Category: Book Reviews

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.

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. 

Audiobook review – “The Lamb” by Lucy Rose

I am still working my way through the Booker shortlist so no further reviews to offer there at this point in time, so I’d like to share with you, a book I listened to on audio a few months ago. This is the first novel from young writer Lucy Rose (although she has a number of short film credits to her name) and I feel sure it will not be her last. I understand that this book falls into the sub-genre of fem-gore and I can’t think of anything I have read that is quite like it. 

The novel is set in a small town in Cumbria. The era is not specified; it seems contemporary, but there is an air of datedness about the setting that suggests somewhere left behind, or even timeless, removed from the modern world of technology. The story centres on the relationship between Margot, whose age is not stated, but who seems pre-adoloescent, and her Mama. There is no father – he disappeared a long time ago. Margot and her mother live in a remote rural location close to the woods in a dilapidated cottage. They live an isolated life although Margot does go to school – she walks to the main road to pick up the school bus. The bus driver is one of the few people outside of the home that Margot has any meaningful interactions with. He clearly has some concerns about Margot and her home life. Margot has one school friend. 

Quite early on in the book it becomes clear why Margot’s Mama wishes to live away from prying eyes; she has cannibalistic urges and fulfils these by luring lone wanderers from the woods (whom she terms “strays”), and killing and eating them. The descriptions are graphic, not for the faint-hearted, but powerful and vivid. Mama is a damaged individual – she has devastating mood swings and is unable to care for her daughter. She is neglectful both physically and emotionally. But of course, Margot knows no different and loves her mother. She seems to have a sense that their lifestyle is unusual, and Mama instils in her a deep suspicion of the outside world which compels her to maintain secrecy about their lives. 

There is a sense that the state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely. One day, a “stray” called Eden arrives at the house. Initially, Mama plans to kill her, just like all the others, but Eden seems to have a hold over Mama. Tensions arise in the three-way relationship between Margot, her Mama and their visitor. Margot’s approaching adolescence also threatens to upset the hitherto peculiar equilibrium of the household and a point is reached where action must be taken.

This is a startling but utterly compelling novel. It is violent, graphic, sexually explicit and very dark, but the psychological horror makes it a real page-turner. The main characters of Margot, Mama and Eden are powerfully drawn and convincing even though their actions beggar belief. Even the minor characters, like the bus driver, add real depth to the story. 

We read it in my book club and all loved it. The audiobook is brilliantly read by Emma Rydal who brings some very special qualities to her narration.

Highly recommended.

Booker shortlist review #3 – “Flesh” by David Szalay

This was the fourth book that I read from this year’s Booker shortlist (this post is entitled number three because I read The Land in Winter back in February) and it is the title that won the prize. This book is undoubtedly better (in my humble opinion) than The Rest of Our Lives and more compelling than The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, although I’m not sure I prefer it to The Land in Winter. It is David Szalay’s second attempt at the Booker, his 2016 novel All That Man Is having been shortlisted previously. This review does not contain significant spoilers, but it is a tough one to review without giving away a little of the events. 

The novel centres on one main character, István, and follows the ups and downs of his life. We first meet him as a teenager in a small town in Hungary where he lives with his mother. István is on the cusp of sexual maturity and, not untypically, feels himself alone, different from other boys around him. When one of his classmates arranges an initiatory sexual encounter for him with a willing girl he at first seems to believe that this will launch him into a world he so desperately wants to belong to – the sexually experienced – but it goes embarrassingly wrong and he finds himself further isolated. From there he falls into the arms of a neighbour – a woman in her forties – with whom he embarks on a journey of sexual discovery. Events will soon spiral out of control, however, and will lead István to the first ‘down’ in his eventful life.

A few years later István is in the military, and serves in Iraq, where he distinguishes himself. His life finally seems to be ‘up’ although his experiences leave him with PTSD. After the army, more disappointing sexual encounters follow and then a lack of direction and meaning until István finds himself in London where he is employed as a security guard in a nightclub. Late one night, whilst heading home after his shift, István intervenes in a street mugging and saves a man’s life. The man, ageing, but still active as a businessman running a high-end protection services agency, takes István under his wing. This will set István on another upward trajectory that will take him into the worlds of high finance and the English upper classes. 

There is a lot going on in this novel – we follow the path of István’s life from the moment things start happening for him (as a boy in Hungary), to, really, a point when things stop happening for him. A period, I am guessing, of about 40 years. The novel is almost picaresque; it reminded me a little of the 1975 Stanley Kubrick film Barry Lyndon (starring Ryan O’Neal as the eponymous character) – a brilliant film if you haven’t seen it. The central character is not a bad person, in many ways he is highly sympathetic and someone who has a lot of love to give, but he also is blighted by a handful of bad decisions and some unforeseeable misfortunes. István, like Barry Lyndon, will experience tremendous highs and very deep lows. Sex is also a common theme and whatever stage István finds himself at, there is a sexual situation to match – sometimes this is part of the bad decision and sometimes it shows István at his most tender, some of his finest moments are in his intimate encounters with women.

Szalay’s writing style in this novel is spare, and the dialogue is particularly interesting, particularly authentic in its perfunctoriness, which, alongside the pretty fast-paced plot, makes it quite a fast read. I can see why it won the Booker – it is quite the novel of our times and with this particular writing style (so antithetical to Kiran Desai’s Indian epic) it seems to encapsulate the short attention span culture, the Instagram-worthy outer life but beneath which lies deep darkness. István lives in an era and a continent never more densely populated and yet as a man he finds himself so often alone.

This is a good read and I recommend it.

Booker shortlist review #2 – “The Loneliness of Sonia & Sunny” by Kiran Desai

This was the longest of the books shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize. At almost 700 pages it was nearly half as long again as the next biggest, Susan Choi’s Flashlight (464 pages). I do enjoy a long book – the longest ever Booker shortlisted novel was Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport (2019), a book I loved and the stream of consciousness style of which suited its length. This book, I am not so sure.

The two main characters are Sonia and Sunny, Indian immigrants living in the United States. Sonia has recently graduated from college in Vermont. She wants to be a novelist but lacks motivation and application. At the start of the novel she is in a relationship with a much older man, an established and renowned artist who evades commitment and who exploits her youth, beauty and biddable nature. 

Sunny is the only child of a widowed mother, and is working as a journalist with the Associated Press in New York, dreaming of his big break but struggling to make an impact. He is in a long-term relationship with his American girlfriend, but when he meets her parents, the gulf between them and their respective cultures becomes clear. 

Sonia and Sunny’s family backgrounds are illustrated in detail and a powerful and rich canvas is painted by the author, drawing out the importance of tradition in Indian culture, but also the rapidity of change in that society. Sonia and Sunny’s grandparents, for example, are firmly in the past and struggle with the new realities whether this is in relation to public administration, marriage traditions or technology. Their parents’ generation straddles the past and the present and all are still trying to work out how to navigate the new realities. 

Sonia and Sunny represent the Indian dream, trying to establish themselves in the west, and make a career which matches their academic credentials but always rubbing up against hostile attitudes to immigrants and shaken by the culture clashes. They are first made aware of each other in the most traditional Indian way when Sonia’s grandfather approaches Sunny’s grandfather (a chess-playing companion) to try and arrange a meeting between the two. Sunny’s family goes through the motions of promising to introduce them whilst privately regarding the approach with contempt given the social gap between the two families.

It will be some time later that Sonia and Sunny meet in person, in India, for Sonia’s grandfather’s funeral. Will they strike up a romance, ironic, given their respective families’ attempt to match/eschew them? Or have they become far too American for such arrangements?

The real irony of the situation is expressed in the title of the book – both young people are lonely, in relationships of their own choosing which not only fail to fulfil them on either a romantic or a cultural level, but which verge on toxic. In the case of both of them, their partners cannot connect with their Indian cultural sensibilities, or even their immigrant sensibilities.

I did enjoy this book, but with caveats. I have loved many an Indian epic novel – I count Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance and Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy among my all-time favourite reads – but this one did not quite do it for me. I do think the background cast of characters, Sonia and Sunny’s extended families, was important in portraying modern India, what has changed and what hasn’t, but there were times when the level of detail felt too much. Towards the end, for example, the account of Sonia’s father’s illness and his experience of his treatment, felt unnecessary. And the lengthy chapters with Elon, Sonia’s artist lover, also felt drawn out more than was necessary; or perhaps it just felt that way to me because he was so ghastly! I’m afraid I do think some judicious editing was called for. 

The author handled all the many complex themes – loneliness, disillusion, the problem of the outsider, the clash of cultures, and the transformation of the vast nation of India – with aplomb, but I do think the narrative could have been tightened. 

The book is an achievement that is worth a read, but it would not have been winner-level for me. I listened to it on audio and it was beautifully read by Sneha Mathan.

Booker shortlist review #1 – “The Rest of Our Lives” by Ben Markovits

The winner of this year’s Booker Prize was announced last week and it was David Szalay’s Flesh. It was this author’s second attempt, having been nominated for All That Man Is in 2016 – the year I started this blog. That was also the first year I set myself the goal of reading all the novels on the shortlist – I don’t think I managed it that year either! (I have no idea how on earth the judges manage to get through so many books – they must have to forego all other meaningful activity for months!) When this year’s shortlist was announced a month or so ago I gave myself a fifty percent chance of getting through the shortlist before the announcement.


Well, predictably, I only got through half the books in time (I already had Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter under my belt), although I did manage to get through Anita Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sonny, all 700 pages of it, which has to be an achievement in itself. 

The first book that I decided to tackle was Ben Markovits’s The Rest of Our Lives – according to the blurb it was about a man in mid-life whose children are leaving home to go to college and so it seemed to chime with some aspects of my life right now. I also noted that the author is a lecturer in creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London, where I did my own undergraduate degree in English, so, a happy coincidence.

The central character is Tom, an academic in law, in his fifties, living in New York city with his wife Amy. It is clear that Tom has reached a state of disillusionment with his life. Amy had an affair some years earlier and it is clear that their marriage has never really recovered from this shock. Tom has been waiting until their children have left home before leaving his wife. Tom and Amy’s elder child Michael is at college in California, and when their daughter Miri goes to college in Pittsburgh, Tom drives her there and the moment of reckoning arrives. 

The journey to Pittsburgh is long – around seven hours (which makes my 3 hour journeys to drop my kids off seem pathetic!). After delivering Miri, Tom decides to keep going, not to go back to New York. He tells Amy that he is going to visit an old pal who has been seeking his advice on a legal matter. He keeps driving. 

In the background we learn of Tom’s health complaints, a swollen face every morning that no doctor has yet been able to diagnose satisfactorily. A friend of mine recently described middle age as being like ‘sniper’s alley’ when it comes to health – you can eat well, exercise, avoid smoking or drinking too much, do all the right things, and yet some nasty disease might still get you. It’s true, and one becomes acutely aware of this in middle age. We learn of Tom’s professional disappointments, never having quite attained the goals he hoped he might. He revisits a number of old friends and finds the relationships are not quite how he imagined. What will Tom do with the level of mediocrity he finds himself in?

This is a road trip novel where the central character goes on a journey of self-examination. This could be a cliche if it was not handled extremely well. And I’m afraid that, for me, it was not handled extremely well. I found the author’s writing style languorous and dull. The ending was abrupt and it felt like the author had just got rather bored with his story and decided to stop. The characters lacked spark. The most interesting character for me was actually Michael’s girlfriend Betty, although I am not sure what purpose she served in the novel, except to show Tom how things might have been if he’d made some different choices.

This was not a bad novel, but I find it quite hard to believe that it was considered Booker shortlist-standard, especially a shortlist that omits Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s Dream Count. 

Unfortunately, I find this book difficult to recommend. 

Book review – “Prisoners of Geography” by Tim Marshall

I remember a friend recommending this book to me a few years ago and I made a mental note but never got around to reading it, so I was delighted to pick this up at my local Oxfam bookshop at the start of the summer. The book was first published ten years ago (my edition was revised and updated in 2016) but a further edition has been published this year. One can understand why a new version was needed; 2015 seems almost quaint at this point, another era. It pre-dates the first Trump presidency, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Britain leaving the European Union and, of course, the Covid-19  pandemic. It also pre-dates by some distance the devastating events of the last two years in Israel and Gaza.

And yet, one of the striking things about reading this nine year-old edition is how prescient it is and how it explores some territorial issues that never seem to go away. The Middle East chapter explores the ancient origins of conflict in the region, the way it has been used as a political football by colonisers (particularly the British and the French, sadly) and the cavalier attitudes that have been shown towards tribal, cultural and religious sentiments. The seeds of present-day conflict in many countries in this region have been sown over decades, if not centuries. 

The Africa chapter is equally shame-inducing – the actions of arrogant colonisers have created so many of the problems that the continent is experiencing today and the wealth of natural resources present there continue to make Africa a target for richer nations wishing to exploit division and grow richer and more powerful in the process. Marshall also argues that the vagaries of climate, topographical challenges and the prevalence of some devastating diseases have hampered African nations’ ability to prosper.  

The book opens with a chapter on Russia and a very interesting discussion about the psyche of that nation which may go some way to explaining its attitude to Ukraine. Of course, Russia first invaded Ukraine when it took Crimea in 2014 – that will have been very recent history when Marshall was writing this book – and it is quite prescient that he chooses to start the book almost with a warning that Russia has not yet completed the job it set out to do in 2014, now more than ten years ago. Putin can afford to be a patient man as, unlike many world leaders, he does not have to worry about the threat of being voted out of power. 

China is endlessly fascinating and merits a chapter of its own, as does the United States, and here Marshall writes of the tremendous natural advantages that country enjoys – perhaps leaders of that country might be a little more humble and recognise the many gifts they have been given. 

Marshall is a journalist and broadcaster and former foreign affairs editor for Sky news. He knows his stuff and has written several books on the subject of the politics of nationality and of place, all of which seem to have been well-reviewed. I have seen him speak on several news and current affairs programmes over the years and he is a man worth listening to. 

This book is by no means a light read, nor an uplifting one but perhaps an essential one for anyone interested in world affairs and global justice.

Book review – “Dream Count” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I posted earlier in the week about this year’s Booker Prize shortlist and one of the books I was surprised not to see on the list (it did not even make the longlist) was the latest (and for me long-awaited) novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. So surprised was I by this oversight that I even double checked the eligibility criteria – was it published within the time frame? It was indeed and I remain very puzzled. It is hard to believe that it is twelve years since Adichie published her last novel Americanah, though in the intervening period she has written some shorter form non-fiction works. She and her partner have a young family so presumably she has been focusing on raising her children and she also lost both her parents and has written about her grief at these events.

Well, it was, in  my opinion,  worth the wait because she has well and truly hit a very rich seam once again with this, her fourth novel. Dream Count reflects on the dilemmas facing women today, on the choices between career and family, on the unreliability of too many men, on cultural clashes, on food, on the Covid 19 pandemic, on loneliness and fulfilment, on Africa and on inequality. 

The novel traces the story of four women – Chiamaka, who comes from a wealthy Nigerian family, her cousin Omelogor, a brilliant financial analyst and sometime academic, Chiamaka’s friend Zikora, a lawyer, and her long-time housekeeper in the US Kadiatou. The novel opens with Chiamaka’s story at the time of the Covid 19 pandemic when she finds herself stranded in the US, only able to communicate with family via internet video calls, as happened with so many of us. Chiamaka is a travel writer, who has had only moderate success, but her family’s wealth means she has no real need to work. There is pressure from her family to marry and have a family, however. Chiamaka is a romantic and the novel recounts some of her many relationships, but the men in her life invariably fall short either of her ideals of marriage or in terms of their character. 

Omelogor is a self-made woman, highly intelligent and extremely able from a young age she became a financier in Nigeria and made her fortune by taking her own share of the corrupt profits she helped her unscrupulous bosses cream off the state. A modern day Robin Hood-ess she sets about redistributing funds to less fortunate, less educated women in her community, women trying to support their families by setting up small businesses. Latterly she takes a sabbatical in the US and becomes a researcher into internet pornography and how this impacts on men’s perceptions of women and how they conduct themselves in relationships.

Kadiatou is Chiamaka’s housekeeper in the US. A deeply caring woman who left Nigeria at the behest of a man who promised to marry her. She has a daughter to whom she is devoted. Kadiatou becomes embroiled in a high-profile sexual assault case which closely resembles the true story of Nafissatou Diallo, a maid at a luxury New York hotel, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Director of the IMF, in 2011. The author references this case in her afterword. In her exploration of Kadiatou’s assault, the author explores the perennial problem of power imbalance and how the law and the media are stacked against immigrants, women and poorer people.

The fourth main character is Zikora, close friend of Chiamaka and Omelogor, a lawyer who also experiences family pressure to marry and start a family, but who again, finds herself let down by inadequate men, but also, sadly, a distant mother. 

The novel alternates between the different women’s perspectives, exploring their back stories, their thoughts, their preoccupations and their dreams. ‘Dream count’ seems to refer to the different sexual and romantic relationships and encounters they have, the good, the bad and the really ugly. Thus the term ‘dream’ becomes one that is loaded with irony and with cultural perceptions (a partner may appear ideal, dream-like, from the outside, but there are usually problems and inadequacies that make them unsuitable or unacceptable to these women). In their different ways none is prepared to settle for a second-best. 

There is so much to love in this novel. I listened to it on audio and was delighted that the opening part of Chiamaka is read by the author. Her voice is smooth and rich and filled with the nuance that only she, as the author, could understand. Thus she brings expression that makes listening even more of a pleasure. If I had read this as a book I feel sure I would have been turning the corner on every other page, defacing it with hundreds of underlinings and notes because the language and the expression are so powerful. 

It is the best post-pandemic novel I have read to date and a book I highly recommend. 

Book review and travels in Vienna – “When the World Was Ours” by Liz Kessler

I read this book at the end of the summer. It is set partly in Vienna, where we went for our family holiday in July, though that is not why I read the book, or why I went to Austria! Pure coincidence. When the World Was Ours is actually a book for young people, or what is often called ‘middle grade’ fiction, but that should not deter any adult from buying it – I was gripped from start to finish and absolutely loved it. 

The book opens in Vienna in the mid-1930s at the birthday celebration of nine year-old Leo. Leo’s father has taken him to the city’s ferris wheel for a treat, along with Leo’s two very close friends Max and Elsa. There they meet an English couple, a dentist and his wife, who are in town for a conference and afterwards the couple and all the children are invited back to Leo’s family home for Sachertorte, the iconic Austrian dessert. 

The three children are inseparable, firm friends; Elsa’s main dilemma is which of the two boys she will marry when they grow up! But timing is everything, and as political events around the children develop, it is clear that they will not be unaffected by the fascist takeover of the city and country by Hitler and his army. Leo is Jewish, as is Elsa. Max is not. This will create a wedge between them as Leo and Elsa’s families must navigate the new environment; should they stay or should they try and escape? Meanwhile, for Max, the challenge is rather different. Always a more timid boy, somewhat in Leo’s shadow, he finds there are expectations upon him once his father begins to rise up the Nazi ranks, which it is not clear he will be able to meet.

I do not want to say more about the plot of the novel as it is a critical part of the enjoyment of the book. There is a gloomy inevitability about many of the events, however, as you might expect. It is a compelling read, with chapters alternating between the perspectives of each of the children.
The characters are well-drawn and the writing has a graceful simplicity that suits the subject-matter, the primary intended audience and the gravity of the events. It is plain without being patronising and I felt it was an authentic portrayal of the voices of the individual children.

I had the great pleasure to meet the author and discuss the book with her as she lives in the north west of England, not far from me. She came to our book club and was very generous with her time and her thoughts. As is stated at the beginning of the book, there are autobiographical elements as it is based on her own family history. This adds even more poignancy to the story and is a timely reminder that fascism and authoritarianism must never again be allowed to take hold. The consequences are intolerable.

Vienna

It was by sheer coincidence that my family went on holiday to Austria this summer. We have been skiing there a number of times  in the last couple of decades, but it is many years since I have been there in the summer. We spent a few days in Vienna and then travelled west to Schladming, normally a ski resort but a walker’s paradise in the summer, and where the hills were most definitely alive – verdant, green, lush and beautiful. 

Before I went I looked up ‘famous Austrian writers’ because I found I could not think of any! The list did not include many that I had heard of apart from Arthur Schnitzler, who wrote the novella Eyes Wide Shut, famously adapted for the screen by Stanley Kubrick and starring Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Austrian culture is perhaps better distinguished by its eminent composers and artists, such as Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, Haydn and Klimt.

Vienna is truly one of the must-see capitals of Europe, however, not least because of its historical significance and its closeness to eastern Europe; Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is less than one hour’s drive away and the mighty Danube runs through both cities. Vienna is a stunning city, beauty on every corner, and it even gives its name to a particular kind of patisserie – Viennoiserie! Needless to say we sampled much of what it had to offer on this front, frequenting many coffee houses, including the famous Cafe Central, where Sigmund Freud is said to have hung out, and the Hotel Sacher, which claims the Sachertorte as its own. 

Pastries galore!
Mr Freud at Cafe Central!

Had I read When the World Was Ours before going to Vienna, I would certainly have headed for the vast green space to the east of the city where the Riesenrad, the giant ferris wheel, still stands – next time!