do and don’t know about water on Earth and in space. Interspersed with an account of the author’s trip to Antarctica on a science vessel in 2013. I loved the travelogue bits and thought Jha did a great job of using them as jumping-off points for the different areas of science. But I did find some of the science parts a bit dry.

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell
This is a novel about a fictional band in the 1960s, a cross-genre hybrid in the era of Pink Floyd and the Small Faces. Each chapter centres around the writing of a particular song, told from the perspective of the song’s writer. All the band members and their manager get a turn – though two of the band do the majority of the writing and therefore get more chapters. It’s an interesting angle, a really good gripping story and I did enjoy spotting the references to Mitchell’s other books. But I wasn’t wowed by this as I was Mitchell’s first few books.

Imagine Breaking Everything by Lina Munar Guevara
Translated from Spanish by Ellen Jones
This Colombian novel on the other hand did greatly impress me. It’s about one pivotal weekend in the life of 18-year-old Melissa. She’s about to graduate from school, she seems to finally have her anger issues in check, then her estranged mother shows up. Will spending a couple of days together undo the good done by five years of Melissa living with her aunt? This slim volume really effectively explores the effect of different environments on a child. And I like how casually it depicts Melissa’s aunt being trans, which not everyone in the family or community accepts but many do.

The Transgender Issue by Shon Faye
In this manifesto for change, Faye argues that the real issue we should be talking about is the many ways life is made harder for trans people – healthcare, work, legal status, media representation and more. Faye is herself trans but this is not a tell-all memoir or even an extension of her own story. It’s a powerful call to arms as well as calmly and rationally explaining the facts about trans people in the UK.

The Idiot by Elif Batuman
I had been excited to read this novel since a few authors and book bloggers recommended it. It’s a campus novel set around a young Turkish-American woman, Selin. She’s fascinated by language and art, ready to absorb everything Harvard has to offer. She’s also insecure and unsure of herself. I felt very seen by her feeling lost about everything to do with university, as I share her experience of being the first generation in my family to go to university. (I do have an older sister who went to uni, ditto older cousins, but our conversations about it hadn’t gone into the minutiae of uni life.) Ultimately, though, Selin was too frustratingly passive as a main character for me to love this book.

The Promise by Damon Galgut
Another slight disappointment. This South African novel won the Booker Prize in 2021 and was a present in a books Secret Santa a couple of years ago. The Swarts are a rich white family who live on a farm near Pretoria. In 1986 the dying mother making her husband promise to give their Black maid Salome her own house. But after Ma’s death he denies his words, sowing the seeds of the family’s slow downfall. I found the characters’ thoughts and dialogue almost indistinguishable, which made it tough to follow what was happening at times. And all the Black characters were either voiceless servants or criminals – which may well reflect how the Swart family thought in the 1980s but still felt wrong.

Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee
Now this I had no expectations of and I thought it excellent. It’s fantasy based on the Japanese occupation of Korea in the early 20^th century. The countries/nationalities are pseudonomized but a lot of the setting is based on the real history and places. Our main character is Jebi, a Hwagugin artist who is struggling to find work. They decide the only option left to them is to apply for a job with the occupying Razanei. It would be a secure steady income but would also mean incurring the wrath of their sister Bongsunga, who fiercely hates the Razanei – even more so since the death of her wife during the occupying war. The fantasy element involves automatons and magical paint pigments – which sounds a bit crazy but is handled really well. The characters are all multifaceted people with competing motivations. I like the way it wrapped up but can see there is potential for more stories in this setting.

Passing by Nella Larsen
A reread for book club, I was very happy to revisit this 1929 novella. Childhood friends Irene and Clare bump into each other in a whites-only restaurant as adults. They’re both passing, but for Irene it’s a brief convenience to drink a cool drink on a dusty summer’s day. Clare is living her whole life passing for white – including being married to a man who has no idea she’s Black. Irene doesn’t approve of Clare’s choices – even more so when Clare starts coming to socialise in Harlem when her husband is away. The tension rises to a dramatic denouement, which is very much earned. Again all the characters have complex motivations. Larsen’s prose is sparse and many details are inferred rather than spelled out. I’m definitely glad to have a Penguin Classics edition with lots of explanatory notes.