dittybox

I'm always pleased to find a different title written by a favourite author, and this book by Sebastian Barry does not disappoint.  It's set in rural Ireland in the late 1950s at a time when modern comforts were just creeping in to Co Wicklow and many people were still living their lives as their ancestors would have done a century before. Annie Dunne is a spinster woman of sixty one who already considers herself an old woman, and as she has no close relatives to look after her in her old age, she has gone to live with her cousin Sarah on a small farm.  Before she moved to the farm, Sarah had been living with her sister Maud and her family because Maud was bedbound and unable to look after her own children.  Annie assumed she would always live there, but after Maud died, her brother in law made it clear that she was no longer welcome.  After that she had very little to do with the family until her two nephews had children of their own and one of the boys suddenly aske...

  This is not so much a novel as a series of takes on the same situation that demonstrate different perspectives on racial inclusivity and 'woke' culture.  Some novels invite you in to the story in a way that makes the reader a guest in the living rooms of the characters but, to me, this book feels more like watching from afar, and although we meet the same people in different sections, there is no one person to particularly root for or empathise with. The core story is a serious assault on a man called Pegasus who had been running a collective group of squatter occupying an empty farm during the time of the pandemic.  Pegasus was struck over the head with something that appeared to be a gold bullion bar after telling Jake, who was a member of the group, that he was no longer welcome on the farm. The farm is owned by a wealthy banker who bought it with the intention of providing himself with a survivalist refuge in the event of a national emergency.  He also owned th...

  The look and title of this book suggests it is a book for grown ups, and it is.  The writing style is mature and sophisticated and there is a multi-generational saga neatly fitted within 202 pages.  Less is more, and Paul Auster is not an author to waste pages on needless fluff. Sy Baumgartner is an author aged 72, and he is starting to feel the physical restrictions that come with three score years and ten.  He's still working as a philosophy professor, and although retirement is calling, he's not sure how it will work out for him.  His much loved wife has been dead for some years, and after living as a single man for a good while he finally found a woman in her fifties who was good company and a comfort to him. Baumgartner's new love, Judith, is very different from his late wife Anna, both physically and temperamentally, but the relationship works and he is contemplating the next step of asking her to marry him, or at least agree to move in together. ...

Another American novel that has a lot going for it.  It has been a number one New York Times bestseller and also been featured in Reese Witherspoon's book club, so seemed like a safe bet when I was choosing a book in the library. It's about a husband and father who suddenly disappears, and shortly afterwards a few things happen that suggest to his wife that he may not have been the man she thought she married.  Hannah is Owen's fairly recent second wife, and also step mother to his sixteen year old daughter Bailey, so there is a whole section of both their lives that she knows very little about.  They have all been living together on a house boat in Sausalito, Northern California, and before that Hannah had been making a living as a wood turner making bespoke pieces of furniture for wealthy clients in New York.  She made the move over to California just before her marriage to Owen, and he told her that before he moved to the houseboat he and Bailey had been living in...

Far above us, the International Space Station moves through the sky, and there are always astronauts observing the earth as a single object and not the complex mess of humanity that we really are.  They are there to carry out scientific experiments both inside and outside the craft, and in addition to their daily tasks, they themselves are the subjects of experiments on their bodies. Floating in space for months at a time has a serious effect on the mind and body.  The astronauts exist in a weightless atmosphere where there is no up or down, simply space.  There are no 24 hours days, as the orbit of the space station takes the crew through multiple dawns every day, and if it were not for the sleeping tablets, there would be no notion of night and day. They must eat their food out of pouches, and sleep in sleeping bags that simply hang untethered in the sleeping areas, so normal human life is suspended for the entire time they are on board. There are many descriptions of w...

This one has a clever twist on a family saga that takes place over many generations.  Instead of constantly introducing all the new members of a family that it would take to fill the time between 1486 and the present day, Tracy Chevalier has devised a scenario where on the island of Murano, time doesn't move in the same way as the rest of the world, and that allows her to keep the same central characters living through many centuries. The Rosso family are glassmakers, and we are presented with an overview of the the trade as it moves from only producing quality pieces for the aristocracy in the fifteenth century to the mass production of tourist trinkets in the present day. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter of a glassmaking family, and as a woman she is not allowed into the workshops or to have anything to do with the production of glass.  Her job is to assist her mother in the running of the house and deal with the vast quantities of laundry and cooking that are required by...

This is one of the most depressing books I have read for a long time, so don't for goodness sake buy it for anyone as a gift.  The quality of writing is fine but the subject matter is grim and and the main character, Deirdre, is the most self centred, selfish and grubby individual you will ever hope to come across in a novel.   The book is longlisted for this year's Women's Prize and I can only think it got there because it describes a female character that the judges couldn't help but find memorable.   Deirdre is a white woman living in South Africa, and after an explosion at her family home in her late teens, one of her legs was injured so badly that she had to have it amputated at the knee.  She was offered a prosthetic leg, but didn't get on with it, so continues to use crutches and seems to prefer the more obvious evidence of her disability. If all this sounds a bit harsh on a person who has had part of her leg amputated, then I'm sorry about that, but...

  At the back of the book the author tells us that it took years to write this story and that should come as no surprise to anyone who reads it.  The level of detail and understanding of the history supporting three different generations of a family is remarkable, and you read it as if you were a ghost hovering on their shoulders. Sometimes the story drew me in so much that I almost wanted to find a way to communicate with the characters to warn them as something bad approached.  As the reader, we know some of the outcomes for the characters, because the story of the three generations is woven together, and we have 'seen' photographs and letters as they have been seen by later members of the family. Huge topics such as racism and unethical trading with the Nazi Party in Germany are covered in the telling of the story, and the author keeps the narrative true to each era that is covered.  The open racism against Jewish and black people in the earlier years of the twent...

Now that I have read all the Elizabeth Strout novels I could lay my hands on, I am really glad to have a good number of books by Anne Tyler still stretching out before me.  There is a real art to writing about daily family life, even though it is something we have all experienced.  An author with an eye for tiny details can bring a home to life and Anne Tyler has that skill in spades. Anyone who has been married for any length of time must have had days when they just pondered the possibility of just walking away one day without looking back, and this book is a story a wife and mother who did just that. Delia Grinstead had been married to Sam since she left high school, and they produced three children who were now all reaching the age when they were preparing to fly the nest and make lives of their own.  Delia's father was a family doctor when he employed Sam to come and work with him as a second doctor in his practice, and it wasn't long before Sam began to consider mar...

This book is translated from Icelandic and has a distinct chill in the style of writing, but don't let that put you off as this is a very cleverly constructed story. Right from the outset you know that a young woman has been murdered and her body concealed in one of the volcanic fissures that are a feature of the landscape, but you don't know who is responsible for this crime. For her family, Isafold has simply disappeared, and after two weeks of silence, her sister Arora travels from England to try to discover what has happened to her. The two sisters are both half Icelandic so Arora is familiar with the country and knows who she can to speak to to get some leads.  The block of flats where Isafold lived with her boyfriend is home to a number of people who each have their reasons for staying out of the police investigation, preferring to keep quiet rather than share what they know. As the book progresses more characters come into the story, adding layers of complexity to the pl...

  Jean Kennedy lives in dublin, Ireland as the second eldest in a growing family.  A lot is expected of her as the eldest girl and her mother relies on her to help look after the little ones.  Her story is told in her own words and we get to know her from the age of three up until her late teens.  Jean is a good girl who works diligently at school and does as she is told at home, but life doesn't always behave fairly and from a young age she discovers that you can get into trouble no matter how good you try to be. Her parents have their own problems as her Momma struggles with her mental health, which is made worse by post-natal depression, and her father who she always refers to as HE or HIM, often makes matters worse with his judgemental attitude.  Things take a bad turn for Momma and when she is not really coping at all, HE brings home a young local girl to live in and help.  All the little ones love this girl Tilly but Jean and Momma are not sure about ...

 I'm not really sure where to start with reviewing this book as it is complicated and disturbing and I think only a person who has suffered some kind of trauma themselves could have written it. It begins in the early 1960 where we meet Isabel who lives alone in a house in the Netherlands that her family came to when she was young.  Right from the start it is clear that Isabel has issues.  She is obsessive and doesn't enjoy any kind of social interaction although she does occasionally meet up with her two brothers and their partners.  Isabel is keeping the house exactly as her mother kept it and she has taken on some of her mother's mannerisms as a way of navigating through certain situations.  She employs a young girl to come and cook and clean for her but she offers no friendship to the girl who has to deal with Isabel constantly checking on her. It is very hard to like Isabel as she has a mean side to her and will deliberately say things to hurt other people....

  A book about an American businessman living his comfortable modern life in a flat in Tokyo.  He appears to have everything a man could want but two things bother him.  Firstly, he is divorced from his American wife, and because of the vast continental distance between them, he doesn't see as much of his teenage daughter as he would like.  Secondly, he previously had a brief relationship with an elegant but mysterious Japanese woman, who he lost contact with, and now he is prepared to go to great lengths to find her again. After much negotiation, his wife agrees to allow their daughter to stay with him in Tokyo for an extended visit during which she will attend school in the city and broaden her experience.  Unbeknown to all of them, a troubled young man with a background of belonging to a disturbing sect has taken a deep interest in the daughter and begins tracking her life both online and in the street. With the father distracted by his quest to find the Japa...

  Finding a new book by Elizabeth Strout is like receiving an invitation to some kind of reunion, because once you open the pages, old friends appear.  There's Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge and good old Bob Burgess and before you know it you feel as though you'd never been away. Olive has reached the grand old age of ninety one in this novel, and although she doesn't have the lead in this story, she still manages to make herself the most  important character just by letting other people come and tell her things.  Olive has heard that the novelist Lucy Barton has moved nearby, and knowing that she is a writer, Olive invites her to visit her in her retirement home to hear a story that may be of interest.  Lucy is happy to come along and Olive is pleased to find that she seems genuinely interested in her story. Not many people know how to properly listen to someone's story, but those that do ask questions to show they have absorbed the information and are keen t...

  Elizabeth O'Connor is clearly a clever woman with a great talent for putting words together and I found myself reading this book as though I was watching the people through a lens.  It's more of a social observation than a gripping tale but it's interesting to see how island people lived around the start of the second world war and the characters are very believable. The book is told from the perspective of an eighteen year old girl called Manod and it begins at a time when a dying whale washes up on the beach.  The whale is too big for anyone to move so the islanders are unable to save it and nature is left to deal with the problem.  The time of the whale fall coincides with the arrival of two university people who come to observe the old island customs before they are lost and Manod spends a lot of time with them translating Welsh into English. Old traditions were still observed on the island as most inhabitants had very little interaction with the mainland, so u...

  This book fits nicely into the 'cosy crime' genre and makes a good read for the long winter evenings.  It's a neat combination of crime and history with a touch of spooky that will keep you warm through the long winter evenings. Set in the years immediately following the First World War, it focuses on the wealthy Stilwell family living in Darkacre Hall, who have wrapped themselves up in so many lies and cover-ups that they can't even trust each other when their stories start to unravel. In the summer of 1914 a boy disappeared from the nearby village, but as the war commenced all investigations came to a halt, and it isn't until six years after the end of hostilities that a Detective Sergeant comes knocking at their door asking for help with enquiries. The family know more than they are willing to admit, and they hope they have been vague enough to keep the police away, but a twist of fate keeps the detective trapped in their old house for a few days and secrets be...

  Last week I read A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson and one of my comments was that it 'wasn't a stand-out read for me', and difficult to see how it had made the Booker Longlist.  This week I feel more justified in saying that because Held by Anne Michaels has such a high quality of writing and thought-provoking content that from the first page I felt as though I was reading something special. When I am reading, I particularly like it when an author gives me something to read that causes me to stop for a moment and consider what is being said.  The opening line of this book is: 'We know life is finite.  Why should we believe that death lasts forever?' The whole book is divided up into small segments as though we are turning the pages of a photograph album that gradually reveals who the people are from crumbs of information left for us to follow.  The segments are within sections that move across generations and the thread that binds them is the idea that we...

  Before reading this book I wouldn't have thought it was possible for a story to be both shockingly dark and then whimsical within a few paragraphs.  This novel is one of a kind and despite all the bad stuff going on all around, it is really a story about love. Love allows for difference, and the lead character, twelve year old Eli, accepts people for how they are in the present moment and looks for the good in their heart and soul.  Sometimes there is no good to be found, and on those occasions an enemy is made, but some people with serious criminal records can have good in their hearts if you care to look for it.  Eli's brother August has been mute since they were both involved in a serious accident which nearly killed both of them. They were travelling in the car with their father when the vehicle left the road and went over the edge a dam, plunging them into the water.  The boys were hauled out lifeless, but by some miracle they were both revived and in tha...

  I loved this book as it is the work of a real story teller.  This is the first sentence: 'She is twelve years old, and she will be married in the morning.' Who would not be instantly drawn in by that?  Shocking by today's standards, but in India in 1900, this happened, and it didn't always turn out to be a bad thing. A marriage broker had arranged the marriage and the groom is a man of forty whose first wife died leaving their baby son with no-one to look after him.  By marrying again, the man will immediately have found a nursemaid, cook and housekeeper and the bride's mother (who is a widow) wants to give her daughter the security she cannot provide herself.  The bride and groom have not set eyes on each other before the wedding, and the man is shocked to find his bride is just a child and he storms away from the altar.  He is only persuaded to return after being persuaded that the shame of being left stranded on her wedding day will mean that no-one el...

  As you get older you start feeling a responsibility to preserve what you know about family history and this is why Michael Palin felt he he had to write the story of his Great Uncle Harry.   Some years ago an elderly cousin of his father passed on to Palin a box of photographs and papers that had come from down from her grandparents (his great grandparents), and as she had no children, she gave it to him to keep it in the family.  For a long time everything just sat in a box as there were other more pressing projects to deal with, but when working on a documentary about the last days of the First World War, Palin found his great uncle's name carved on a memorial at the site of the Somme battlefields.  When he discovered that there was no grave to visit and Harry's final resting place was 'Known Only Unto God', he knew he had to know more. Writing a book like this is a lot harder than it looks because the old family notebooks and papers only gave the bare outli...