dittybox

Last week I borrowed three short books from the library and this is the last of them.  Originally written in 1933 by Georges Simenon, who is also the author of the Maigret series, this book feels as though it could have been written yesterday.  There is a certain gravitas to the writing style but the words flow freely and the plot draws the reader in right from the start. Maloin works for the railways and it is his job to man the signal box at the port of Dieppe for the night shift.  It's a job he is comfortable with and most nights are pretty much the same as passengers arrive from the ferry then make their way through customs the on to the train for Paris. He has a wife and two teenage children but he's not much of a family man as he is quick to anger and his children have become wary of his sudden mood changes.  A lot of things make him mad, and sometimes he can develop a bad mood for no reason at all, and on those sort of days he will have an attitude with everyo...

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...

On a small island just off the coast of Brittany, a lonely young boy looks up to the sky and sees a vision of a woman surrounded by bright golden light.  He is transfixed by what he sees and stands motionless looking upward, as if in a trance, until the clouds close over once again and his mind returns to the world around him.  A woman he knows well is a witness to what is happening to the boy, and although she cannot see or hear anything, she is convinced that the boy has seen a vision of the Virgin Mary.  The boy is confused by all the fuss that is being made, but he has been told when to return to the headland to see the vision again, and it isn't long before the whole population of the island has heard what has happened to him. The woman in the vision promises to return to the promontory and by the time she returns the islanders have created a make-shift shrine and many have gathered in the normally deserted place hoping to see something miraculous.  The sighting...

  I know Stig Abell from Times Radio, and I also follow Times Radio on X, so I knew he had written some books and was interested to discover his writing style.  This appears to be the second in what will be a series of Jake Jackson mysteries, but it didn't seem to matter that I hadn't read the first one. As you might expect from Stig, it was well thought out and complex enough to stay interesting all the way through.  The storyline draws on disturbing themes featured in the news such as child abduction and murky services offered on in the dark web where evil deeds are sold to anyone wealthy enough to afford the price. The cast of characters is diverse, and made more interesting for that, and the protagonist Jake Jackson is possibly Stig's alter-ego.  Jackson is an ex police detective who has inherited a remote property with no easy means of communication with the outside world.  It had been his intention to cut himself off from the mainstream of society but life...

  This great lump of a book (600+ pages) was Min Jin Lee's first published novel and was the product of years and years spent learning the craft of writing.  The author says in the front of the book that she wanted to be sure to hone her skills before putting a book together, and seems to have taken a very scientific approach to understanding form and construction. You have to admire anyone who can work through a book of this size, however long they have been writing, and she neatly brings together Korean and American cultures and explores the different ways of thinking.   A Korean immigrant family living in New York is at the heart of the book and the eldest daughter, Casey, is testing the limits of what her father will allow as she reaches an age when she can either continue her studies or go out and get a job.  Her family run a dry cleaning business and Casey's father is desperate for his two daughters to get a solid American education and go on to do greater...

  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...