Reviews and other ramblings
April wasn’t very eventful, which might be for the best. I fell asleep in most films we watched and rain postponed a lot of plans. But we did get a couple of sunny weekends that felt something like spring. The books were a mixed bag. I think I might need more upbeat reads on my TBR.
If you’re reading this on 1 May, happy International Workers Day! Else, happy whatever day it is.
Continue reading “April 2024 reading round-up”
In my late teens and early 20s I read almost solely literary fiction, and in particular anything reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement or the broadsheets. This being before social media or Wikipedia, pretty much all I knew about each book would be one article I’d read in the paper. Back then I thought of Margaret Atwood as a literary fiction writer and I remember my surprise on discovering she also wrote brilliant science fiction.
These days I think of Atwood as primarily a writer of science, or speculative, fiction. So I experience the opposite surprise when I pick up one of her books that’s straightforward fiction. The Robber Bride was published in 1993, Atwood’s eighth novel, of which just one had been science fiction (The Handmaid’s Tale, 1985). It is loosely based on the folktale The Robber Bridegroom, but with all the major characters reimagined as women.
In October 1990 three old friends meet for lunch in Toronto. Roz, Charis and Tony met at college back in the 1960s, but the real reason they have stayed friends is Zenia – and their shared hatred of her. As they finish their lunch Zenia walks into the restaurant. Which is surprising as they held a funeral for her four and a half years ago, truly thinking her dead.
Continue reading “Book review: The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood”
Happy Easter Monday, folks! As is traditional I have spent my weekend mostly reading. I also did some library reorganising for added bookish activity. It’s been a good long weekend.
March has been…wet. I’m starting to miss taking the dog on long, fun expeditions – much as I like the four parks near our house. I really hope we get a few dry days soon. On the plus side our front garden is full of daffodils, tulips and pansies.
Continue reading “March 2024 reading round-up”
I’m a sucker for a coming-of-age novel. Throw in some feminism and inspiration from folklore, and I am guaranteed to pick it up. Hence my interest in The First Woman by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi. With a story set in Uganda from 1934 to 1983 it also covers territory I’ve learned a little about in the last couple of years but from a very different perspective.
Kirabo is raised by her grandparents in a small village in the Bugerere region of Uganda. Her family owns a lot of land and is near a good village school, which means their house is always full of cousins sent to live with them. On the brink of her teens, Kirabo is the youngest of the children and is frequently picked on or excluded by the teenagers, but she knows her grandfather Miiro will protect her from them.
What he can’t protect her from is the flying – Kirabo has begun to have out-of-body experiences when it feels like she is flying through her house or the village. The only person she can trust to help is Nsuuta, their neighbour who is widely considered to be a witch. Nsuuta was a pharmacist until she went blind and has always lived alone, so it isn’t hard to see where the witch reputation came from. Her advice to Kirabo is largely feminist teachings.
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Unusually, I didn’t just stumble across my most recent K-drama, it was recommended by a friend. Marry My Husband (tvN 2024) is brand new to Amazon Prime and it’s a typical K-drama blend of genres. In this case, it’s a mix of saccharine romance, light sci-fi, crime thriller and workplace drama.
As is often the case, it’s impossible to explain the overall premise of this series without completely spoiling the plot of the first episode, so I will do my best and then give a big fat spoiler warning before I get into it.
When we meet Kang Ji-won (Park Min-young) she is an ordinary woman in her early 40s with gastric cancer and a mid-level corporate job at U&K Food. After almost 10 years of financially supporting her useless husband Park Min-hwan (Lee Yi-kyung from Descendants of the Sun) Ji-won has just discovered he is having an affair with her best friend Jeong Su-min (Song Ha-yoon). It is peak sad melodrama.
Then there is a major plot flip and it all lightens up. There’s a comically terrible boss, multiple love triangles, a very bitchy high school reunion and a lot of lies are told – some more transparent than others. Marry My Husband goes through a few stages, ramping up gradually from office politics to action thriller.
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We started the month on holiday in Paris, then spent the rest of it hiding from the miserable rain and wind back home in Bristol. On the plus side I’ve read some excellent books and watched most of a fun new K-drama series called Marry My Husband.
Happy St David’s Day and here’s to spring coming soon.
Continue reading “February 2024 reading round-up”
I’ve never read The Odyssey, but for my degree I had to study James Joyce’s Ulysses, which involved a couple of lectures detailing how it follows the structure of Homer’s classic. I’ve intended ever since to give The Odyssey a go but 20 years have passed now. I suspect the closest I will come is modern reworks, including those that tell just part of the story. And the best I’ve read so far is Ithaca by Claire North.
Strictly, you could argue this isn’t so much a retelling as filling in the gaps. Penelope is the star of the story, while her absent husband Odysseus is the background character often mentioned but never seen. Penelope runs the island of Ithaca quietly, hiding her wisdom behind her official (male) advisers, turning to her unofficial band of (female) advisers in secret.
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This was a great month for reading, a mixed month in other respects. I mean, it started with my birthday and is ending with a holiday in Paris so it’s certainly not a bad month.
I’ve also watched some excellent films this month, including Poor Things at the cinema. It is honestly so dark and strange, I would only recommend it if you have a high tolerance for weird. But if that’s you, I hope you love it like I did.
We’ve come to Paris for the massive Rothko retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, which is impressive. But Rothko is really Tim’s thing so in return I made him go to the Catacombs, which I enjoyed a lot. We have eaten a lot of excellent food and the sunsets from our hotel room balcony have been beautiful. Plus the roof terrace is a great spot for reading.
Happy February!
Continue reading “January 2024 reading round-up”
Over Christmas and New Year I had almost two weeks off work, so I thought I’d power through four or five books. I’d wrap up cosily from the world in chunky knits and soft blankets; move from bed to sofa to rocking chair; interrupted only by dog walks and meal times. Ha! I think I forgot that Christmas is also a time for trying to see all the family and friends for quality time. And that’s lovely, but does mean despite the truly terrible weather keeping the dog walks short, reading time was also short.
But I did finish one book, a 644-page saga with magical fantasy elements woven into an otherwise realist historical setting. And it was a great read that thoroughly absorbed me.
The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker is, as the title suggests, about a golem and a djinni. Though mostly set in New York City in 1899, it also has scenes in what was then Prussia and locations in the Middle East that again straddle modern country borders. Manhattan is the perfect place for characters living in a Jewish neighbourhood with strong European roots and in Little Syria, with its Arabic roots, to encounter each other and discover that they have much in common.
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The novel Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield is beautiful, thoughtful, original, packed with ideas that generate discussion. And yet I found it a bit too ponderous to love it.
Miri’s wife Leah has “come back different” after a deep sea research mission that overran by months. Leah seems weakened and barely eats, sleeps or speaks. She sips on salt water and soaks for long hours in the bath. Her skin takes on a strange hue, almost translucent.
Miri spends her days worrying and trying to get hold of the research centre behind the mission to find out what happened but they are proving maddeningly elusive. She reflects on earlier days of her and Leah’s relationship and who Leah truly is, or was.
Chapters alternate between Miri’s present and Leah’s journal of the mission itself. They are a tiny crew of just three and disaster strikes early, but in an odd way that is left open to the reader’s interpretation. The craft’s communications, lights and engines fail so that it sinks to the ocean floor and cannot be manoeuvred or any message sent. But somehow it still has a working shower, oxygen and water recycling plus a store of long-life food that could last them months, despite the original mission only being a couple of weeks long.
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