Remember those essays you had to write on the first day back at school – What I did on my holidays? For years now, I could have answered with two words: read novels.
You want to know which ones? Okay, here goes:
Susan Hill – The Soul of discretion. My sister gave me this for Christmas, and I rang her on the first day of my hols, to tell her I was sitting on the deck of our family shack, drinking a mug of tea and starting my Christmas present, which I would then leave for her to read on her stint at the beach. Bliss. Susan Hill is my current favourite English detective writer, having taken over from Elizabeth George. I read Hill’s latest as much to catch up with her flawed, loveable main characters as for the thrill of a whodunit. This latest one delves into some very dark territory indeed, but does so, as the title hints, with discretion.
Chris Womersley – Cairo. Love reading a book set in Melbourne. In 2014, I read all three of Womersley’s novels – The long road, Bereft and Cairo. Great creator of atmosphere, beautiful descriptions, memorable characters; I enjoyed each of his books even more than the previous one.
"As nearly perfect as any American fiction I know," Reynolds Price of The New York Times wrote of A sport and a pastime by James Salter. Slow moving, beautifully written, this would have been considered very racy indeed back in the 1960s when it was published.
Kinky Friedman (yes really) Kill two birds and get stoned. Despite the non-PC title, I revelled in this hilarious and clever tale. Don’t think I’ve laughed out loud so much over a book since I read Three men in a boat when I was about 18.
Emma Donoghue – Frog Music. I didn’t think anything could be better than Room, but Frog Music comes close. Donoghue vividly evokes the brutal, misogynistic world of the 1870s Californian gold rush with a story based on the friendship of two real and extraordinary characters – an ‘exotic dancer’ and a cross-dressing adventuress. One of the sexiest books I’ve read in a while.
Moving right along, The Island of lost souls, by Martyn Bedford – another author that I’d never heard of and randomly picked up on my pre-holiday raid on the City Library. Set in a dystopian future that is chilling for being so recognisable, it too had great characters. Most of all, though, I fell utterly in love with the setting, which was based on one of the Scilly Isles off the coast of Cornwall, completely altering my travel plans for the next time I visit the UK.
Marissa de los Santos – Falling Together. Classy romance about love and friendship and family and shared history. I’d never heard of de los Santos, but I’ll be back for more.
The Appleyard Tree, by Louise Doughty. I’ve read a couple of Doughty’s novels – she has Romany ancestry and has written fascinating stories about the Romany community in the UK. This is something completely different – a psychological thriller cum courtroom drama, exploring what happens when a woman of similar age and life circumstance to me has sex with a stranger. Things get very nasty, complicated and violent indeed.
Adam and Eve and Pinch Me by Ruth Rendell. This was the dud of my holiday reads, but hey, one out of fifteen ain’t bad. I’ve long loved Rendell, and even more her nom de plume Barbara Vine, but I was flat out bored with this one. Kept waiting for the excitement to kick in. It didn’t.
For something completely different (non-fiction!) The inner eye of love by William Johnson. This is a repeat read, and one of my favourite works on contemplation. Johnson is an erudite Jesuit, (a fellow Belfast man and contemporary of my dad) who lived for decades in Japan and became one of the leading lights in the dialogue between Zen Buddhism and Christianity. I read this book repeatedly because it gives me a sense of the radical nature of God’s love and what really trusting in this might mean for my life. I treasure it because it belonged to my dad, and is full of his neat pencil comments in the margins– a few of which are correcting Johnson on inaccuracies! This time, as I read it, I made my own comments in biro – something I’ve never let myself do before, but what the hell – it’s my book!
I’m still in the middle of a Christmas present from my husband – Anne Lammot’s latest - Small Victories – spotting improbable moments of grace (you’d read it for the subtitle alone, wouldn’t you?) I don’t enjoy Lammot’s fiction so much, but this latest non-fiction is up to scratch and as deeply insightful as Johnson in her own funny, self-deprecating way.
Michael Dobbs’ Whispers of betrayal is another of the terrific reads I picked up for a song at the remarkable Anglesea op shop. Shane Moloney set in London – a political thriller, which isn’t usually my style, but it well and truly held my interest. My husband will love it.
Nearly there! Barbara Kingsolver – Pigs in heaven – an oldie but a goodie. She is one of my favourite authors when she’s not being preachy, and she can be preachy, and she doesn’t need to be, her stories are well and truly good enough to get her message across all by themselves. Pigs didn’t disappoint, although I was surprised and not entirely convinced by an optimistic, almost cheesy ending.
Henning Mankel – The troubled man. I’d never read (or watched) any of this Swedish crime writer’s Kurt Wallander series, and I happened to pick the very last one. It worked anyway, wonderful character, fabulous writing. (I had avoided Scandi Noir since labouring through Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I found simultaneously tedious, gratuitous and misogynistic.)
And a good trashy one to finish my holiday with – Pure Evil (love the title!) by American Greg Isles. I thought it was going to be rubbish, and it was, but a romping good read nonetheless.
Cheating a bit – this is what I’ve read since: The Safe House by Nicci French. I picked up two of French’s psychological thrillers at the op shop and I thought they were great. When I googled French, I was surprised to learn it is a husband wife team Nicci Gerard and Sean French. It works, and the best bit is that the two I read were their first, published in ’97 and ’98 and they appear to have written about one a year since.
I am now 300 pages into 800+ page Man Booker prize-winner Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries. Another gold rush tale, this time set in New Zealand, this is astonishing writing – I feel as if I’m reading Dickens and marvel at such a young person producing such flawless prose that reads exactly as if it were penned in the late 19th century. So far I’m bamboozled by the many, somewhat indistinguishable narrators, but friends who have taken this road before me assure me it’s worth persevering.
After Catton, I am going to treat myself to a new experience and read a P.G Wodehouse. My younger son has been reading one and says it’s hilarious. Maybe it’ll even make me laugh as much as Kinky Friedman.