Happy autumn, folks! October was well and truly a transition month this year. From what still felt like summer three weeks ago, to rains and storms, to wrapping up in thick jumpers, scarves and gloves. Dog walks are now crisp, colourful leaves under misty skies. And I feel no guilt curling up all day with a book when the wind and rain are howling outside.

Beckett and I had a lovely week in Devon with our friend T (Tim was able to join us for the weekend). I was working during the week but really loved being able to go for beautiful clifftop walks before and after work each day.

I’m not much of a Halloween person, but I do enjoy a good horror film/TV show. So I did enjoy watching the new Carrie miniseries. But more than horror, I feel like this is the time of year for cosy crime. Which is what led me to read not one but two Agatha Christies last month.

My favourite read this month was The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng. Which was a relief as Tan’s previous novel The Garden of Evening Mists was life-changing for me. I still think of it about once a week.

Happy November!

Books read

Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ
Translated from Mandarin by Lin King
A complex layered study of language, colonial occupation and queer love, hidden inside an apparently straightforward travel diary. In 1938 Japanese novelist Aoyama Chizuko is invited to spend a year travelling Taiwan, publishing regular columns about her travels. She is assigned a young local woman as translator and travel assistant. Taiwan was then under Japanese occupation, meaning the two women can never be true equals, preventing them from enjoying a real friendship – or more. Chizuko has a ravenous appetite, eager to eat her way through Taiwan’s cuisine – an apparently harmless desire that nevertheless uncomfortably parallels Japan’s attitude toward the island. The narrative is presented as a long-lost manuscript translated from Japanese. I found this a little slow and repetitive, though I recognise the intellectual achievement.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
This was Christie’s first published novel, and the first outing of Hercule Poirot. Published in 1920 but written and set during the First World War, it makes use of Christie’s own experience working as a voluntary aid nurse tending wounded soldiers. It now feels like a classic country house in a small village murder mystery, with plenty of hidden secrets and a satisfying conclusion. A pretty impressive result from a wager with her sister!

Marzahn, Mon Amour by Katja Oskamp
Translated from German by Jo Heinrich
Describing this memoir, it sounds bizarre, but I found it warm and engaging. An author struggling with writer’s block takes a sudden career swerve. She retrains as a chiropodist and goes to work at a clinic in Marzahn, an East Berlin housing estate widely considered undesirable. Each chapter introduces one of her clients – most of them regulars. We hear parts of their life stories around thankfully not too detailed descriptions of their treatment. These are mostly older and/or ill people who can no longer do their own footcare. They are also people for whom Marzahn is a beautiful, desirable place to live – welcoming, affordable, decent quality.

Bone by Yrsa Daley-Ward
This is a poignant poetry collection. It covers a range of topics, but mostly love in all its forms. There is something very definitely British about these poems, and I appreciate the emotional openness. Daley-Ward covers her own experience of being a first-generation Black Briton. And most of all, she writes about being a woman, the physical occupation of a woman’s body.

The Custard Heart by Dorothy Parker
I do like a bit of Dorothy Parker. This mini collection showcases three short stories. The title story is the best of them, wittily following the exploits of an unhappily married woman. She hides her unhappiness by hooking in younger men, breaking their hearts one by one. Acidly funny while making this heartbreaker a sympathetic woman in the end. I found the other two stories less successful, and a little racist.

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne-Jones
I spotted this at our holiday apartment and thought I’d celebrate its 40th anniversary by finally reading it. It’s a kid’s book based loosely in Welsh myth and legend. In a world where invisibility cloaks and hundred-league boots are real, the residents of Market Chipping live in fear of Wizard Howl and his mysterious moving castle. Sophie Hatter is 18 and resigned to a dull future helping her stepmother run a hat shop. But then an encounter with the Wicked Witch of the Waste leads her to run away and seek refuge in Howl’s castle. She strikes up a friendship with Howl’s apprentice Michael and makes a deal with a fire demon. If she can release the demon from its curse, her own will be lifted. This is everything a teen fantasy adventure should be – including multiple romantic plots that manage not to undermine its overall feminist leanings.

Água Viva by Clarence Lispector
Translated from Portuguese by Stefan Tobler
For years I’ve had Lispector recommended to me so I was pleased this was picked by my book club. But I did not like it. Much of the language is beautiful, but this is stream of consciousness about…well, I’m not sure. There is no story, only an artist unloading her thoughts in a letter to an ex lover. Topics include colours, flowers, being a woman, what makes art, the meaning of the word “it”. Honestly, from the right author I could have enjoyed a series of essays on those topics, but this just did not work for me. I struggled my way through its 80 pages.

Sea Now by Eva Meijer
Translated from Dutch by Anne Thompson Melo
A little magical realism mixed with eco fiction. In present-day Netherlands, the sea level is rising one kilometre per day. Politicians have very limited time to put together a plan and evacuate everyone at risk – which in a country with the Netherlands’ geography is very quickly everyone. We swap between the perspectives of many people, but zeroing in on three women: a climate activist, a schoolgirl and a scientist. This short novel manages to deal with serious topics entertainingly without ever diminishing their seriousness.

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
A historical novel set primarily in 1920s Penang. Lesley Hamlyn has lived her whole life in the Malay Peninsula, but now her British husband Robert wants to move them to South Africa. It’s a bad time for house guests, but famous writer Willie Somerset Maugham is in the region and wants to drop in for two weeks. When Willie shows up with his secretary, Lesley is initially repulsed by the discovery that they are a gay couple. Then she discovers they might share a connection with Chinese revolutionary Dr Sun Yat Sen, and Willie becomes her confidante. Her story is tangled with a murder case in Kuala Lumpur. So many threads, tangles of real history and invention, could have been messy but this is brilliant.

Three Japanese Short Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa and others
Translated from Japanese by Jay Rubin
Another of the Penguin Greats mini books, this volume was a bit of a miss for me. None of the stories really grabbed me, though they did all achieve good atmosphere.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
I completely understand why this is often cited as Christie’s most highly rated novel. Her fifth title, and the third to feature Poirot, for me this displayed a step change in wit and cleverness. I laughed out loud many times. And impressively, 100 years after it was published, I managed to go into it not knowing the famous solution to the titular crime. (Though on that point – if you watch the BBC series Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen, when Worsley warns about spoilers she really means it. Thankfully I watched the first episode after I finished this book.)