Book awards 2017

A long-overdue round-up of some of my 2017 reads

Most atmospheric setting

Has to be the south of France, the setting of Villa Triste… with its enigmatic people, splendid hotels, endless champagne… my awful description does not do it the slightest bit of justice.

Character I’d befriend

Ursula Todd in Life After Life. There are times when she could do with a pal. 

Best for life lessons

A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled – not only does Ruby Wax navigate the thorny topic of mental health with wit and wisdom, she teaches you about the scientific make-up of the brain. This is a great way to understand the invisible nuts and bolts that make up our grey matter.

Place I’d most like to visit

The village in Africa that a large portion of Swing Time takes place in.

 

Biggest surprise

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared was one surprise after the next. Each individual scene could have been far-fetched (and I distinctly remember my English teacher telling us not to include something as silly as having a pet elephant in our stories) yet they all worked. It was so satisfying to see all of the threads come together at the end.

 

Most vicious villain

The murderer in P.D James’ A Very Commonplace Murder in The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories. Nasty. See 'The unfinished one' for what I imagine to be a fuller character picture of
such a man!

The unfinished one

The Psychopath Test. This was an absolutely fascinating read, but seeing the inside of mental asylums from days gone by all got a bit too intense for me! If you’re interested in psychology, and what goes into the making of a killer (see above!), this is one for you.

 

A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled by Ruby
Wax. Impossible to be frazzled in this calming café!

Zadie Smith's Swing Time hops between the UK,
New York and a village in West Africa.

Best nonfiction one

Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It – this is full of great anecdotes and case studies that illustrate why it’s important to never stop asking questions. I think parents and teachers would find this fascinating, as it looks at curiosity in children and how education can help or hinder it.

Quick read

The Essex Serpent – I read this on holiday and powered through it in a few days. I really enjoyed the book, but the nerd in me hoped for a bit more science!

Time period I'd like to visit

Between the wars in A Handful of Dust. People had to create a whole new set of social rules after the war. It must have been a baffling time to be alive.

The one to re-read

This award goes to How to be Both. I have more Ali Smith on my list for next year, as I think she’s brilliant, but I do have to concentrate to make sure I don’t miss things! So I would like to revisit this when I am older and wiser.

If you only read one of these

This Must Be the Place – an accessible book that spans generations, visits several countries, has a pacey plot and is written beautifully. One of my new faves!

Review: The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories

Title: The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories
Author: P.D. James

This edition published: 2017
First published: 1969, 1979, 1995, 1996
Publisher: Faber & Faber

Following on from Agatha Christie, this review is of a prolific crime writer from the next generation: P.D James. I picked up The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories at Paddington Station on a rare occasion when I wasn’t doing a 100-metre dash for a train. I had heard nothing but praise for the ‘Queen of Crime’ and fancied a few short stories to ease myself into the festive spirit.

The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories
looking festive.

The first story in the book, ‘The Mistletoe Murder’, was astonishing. While it was published near the end of P.D. James’s long career as a crime writer, it actually takes you right back to the beginning. This is the true story of the murder that happened under the author’s nose one Christmas. She told hundreds of other stories before revealing this one to the world. You can’t help but wonder whether, for years, she was just searching for the right words.

It sounds like a cliché, but it turns out that England used to be like this: a young war widow is invited to her grandmother’s country house for Christmas along with two distant cousins. Young P.D. James didn’t know any of these relatives very well, but she hadn’t exactly been overwhelmed with other invitations. You’ll have to read it to find out which of her relatives committed the murderous act...

Another of the stories, ‘The Twelve Clues of Christmas’ (I must admit, I think titling has come a long way since then), follows a similar plotline. It’s interesting to draw parallels with the first story: a well-to-do family gather in an isolated country house at Christmas and one of them gets their comeuppance. Was this one written as practice until the time the author could finally reveal her own story?

These tales were all written and set a while ago now, but they are great reads with a touch of class. Houses and habits and haircuts may have changed, but the human emotions and motivations explored here are universal, so I’m sure people will still be reading these in years to come. They aren’t gruesome or sensationalist stories full of guts and horror, they instead get under the skin of what causes apparently ordinary people to decide that another person’s life is their's for the taking. The characters here are the everyday people who blend into the background, carrying heavy secrets with them until the end of their own lives. It’s fascinating stuff.

The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories would be a great stocking-filler, and the perfect read during the mid-afternoon slump on Christmas Day when everyone is either nodding off or walking the dogs… as long as you aren’t in an isolated country house surrounded by bitter relatives with access to the turkey knife, that is…

Review: A Handful of Dust

Title: A Handful of Dust
Author: Evelyn Waugh
First published: 1934
Publisher (this edition): Penguin Modern Classics

A Handful of Dust was recommended to me during a holiday chat about favourite books, and I've been looking forward to reading this one for a while.

Brenda is married to Tony Last, who enjoys nothing more than a weekend on his inherited countryside estate with his wife and son. After a few years of the quiet life, Brenda misses the thrills of London society, so takes up a small studio flat – along with a superficial lover of insubstantial character – and very quietly moves to the city.



A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

What follows is the tale of a bitter divorce, but it isn't written with bitterness. The lightness of touch pokes fun at a group of people who have more money and time than they know what to do with. To prevent boredom, they go to endless parties at each others houses, organise each others love lives and keep what they mistakenly think of as secrets. This is not a story about politics or war, but the changing economic situation of the 1930s looms behind them all like a shadow, and it becomes clear that there might not be room in the modern world for this lot and their ways.

On first impression, A Handful of Dust was more accessible than expected, written by a man with the ability to see the humour in uncomfortable and tragic places. There are also some beautiful phrases here, and one of my favourites is: "...llamas packed with works of intricate craftsmanship...". Without giving away too much, parts of this book will satisfy your inner Amazonian explorer. A nice surprise, given that the majority of the story is set in a gothic mansion.

I mentioned this in a to-read list a few weeks ago, but a distant relative of mine was Evelyn Waugh's housekeeper when he was a boy, which added a layer of fun detective work to the story for me. John Last, son of the divorcing couple, has a nanny, and I love the thought that this sincere character could be based on a voice that trickled down the generations to my own ears. Perhaps a tenuous link, but I'm going to stick with it, as they don't come along often!

A Handful of Dust was an entertaining read with an undercurrent of injustice that touched all of the main characters. I don't envy them, despite their spacious houses and bustling social lives. Add this to your list of must-read classics.

Review: Villa Triste

Name: Villa Triste

Author: Patrick Modiano

First Published: September 1975

This Edition Published: May 2016

Publisher: Daunt Books

This dusky-looking item was a true impulse buy. I was aimlessly browsing a bookshop one lunchtime about a year ago looking for something a bit different. I was enticed by Villa Triste, with its shiny, golden title hovering over a musty, broken and abandoned house with a beautiful lakeside view.

The faded glamour of Patrick Modiano's Villa Triste

The narrator of Villa Triste is a mysterious young
man who seems, at times, wise beyond his years.
Victor Chmara (if that is his real name) has fled from who-knows-where to the safe haven of a French town on the edge of a Swiss lake. He lives in fear, for reasons that are never entirely revealed, yet feels safe in the knowledge that he could cross the lake to Switzerland
if trouble ever catches up with him.

Sitting in a hotel one evening, Victor meets two charming people: the up-and-coming actress, Yvonne Jacquet, and her eccentric friend, René Meinthe. And so begins a friendship that takes him to debauched parties and expensive hotels.

But his new friends keep him at arm’s length, and
their existence provokes more questions than they themselves answer. Where does their money come from? Where have they come from? Where does René disappear at night? And why does the phone keep ringing in the empty Villa Triste? The town they live in, at first so glamorous, begins to feel shallow, corrupt and dirty as the source of the mystery becomes apparent.

The book opens years later, as Victor views the dilapidated town from a bus window. Villa Triste pays close attention to deeply-held feelings and atmospheres that simmer just below the surface. It captures the haze of memory, the holes where things have been forgotten and the rosy tints we apply to the past. It also paints a character who doesn't quite understand the power plays and complicated relationships happening around him. All of these elements come together to create a perfectly haunting, mysterious and atmospheric read.

Patrick Modiano won the Nobel prize for literature in 2014 and you can buy Villa Triste from Daunt Books. 

Review: This Must Be the Place

Name: This Must be the Place
Author: Maggie O'Farrell
First Published: May 2016
Publisher: Tinder Press

My latest read took me on a journey to deepest Ireland via sunny San Francisco, a forest in Scotland, a yacht sashaying across the Swedish seas and a messy London flat. And that list isn't even exhaustive. The snippet of map on the front cover of This Must Be the Place doesn't lie – these characters like to travel.

I was drawn to Maggie O'Farrell after reading an old Guardian article she wrote about the process of writing. While her baby slept, swaddled in a sling, she would take to the keyboard and type until the young babe awoke. Impressive.

This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell, sitting proudly in my armchair

This Must Be the Place pivots around two people. We follow the twists and turns of their lives, both before they meet and afterwards. Daniel is an American linguistics professor. He is kind, loud and flawed. Claudette is a half-French, somewhat reluctant movie star with a stuttering son and a shotgun. When we meet them they are living, together with a handful of children, in a secluded house in rural Ireland at the end of a long track punctuated with security gates.

Things change one day when Daniel hears the voice of someone he used to know through his car radio. He can't help himself – he has to find out what happened to Nicola Janks. He only knew her for a short time twenty years ago, so his newfound mission couldn't possibly upset the present-day apple cart, could it?

I loved following the trails of events in This Must Be the Place, jumping through time zones, globetrotting and witnessing situations through multiple viewpoints – the children, the friends, the lovers. This book is a great example of cause and effect: the life of a character can be altered by an event that happened years ago, in another country, before they were even born. A spooky thought!

Maggie's writing was atmospheric and accessible, and she captures fleeting moments and lingers on them in a way that you don't have time to do in real life. It felt indulgent. I classify this book as one to snuggle up with on the sofa!

This edition is currently on sale in Waterstones if you'd like to add it to your shelf.

Tales of luxury lost

Name: Babylon Revisited
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
First published: ‘Babylon Revisited’, 1935; ‘The Cut-Glass Bowl’, 1920; ‘The Lost Decade’, 1989
Published by: Penguin

This slim volume includes just three short stories written by Fitzgerald over a large time span, all of which contain themes of past decadence and reformed characters struggling to gain the trust of others. Fitzgerald is famous for his Tales of the Jazz Age, but these are tales of the post-jazz age; an era which hadn't yet dawned upon society at the time 'The Cut-Glass Bowl' was written. Fitzgerald is often praised for his eerie powers of foresight, and this tale is one such example.

Charlie Wales, protagonist of ‘Babylon Revisited’, is a recovered hedonist who now finds more comfort in the presence of his daughter than in alcohol. He has lived a clean and stable life for many years since his wife’s death, and wishes to reclaim custody of his only child from his sister-in-law, Marion Peters. Unfortunately, past events render Marion incapable of trusting Charlie, even though he does appear to be a sensible and loving chap. But it is easy to see why her suspicions are roused, as other less reformed jazz-age creatures are still on the scene, reminding her of troubled times.

 ‘The Cut-Glass Bowl’ opens with a different tone but the similar theme of luxury lost is instantly recognisable. The metaphorical ‘cut-glass age’ is historically placed alongside the Stone Age and Bronze Age in a satirical take on the decadence of this material. Mrs Evylyn Piper received the bowl from a jilted suitor who likened it to her because she was beautiful, hard and empty. But aside from this unflattering character statement, Evie, like Charlie, has seen the error of her ways and is on the verge of regaining the trust of her husband when an untimely occurrence gets in the way. We are not 100% sympathetic, but are able to feel the injustice of the situation, as these characters appear to be serving a penance for actions they long since committed.

'The Lost Decade' is a mere six pages long, so in summarising it I would probably give away a little too much. Let’s just say it fits in well with the other two stories. In my experience, you tend to know what you’re getting with F. Scott, but he does what he does extremely well and knows how to keep those pages turning.

 

One day you'll surely read this book

Name: One Day
Author: David Nicholls
First published: July 2009
Published by: Hodder
 
Considering the high expectations I had for ‘the book of the moment’,* I was slightly disappointed with the opening chapter of One Day. I wasn’t totally sure whether I was supposed to like Dexter or not, and I later experienced the same feelings towards Emma. But the novel swiftly became attached to my person at all times. 

We are first introduced to Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew shortly after they are introduced to each other: on the eve of their graduation. The novel ends the following morning, but the story of their lives is chronologically mapped out in between. The date is July 15^th, aka St Swithin’s Day, and the narrator revisits them annually on this date for twenty years.

At first sight the structure appears to be an idealistic one, but the tale is injected with a dose of grim reality from the off. Neither are propelled into their dream career and lifestyle; something that will strike a chord with the recent graduate and evoke past memories in the long-since-graduated.

The course of their lives run very differently - sometimes they are together, other times apart - and it becomes increasingly evident that these two people bring out the best in each other. Suspense gathers as you wonder if they’ll ever get together, and frustration ensues when coincidences prevent them from getting their mail or reaching the phone in time. This novel is the ultimate dramatisation of any question beginning with ‘what if...?’

But One Day is more than just a version of the classic tale of nearly-there lovers; Nicholls has turned this most basic of premises into a heart-wrenching contemporary story with its feet firmly in reality. There are several laugh-out-loud moments, as the narrative is as witty as the characters, yet strong emotions are somehow evoked without a hint of sugary language. This mixture of comedy and romance makes it readable for both sexes.

Nicholls perfectly captures the idealism and anxiety of the post-university period. Emma feels ‘as if a fire alarm had gone off in the middle of the night and she was standing on the street with her clothes bundled up in her arms. If she wasn’t learning, what was she doing?’  Dexter is slightly less anxious about his future; ‘He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph.’ On paper they are not exactly a match made in heaven, but this adds a further dose of reality. This realism borders on melancholy at times, but to me that was no bad thing. One Day does not view life through rose-tinted spectacles.

Dexter becomes a Russell Brand-type figure at his worst, while Emma is ever the down-to-earth librarian type, although reducing these loveable characters to types does them no justice whatsoever. They are perfectly rounded and their failings make them human. Dexter’s tragic flaw is his tendency towards excess; alcohol, drugs, and women, but Emma is struck by a tragedy of a different kind, without any prior warning or personal blame.

Is this a novel which speaks to a generation? Yes; the excessive consumption of alcohol will no doubt strike a chord with many, as will the question of what on earth comes next when education is all you have known since you were knee high to a grasshopper. I would heartily recommend this book to most people I know, and have already begun doing so. If you only read one book this year, chose this one.

*according to telegraph.co.uk