What are you reading at the moment? Recommendations welcome

[E G Logan]

Just finished and greatly enjoyed Fortunate Son by Caimh McDonnell, the 8th book in his Dublin Trilogy. (Yes, I know.)

If you like your detective stories grey and realistic – also PC, perhaps – this almost certainly isn't for you. On the other hand, if you like a roistering good yarn, with larger than life (but lovely) characters involved in highly-coloured events, try this.

Despite being pretty bloodthirsty, with some thoroughly dreadful people, it has a kind of feelgood vibe. And it made me laugh out loud.


Also read and enjoyed – also not for everyone – A Tuscan Childhood by Kinta (Carinthia) Beevor. A gentle memoir of well-connected English and US expats in the days before Tuscany became a hooray hangout, before the second world war.
Beevor's eccentric parents bought the run-down castle that perches, like a huge squat toad, on the Carrara hills above Aulla. Her father was a painter and her mother was a journalist, the Italy correspondent of The Observer.
[This was an old book, a lend from a friend, published in 1993.]

 

[Terry Lowell]

Rereading Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby. It is a masterpiece of structure and the art of dropping clues to what is actually happening, in seemingly innocuous situations and conversations. As I know the story, it works even better as I can see the slow build, the lies and the betrayal happening while poor Rosemary has no clue. Levin's background in screenwriting shows in how tightly it is structured, with not an ounce of fat. I highly recommend it to all readers, and to all writers.

 

[E G Logan]

Rereading Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby. It is a masterpiece of structure and the art of dropping clues

I read it, at night, in bed in my tacky little bedsit (single room studio) in Dundee. By the wobbly overhead light, I could see – help! – all the items Levin was describing in Rosemary's room. When I got to the locked connecting door... I think I let out a yelp and disappeared under my thin bedclothes.
I know I couldn't get up to put out the light.

 

[wrightstuff]

I've just finished The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.

Despite being aware of the 'You MUST read it!!!!' buzz, I knew nothing about either the author or the plot / concept, so came at it at face value.

I'm a terrible reader - if a book isn't well-written, I'm mentally re-writing as I go... I did not do so at all with this book, which is huge praise as far as I'm concerned.

It wasn't immediately clear to me (apart from the parallel lives structure) which direction he would take the story in, and I was (pleasantly) surprised that he broke the formula that it looked as if he was setting up a couple of times.

A lot has been made of the fact that the pivot point is a library, and that plays well to a literary crowd. It also changes the tone from speculative fiction to literary fiction, and tells me that the author really knows what he's doing.

I liked the weaving-in of philosophy, but it was a little heavy-handed and clumsy at times. This is a minor criticism.

Not only did I devour and enjoy the book, I may have found my new favourite contemporary author.

Before that, I read Uncanny Valley, a short-story collection from Singapore-based S. Mickey Lin.

The concept was to write a number of Singapore-based stories that sat in the titular emotional state of Uncanny Valley. He's partially successful. A lot of the ideas are sound, but the writing is uneven - flat at times, which you can't afford in a short story, and there's far too much exposition, even for me.

I'll probably look for his novels, but more because of the Singapore context than anything else.

What's next? It's a toss-up between Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down (suicide again!!), which I somehow missed at the time, and Belfast native but Singapore-based Grace McClurg's Straits and Narrow, which has a great title, but does not have great reviews. However, it is a crime novel set in Singapore that sold quite well, so I feel I should read it at some point. I do love Nick Hornby's writing, so I'll probably keep that as a reward for completing Straits and Narrow

I read Straits and Narrow first, then A Long Way down. I found them both hard to get through, for very different reasons.

We found out on Monday that a childhood friend of our children committed suicide by jumping off the top of his block of flats. He was in a dreadful personal situation that he should (and could) have walked away from, but at 22, he could not see a future for himself. He had a history of mental illness, and had withdrawn into himself. it was a terrible shock, but on reflection none of are totally surprised. We just wish he were still here.

 

[E G Logan]

I've been distracted by finding there is another book by Caimh McDonnell that I hadn't read. Fortunately it's not too long.

Shorts: A Bunny McGarry Short Fiction Collection is described in the author's various introductions to the pieces as a possible standalone read, but I would suggest that it is definitely beneficial to have some context, if not total background recall. Also, it's not a book for those who like to have a firm grasp of the chronology, prequelling and sequelling all over the place.

All that said, it made me laugh out loud, as his novels mostly do. I am truly, deeply, madly jealous of the way of working he describes – and gets away with! – though I suspect it can't be nearly as random as he suggests. And maybe not quite so much fun. Absolutely not fair if it is.

 

[Sedayne]

I recently finished two novels which I think are marketed at a similar readership. Slightly sinister without being out-and-out horror.

Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh is a short book but felt like hard going. I was intrigued enough to finish it, but ultimately there were no surprises, and it was very difficult to warm to any of the characters. Only two characters were named, with others referred to as 'my husband' and 'the ambassador'. The other book that springs to mind that does this is Milkman by Anna Burns, and whilst I think it worked there, I don't think it did here. I really wanted to love this book, and I didn't hate it, but I was disappointed.

Now I've just finished Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. The difference with this was the genuinely unsettling atmosphere and characters I truly cared about. A rather sad and beautiful read. And I learned things about marine biology I didn't know I could be so interested in.

 

[Sedayne]

Just finished Free Love by Tessa Hadley. I had very mixed feelings about this at the start. I had tried the audiobook, but couldn't hack the posh narrator, and then I thought I probably wouldn't hack the posh characters anyway. But I wanted to read it because the reviews made it sound great, and it's set in a similar era to my WIP (although very different class - might as well be another world). Reading rather than listening was better, but I stumbled at first on the writing style which seemed to be all the things we're not supposed to do - switching pov frequently not only mid scene but sometimes mid paragraph (and with too much interiority to pass off as omniscient), comma splices aplenty, odd uses of semicolons, dashes instead of speech marks (which is fine, except that sometimes it was hard to know who was speaking or when they'd finished speaking). BUT none of that mattered because it was utterly brilliant and kept me reading in that hungry way I don't always get these days. Not sure how it worked, but it did.

Before that, I had listened to Patrick Gale reading his latest novel Mother's Boy. No such qualms. Just perfect from beginning to end.

 

[E G Logan]

Tessa Hadley. I had very mixed feelings about this at the start.

I struggle to find her writing as good as some (many) people say.

I reckoned Late in the Day would have struggled to find an agent, let alone a publisher, having such a dated Hampstead intellectual theme/focus. I agree that her speech marks decision makes it hard to keep track of who is speaking, especially during long exchanges, and I found that irritating.

 

[Sedayne]

I struggle to find her writing as good as some (many) people say.

I reckoned Late in the Day would have struggled to find an agent, let alone a publisher, having such a dated Hampstead intellectual theme/focus. I agree that her speech marks decision makes it hard to keep track of who is speaking, especially during long exchanges, and I found that irritating.

It may be my working class bias, but given what she writes about, it's not hard to imagine that she could have had helpful social connections at the start of her writing career. Nevertheless, she engaged me well, and I might try some others of hers.

 

[Pamela Jo]

I am now convinced to read Caimn McDonnell. I just finished The Decagon House Murders, Yukito Awatsuji. Billed as a cult mystery in Japan it was very Japanese as it was a masterpiece at building suspense. Structurally impeccable but it fell short of the seat of the pants grab I get from Agatha Christie. Or the less perfect Rivers of London series. Otherwise I'm reading nonfiction to put me in the mood for a first draft. there's something about reweaving facts into story that I enjoy.

 

[Geoff]

I am halfway though Ken Follett's Eye of the Needle. I have seen the film, but haven't read the novel. Not my usual type of book, but writing is precise, so will carry on turning the pages.

 

[wrightstuff]

I recently finished a re-read of Who She Was by Tony Parsons. I'm a huge fan of this author, but have come to the reluctant conclusion that the insight and quality of his wonderful early novels will not be repeated. I enjoyed Who She Was, but on reflection, it could have been written by any mass-market scribbler. Some of the writing was clumsy, it was a pot-boiler of a novel, from someone I'd come to expect to use subtlety and finesse. Any thoughts?

I'm about halfway through Glorious Exploits. Enjoying every word! Will share my thoughts once I have finished.

 

[Pamela Jo]

Picked up , "the Last Polar Bears" by Harry Horse at a charity shop, where I do most of my xmas buying. The author was a political cartoonist who wrote a few of these in later years. Ostensibly for children, but delightful and funny up the last pages that left me gut wrenched. A reminder of how powerful world building is. Such a slender, simple book, but it haunts me still.