The Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist book review – “The Mercy Step” by Marcia Hutchinson

The winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction will be announced tomorrow and as always it’s a great shortlist. I have read two of the books – Flashlight by Susan Choi, which I reviewed on here when it was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize last year, and The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson. I am also part-way through The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, which I am enjoying enormously. The remaining three books on the shortlist (Heart the Lover by Lily King, Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly, and Dominion by Addie E Citchens) also all look excellent and I am keen to read those too. 

I listened to The Mercy Step on audio and it is read by the author, which at first I thought I might find disappointing, but I came to appreciate the authenticity of her Bradford accent, and the naturalness of expression in the Jamaican accents of her parents and their associates. The events of the novel mirror closely those of the author’s life; Mercy is born in Bradford in the early 1960s to parents from the Caribbean (part of the Windrush generation) and the family is large – Mercy is the middle of the five children, but we learn that there are more children who were left behind in Jamaica. The novel ends when Mercy is eleven years of age and is about to start attending the local grammar school. 

Beyond the facts of Mercy’s childhood, I have no idea whether the family in the novel in any way resembles the author’s own experience of growing up – I have not read any interviews with her. What becomes clear very quickly is that the household is chaotic – Mercy is the third of four girls, before the long-awaited and highly prized son is born. At first, Mercy feels a deep connection to her mother; she talks of the cord that connects them, as if the umbilical bond had never been broken. But when another baby comes along, the toddler Mercy’s world is shattered and she cannot comprehend having been usurped. This is the start of Mercy beginning to create her own identity separate from the family. 

Mercy’s father is emotionally absent (as, in fact, is her mother) – he is a gambler with no interest in his children (except the boy when he arrives) and is violent and abusive. The household is chaotic and there is very little money. The children are largely left to fend for themselves (especially later on when their mother has to work long hours to support the family), but at the same time they are bound by strict rules dictated by the religious convictions of their mother’s evangelical faith. Her blind adherence will later place Mercy in a very dangerous position. 

The Mercy step is initially literal, an actual place on the stairs where Mercy can be alone with her precious Dolly, and fantasise about a different life where no-one else is demanding her mother’s attention. It later comes to represent a place in Mercy’s mind where she can escape the drama and degradation (and danger) of the family home. As she grows older and starts school she becomes fascinated by ancient civilisations and realises she can create worlds in her mind that remove her from her harsh reality. Discovering the library is a near-miracle for the young girl and it soon becomes her safe place. We follow Mercy as she grows up and away from the family. At the age of eleven she is ready to embark on a new, more self-confident phase where she can finally be herself. 

I really enjoyed the novel and it is beautifully written. I loved the way the author got into the mind of the baby, toddler and child Mercy and was able to see the world from that perspective. I also enjoyed learning about the experience of a migrant family coming from halfway across the world to the bleak environment of postwar northern England. The author is now in her sixties and has led a full and interesting life as both a lawyer and activist and it will be interesting to see what her next novel brings. 

I recommend this book – I’m not sure it will win the Women’s Prize. I think Flashlight is probably a higher calibre novel and it’s the only other shortlisted book I’ve completed! But The Mercy Step is a great debut and very engaging.

Book review – “Alone in Berlin” by Hans Fallada

The last book review I posted was about the first volume of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, a book I started whilst travelling in Egypt just over a year ago. My last blog post (after a long gap) was about the travelling I have been doing so far this year so I thought it might be nice to share with you some of the reading that has kept me company on my travels. On my recent trip to Turkey I read a lengthy book that I bought at the Dussmann bookshop in Berlin in February, Hans Fallada’s Alone in Berlin. Set in 1940, the book covers a period when the Nazis were at the height of their oppressive powers in Germany, through to the start of their decline and ultimate end in 1945. It was published in 1947, remarkably soon after the end of the Second World War, and is based on real events though names and details have been altered.

The story opens in an ordinary apartment block in the city and we are introduced to the residents of the block. The main body of the story concerns Anna and Otto Quangel, but the author sets the scene by telling us about the other residents and creating the social context for the story. There is one family that is committed to the cause of the Nazis and a Jewish woman who is hounded out of her apartment, but the remainder are either quietly resistant or are simply trying to get along in the new situation, make a living (legally or otherwise), and get the best for themselves. It paints a picture of a community that is largely pragmatic, sometimes selfless and sometimes callously self-interested.  

The Quangels are a quiet couple who want no trouble. Otto is a foreman in a factory, a fairly good job at which he is skilled and experienced. The story opens with them receiving the sad news that their only son (also named Otto) has been killed in action. They are devastated, but their reaction to the news shows how unpracticed they are at expressions of emotion and how impotent their rage is. When they tell their son’s fiancee Trudel the news she reveals to Otto, whom she calls her father-in-law, that she is involved in some low-level resistance activity in at the factory where she works. She has betrayed a solemn secret by even telling Otto Quangel this information, but in her youth and naivety, she also does not know how to keep it to herself. Her outburst, however, gives Otto an idea of how he might, in his own small way, express his own anger and resistance towards the Nazis. 

Otto and Anna begin a campaign of writing anonymous postcards containing what would be considered subversive slogans such as “Mother! The Fuhrer has murdered my son!” They plan to surreptitiously deposit their postcards in public places in the hope that others will find them and pass them on, thus setting off a chain of events where citizens will challenge the regime. The couple are aware of the grave risks they are taking and discuss their methods at length to try and minimise the dangers.

The Quangels’ campaign of placing postcards continues for some years. In the meantime we learn of the response of the police and the Gestapo, who acquire most of the postcards and are keen to track down the perpetrator. A number of senior detectives and officers take on the investigation and there is a kind of sinister comedy to their incompetence and the degree of seriousness with which they approach this relatively minor and largely futile action. Meanwhile, the breakdown of order in the society and the petty crimes of citizens which are carried out against the backdrop of the much larger grosser crimes of the regime, are set out before us. 

Apart from the nasty and inhumane treatment of the elderly Jewish woman at the start of the novel at the hands of Nazi devotees on the upper floor of the apartment bulding, the Persickes, there is very little about the regime’s persecution of the Jews. The story here is about how resistance within society, even the most trivial resistance, was brutally opposed and how the society was controlled through fear and surveillance. This was indeed a powerful theme at the Gestapo museum I went to in Berlin, situated on Wilhelmstrasse, from where much of the operation of the state was controlled. The way the Gestapo operatives are portrayed in this novel is both comic and grotesque – they are extremists operating at the edge of reason, both paranoid and murderous. 

This is a long novel about a chase – one of the detectives refers to the case as ‘cat and mouse’ – and the conclusion is long and drawn out, but played against the background of the regime in its declining stages. Did the postcard campaign achieve anything? Was it the only act of defiance available to grieving parents who had no power to protest? Was it symbolic of an underlying opposition within Berlin society that meant the regime was destined ultimately to fail, albeit at monstrous cost? These are all questions I found myself asking as I read this very powerful book.

Highly recommended.

Staying still

I have been doing so much travelling this last few weeks that my blogging has fallen by the wayside. I have missed it! The bookblogging community is so well-populated with nice people, interesting perspectives and authentic passion that it gives me all the online socialising I need and I steer pretty well clear of most other social media. (Not that I would place blogging in the same category as those other types of AI-powered platforms.) I am just back from a bucket-list trip to Turkey and now have a few weeks of going hardly anywhere and quite a lot of work to help pay for all the travel! So, this year I did not go to the Hay Festival (although listening to various shows on the radio that were broadcast from there I confess to feeling a deep sense of FOMO) and I will not be going to Dublin for Bloomsday in a couple of weeks time. Next year.

There has been quite a literary twist to all my travel. I have researched the best bookshops and always try to buy a locally-themed book.

I had a marvellous week in Berlin, which was my husband’s ‘big birthday’ treat! There is no end of interesting things to see and do there and my particular highlights were the Jewish Museum (an extraordinary building designed by Daniel Libeskind), the Neues Museum, with its outstanding collection of Egyptian and ancient artefacts, and, slightly less highbrow, the KaDeWe department store! We also visited the Brecht-Weigel museum which was the modest but fascinating home of Bertolt Brecht and his long-time partner Helene Weigel. We sought out a bookshop of course and found the marvellous Dussmann on Friedrichstrasse, a few minutes’ walk from the Brandenburger Tor. I bought myself a translated version of the German post-war classic Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada. Look out for my review of that soon (assuming I start getting my blogging act together!).

In March we paid a visit to an old family friend in Ross-on-Wye. It’s very close to Hay-on-Wye of course, but not somewhere I had previously visited. It’s a lovely town, but the highlight was going to Tintern and seeing the wonderful, Tintern Abbey, subject of one of Wordsworth’s best-loved poems.

And finally, earlier this month, I went on a holiday to Turkey, fulfilling a lifelong ambition. It’s not so very far away or even very expensive to visit so I’m not sure how I have not been there before. I joined a tour organised by Intrepid Travel (who I cannot recommend highly enough) which took us to some of the most famous sights in the country. Ephesus was a highlight – I have such vivid memories of being a child and seeing pictures of the facade of the Celsus Library and dreaming of far-off travel! Istanbul is a fantastic city, so vibrant, and with a beautiful church or mosque around every corner. And the Bosphorus of course and the obligatory boat trip – which does live up to the hype. The city is blessed with many bookshops and I loved Minoa Pera – I had to buy myself Istanbul by Orhan Palmuk. And Cappadocia and the Goreme national park with its extraordinary rock formations.

It seems appropriate that the last two pictures above are of the Celsus Library at Ephesus and the stairs in the Minoa Pera bookshop in Istanbul!

I have had quite the most incredible few weeks and feel myself very fortunate indeed. Now, back to blogging. And some healthy eating and exercise. And some work I suppose….

Book review – “In Search of Lost Time – Vol. 1: Swann’s Way” by Marcel Proust

Many months ago, while sitting in an airport in Cairo, awaiting my flight home from a holiday in Egypt, I opened this book. I had taken it with me, somewhat optimistically I now realise, thinking that I would have plenty of down-time to, at last, tackle a book my husband bought for me as a gift just before we had our first child. There was no way I was ever going to be able to read it at that stage in my life! It has been hard enough at this stage in my life, when I am at the other end of the parenting spectrum and my chicks are flying the nest! It took me until the new year to complete this 500-plus page book. And that is just volume one of Proust’s life’s work, À la recherche du temps perdu, known in English as In Search of Lost Time. There are a further six volumes.

I read a lot of long novels – I recently completed Kate Mosse’s The Burning Chambers, coming in at 586 pages, which I zipped through relatively quickly, but Proust is something else altogether. I could read The Burning Chambers for ten minutes before going to sleep, plus it was pretty action-packed with lots of characters, events and short chapters. In the same amount of time I would get through maybe two or three pages of Proust and often have to go back to re-read to check my understanding. Proust is famously a master of clause and sub-clause; sentences can go on for many lines, and paragraphs often straddle two or even three pages. It is slow-reading. In the same way, perhaps, that slow-cooking is good for rich and succulent casseroles!

This first volume, Swann’s Way, is divided into three quite distinct parts, some of which could be considered a stand-alone novel within the overall scheme of the work. Part one, “Combray”, is itself sub-divided into two further parts. The book is a first-person narration and in “Combray”, which is the name of an area in Normandy where the narrator spent much of his time in childhood, at the family estate, he recalls in detail the long days, the walks, family members, particularly his mother, and the socialising. We are introduced to M. Swann, a family acquaintance. Life seems to be dominated by relative trivialities, gossip and inconsequential pastimes. What is portrayed is an Edwardian life of privilege, largely insulated from world events, which would of course, soon explode into the First World War. Proust began this work in 1909. 

Right from the outset, it is clear that this is a novel about recollection and memory – both the deliberate and the involuntary. (Formerly, the English translation of the work was known as Remembrance of Things Past.) The narrator at first remembers very little about his childhood times at Combray, but then the famous incident of the madeleine cake takes him right back to that period and triggers a whole series of memories. It is an insight into the workings of the mind, the incidents and images we store unconsciously, which may be recalled through sensory arousal. There is a great deal of reference to sensory arousal! The subject of the first volume, M. Swann, falls passionately in love with Odette de Crécy, a woman of great charm and beauty, but who is considered by some to be of dubious character, and appears to be a lover to many. Swann does in fact end up marrying Odette, despite their very on/off affair and his bitter jealousy when she fraternises with other men. The couple have a child, the beautiful Gilberte, with whom the young narrator will himself fall in love when they both find themselves taking walks in the same part of Paris. This section of Proust’s work was made into a film in 1984, starring Jeremy Irons as M. Swann and Italian actress Ornella Muti as Odette. 

The novel is long and philosophical and challenging but it also gives a wonderful insight into the Belle Epoque in Paris, the “beautiful era”, characterised as a period of creativity and innovation. Also, there is the insight to the nature of middle and high society at this time – the gossipping and scheming, the pettiness and snobbery and the concern for rank and appearances. Proust was writing about this period, but at a point when the Belle Epoque was coming to its end and the First World War would soon start (this first volume was published in 1913). I wonder to what extent Proust was using the concepts of memory and nostalgia interchangeably? The “time” the narrator was in search of was indeed all but lost at this point. 

By coincidence, the novel I am working through at the moment, which is also very challenging, is called Nostalgia and is by Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu. The narrator is recalling pre-war Bucharest and makes reference to Proust, when the sight of a pink cigarette lighter causes him to have flashbacks. 

I am quite proud to have completed at least one volume of Proust’s great work in my life. I have one more on the TBR shelf – my husband bought me two volumes (I wonder if he realised there were seven altogether!) I might give myself a break before embarking on volume two and enjoy something faster-paced for a while.

The joy of re-reading – “Sense and Sensibility” by Jane Austen

There will never be enough time to read all the books I want to read. As I get older, this is a fact I am trying to come to terms with. One brief stroll around a bookshop has me adding so many titles to my mental TBR list and that makes it hard to walk away from special offers! The result is that I have dozens of impulse-purchased books on my shelves that I aspire to one day get around to. Even worse is the charity bookshop, where the financial consequences of over-purchasing are lower. (Let’s not forget that, although book prices are increasing, the cost per hour of pleasure derived remains pretty low). 

So, with so many new books being published every day, self-published books, audiobooks, and, indeed, other high quality content (such as book blogs!) there is much competing for our reading attention. As such, re-reading can feel like a bit of a luxury. My husband is a great re-reader, often choosing to go back to things that he feels still have more to give. Me, less so. So, when my book club decided it was time for a classic, we picked up on the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth at the end of last year (16th December 2025) and chose Sense and Sensibility, which I had last read when I was an undergraduate at London University. As an Austen lover, I knew the story well, of course, plus I’ve watched the (in my view) iconic 1995 film by Ang Lee, starring Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet and Alan Rickman. There is also a 2008 BBC television adaptation which received good reviews, and which purports to focus more on the sisters’ burgeoning sexual awakening, but I haven’t seen this. 

Going back to the text, however, sent me on a journey I did not expect. I did half read, half listen – the audiobook was read by Rosamund Pike, and I appreciated her narration very much – but sometimes I found myself listening to a section or a chapter and then going back to my paperback book, because the text was so rich that I just wanted to savour the words on the page, as the author intended. One problem I had (and I have found this with other classics that I have revisited that I already own copies of) is that my Penguin paperback dates from the late 1980s when I would have bought it whilst at university, and the text is so tiny! The conversation at the very beginning of the book between John Dashwood and his wife Fanny, where they are discussing how much of the inheritance he should give up for his widowed step-mother and his three sisters to live on (fulfilling the stipulation in his late father’s will that he should provide for them) is priceless! When you think that it is likely Austen was perhaps nineteen or twenty years old when she wrote this novel, it makes her talent as a writer and as an observer of human nature even more astounding.

Which brings me on to my own maturity as a reader of this novel, compared to the teenager I was when I first encountered it. I was always a pretty sensible young person, so would probably have identified with Elinor more than Marianne anyway (I really can’t remember!). But Sense and Sensibility is considered to be one of Jane Austen’s more problematic novels in the sense that the outcome for the younger sister, Marianne, she of the more emotional, romantic, impetuous nature, is not really satisfactory; Willoughby, the man she falls so deeply in love with, turns out to be flawed and unreliable, and she is ultimately married off to the much less stimulating Colonel Brandon, a decent husband for the young Marianne but rather far from being the man of her dreams. A neat ending but fraught with disappointment. A younger reader might react more strongly to Marianne being unable to choose a life-partner more compatible with her own personality. As a mother of daughters around this age (though definitely not considering marriage!) I found myself very glad indeed that Marianne did not end up with the feckless Willoughby (prepared to bad-mouth his own new wife!). Brandon is definitely more solid, but I would certainly want my daughters (and my son) marrying for love and not prospects. But that is the Georgian era for you – the brother inherits the lot and leaves his sisters in virtual poverty, so what else could they do? And it is a world that Jane Austen well understood. 

I love this novel, I love everything by Jane Austen, even though she was clearly not at the peak of her writing powers at this point. She was still honing her craft. Pride and Prejudice was published just two years later, in 1813 and there is a huge evolution in her abilities, showing us just what a unique gift she had. Her canon is small but remarkable and each of the novels has its strengths and bears re-reading many times. 

I would like to think that I might re-read all of the novels in the coming months and years, see how I react to them well past the age that Austen lived. I visited her home in Chawton, Hampshire many years ago. I’d like to go there again. It is worth seeing the tiny desk from where she wrote these novels, by hand. If I manage to re-read all these novels, I will treat myself to the trip!

Booker shortlist review #5 – “Flashlight” by Susan Choi

This is my last review from last year’s Booker Prize shortlist and comes from American novelist Susan Choi. This is her sixth novel and her other works have been highly acclaimed although she had not crossed my radar before now. Flashlight is a novel with a wide scope, spanning several decades to tell the story of one family. That family comprises Serk, his wife Anne and their daughter Louisa. Seek was born in Korea. His family moved to Japan when he was young but were then lured back to the new Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). Serk refused to go and later moved to the United States where he became an academic. In the US he meets and marries Anne and they have Louisa. Anne’s son from an earlier relationship, Tobias, is also significant. She was largely estranged from him until his teenage years, kept apart by the boy’s father. There are a handful of other minor characters.

The story begins with a drowning – Serk and 10 year old Louisa are walking on a beach in Japan; Serk is undertaking an academic secondment there and has taken his family with him. Water and swimming are recurring motifs in the book and Serk cannot swim. The pair do not return home after their evening walk and Louisa is found on the beach the next morning, alive but unconscious. She has no recollection about what has happened to her father and he is presumed drowned. This is a monumental event in the young girl’s life. She is precocious and intelligent and has a difficult relationship with her mother, Anne. Serk and Anne had a difficult relationship and there was tension in the household which Louisa seems to have imbibed. It does not help that Anne has a mysterious chronic illness which limits her mobility and leaves her constantly fatigued. 

The plot looks backwards then, to Serk’s childhood in Japan and his family’s move to North Korea; they are outsiders in Japan, not welcomed, and are attracted by the offer of employment, housing and a good lifestyle in the new state, where they will feel more secure in their identity. Serk cannot think of going to North Korea and will instead move to the United States where he becomes an academic, though he will always feel somewhat on the outside. 

We also learn of Anne’s back story, how she had a child as a young woman, fathered by an older man, who then prevents her from seeing him. When she meets and marries Serk it seems like a match of convenience for both of them. Anne’s first child, Tobias, comes back into the story later on, when as a young man he seeks to develop a relationship with his mother and half-sister Louisa.

Louisa is a somewhat troubled child and, like her father, seems always to feel like she does not quite fit in. When the family moves to Japan she works hard to learn the language and blend in, but her father’s disappearance puts paid to her sense of belonging. We learn how she struggles at university and has mixed feelings towards her mother, from whom she seems remote and different.

There is a plot twist which I will obviously not share here, which gave the book some interest and purpose, but overall I found I did not love this novel. It is long, not a problem in itself, but I felt there was a great deal here that felt superfluous, for example, the lengthy accounts of Anne’s life and routines in the retirement village where she lives in her older age felt to me like they added very little to the story. The author writes a great character, but I really did not like any of them! Apart from Tobias, perhaps, and Walt, Anne’s friend, although both are quite marginal characters. There were also parts of the plot that I felt lacked credibility – for example, Louisa’s experience at the hands of border police in England made me cringe! The editor really should have got a British reader to look at this – we just don’t speak like that! This was a shame because for me it detracted from the really important story at the heart of the novel, the reach and cruelty of the North Korean regime, something I knew very little about. 

I listened to the novel on audio and I feel the narration was not the best. That did not help. I feel this novel could have been somewhat better. 

I don’t think the 2025 Booker Prize shortlist was a particularly strong one – the winning book (Flesh by David Szalay) was one of the top two for me, but I did prefer Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter. The fact of two very long books slowed my reading right down. I love a long novel but both this novel, Flashlight, and Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny felt like something of a slog. 

I would find this a difficult novel to recommend.

Booker shortlist book review #4 – “Audition” by Katie Kitamura

This was my penultimate read of the 2025 Booker shortlist. I finished it over the Christmas holiday but it has taken a while to get my blogging act together so far in 2026. (I have also now completed my final book of the shortlist, Flashlight by Susan Choi, which was long and took me a few weeks to get through). Audition is Katie Kitamura’s fifth novel and she is an established writer and literary figure, earning praise and plaudits from many high profile figures as well as being shortlisted for other prizes. I was familiar with her name but I had not read any of her work before. 

Coming in at just over 200 pages, Audition feels more like a novella than a novel to me. It also has the atmosphere of a dark thriller and an ending which seem s more consistent with the novella format. Set in Manhattan the central character is a successful actress in her middle years who has achieved popular and critical acclaim and lives a settled and comfortable life. She is married to Tomas, a writer, and they live in the city, sharing the sorts of routines and rituals that anyone in a long-term relationship would recognise. They drink a little too much wine and eat a little too much pastry but otherwise their life is relatively unremarkable. Our central character remains unnamed.

Life is easy, that is until one day the actress meets Xavier, a young man who, over a slightly clandestine lunch, claims to be her son. She tells him this is impossible – she was pregnant once, but she had an abortion as it was not the right time for her and Tomas to have a family. Xavier is undeterred in his pursuit, however.

At first, the actress tries to keep her meeting with Xavier secret from Tomas; she did fear that he had spotted her at the initial lunch and that perhaps he might have thought she was having an affair, which would explain an apparent change in his behaviour towards her. But Xavier gradually infiltrates the couple’s life, getting a job supporting the director on the play the actress is working on (where she is alarmed to find how indispensable he makes himself). Furthermore, Tomas also seems to be seduced by Xavier and far from being suspicious, welcomes Xavier into their home, almost at the expense of their own relationship. 

The actress observes all the events with increasing dismay, unable to comprehend or to influence Xavier’s actions and events soon spiral out of her control. 

I found the book quite compelling to read; it moves at a good pace and the characters are interesting, but, I’m afraid for me it was ultimately unconvincing. I disliked the ending, which left too many loose ends and unresolved questions for my taste and I found myself asking what the point of the novel was. 

I would like to read Kitamura’s 2021 novel Intimacies, which was highly acclaimed. Audition it seems to me, has been less well received. I’m slightly surprised it was shortlisted, especially when I look at the books that did not make it. 

A fairly quick and interesting read but not highly rewarding for me.

January travel – Marrakech and Bucharest

I had the great good fortune to add two new places to my list of countries visited last month – Morocco and Romania. It is not usual for me to travel early in the new year, not least because I am usually running around taking kids to university, as well as recovering from the cost of Christmas! But I happened to see an opportunity for a very cheap (and quite short) break in Marrakech and we were invited to a christening in Bucharest. It did mean that this usually rather bleak month passed satisfyingly quickly, and I got through a fair bit of reading whilst travelling. Here are some photos of my trips.

Top row – El Badi Palace

Bottom row (L-R) – restaurant overlooking Jemaa el-Fnaa; Madrasa Ben Youssef; wandering through the souks; Koutoubia mosque at daybreak

Marrakech is a stunning place to visit, with all the senses assaulted at once. January was a great time to go, it was 16-18 degrees and not too crowded. I will definitely return, so much still to see.

Top row – Carturesti Carusel bookshop; Church of Saint Vissarion

Middle row (L-R) – National Museum of the Romanian Peasant; example of domestic art and craft; The Little Paris Museum

Bottom row – Palace of Parliament

Bucharest on the other hand was FREEZING! It’s an interesting place that is still coming out of a very dark period in its history. The Palace of Parliament was built by the former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and appears to be mostly a vanity project he conceived following a visit to North Korea. It is enormous and is said to be the heaviest administrative building in the world. I don’t know how this could be verified but it apparently contains 2.5 million tonnes of marble.

I am always interested to find out about literary connections to places I visit. I’m afraid to say I am not familiar with any Moroccan authors, although I have heard of French Moroccan author Leila Slimani – I think I may have read her novel Adèle (published in English in 2019, the original French is called Dans le jardin de l’ogre and was published in 2014). Mohamed Choukri (1935-2003) is another internationally renowned Moroccan author whose autobiography, For Bread Alone, recounts his early life surrounded by violence and poverty and then his self-education and flowering as a writer. Something else to add to the TBR list!

I was even less familiar with Romanian literature, although I was delighted to visit the beautiful Carturesti Carusel bookshop in Bucharest (coincidentally, this also featured on the January page of my 2026 bookshops of the world calendar!) I bought a copy of Mircea Cartarescu’s 1989 novel Nostalgia, which is said to be a surrealist cult masterpiece. Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionescu is perhaps the most famous writer to emerge from that country, another surrealist and considered part of the ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ school.

I recommend both of these cities for a visit if you have the opportunity. January is the perfect time to visit Marrakech, in my view, but perhaps Bucharest might be better in the spring!

Audiobook review – “Hercule Poirot’s Silent Night” by Sophie Hannah

A couple of weeks ago I caught a debate on Radio 4’s PM programme about whether listening to a book on audio counted as ‘reading’. The conversation was linked to the announcement of 2026 as the National Year of Reading, an initiative launched by Queen Camilla, who has done a great deal of work as a literacy and literature champion, and has been supported by many high level people from across the worlds of culture, media, politics and sport, including Richard Osman, the wonderful Stormzy (just when is he going to get a gong!?), Bridget Phillipson and Theo Walcott. Reading as a pastime continues to hold its own, and audiobooks have recently seen double digit growth in popularity year on year. I stopped being sniffy about audiobooks a very long time ago so was slightly surprised to hear this issue being debated! Whilst I still prefer, on the whole, the feel of a book in my hands and the imaginative freedom it gives me, I definitely would read a lot less were it not for audiobooks. It enables me to enjoy reading whilst doing other things that do not require much intellectual engagement, such as cleaning, running, driving or gardening. I find the combination of the two quite therapeutic as it brings a meditative quality to an otherwise mundane or repetitive task.

I listened to two audiobooks over Christmas, which were perfect candidates for the medium. The first was Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, read brilliantly by the inimitable Hugh Grant. (I re-watched all the Bridget Jones films and Love Actually over the Christmas holiday and found myself loving him all over again!) Anyway, he read A Christmas Carol with aplomb and it was well worth using up one of the credits on my Audible subscription for rather than listening to the free version (perhaps I’ll listen to that one next Christmas). 

My other Christmas audiobook was Hercule Poirot’s Silent Night, the fifth of six Hercule Poirot novels penned by Sophie Hannah, in honour of the great detective and his creator, Agatha Christie. It is the first Sophie Hannah Poirot that I have read and I will definitely seek out the other five as she does a brilliant job of recreating the spirit and character of Poirot, his linguistic quirks, self-regard (well-deserved) and of course his genius wit. This particular novel is set primarily in Norfolk where Poirot and his sidekick, Inspector Edward Catchpool, are summoned by Catchpool’s mother Cynthia. Her close friend Arnold is terminally ill with an unspecified condition which does not appear to hinder him either physically or mentally. A seemingly safe local hospital is identified as the place where Arnold will spend his final days when the time comes, but when a baffling murder of a patient is committed there, Edward’s family is split. His wife, in particular, does not want him to be admitted, fearing that he will be murdered too, and the couple’s two sons, and their wives (who are sisters) are thrown into a bitter conflict at a time when they should be supporting one another.

To make matters worse, Arnold is very keen to be admitted to the hospital as soon as possible; as an amateur sleuth himself he is keen to try and solve the murder, and it is his dying wish that he should assist his hero Hercule Poirot in doing so, hence the summons from Cynthia. Edward seems to have strong negative feelings towards his mother and though the two men agree to the plan, albeit somewhat reluctantly, their goal is to solve the case quickly and to return home to London before Christmas (giving them about a week). A tall order perhaps when the local constabulary have been unable to make any headway, but not of course for Poirot. 

I am not sure why murder and death are such powerful and engaging topics for artistic endeavour, especially when handled with a degree of comedy, but we are endlessly fascinated and entertained. The ongoing popularity of the great master Agatha Christie, attests to this. Sophie Hannah deploys great skills of characterisation, plotting worthy of Christie and dark humour to tell this tale and I enjoyed it very much. As an audiobook, it was a great example of how the medium can work particularly well.

Highly recommended.

Audiobook review – “The Names” by Florence Knapp

This is the debut novel from British author Florence Knapp and she has taken the literary world by storm; the Sunday Times described The Names as the best debut novel in years. It is a really good page-turner which explores the range of possible outcomes in a scenario where one detail is changed, a ‘sliding doors moment’, if you will. This idea was of course popularised by the 1998 film of that name starring Gwyneth Paltrow. The novel is ambitious in scope, opening in 1987 and finishing in the present day, enabling the author to explore the impact of the key decision on the life outcomes of each of the main characters. 

Central character Cora is an Irish woman who lives in suburban London with her GP husband Gordon, their 9 year-old daughter Maia and their newborn baby son. All appears to be quite normal but it is clear there is a degree of tension in the household, Gordon getting angry with Cora, for example, when the baby cries at night. Over breakfast one morning, Gordon reminds Cora that her task that day is to register the baby’s birth and we learn that his instruction is that the baby is to be called Gordon, after himself and the child’s grandfather, a family tradition that is to be maintained. Cora clearly has no say in the matter and her helplessness becomes apparent when she fantasises about giving the child an alternative name. She toys with the name ‘Julian’, liking its meaning – ‘sky father’. Her daughter, Maia, also offers a suggestion, ‘Bear’ which connotes both brave and fierce, and soft and cuddly. 

Thereafter the book explores the three possible scenarios proffered in the opening pages, exploring each pathway in alternate chapters – what happens if Cora obeys Gordon’s instruction; what happens if she defies him and goes with her own choice, Julian, a respectable name; and what happens if she goes with Maia’s suggestion, Bear, something quite unusual, bohemian and very unlike the middle-class suburban kind of name that goes with Gordon’s carefully cultivated image. In the very next trio of chapters we learn of Gordon’s reaction and the domestic situation that the couple are in is laid bare. When Cora obeys, Gordon is satisfied, but his control over her and her submission is reaffirmed. When Cora selects Julian or Bear, the act of seeming defiance triggers a violent reaction in Gordon. 

It is not just Cora’s life that is explored in the alternate scenarios in the rest of the book, but also that of the children. To what extent does ‘naming’ pre-figure a person’s destiny? Is the baby a different person because he was called ‘Bear’ rather than Gordon, for example, or is it the reaction of the father and the result of that reaction that impacts on the child’s future? I think the author is saying that both can be true. As well as exploring this interesting idea, the author also gives us a real page-turner of a book, in effect three stories for the price of one! It is also well-written and she handles the difficult topic of domestic abuse sensitively. 

I did initially find it quite challenging to follow all the stories and found I forgot which aspects of the history related to which narrative. It might have been better to explore two alternatives rather than three. My difficulty could also have been due to the fact that I listened to this on audiobook; had I read it in book form I would have been able to flick back to earlier chapters to keep track. On the plus side, the audiobook was read brilliantly by Dervla Kirwan. 

I recommend this book highly – it deserves the praise it has had and I can’t wait to see what else this author comes up with.