My latest great big book review

I should be reading, but I’m in that uncomfortable place where I’ve finished a wonderful book and I’m wanting to sit with it for a bit. To be honest, I get sad when a good book is over. It’s too soon for me to start something new. I have about 25 partially written blog posts and a request for further and better particulars to do - but I don’t feel like doing THAT writing. I want to write about the book that I’ve just finished reading. In fact why limit things to just one book? I want to write about ALL the books I’ve read so far this year.

What treats these books have been! Humans, eh? When I get despondent about the state of the world (and the end of a good book) I think about the beauty of the human imagination, our ability to put clever and beautiful thoughts on paper. How can a creature capable of such wonderful expression be equally capable of trying to assassinate a former president? What the hell is wrong with people? Look I’m no fan of Donald Trump (though I did watch him on The Apprentice and had a bit of a crush on Ivanka), but the compulsive lying, the raping and the “grab ‘em by the pussy” video rule him out as Presidential material as far as I am concerned. The only things I liked about his Presidency were the Randy Rainbow satirical songs - this is my favourite one.

Anyway, I have gone off task. I’ve just finished the Covenant of Water. It was 736 pages of everything I love in a novel. I think what I particularly loved about it was I read it after The Women, which I thought was one of the best books I had ever read. I was not expecting to read two of the best books I had ever read, straight after the other. So here goes…we are more than half way through the year and these are the books I have read so far.

The Covenant of Water - Abraham Verghese

A multi generational saga set in southern India. It starts with a 12 year old bride going by boat to marry a 40 year old widower. The young girl goes on to become Big Ammachi, the matriarch of Parambil. Over the course of seven decades and three generations, Big Ammachi becomes the centre of this land and her community. She discovers that in every generation of her new family there is a drowning that no one can explain and she prays that a doctor will one day find a cure for “the Condition”.

In parallel is another story - that of Digby Kilgour, a young, Scottish surgeon who travelled to Madras to join the Indian medical service during colonial times. The two stories do not intercept until the end.

I loved that historic events were threaded through the novel - Indian soldiers fighting for Britain in the word wars, independence, the communists winning elections and the Naxalite revolution. I thought it was brilliant.

You are Here - David Nicholls

Two lonely, middle aged people meet on a coast to coast walk across Northern England.

It is a warm and funny romance novel with great banter and beautifully drawn landscapes.

The Women - Kristen Hannah

This is a book that will stay with you long after you finish it. I cannot praise it enough.

It is the story of 20 year old Frankie McGrath, who decides to join the Army Nurses Corps when her elder brother ships out to serve in Vietnam. She is as green and inexperienced as the young men sent off to fight and is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war.

It is a coming of age story - of female friendship - of love, betrayal, loss, life and death. The war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. She continues to battle when she returns home to a country divided by protests and denied the help she needed because “women weren’t in Vietnam”. I loved this book. It was perfect.

The Coast Road - by Alan Murrin

A book with a theme of women trapped in unhappy marriages set in 90s Ireland, when divorce was illegal.

Beautiful writing. Complex, well drawn characters. Thought provoking and shocking to think that women’s lives were so restricted and to witness the consequences women suffered to gain independence.

Funny Story - Emily Henry

A romance novel about opposites with the wrong thing in common - they were both dumped by their exes so the exes could run off together.

Tom Lake - Anna Patchett

A mother of adult daughters, home for the COVID lockdown, tells the story of her brief love affair with a famous Hollywood actor.

It is a story of quiet reflection, the pleasure of having family together and how love develops different meanings as we mature.

My Favourite Mistake - Marian Keyes

I adore Marian Keyes. I have been reading her books since I was in my 20s. I feel like I’ve grown up with her.

Marian has written novels about each of the Walsh sisters. For two of the sisters, Rachel and Anna, there are two novels. My Favourite Mistake is the second Anna novel.

In the aftermath of COVID, a perimenopausal Anna quits her job in New York and returns home to Ireland. She takes a PR job for a friend in a town called Maumtully and is soon caught up in the life of this small place and its many characters. It is very funny. I love her descriptions of people, my favourite in this book being the “Beardy Glarers”.

My Grandmother Sends her Regards and Apologises - Fredrik Backman

One of my great loves is difference. I have always loved people who are different. The central theme to this book is the right to be different. To be yourself.

Elsa is 7 years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy - as in standing-on-her-balcony-firing-her-paintball-gun-at-strangers-crazy. She is Elsa’s best, and only, friend.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves a series of apology letters behind for Elsa to deliver to people she has wronged, Elsa embarks upon her greatest adventure. It is a story told with the same comedic accuracy as A Man Called Ove. It is heart warming and fabulous.

The Whalebone Theatre - Joanna Quinn

The title sounds like a metaphor, but there really is a whale bone theatre in this historical novel. The theatre stands on a headland on the Dorset coast, where a young girl’s love of amateur dramatics ropes in family and servants at the Chilcombe estate where she lives.

It starts off in the jazz age with cocktails and parties and moves to the Second World War where Cristobel Seagrave continues her acting into adulthood as an undercover operative in France.

Birnam Wood - Eleanor Catton

I am still processing this book. There is no doubt it is brilliant and I enjoyed it. The ramping up of the pressure towards the end was epic. Having read some scholarly thoughts on the book I was pleased that my University 101 English literature papers had given me a correct understanding of what the author was doing. It isn’t my usual type of book but I am glad I read it. I think everyone should read it.

This is what the author Eleanor Catton had to say about her book:

“I wanted the novel to explore the contemporary political moment without being itself partisan or propagandistic. I wanted it to be fateful but never fatalistic, and satirical, but not in a way that served the status quo. Most of all, though, I wanted it to be a thriller, a book of action and seduction and surprise and possibility, a book where people make choices and mistakes that have deadly consequences, not just for themselves, but for other people, too. I hope that it’s a gripping book, a book that confides in you and makes you laugh and – crucially, in a time of global existential threat – that makes you want to know what happens next.”

Unruly - David Mitchell

My husband gave me this book for Christmas but I also listened to the audiobook because the author, David Mitchell, a British comedian, was reading it. I was grateful to have the luxury of listening to and reading the book because I got the benefit of hearing the author and seeing the pictures. I love English history and kings and queens and this is a history book like no other. I kept finding myself laughing out loud while I was out walking - which is a bit embarrassing. It is hilarious.

All Our Shimmering Skies - Trent Dalton

This is a hero’s journey - a story about gifts that fall from the sky, curses, and the secrets we bury inside ourselves.

It is described as “an odyssey of love and grave danger, of darkness and light, of bones and blue skies.” The story is set in the harsh and extraordinarily beautiful Australian outback with elements of magical realism. I thought it was gorgeous.

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Oh, and I had surgery on 2 July. More fat grafting for my reconstructed left breast. This time the fat came from my posterior thighs and I look like I was hit by a car. The bruising is pretty impressive and it hurt a lot more than having the fat taken from my flanks. I find out next month if I need another lot. At the beginning my plastic surgeon thought I’d need at least two, probably three lots of fat grafting. So two down so far…

Life feels almost back to normal. It is good to know that all my reconstruction surgery has to be over with by May 2025 (within 9 months) because that’s when Southern Cross will stop paying for it.

In other news, I’m having eye surgery next week. I have some sun damage to my right eye ball and the ophthalmologist is taking it off. Fingers crossed it isn’t skin cancer and it doesn’t hurt too much. I’m trying not to think about it because it makes me feel squeamish if I dwell on it!

I’m currently at the beach for the last week of the school holidays. We have the dog with us which is great for joyful, daily beach walks. The photo below is so you can share in the beauty of this extraordinarily place. Until next time, I hope you get to read some good books and walk some gorgeous beaches.