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StuckinaBook’s Weekend Miscellany

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Somehow it’s apparently July? 2022 is rushing past as quickly as 2021 was SLOW. Reading continues apace, and I have sailed past my 100th book of the year – helped, as with last year, but the volume of audiobooks I’m getting through.

Indelicacy by Amina Cain | 9781911547587. Buy Now at Daunt BooksI shan’t be helping your reading piles, as here are some weekend miscellany suggestions that might increase the tbr…

1. ) The blog post – I’m going to cheat and give you two, as two particularly stand out this week. Jacqui’s list of boarding house novels is kryptonite to readers like me, and the comments section has lots of great suggestions too. And then Girl With Her Head in a Book wrote a really brilliantly insightful review of David Sedaris’s new collection, Happy-Go-Lucky. One of the best book reviews I’ve read in a while, so had to share.

2.) The link – a lot of readers love the artist Eric Ravilious, and even more so when his paintings appeared on Furrowed Middlebrow books. Enjoy this interesting new article about his life.

3.) The book – I was watching a book vlogger the other day and she mentioned Indelicacy by Amina Cain. She sold it as a spin on A Room of One’s Own, so naturally I was intrigued. Here’s the description, which does sound winning. Has anybody read the book? (And what a shame that design is ruined by the puff quote in the middle.)

In an undefined era and place, a cleaning woman at a museum of art aspires to do more than simply dust the paintings around her. She dreams of having the security and time to use her mind, and the liberty to be a writer.

She escapes her lot by marrying a rich man, but having gained a husband, a house, high society and a maid, she finds that her new life of privilege is no less constrained. Not only has she taken up different forms of time-consuming labour social and erotic but she is now, however passively, forcing other women to clean up after her. Perhaps a more drastic solution is necessary?

Reminiscent of a lost Victorian classic in miniature, Indelicacy is at once a ghost story without a ghost, a fable without a moral and an exploration of the barriers faced by women in both life and literature.

Uneasy Money by P.G. Wodehouse

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There are some authors I think of as ‘break glass in case of emergency’ authors. And I didn’t have a particular emergency the other day, only nothing I was picking up felt right. I had a few books on the go, but wasn’t in the mood for any of them. So… I went to my Wodehouse shelves.

As he was so prolific, and copies of his books abound cheaply, I have an awful lot of unread Wodehouse books. I picked Uneasy Money (1917) off the shelves more or less at random – and had a lovely time. I could write down almost any sentence from a Wodehouse novel as an example of his mastery of language – this is from the second page, as our hero Lord Dawlish is approached by someone asking for money.

For some minutes he had been eyeing his lordship appraisingly from the edge of the kerb, and now, secure in the fact that there seemed to be no policeman in the immediate vicinity, he anchored himself in front of him and observed that he had a wife and four children at home, all starving.

Lord Dawlish ‘has always looked on himself as rather a chump – well-meaning, perhaps, but an awful ass’, and he is accurate in that. Of course he is; he is a Wodehouse hero and they’re almost all like that. Being well-meaning, he gives the man some money – but appearances are deceptive. He might be a Lord, but he doesn’t have much money. He earns an income as a secretary at a club, though this is really pity money, and otherwise is stony broke. Much to the chagrin of Claire, his fiancée, who refuses to marry him unless he gets a better income.

It’s always relatively clear in a Wodehouse novel which characters are to be cheered on and which to be disliked, and Claire is in the latter camp. She is fixated on money, rigidly unkind to our Lord Dawlish, and we never for a moment dream that they will end up together. Though they do end up both heading off to America, unbeknownst to each other. Lord Dawlish is informed that anybody can make millions in the Land of the Free, while Claire goes to visit a friend (and also with her eyes set on a rich middle-aged bachelor whom she knows is travelling by boat at the same time).

All is set up for a fun plot – which gets all the more fun when Lord Dawlish learns he has inherited a million dollars from an old man whom he once helped with his golf swing. He is chuffed – but also horrified that thus is disinherited the old man’s nephew and (more to the point) niece. He somewhat disregards the nephew, but writes to the niece (Elizabeth) to offer her half the money. She, however, refuses. And Lord Dawlish makes it his mission to find Elizabeth and persuade her to take the money – albeit, for reason, under an alias.

The plot is as brilliantly worked and completely unlikely as any Wodehouse novel, and the characters come alive with his trademark vivacity and vim. I loved the whole lot of them, even the ones we weren’t meant to like. But the star of the show is, of course, Wodehouse’s writing. His mix of exaggeration and understatement is always brilliant; his pithy descriptions of people (‘his appearance was that of a bewildered drainpipe’) are always a delight.

As I’ve often said, and others have too, if Wodehouse had written a handful of novels, they’d all be classics we learn by heart. Because he was so prolific, and so consistently good, there aren’t many that are individually well-known. He is a victim of his own brilliance. But Uneasy Money is certainly up there with his most enjoyable of the 20 or so I’ve read, and now I’m going to have to work hard not to just chain-read Wodehouse for months…

Some films I’ve watched recently

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I go through periods where I watch a lot of movies, and other periods where the idea of watching something for about two hours seems like a colossal amount of time. I could read half a book in that time!

But, anyway, here is the good, the bad, and the frothy from the past couple of months… as you’ll see, it has been a Bollywood-heavy period. Most of those films are on Netflix, and is a major reason I keep subscribing.

The Eyes Of Tammy Faye” Coming Soon To Disney+ (Canada/UK/Ireland) – What's On Disney Plus

The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Based on the real-life story of disgraced televanglist Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield) and his wife Tammy Faye Bakker (Jessica Chastain), this goes from Tammy Faye’s early life through their rise to fame and to the eventual catastrophe when Jim’s fraud and possible affairs come to light.

Jessica Chastain is brilliant in this role – she disappears completely, and the performance of sincerity and naivety in Tammy Faye was incredible. I also loved that her faith and her relationship with God are not laughed at – she is absolutely sincere about those too, and they are separate from any misdeeds by fellow believers. Lots of other Christians don’t fare so well in the film, which is par for the course for media, but that central character and performance is extraordinary. It’s no surprise that she won an Oscar for it.

Dog (2022) - IMDb

Dog

Channing Tatum plays an ex-soldier who has to drive a dog across the country to attend his friend’s funeral (his friend died at war). It’s absolute hokum, made weirder by the number of odd events along the way – including Tatum’s character pretending to be blind, getting drugged and tied to a chair, being imprisoned etc. It reminded me of the plot of 90s/00s schlock like Dude, Where’s My Car?, but with a far more sentimental dollops on top. Tatum is always a compelling actor, and the dog is impeccably trained, but this is very lightweight – and a box office smash, of course.

Along for the Ride

A sweet coming-of-age romcom – I could tell it was adapted from a novel when they went to a secret pie shop. What is that shop’s business model?? It’s all quite poignant and whimsical, with unrewarding roles for Andie MacDowell and Dermot Mulroney in the background – and a couple of good-looking 20-somethings masquerading as teens. I am too old to watch this film, but it’s a good version of the sort of thing it is.

Senior Year

Rebel Wilson wakes up from a coma after 20 years and decides to go back to high school. You already know exactly what this film is, and it doesn’t surprise – and it happens to be the sort of silliness I love sometimes.

Badrinath Ki Dulhania Dialogues | AZDialogues.com

Badrinath Ki Dulhania

Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt are two of Bollywood’s best-known and most enjoyable actors, reuniting here in a movie that isn’t a sequel to their Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, but is sort of a spiritual sequel. It’s a romance between a progressive woman and a traditional man, and there is a thread about the role of women – particularly whether or not it’s ok for women to work after their marriage. The movie lands on yes, but there are definitely aspects to this (otherwise fun) movie that wouldn’t make a Hollywood one – e.g. if a man angrily locks a woman in his car boot, he probably isn’t usually the good guy…

Karthik Calling Karthik

My first Indian thriller, and yep I was frightened. I also didn’t realise it was a thriller going in. Karthik is an unconfident man in a dead-end job, bullied by his landlord and his colleagues and not able to talk to women. One evening he starts getting phone calls from… himself. The other Karthik on the other end of the phone helps build his self-confidence, and soon he has a promotion, a girlfriend, and all the success he has dreamed off – but then ‘Karthik’ starts to turn nasty…

It’s a great concept for a film, and I definitely found it compelling – and much scarier than I’d imagined. It started off so sweetly!

Watch The Zoya Factor | Netflix

The Zoya Factor

I think I watched more cricket in this film than in the rest of my life combined. A copywriter (my job! on film!) is sent to help with writing for adverts involving the Indian cricket team during the 2011 World Cup. She is told not to interact with them, particularly the captain (GUESS WHO SHE FALLS IN LOVE WITH).

Sonam Kapoor and Dulquer Salmaan are both very personable and captivating leads, and I bought into their love embarrassingly quickly. My only quibble is that Zoya doesn’t do a moment’s copywriting at any time, she just stands next to ads being filmed and causes accidents.

Judwaa 2

Varun Dhawan this time, playing twins who separated in infancy and now have sporadic powers where, if one moves, the other does too. It is absolutely abysmal. I’ve learned that Varun doesn’t say no to much…

Netflix takes action against Cobalt Blue director

Cobalt Blue

A really beautiful film, and I’m keen to read the book by Sachin Kundaikar now (he also directed and wrote the film). It’s a much gentler, slower Indian film than many I watch – it’s about a brother and sister who both fall in love with their male lodger. It is so stunningly shot and lit, and acted, and I found it mesmerising.

Project 24: Books 10 and 11

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On Monday I had the day off, so I decided to go to Hidcote National Trust because I’m young and vibrant. It is a really beautiful garden and June seems like the perfect time to see it. After a wander, I spent quite a while sitting there, reading The Feast by Margaret Kennedy in preparation for the next episode of ‘Tea or Books?’

But while I was up that way, I thought I’d google for local secondhand bookshops – and that’s how I came across Draycott Books in Chipping Camden. It’s less than an hour from my house and somehow I haven’t been before?? Will certainly be rectifying, as it’s a lovely little shop – a great selection of books, affordable and in nice condition. Apparently there’s also a cat, but sadly I didn’t see him/her.

If it weren’t for Project 24, I’d have come away with an armful of books – I left behind a Pamela Frankau I don’t have, the short stories of Theodora Benson, and three boxfuls of Virago Modern Classics (although I did own most of them already). In the end, I chose two –

In No Strange Land by Jane Oliver 

Like lots of us, I loved Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford’s Business As Usual, and I’ve been wondering what their other books are like. The info with the book seemed to suggest they weren’t necessarily of the same calibre – but at least this way I can find out for myself.

The Fiery Gate by Ronald Fraser

I’ve read a couple of books by Fraser, both of which were in my doctoral thesis to different extents – Flower Phantoms (where a woman turns into a plant) and The Flying Draper (where, uh, a draper can fly). Apparently The Fiery Gate is another one of his fantastic narratives – and, while his writing wasn’t particularly brilliant in the novels I’ve read, that’s enough for me to be keen to give it a try.

I’ve jumped ahead of my rationing a little, as 11 books takes me to halfway through July. And I definitely have a bookshop trip or two planned in July. I guess I might have to be particularly abstemious in August!

Suddenly, A Knock on the Door by Etgar Keret

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Suddenly, a Knock on the Door: Amazon.co.uk: Etgar Keret: 9780701186678: BooksI think I got sent Suddenly, a Knock on the Door (2010) as a review copy in 2012, when it was translated from Hebrew into English – by Miriam Shlesinger, Sondra Silverston and Nathan Englander. It’s a collection of short stories, which is perhaps why there are three translators. I certainly couldn’t detect which story was translated by whom, which suggests that they all did a good job of letting Keret’s distinctive approach come through.

2012 was probably the heyday of review books arriving chez moi, and quite a lot of them ended up at charity shops because I couldn’t keep up – but something about Suddenly, a Knock on the Door made me keep it on the shelf. And I’m so glad I did, because it is really rather brilliant – and has made me keen to seek out more by Keret.

The stories are mostly set in Israel, where Keret is among the most prominent modern writers, though a lot of them are in a slightly surreal version of Israel. Sometimes that means an element of the bizarre is incorporated, in a magical realist way that means the characters aren’t surprised by this disruption of the normal. In ‘Unzipping’, for instance, Ella is cut on her lip when kissing Tsiki.

They didn’t kiss for a few days after that, because of her cut. Lips are a very sensitive part of the body. And later when they could, they had to be very careful. She could tell he was hiding something. And sure enough, one night, taking advantage of the fact that he slept with his mouth open, she gently slipper her finger under his tongue—and found it. It was a zip. A teensy zip. But when she pulled at it, her whole Tsiki opened up like an oyster, and inside was Jurgen. Unlike Tsiki, Jurgen had a goatee, meticulously shaped sideburns and an uncircumcised penis. Ella watched him in his sleep. Very, very quietly she folded up the Tsiki wrapping and hid it in the kitchen cupboard behind the rubbish bin, where they kept the bin bags.

In another story, a character finds himself in ‘Lieland’, peopled by all the lies he has made up as alibis to excuse lateness or forgotten homework. In one of my favourite stories, ‘What, of this Goldfish, Would You Wish?’, a low-budget filmmaker is going door-to-door to ask people what they’d ask for if a goldfish granted them wishes – and stumbles across a man who has such a goldfish, with unexpected results.

Many, perhaps most, of the stories don’t have anything supernatural in them – but there is still a surreal element, offset by the plain and matter-of-fact way in which the stories are written. In the title story, a man is held at gunpoint and told to make up a story. In ‘Healthy Start’, a lonely man pretends to be any stranger that someone is expecting to meet in a café. A very short story called ‘Joseph’ is tangentially about a suicide bomber, but in such a quiet way that it seems incidental.

Keret’s mind is clearly overflowing with creativity. Most of the stories are very short – the exception is ‘Surprise Party’, about a man who goes missing on the day that his partner has invited everyone in his phone contacts to a surprise party, and only three turn up. Because they stories are so short, there are an awful lot of curious and clever ideas needed for a collection. None of the ideas are given time to burn out, though Keret often deploys the anti-climax or gentle petering out of a story in a way that is more effective than a denouement. He has so many ideas that ‘Creative Writing’ even flings out some gems that would make fascinating novels, just as throwaway examples:

The first story Maya wrote was about a world in which people split themselves in two instead of reproducing. In that world, every person could, at any given moment, turn into two beings, each one half his/her age. Some chose to do this when they were young; for instance, an eighteen-year-old might split into two nine-year-olds. Others would wait until they’d established themselves professionally and financially and go for it only in middle age.

The heroine of Maya’s story was splitless. She had reached the age of eighty and, despite constant social pressure, insisted on not splitting. At the end of the story, she died.

I’m so glad I kept this collection on my shelves. The sort of topics and ideas Keret uses could so easily have become self-consciously quirky, but there is something in the subdued naturalism with which they’re told that balances out the wackiness, and makes them piercing insights into human relationships. Suddenly, a Knock at the Door is excellent and quite unlike anything else I’ve read before – or, rather, a much better version of the sort of thing I’ve seen attempted a number of times.

And now, of course, I face the age-old dilemma – clearing one book off the shelf, only to now want to seek out as much of Keret’s backlist as I can.

Embers by Sándor Márai

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I picked up Embers (1942) by Sándor Márai in a London bookshop a little while before the pandemic, drawn by the striking cover design and intrigued by the premise. Not many books are primarily about friendship, and the small sample I read in the shop seemed beautifully written. And so it came home with me – and I really loved my experience of writing it.

Sándor Márai wrote Embers in Hungarian as A gyertyák csonkig égnek, which means ‘candles burn until the end’, and is presumably a Hungarian phrase that we don’t have in English. Embers also works very well as a title, and it was the title of the German translation (Die Glut) which was then translated in English by Carol Brown Janeway. I’m not sure why they didn’t get someone to translate straight from the Hungarian, but there we are.

The novel opens with an old General in his palatial home, which he shares only with servants and an ex-nurse Nini, who is in her 90s and a wise, all-knowing companion. He never leaves the place – he keeps only to a handful of its many rooms. And he receives a message that an old friend, Konrad, will be visiting for the first time in more than four decades.

Normally this is a conceit that puts me off a novel: a scene in the present day that then zips back to a long, chronological sequence of the past. It usually makes everything that follows feel anticlimactic. Here I think it worked – because the General’s present day is so stultified. He doesn’t even seem to live in memories most of the time, just in a protracted period of apathy.

Before Konrad arrives, Embers takes us back to the friendship between Henrik (the General in his youth) and Konrad. As young children they were inseparable, and this bond never wavered. Through school and beyond, they were as close as it is possible for two people to be – as close as twins in the womb, the novel says.

Nothing is so rare in the young as a disinterested bond that demands neither aid nor sacrifice. Boys always expect a sacrifice from those who are the standard-bearers of their hopes. The two friends felt that they were living in a miraculous and unnamable state of grace.

There is nothing to equal the delicacy of such a relationship. Everything that life has to offer later, sentimental yearnings or raw desire, intense feelings and eventually the bonds of passion, will all be coarser, more barbaric.

Henrik is usually referred to as ‘the son of the Officer of the Guards’ in the narrative, when dealing with his younger days, and we can never forget his privileged and prestigious position. By contrast, Konrad is from poverty – and refuses any financial help. His pride is so frustrating to read about. Not least because he determines he must still move in the same milieu as his friend – must have the right coat, the right gloves, the same tipping of servants, however difficult it is to find money for this. The friendship persists because Konrad doesn’t owe Henrik anything – but this disparity is always present.

I loved the way Márai writes about friendship. He recognises its value, not relegating it to a distant cousin of romantic love. He also sees how it can be as troubled as any romance – and the reader is continually trying to piece together why there has been a gap of 41 years in this friendship that started so boldly and deeply.

The reasons are unfolded at their reunion – again, Márai breaks novelistic rules and gives the General enormous amounts of dialogue for more or less the whole second half of the novel, revealing why the friendship broke off. But, again, somehow it works. Possibly because Márai’s writing is beautiful and his building of character so brilliant.

There are no neat conclusions in Embers, and yet I came away totally satisfied. An exceptionally good short novel, moving and dramatic, and addressing deep emotions and relationships that are usually disregarded in literature.

StuckinaBook’s Weekend Miscellany

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The Eternal Return of Clara Hart: LOUISE FINCH: 9781915071026: hive.co.ukA very happy weekend to you! Hope you are spending it well, and not panicking about the fact that we are somehow almost halfway through the year even though I’m pretty sure it only just began? Quell the existential angst with the usual round up…

1.) The blog post – I love Jacqui’s list of books set in hotels, and the comment section is filled with brilliant additions. I’m already looking forward to her boarding house list.

2.) The book – Louise Finch’s The Eternal Return of Clara Hart would sound right up my street even if I hadn’t been to school with Louise. We haven’t seen each other since then, but Facebook is great for these updates – and when she mentioned that her young adult novel would be published in August, I looked it up. The synopsis sounds very up my street. I love the time loop concept, and this one is about a boy called James trying to prevent the death of Clara Hart at a party…

3.) The link –  10 books about things going horribly wrong on islands. Because why not? I’ve read numbers 6, 9, and 10 – you?

 

 

Tea or Books? #105: Big Families vs Small Families and Animal Farm vs Nineteen Eighty-Four

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George Orwell and families – welcome to episode 105!

Rachel is busy this month, so I put a shout-out on our Patreon page to see if anybody would be willing to step in and take her place. I was delighted that Arwen said yes, and I think you’ll enjoy the chat we had. In the first half, we talk about big vs small families in literature – and in the second half, we compare Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm by George Orwell. Rachel will be back next time, to do the books we previously advertised.

You can join the Patreon at the link above – you’ll get episodes early and other bonus bits, and you might even end up on an episode yourself!

Do get in touch at teaorbooks[at]gmail.com if you’d like to suggest or ask anything. You can find our podcast at Apple podcasts, Spotify, your podcast app of choice, or the audio file above.

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

E.F. Benson
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
Philip K Dick
Iain M Banks
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett
The Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett
Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett
Literary Taste by Arnold Bennett
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Diary of a Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Foe by J.M. Coetzee
Pamela by Samuel Richardson
The Dust Never Settles by Karina Lickorish Quinn
Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras
Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto
Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker
Autobiography by Anthony Trollope
Anita Brookner
The Brontes Went to Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson
Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Famous Five series by Enid Blyton
Danny, Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
A Change for the Better by Susan Hill
The Nutmeg Tree by Margery Sharp
The Feast by Margaret Kennedy
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Moomin series by Tove Jansson
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Hunky Parker’s Watching You by Gillian Cross
The Demon Headmaster by Gillian Cross
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick
Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
Grand Canyon by Vita Sackville-West

A whole lot of audiobooks

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I continue to listen to lots of audiobooks, many of them from the Audible Plus free catalogue, and here is a round up of some recent listens… I’ve marked them with an asterisk if they’re in the free catalogue, or at least were when I listened to them, so you can hunt them out if you wish.

On Color (2018) by David Scott Kastan and Stephen Farthing*

This is an absolutely brilliant non-fiction book – about, as the title suggests, colour. Kastan and Farthing devote 10 chapters to the colours of the rainbow, followed by black, grey, and white. Each chapter looks at the significance of the colour in many different ways – while each chapter is quite wide-ranging, they are often also tied to particular issues. ‘Red’ is largely about science, ‘yellow’ about race, ‘green’ about politics, and so on and so forth. One of the authors is an artist, and so art history is threaded throughout.

It’s an ambitious premise for a book, particularly one that comes in at little over 200 pages in the print edition, but is done brilliantly. I found it fascinating, thought-provoking, and captivating. It was free in the Audible Plus catalogue, so if you’re an Audible subscriber then I definitely recommend downloading it.

Piranesi (2020) by Susannah Clarke

You probably already know all about this award-winning fantasy novel, long awaited from the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (which I never actually read). Piranesi lives in an enormous, perhaps endless, house which consists of halls after halls after halls. Many have statues in, some are empty, and some are filled by the ocean. He believes there are only 15 people in the world, and only regularly meets one of them.

Even for someone without a visual imagination, I found this world-building enveloping – brilliantly simple while also being other worldly. Chiwetel Ejiofor’s narrative expertly capture Piranesi’s naivety and gentleness. As we gradually learned more about the world, and followed stray clues to build a complete picture, I thought Piranesi was a wonderful success.

Lady Audley’s Secret (1862) by M.E Braddon*

One of those books I’ve read about quite a lot, this sensation novel is about Sir Michael Audley’s new young wife, who is mistrusted by Sir Michael’s nephew – and the mysterious disappearance of Sir Michael’s friend George Talboys. It was a fun and interesting read, nowhere near as histrionic as I’d imagined, and Braddon’s writing is a joy.

Is it let down by the fact that George Talboys is appalling, and his disappearance should be considered an enormous blessing in a paper-thin disguise? Or by the fact that at least one of Lady Audley’s secrets is obvious to any modern reader by the end of the second chapter? Well, those things help make this something of a period piece – but it’s still a silly delight.

Ayoade on Ayoade (2014) by Richard Ayoade*

You’ll either really enjoy this or hate it and, judging by the Amazon reviews, most people are in the latter category. I really liked it, though it wasn’t what I expected. Supposedly about cinema, it is actually quite a silly and surreal serious of interviews between Ayoade and… himself. Not a moment of it is serious, and you have to chime with his off-the-wall humour. Luckily I do.

A Damsel in Distress (1919) by P.G. Wodehouse*

I mean, what can I say – the usual wonderful Wodehouse stuff of misunderstandings, falling in love at first sight, improbable coincidences, and bucketloads of brilliant, brilliant writing. As always, absolutely delightful and hilarious.

The Cross and the Switchblade (1963) by David Wilkerson*

What a brilliant (true) story – about a minister from a small rural community who is called by God to reach teenagers in criminal gangs in New York. He initially goes because he feels called to help a particular group of seven teenagers, but ends up transforming whole communities. The book is packed with examples of miracles and interventions by God, and is a moving and powerful account of what happens when somebody humbly obeys. An extraordinary story that I had previously seen adapted for stage, but is even more amazing as a book (although I did have to skip some of the drug bits). Co-written with John and Elizabeth Sherrill.

Escaping the Rabbit Hole (2018) by Mick West*

This is a non-fiction work about helping people escape from conspiracy theories. It’s really written for people who have a friend or relative who needs help getting out of the grip of these theories. I don’t have anybody in my life in that position – I just find the topic interesting. West goes through some of the most ‘popular’ conspiracy theories – from 9/11 to chemtrails to flat earth – and painstakingly explains why they aren’t true, and what arguments and evidence will help demonstrate that to people ‘down the rabbit hole’. As such, a lot is very detailed – West’s main advice is to learn all you can, and have polite and informed conversations, since so many conspiracy theorists think that ignorance is the only reason people don’t agree with them.

One of the most interesting notes in the book was that we are all conspiracy theories – it’s just that, for most of us, that theory might be ‘the government doesn’t always tell us everything’. Conspiracy theories are along a spectrum, and you’ll find that everyone has a point where they stop believing things. For example, a 9/11 ‘truther’ might think that a flat earther is very wrong. Definitely a book that would be useful to help a loved one, but fascinating even if that’s not your position.

So You Want To Talk About Race (2018) by Ijeoma Oluo*

A look at racism – individual and institutional – in America. Probably nothing much new to anybody who has paid attention to the issue, but Oluo’s detailed research and thoughtful writing help present things like police reform, cultural appropriation, the ‘model minority’ myth, and much more in a succinct, accessible, and still impassioned way.

8 Deaths (And Life After Them) (2021) by Mark Watson*

This seems to have been exclusively an audiobook – Watson telling the story of his life in comedy, largely through the times it went wrong. Most memorably while almost dying in a reality TV show. He is enjoyably candid about the motivation for some of his work being financial, or simply to keep his name out there, and clear-sighted about his profession. I always like his self-deprecating humour – the reason 8 Deaths didn’t work perfectly for me was that it quite often veers into self-help territory, which is a genre I don’t really have any interest in.

Reasons To Stay Alive (2015) by Matt Haig*

This short memoir (described as ‘novel and memoir’, but really seems just a memoir to me) is about Haig’s experience with depression. It is extremely honest and moving, and I thought it was very powerful. Occasionally there are things that are clearly page-fillers – lists, or observations that don’t add much to the book – but overall a very worthwhile and well-written book.

Just Ignore Him (2020) by Alan Davies

A memoir by the comedian Alan Davies – about grief at his mother’s death when Alan was a young child, and about the abuse he faced from his father. It’s obviously a very sad book, and important to talk about these things. Sadly was let down by Davies being an unexpectedly bad narrator (very staccato) and by some curious framing that didn’t really work.