Author: Julia's books

Reader. Writer. Mother. Partner. Friend. Friendly.

Booker shortlist book review #2 – “Stone Yard Devotional” by Charlotte Wood

This is my second read from the Booker shortlist and it’s one of the shorter ones, but, quietly and unobtrusively, it plumbs the great depths of the human experience, exploring life, death, grief, the meaning of existence, forgiveness and plague. For a relatively small novel it packs a great deal in! Set in Australia in contemporary times (before, during and a little after the global Covid-19 pandemic), it is narrated in the first person by a woman, perhaps in late middle age, who has chosen to retreat from her life and live within a community of nuns. Initially, this is as a short-term guest, but her stay becomes indefinite. Whilst the narrator does not become a nun (curiously, she describes herself as an atheist and writes of the horrors of Catholicism growing up, at school, and in the world at large) she participates fully in the life of the community, eventually taking charge of the food, growing, foraging, buying and preparing it.

Our narrator initially went to the community on a form of retreat; she was separating from her husband and grieving for her mother who had died of cancer. The timing of events is not clear, echoing the timelessness, the absence of a life ruled by clocks, of living in the abbey. Amongst the nuns, the shape of the day is determined by the rising and setting of the sun, birdsong and the daily prayer rituals. There is comfort in both its order and in the absence of strict commercially-driven time structures. 

Life in the abbey provides the narrator with space to reflect, on her childhood, her family and in particular her relationship with her mother. The mother is perhaps the nearest thing to a saint that the narrator will ever worship, despite the availability of so many in the church. The pain of her loss seeps out of the pages and she describes a gentleness, a goodness and a generosity that is unmatched by any of the religious figures in the novel. 

The nature of belief and Christianity are also explored and the lifestyle chosen by the nuns in the abbey is contrasted with other nuns who go out and work with the poor and the abused. Two nuns in particular are given as examples – sisters Jenny (formerly of the abbey and known to the other nuns) and Helen, who set up a refuge for abused women in Thailand. Sister Jenny was murdered and when her body is later recovered it is returned to the abbey by her colleague, sister Helen, who, by chance, is a former school mate of the narrator. Helen was bullied because she was poor, and the narrator revisits the harms that were done to her and the part she herself played in them. 

Covid is a presence in the novel but this is not about Covid – the community is after all, largely separate from mainstream society. The plague that does permeate, however, is the infestation of mice that occurs periodically in Australia – I recall hearing about this in the news. The abbey and the local town are overrun and the author writes graphically of how the creatures invade every detail of life and what the sisters do to combat them. It conveys a sense of a world out of control, that even where a life of solitude is chosen, destructive phenomena cannot be escaped. 

This is a powerful novel. It took me a little while to get into after James because it has a totally different pace and perspective, but I found it a rich and rewarding read. Since I finished it I find myself reflecting on it often and new insights keep cropping up in my mind. It is an extremely well-crafted piece of work.

Highly recommended. 

Booker shortlist book review #1 – “James” by Percival Everett

This is my first read from the Booker shortlist. I chose it for two reasons: firstly, I thoroughly enjoyed Everett’s previous novel The Trees, which was shortlisted for the Booker in 2022 (it did not win; Shehan Karunitilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida took the honours that year); secondly, I was invited to ask the author a question on the BBC’s World Book Club radio show a few months ago. I entered into a (very small, but huge to me!) dialogue with the author and came away a bit starstruck! I suspect our brief little conversation was edited out of the final show, I haven’t listened back to it. I also read quite a few pieces about the book and the author since and he is without doubt an impressive and accomplished man. 

James has caught a lot of attention because it tampers with an American icon, Huckleberry Finn. I recall reading the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, first published in 1884, on a road trip around the United States when I was 21. I spent a summer working in New Hampshire and then spent my earnings travelling round for a few weeks. I spent quite a bit of time in the south and the racial divides were still very clear to see in the late 1980s. To my shame, however, I cannot say that I was particularly aware of the racism implicit in the novel (or in its companion volume, which I also read, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck’s friend) apart from the widespread use of the n-word, which I think I probably saw simply as the vernacular of the era in which the book was written and therefore somehow being less offensive?

In Twain’s novel, Huck is an innocent, a child who runs away from home and his abusive father, and who meets the runaway slave Jim en route. The two work together, but it is clear that Jim is merely secondary, meant to highlight Huck’s naivety and essential goodness. Twain was a staunch supporter of the movement to abolish slavery but he fails to challenge racial stereotypes and Jim is merely a bit-player with neither agency or intellect. Everett turns that Great American novel on its head (which will no doubt have infuriated some), makes Jim the eponymous central character and rather than call him by the three-word handle bestowed on him by his “owner” gives him back his full and rightful title, James. 

Jim/James, it matters here. The novel begins, somewhat comically, with the children in the community being taught “slave talk”; how to speak in a way that will not threaten their white masters and will therefore help to keep them safe. There is a quiet resistance here. Whilst the slaves are, yes, forced to dumb-down, privately they exercise their right to use the English language to its full extent, and to use their minds. It is almost as if they are in waiting. The theme of words, their power, and the power of speech, prevails throughout the novel.

In the first half of the novel, James spends a lot of time with Huckleberry and the author reprises many of the same scenes as characters as Twain, follows the same picaresque journey, but giving the reader, as it were, the inside track on what is really going on with ‘Jim’ and between him and Huck. Huck remains the innocent, as in Twain’s original, but we also see his internalised racism, his own victimhood, but, ultimately, his confidence in the security bestowed upon him by being white. There are no major consequences for Huck in being a runaway or getting into scrapes. Here though, it is Huck who is the secondary character, the foil to illustrate James’s character. The second half of the novel takes some darker turns and Huck is less prominent. The events in James’s life take on a certain inevitability and whereas white skinned Huck can have adventures largely without consequence, for James there will always be consequences. The author puts very much in James’s shoes and invites us to consider whether any of us would have done anything differently. 

This novel is brilliantly conceived and executed with aplomb. It is better than The Trees, more sophisticated and subtle, and so must be a strong contender for the prize. If it wins it will be richly deserved. 

A must-read. 

3 fiction book reviews

Having done so little blogging over the last few months I’ve built up quite a backlog of reviews, even though my reading rate has not been that impressive, if I’m honest. I’ve been listening to more audiobooks than I have been reading actual books and I’ve worked through quite a few on my travels and whilst running, so I’d like to tell you about three that I have particularly enjoyed.

The Shadows of London by Andrew Taylor

I love Andrew Taylor’s Marwood and Lovett books and have reviewed them all on here, from the very first Ashes of London to the most recent The Royal Secret. I get very excited each time I see there is a new one out and I listened to this, the sixth instalment, in the spring. For fans of the series, it has all the things you want and love – the courtly intrigue, the meticulous historical research, the same lovable and not so lovable characters, and a thread of continuity that makes you feel you are back with an old friend. This latest novel steps up to deal with sexual exploitation, by cruel and powerful men using powerless women to achieve their ambitions. In an afterword the author writes of how current scandals (referencing Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and others) gave him the inspiration to look back and explore the issue from a historical perspective. It is sobering to realise how little has changed. For fans of this series, the chemistry between the two leading characters is one of the main draws, and in this novel, the author rewards our patience!

Anxious People by Frederik Backman

This was another audiobook I thoroughly enjoyed. It is hard to say too much about it because the joy of it is in the twisty plot, the serial revelations and the about-turns that catch the reader on the hop. This is a book which is not at all what it seems. The novel opens with the police trying to solve a hostage drama. Six strangers who have all come to view an apartment are thrown together when a failed bank robber holds them captive. We first encounter them when the police are interviewing each of them to ascertain the sequence of events that led to the robber evading capture, despite the building being surrounded. Each of the hostages appears unhelpful, irritating and deeply frustrating and I must admit that in the first few chapters I fell into the trap of thinking that the book was going to be long-winded with poorly-drawn characters. Oh how wrong I was! As well as having a fiendishly clever plot the book is a wonderful study of six (plus!) fragile adults, none of whom is quite what they seem. Brilliant! And I will definitely be going back to this author for more.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

This book was heavily marketed when it was published in 2022 – it had a profile in almost every bookshop I entered and was widely advertised in the print media. Its author also gained a lot of attention for publishing her first novel in middle age. She deserves credit – it’s a good read and has been made into a film starring Brie Larson. Set in the 1960s its central character is Elizabeth Zott, mother to Madeline and presenter of a popular television cookery show, Supper at Six. The show is unusual in that it emphasises the chemistry involved in cooking and the labour and skills required in running a home. This soon gets Elizabeth into trouble, however, as the last thing TV executives want is a show that inspires female viewers to self-actualise! The novel tells us how Elizabeth got to this point. Highly intelligent and driven she was denied the chance to do a PhD, exploited by her male colleagues at the research institute where she worked and sexually assaulted. She falls in love with her colleague Calvin Evans, a brilliant and highly-regarded academic, despite herself and her life looks to be heading in a certain direction. But then events turn her world upside down. This is a great read, sure it’s cliched in parts, but it’s fantastic entertainment and exposes some of the very real hardships talented women faced not so very long ago.

Looking at the above reviews I am struck at how my reading seems to have involved some escapism – perhaps the challenges of my work and domestic life meant that I fell back onto modern popular fiction as a bit of nourishment for the soul! And if that’s not what reading is for, then I don’t know what is.

I’d love to hear if you have read any of the above and if so what you thought of them.

Where on earth has the time gone?!

It’s been three months since my last post, but actually six months since I was blogging regularly. In eight years of book blogging that’s the longest gap I have ever had. It’s been an incredibly demanding year and I found I needed to just slim everything down, focus on the essentials and free myself of some tasks so I could calm my stressed-out mind. And, let’s face it, like most bloggers I am sure, we do it because we enjoy, so when it becomes another thing on the to-do list perhaps it’s time to step back. And there were no earthquakes in my absence from the blogosphere so I am humbly reminded that the world has not been on tenterhooks awaiting my latest missive!

It’s no coincidence that my return to this blog has coincided with the autumn. I have written on here perhaps every year, that it is my favourite season when I feel a renewed sense of optimism and energy and the ideas seem to flow a bit more freely. My youngest is about to go off to start university so I am officially done with school, but it will take a while I think to shake off that ‘back to school’ buzz, especially as we will still be connected with education for a few years yet, albeit a bit more at arm’s length.

My intense busy-ness ended in July, but I decided to take the summer to rest a bit, recharge my batteries, do some visiting and a bit of travelling. Here are some of my memories:

Left to right from the top: Copenhagen, Malin Head (Donegal), City of Derry, Donegal again, Birdcage Walk in Bristol (made famous by Helen Dunmore’s fabulous book of the same name), Houses of Parliament, London (with a very clean looking Big Ben), Highgate Cemetery (London), Trinity Library (Dublin), the Algarve, Portugal.

I also made it to the Hay Festival at the end of May and (literally!) bumped into a couple of old friends from many years ago, when we lived in north east England, who I had lost touch with. Small world! So that was a highlight. I also saw one of my literary heroes there, the wonderful Michael Morpurgo.

My reading these last few months has been quite reduced too, due to being so busy and needing to study. But I do have quite a few reviews to catch up on. One of my literary discoveries over the summer was Val McDermid – I was looking for something that would absorb me and not require too much of my intellect to be applied (absolutely no disrespect, I think she’s brilliant) so I read her 1999 novel A Place of Execution. I loved it and am looking forward to getting into her work much more.

There is that big annual literary milestone, which has just landed – the Booker shortlist. I’m afraid the Women’s Prize passed my by this year, so I’m looking forward to getting into the Booker this year and working my way through the six shortlisted books as I have done every year. I had a lovely “conversation” with Percival Everett a couple of months ago when I was invited to put a question to him on the the BBC’s World Book Club radio show about his wonderful novel The Trees (itself shortlisted for the Booker just two years ago). So, I will probably be kicking off with his latest book James, which I have heard a lot about. I’ve got until 12 November, which will be a very tall order given my present rate of reading!

It feels GREAT to be back!

Book review – “Delta and the Lost City” by Anna Fargher

It has been a very long time since I last posted. I was chatting with my youngest the other day, newly out of exam purdah having just finished her A levels, and we were discussing how crazy life has been recently. We started off thinking of “recently” as the last few weeks, but in reality, it feels as if it has been at least a few months! And that is evidenced by my very erratic posting. I’ve been studying this last year, which has now come to an end – enjoyable but hard work – and I am now at the end of my association with school, so I am hoping life is about to get a bit easier and more manageable.

What has prompted me back into my blogging groove was being contacted by a lovely person at Macmillan Children’s Books, offering me a copy of Anna Fargher’s newest book, Delta and the Lost City, and the opportunity to participate in a blog tour. I am a fan of Anna Fargher’s books, and have reviewed on here two of her earlier books, The Umbrella Mouse and The Fire Cats of London. Fargher’s books are ‘middle-grade’, aimed at 8-12 years old, but I am a firm believer in adults reading to and with children, so this could also suit six and seven year olds with some supervision. 

In Delta and the Lost City, Fargher deploys her usual style and technique, so it will thrill children who are already her fans. The setting is historic, as usual, although she is going much further back than ever before, this time to Pompeii in AD 79 at the time of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. So readers get a helpful history lesson as well as a great story!

Also, as usual, her main characters are animals; Delta is a wonderful central figure, daughter of a placid white house dog, but fathered by a wolf and therefore with almost black fur, unlike her mother. Delta strikes fear into many who don’t know her and she can use her wolf genes to her advantage at times, to protect those whom she loves. But Delta has a kind and loving heart and is an intelligent and resourceful creature. 

[The rest of this review contains some spoilers.]

Delta lives in a house in the country, at the home of kindly nobleman Lucius. Her animal friends in the household include her mother Luna and the eagle Bellona. The humans they care for are Herminia, Lucius’s daughter, who is pregnant, and the slaves Gaia and her son Neo. Lucius was a progressive and treated his slaves well, decreeing also that they should be given their freedom after his death. Herminia is married to Marcus, a sly and cruel buisnessman. Delta sees Marcus secretly murdering the elderly Lucius and concealing his will, but there is little she can do about it. When Marcus decides to take Herminia and the household back to Rome and sell the household slaves, Delta flees with the help of Bellona.

On the run, Delta goes on a desperate search. She finds Neo and Gaia in Pompeii, in their new households. All the residents of the city know that Vesuvius is active, feeling the daily tremors in the earth beneath their feet. They make gifts to the god Vulcan to try and placate him to save themselves and their city. But, as we know, this is futile and Vesuvius eventually erupts. As in The Fire Cats of London, we know the outcome, but Fargher keeps us on the edge of our seats, as we follow our heroine and her human and animal friends, trying to escape the terror as well as do the right thing.

Like Fargher’s other animal heroines and heroes, Delta is a brave and clever dog, worthy of her central place in the book. Children will love Delta and the other characters and be able to identify with the child characters, their emotions, and their ability to empathise and develop close relationships with the animals. Importantly, Fargher never patronises with her animal characters; they take centre-stage unashamedly

This is a charming book with well-defined characters, a powerful story and a fascinating historical insight and I recommend it highly.

The book will be published on 4th July. There are one or two other things going on that day, but if you are in the UK, make a detour to the bookshop on the way back from the polling station with your children and pick up a copy!

Book review – “The Making of the Modern Middle East” by Jeremy Bowen

It’s been the busiest of times for me and I feel very out of touch with my blogging. But as I support the youngest of my three children as they embark upon the exam season, inwardly I am exclaiming “the last time!” I know it will feel weird when we are out the other side, of course, knowing that I will not be doing the journey to school any more and shortly afterwards waving another one off to university (fingers crossed). So, as I find myself saying frequently to new parents in  my day job, this too shall pass. Much of it is self-inflicted too, I must add; I decided to do a course of academic study last autumn and that is actually what has consumed much of my time. Truly I am a glutton for punishment!

I have had little time for reading, and it’s mostly been audiobooks so far this year, which I can listen to while out walking or running. So, I haven’t exactly had too many reviews to post! I’ve really felt the absence too. Reading for me is not only about being well-read and making connections with fellow book-lovers, it is also grounding. Nothing says self-care as strongly as: “I am taking 10/15/20 minutes out of my busy day, disconnecting from the family/the dishes/the smartphone, just for me, for pure pleasure.” It has to become a habit though, and it is one that seems to have slipped out of my grasp in the last couple of months, and which I now need to squeeze back in. 

The book I want to tell you about today is one that has been on my TBR pile for some time. Coincidentally, I am currently making my arrangements to go to the Hay Festival, filling my online basket with events, and this book was one I bought there last year. The BBC’s International Editor, Jeremy Bowen, has been working in the Middle East for many years and is now a renowned journalistic expert on the region. This book arose out of a podcast he did for BBC radio a few years ago called Our Man in the Middle East. This book is an insightful and informative look at the region, setting out the historical context for many of the disputes and tensions whilst also telling stories and anecdotes of his own experiences, the relationships he has forged with people, famous and not, giving an often very intimate perspective on some of the very big issues we all know about.

The Middle East is not homogenous and the history is complex. Usually, the causes of tensions and conflicts there are far more complex than can be conveyed in a single news bulletin. The region is also a lightning rod, a proxy, for much bigger confrontations. Looking at a traditional map of the world, it is very nearly the geographical centre. Politically and culturally it is where east meets west, where north meets south, where tradition meets modernism, and religion meets secularism, quite unlike anywhere else on the planet. It is quite clear, from reading this book, that the author is captivated.

Bowen takes a thematic approach in the book, but manages also to set out the historical context of each of the major countries in the region: Israel and Palestine (obviously), Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, but drawing in also Lebanon, Yemen and Libya. I came away from this book with a powerful new understanding of the motivations and perspectives of people living in the Middle East, and also of the largely malign influence “the west”, and in particular the colonial powers have had over decades, if not centuries. 

I have visited this part of the world only once in my life, about 25 years ago when I went to Lebanon. I found it a stunning and fascinating country and am saddened that it has been brought to its knees both economically and politically in recent years. When I attended the event at Hay in which Jeremy Bowen was interviewed by his BBC colleague Frank Gardner, I remember how pessimistic he was about the Israel-Palestine situation, describing it as more dangerous than he had seen it in many years. How poignant that observation seems when just a few months later the current crisis we see so vividly every day on our television screens was set in motion. 

This is a powerful and gripping book, written with the author’s characteristic style, thoroughly researched and grounded in first-hand knowledge. Highly recommended.

Audiobook review – “Misery” by Stephen King

Whether or not you have read any of his work, most people will have heard of Stephen King and could probably name one or two of his books. And anyone who dabbles in writing, whether or not they have actually read any of his books, will have some admiration for the American author, a man committed to his craft, who shares his insights humbly and widely, and who is both prolific and highly regarded. Surely a giant of American letters.

In a writing career spanning half a century, King has published more than sixty-five novels (that’s more than one a year!), several non-fiction books, hundreds of short stories, screenplays, and even graphic novels. His first novel, Carrie (published in 1974), sold a million copies in paperback and became a bestseller when it was adapted for the screen in 1976, launching the career of Sissy Spacek in the title role. His next two novels, published in 1975 and 1977 are also seminal works – Salem’s Lot and The Shining. Both won awards and both were made into highly successful screen adaptations, the latter starring Jack Nicholson, of course, in what is arguably one of his finest performances. 

All of this and I have never picked up a Stephen King book. My first boyfriend when I was a teenager was a huge Stephen King fan and I never much cared for his literary tastes, being much more into the classics at that stage in my life! I’ve also largely avoided the horror genre, disliking the films (I can barely watch most of them) and therefore assuming the books would not be for me. There is however, horror, and there is horror. So, I was open-minded when I suggested to my book club that we tackle a Stephen King. We picked Misery because we could watch the film as well, and it secured an Oscar in 1990 for Kathy Bates in the role of Annie Wilkes – its funny how I have a memory of her acceptance speech. We listened on audio, because that is our thing, and we all agreed it was read brilliantly by Lindsay Crouse. 

The plot of the novel is simple: Paul Sheldon is a successful author who, after completing the draft of his latest, and what he believes to be his best, novel, Fast Cars, decides to drive from the remote hotel where he normally likes to write, to Los Angeles. It is winter, the weather is poor and he has a serious accident, crashing his car in Colorado near the small town of Sidewinder. His upturned vehicle is discovered by local woman Annie Wilkes, who lives alone on her small isolated farm. Annie retrieves the badly injured Paul from the wreckage of his car and takes him to her house. She is a qualified nurse and keeps a wide range of medications at home. Paul wakes up to find himself in her spare bedroom, his broken legs splinted and his wounds treated. He is initially grateful to her for saving his life, a fact which she reminds him of frequently, and is only slightly curious as to why she has not taken him to hospital or brought in a doctor.

During his unconscious phase, it is clear that Annie searched his belongings and discovered his identity. She knows him well because she is his “number one fan” – an avid reader of the historical novels featuring a Victorian orphan Misery Chastain, which have been responsible for bringing Paul fame and fortune, but which he has grown to loathe because of their lack of literary merit. The latest novel in the series is about to be published, which means Annie is in an excited frenzy, and it will be the last because Misery dies, although Annie does not yet know this.

As the days pass and Paul’s condition improves he becomes increasingly concerned as to why Annie will not let him notify his friends and family and his agent of his whereabouts, or why she will not let him see a doctor. He begins to doubt her excuses about the severity of the weather. Things take a dramatic turn for the worse when Annie gets hold of the newly-published book Misery’s Child. She is enraged to find that her heroine dies, accusing Paul of murdering her. To make matters worse, she reads the manuscript of Fast Cars and considers it worthless filth. Her reaction finally convinces Paul that he is her prisoner and Annie’s behaviour becomes increasingly unpredictable and violent. Annie acquires an ancient typewriter from the thrift shop in town and sets Paul the task of writing another manuscript in which Misery is restored to life, though she insists that the story must be “fair” – credible and not by magic. Most distressingly, she also makes Paul burn the manuscript (the only one) of Fast Cars, page by page on a barbecue. 

The rest of the novel concerns the psychological battle of wills going on between Annie and Paul. He is vulnerable, weak and disabled and she exercises power over him, not least actually locking him up. She also gets him hooked on opiate painkillers, effectively enslaving him. Annie is prone to bouts of deep depression, perhaps she is bipolar, and occasionally disappears for days at a time, sometimes leaving him without food or pain relief. Paul plots escape and sabotage but his efforts are mostly unsuccessful and simply make Annie worse. There are moments of extreme violence in the book, but not as much as you would expect for a horror novel – the horror here is mainly psychological. But the threat of horror is ever-present. King gets us into the mind of the prisoner, not knowing from one day to the next whether his captor will kill or torture him, or whether today she might be nice and bring him ice cream. The reader is kept in a constant state of alert. In some ways it is exhausting, but is definitely utterly compelling. 

I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed this book. We enjoyed the film less, although it is a very good effort and well-acted, mainly I think because it is just too short, leaves out too much, and brings in additional characters who do not feature in the novel. I fear I might have started with the best of King by reading Misery, but I will definitely read more. 

Highly recommended. 

Exhibition Review – Blake’s Universe at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

I had the very good fortune a couple of weeks ago to be in Cambridge visiting my daughter when a new exhibition, Blake’s Universe, opened at the city’s famous Fitzwilliam Museum. I think I’d had some vague awareness of it, probably from one of the artsy newsletters that I have subscribed to at some point over the years, which I usually merely scan through to see what’s local to me. Even better, I happened to be there on the opening day so there was a palpable sense of excitement, and a scarcity of tickets. 

William Blake the poet has always been on the periphery of my literary attention. He lived from 1757-1827, which was not the period of literature I found most interesting when I was at university. Ironically, it is the period of European history that I find MOST interesting; the French revolution, American revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the beginnings of industrialisation, etc. 

Blake is one of the foremost figures in British cultural history, however, though he was revered more after his death than during his lifetime, even considered eccentric by his contemporaries. He was a deeply spiritual man but distrusted organised religion, preferring more mystical ideas, which are reflected both in his poetry and his art work. He is considered a poet of the Romantic school and he has influenced the likes of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and WB Yeats, as well as composers such as Britten and Vaughan Williams, and, latterly, Philip Pullman who acknowledged his debt to Blake in his His Dark Materials trilogy. Perhaps most famously, the text of the famous British hymn Jerusalem, adopted as an anthem by many political groups, is taken from Blake’s Milton, A Poem (not, ironically, from his poem of the same name), and was set to music by Sir Hubert Parry in the early 20th century. 

The Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition brought together much of Blake’s fascinating artwork and set it in the context of a European-wide movement which sought to challenge the established Church, its power and its religious norms. Other artists whose work has been set beside Blake’s at the exhibition include German painters Philipp Otto Runge and Caspar David Friedrich. 

Blake’s haunting image of dying people entitled Plague, referring to the Great Plague of the 1660s

I had never seen Blake’s art work up close before I attended this exhibition. It is extraordinary. And when you think that he was working in the late 18th and early 19th centuries it is even more so. He presented many of his poems in the most beautiful engravings and in booklets with a series of plates for different stanzas. The detail, the colours, the vision of the work, jump out at you. 

The exhibition is open until 19th May and I recommend it highly.

Finish a book challenge #3 – “Burning Questions” by Margaret Atwood

This might just be the book I am proudest to have finished in my ‘finish a book’ challenge! I am ashamed to say that I bought it when it was first published in summer 2022 (a signed hardback copy no less!), began reading it almost immediately, when I went on holiday I think, set it to one side when life got a bit busy again and then never seemed to get around to finishing it, despite a second and third wind each time I went on holiday thereafter. It’s not even a difficult book to read; it’s divided up into highly readable chunks (the sub-title of the book is “Essays and occasional pieces 2004-21”), the kind you can read in ten to fifteen minutes between chores and deadlines, so I have no absolutely no excuse or explanation.

I determined to finish this one though, not least because it is big and is taking up a substantial amount of the space on my bedside pile, and I have loved it. I’ve read just over half of it in the last couple of weeks and it has been a joy. Margaret Atwood is truly an international treasure. She must surely be one of the world’s finest living writers. I cannot believe she hasn’t won a Nobel Prize for The Handmaid’s Tale at the very least. Many of the pieces in this book are speeches she has given at various conferences, symposia or charitable events. Her wit is sharp and acerbic and she has an eye for the absurd that is unmatched in my opinion. Reflecting in 2015 on the tepid reception of The Handmaid’s Tale when it was first published, she writes of one New York Times reviewer:

Being dissed in the Times invariably causes your publishers to cross to the other side of the street when they see you and then run away very fast and hide under a rock. The reviewer was the eminent American novelist and essayist Mary McCarthy, and she was not amused. (She was not amused in general, so I was not alone in failing to amuse her.)

(From “Reflections on The Handmaid’s Tale”, 2015, pp 245-258

She is profoundly intellectual, awesomely clever and well-read, and yet she has a kind of down to earth common sense that must have come from her unremarkable upbringing, much of which was spent in the deeply rural settings in Canada where her scientist father worked. She is as comfortable writing about Shakespeare, the classics and the ancients, philosophy, as she is about day to day life and can be laugh-out-loud funny about both. Have a look at the following two excerpts. The first is a comment on the English syllabus she studied at school, the second on the battles of the sexes:

There was a set curriculum for all five years of all high schools in the province of Ontario, Canada. We Canadians are residing within the mindset of the British Empire – to which we had belonged for a couple of centuries –  and thus, for English Literature, the curriculum featured some things you most likely wouldn’t be able to drag the kids through today. Two novels by Thomas Hardy in five years? Good luck with that! And The Mill on the Floss, a serious-business novel by George Eliot. There was a lot of nineteenth century literature because there was no sex in it, or not right there on the page, though some of the books had some hot action in the margins.

(From “Shakespeare and Me: a tempestuous love story”, 2016, pp 293-305)

And that is why men do not pick up their socks from the floor once they have taken them off: men simply do not see these socks, having evolved to notice only animals that are moving. Whereas women can easily distinguish the socks from the background of floor carpet, having evolved to gather mushrooms – which the discarded socks closely resemble in form, and sometimes in texture and aroma…..If the socks could be equipped with tiny solar lights that would flash on and off, the men would be able to see them, and of course – being unselfish and altruistic – would scoop them off the floor and put them into the laundry basket, and one more major cause of human unhappiness would be eliminated!

(From “Greetings Earthlings! What Are These Human Rights of Which You Speak”, 2018, pp368-379)

Two of her major preoccupations, particularly towards the end of the book concern the rise of misogyny and hate, and particularly in America at the time of the 2016 election, and the speeding up of climate change and the threat to life on earth as we know it. In a speech given just before the 2016 election entitled “We Hang by a Thread” she said:

During the campaign we have seen an outpouring of misogyny not witnessed since the witchcraft trials of the seventeenth century…..This is a reminder to us that the hard-won rights for women and girls that many of us now take for granted could be snatched away at any moment. Culturally, those rights are very shallowly embedded – by which I mean they haven’t been around that long, historically, and that they are not fervently believed in by everyone in the culture. It seems that the male candidate for president of the United States, for one, does not believe in them. That’s a pretty interesting role model for boys and men.

Some of the most moving pieces in the final years covered by the book are about her late husband Graeme Gibson who died from vascular dementia in 2019. They clearly had a very happy marriage and shared many passions, mainly art, literature and the natural world, and her fond tributes to his work and acknowledgement of the impact he had on hers are both loving and generous. 

Part of me is sorry that it took me so long to finish this book, but I have enjoyed it so much these last few weeks that I am also glad to have come back to it. The reflections on the election of Donald Trump and the precariousness of human and particularly women’s rights, seem particularly prescient right now as we face another US election in which he seems likely to be a candidate, and the world faces what must surely be a tipping point. It is not a book that will leave you feeling optimistic, but it is definitely one that will make you smile and laugh at a time when things do seem rather bleak.

Finish a book challenge #2 – “Venice: the lion, the city and the water” by Cees Nooteboom

Venice has to be one of the most enigmatic, captivating cities in Europe, and possibly one of the most painted and written about. For a small place it seems always to have punched above its weight. The entire metropolitan area of Venice (which is spread over more than a hundred islands) is around a quarter of the size of Greater London, with a fraction of the population. The central area of the city, to which most of its 30 million visitors a year will be drawn, is even smaller. It is considered to be a victim of over-tourism and has for many decades been “sinking” into the lagoon that surrounds it.

I have twice in my life been one of those tourists. The first time was in 1986 when as an 18 year old I “inter-railed” around Europe. It was July and it was jam-packed. The youth hostel was full and so I was sent to a convent on one of the other islands which took in female travellers in the summer months. It was so clean and peaceful, a world away from the crowds of Piazza San Marco. The second time was in August 2012, when my children were young. We were on a family holiday in Italy and went to Venice for the day (as ninety per cent of tourists do). I’m afraid we went on a gondola and bought glass souvenirs. Again, it was jam-packed and I came away feeling somewhat tarnished. 

But Venice has always had something of a resonance for me. I studied German at ‘A’ level and read Thomas Mann’s Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice). The 1971 Luchino Visconti film adaptation starring Dirk Bogarde is one of my all-time favourites. And one of my husband’s all-time favourite films is Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie (which, incidentally, was on television recently, to mark its 50th anniversary). It is about a couple who, after the death of their young daughter, spend the winter in Venice while the Donald Sutherland character is on a commission to restore an ancient church. I remember when we first watched it together I fantasised about visiting the city in the winter – it seemed so empty! I imagine now though that even in the winter it remains a very busy destination, though I hope sometime in the not too distant future to go there, perhaps in January!

I spotted this book on the city in my local bookshop recently  and my darling daughters picked up my hints and got it for me for Christmas! The author is the acclaimed Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom, who comes from Amsterdam, another watery city. The book recounts a life-long love affair with Venice and oozes with the author’s affection. Like me, and no doubt many other visitors, he laments how the city has become overwhelmed by visitors (not unlike his home town of Amsterdam), and only a few thousand permanent residents can now call Venice home. He is also aware that he may also be part of the problem. 

Venice has…already been more than sold. Within the area of San Marco, 90 per cent of the restaurants are run by Chinese, Albanians and people from the Middle East…..I know the stories about the other tourists, and I also know the strategies Venetians have come up with to deny the plague, to ignore it…..In these ice-cold weeks of February and March, the great flood has ebbed away a little. Venetians do not have to contend with the foreigners who have taken their usual seat at their favourite cafe, and as I am writing this I am aware that I too am a tourist.

The above quote comes at the end of the book, but most of it concerns lesser-known Venice, where it remains just about possible to find the secret places and avoid the crowds, like a Jewish cemetery, less esteemed churches, some disused, and a once-impressive garden that is only accessible by appointment and whose guardians are somewhat surprised to welcome a visitor. It is a book to help you get to know another Venice. Perhaps something rather like the little convent that accommodated me in 1986. 

Who knows if I will ever get to see Venice in the winter or if it will be as empty as I want it to be, as in Don’t Look Now. If I do, I will be sure to have this book as my companion. It is translated from the original Dutch by Laura Watkinson and is wonderfully illustrated with photos by the author’s partner Simone Sassen (and in which there are hardly any humans).