Book Group - February 22 Recommendations
After You’d Gone - Maggie O’Farrell. A riveting story that skips through time and interweaves multiple points of view
The Top Five Regrets of the Dying - Bronnie Ware A courageous, life-changing book that will leave you feeling more compassionate and inspired to live the life you are truly here to live.
Miss Benson’s Beetle - Rachel Joyce. Two women on a strange adventure discover the transformative power of friendship.
The Night in Question - Laurie Graham. A historical novel set in the London of Jack the Ripper.
Three Sisters - Heather Morris. The final piece in the phenomenon that is the Tattooist of Auschwitz series.
The Song of Achilles - Madeliene Miller. Retells the story of Greece's greatest hero from the point of view of his best friend Patroclus.
Betty - Tiffany McDaniel. Charts the path of a young woman who, growing up amidst racism and poverty, discovers the power of storytelling.
The Crow trap - Ann Cleeves. First in the Vera Series about the Northumbrian detective.
The Long Call - Ann Cleeves. First in the new Ann Cleeves ‘Two Rivers’ series
Resurrection Bay - Emma Viskic. Debut novel about a a deaf man returning after the murder of his childhood friend.
Manifesto - Bernadine Evaristo. The author’s life story is a manifesto for courage, integrity, optimism, resourcefulness and tenacity.
Index, A History of the - Dennis Duncan. A delightful history of the wonders to be found in the humble book index
House of Glass - Hadley Freeman. The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family.
Broke Heart Blues - Joyce Carol Oates. A razor-sharp satire that holds a mirror up to America's obsession with celebrity.
Never Mind - Edward St Aubyn. The first installment in Edward St. Aubyn's wonderful, wry, and profound Patrick Melrose Cycle
Book Group - October 21 Recommendations
Mudlarking - Lara Maiklem. Scouring the banks of the Thames for many years she tells the story go London through the objects she has found.
More Than a Woman - Caitlyn Moran. A manifesto for a middle-aged woman.
V for Victory - Lissa Evans. London 1944, a tale of a woman who is not all she appears to be.
Old Baggage - Lissa Evans. A story of a former suffragette who never gave up the fight.
How the One Armed Sister Sweeps her House - Cherie Jones. Described as ‘the powerful, intense story of three marriages, and of a beautiful island paradise where, beyond the white sand beaches and the wealthy tourists, lies poverty, menacing violence and the story of the sacrifices some women make to survive. Evocative, sad and tragic.
Betty - Tiffany McDaniel. ‘A punch in the gut of a novel’
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz - Lucy Adlington. The true story of women who sewed to survive.
Notes from an Exhibition - Patrick Gale. ‘a story about family life and the tensions that at once bind it and tear it apart.’
Summer Water - Sarah Moss. ‘a devastating story told over twenty-four hours in the Scottish highlands’
Down Cemetery Road - Mick Herron. The first in the Zoe Boehm series. ‘A search for a missing child uncovers a murderous conspiracy.’
The Lady of the Rivers - Philippa Gregory. Historical novel about the days leading up to the Wars of the Roses.
Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch. Described as ‘Harry Potter joins the Met Police’
An Academic Question - Barbara Pym. Set in the 1970’s the story of the bored wife of an academic.
Potiki - Patricia Grace. A novel about a Māori community fighting to save its ancestral land from developers, written in 1986 by a Māori author and recently republished.
Book Group - August 21 Recommendations
The Real Heroes of Telemark - Ray Mears. The true story of the WW2 mission in 1943 to prevent the Nazis from building an atomic bomb.
The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben. An extraordinary theory that suggests that trees and forests have a social network supporting all the plant species contained within.
A Spool of Blue thread - Anne Tyler. A freshly observed, joyful and wrenching, funny novel using her traditional vehicle of the complexities of family life.
The Amateur Marriage - Anne Tyler. A rich and compelling novel about a mismatched marriage, and its consequences spanning three generations.
Islands of Mercy - Rose Tremain. “A novel that ignites the senses, and is a bold exploration of the human urge to seek places of sanctuary in a pitiless world.”
The White Ship - Charles Spencer. The sinking of the White Ship is one of the greatest disasters in English history. Here is the real story behind the legend to show how one cataclysmic shipwreck changed England’s course.
Spike: The Virus v The People. The Inside Story - Jeremy Farrar & Anjuna Ahuja. “A truthful and objective scientific narrative about how the Covid 19 virus played out and how the world set about dealing with it.
Book Group - June 21 Recommendations
Bite of the Mango - Mariatu Kamara. An extraordinary story of survival and endurance. A young girl’s story of her journey from the civil war in Sierra Leone where she was horribly mutilated to becoming a UNICEF envoy.
Empress Orchid - Anchee Min. A novel telling the story of the Empress Dowager Cixi in the Forbidden City in the 19th Century.
Sweet William - Beryl Bainbridge. The story of a naive young woman who meets a charming liar who claims to be a playwright.
The Empress and the Cake - Linda Stift. 'On the surface this is a clever, thriller-cum-horror story of three women and their descent into addiction, crime and madness. And at times it's very funny. But don't be fooled. The book also offers an exploration of the way the mind creates its own realities and - quite often - deludes us into believing that we control what is actually controlling us. Uncanny, indeed.' Meike Ziervogel, Publisher
A Single Thread - Tracy Chevalier. The story of a ‘surplus woman’ between the wars and her attempt to start a new life.
Cry baby - Mark Billingham. The 18th book in the Tom Thorne detective series.
Everland - Rebecca Hunt. A story of 2 Antarctic expeditions. the first in 1913 ended in the loss of 3 explorers and the second 100 years later.
Hamnet - Maggie O’Farrell. The story of Shakespeare’s son Hamnet who died aged 11. Told from the point of view of Ann Hathaway this is a a tale of her life through Shakespeare’s absence in London. This one split opinions in the group several of us having read it.
The Hand that First Held Mine - Maggie O’Farrell. A novel about the spirited journey of Lexie Sinclair, a bright, tempestuous woman who finds her way from rural Devon to the centre of postwar London's burgeoning art scene. Soon, she falls deeply in love.
Small Pleasures - Claire Chambers. The story of immaculate conception in South East London.
Piranesi - Susannah Clarke. Described as a ‘Dazzling fable about loneliness’
Stephanie Plum series - Janet Evanovich. A 28 book series about a bounty hunter in New Jersey. Highly recommended.
A Delicate Truth - John Le Carre. Described as a ‘British/American covert mission in Gibraltar and the subsequent consequences for two British civil servants.
The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman. Another book which divided opinion - sleuthing in a retirement village. An easy read with poignant moments it’s a ‘rattling good yarn’
Book Group - April 21 Recommendations
Talking to the Dead - Harry Bingham. The first in a series of Detective tales where the chief character has a very strange problem!
The Flower Girls - Alice Clarke Platts. A dark, sinister and twisty story of the aftermath of a terrible incident.
The Guest List - Lucy Foley. A dream wedding off the windswept Irish coast becomes a living nightmare for its trapped and terrified guests.
Barron and Larcher: Textile Designers. The story of pioneering modernist designer-makers Phylis Barron and Dorothy Larcher.
Patchwork (A Life Among Clothes)- Claire Wilcox. Cloth, clothes and curating are transformed into fascinating vignettes of life in this beautifully composed memoir of the V&A’s custodian of fashion, Claire Wilcox.
The Lost Future of Pepperharrow - Natasha Pulley. A sequel to the Watchmaker of Filigree Street, combines steampunk and magic realism in the story of a clairvoyant Japanese watchmaker.
The Foundling - Stacey Halls. A compelling and poignant tale of motherhood, deception and loss in eighteenth-century London.
The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver. the heartbreaking story of a man torn between the warm heart of Mexico and the cold embrace of 1950s America in the shadow of Senator McCarthy.
Time Travelling with a Hamster - Ross Welford. On Al Chaudhury's twelfth birthday his beloved Grandpa Byron gives him a letter from Al's late father. In it Al receives a mission: travel back to 1984 in a secret time machine and save his father's life. a children’s book but no less enjoyable for that.
The Unseen - Roy Jacobsen. A profound interrogation of freedom and fate.
Melmoth - Sarah Perry. A literary mix of gothic and horror.
The Best Catholics in the World: The Irish, the Church and the end of a Special Relationship - Derek Scally. Reviewer John Boyne described this as ‘A clear-headed account of a changing country and a provocative insight into a time that many would rather forget’
A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon. Written from various viewpoints, an intriguing tale of man going quietly mad.
Greenwich Park - Katharine Faulkner. What happens when a strange young woman turns up at an ante natal class!
American Pastoral - Philip Roth. An author whose life and behaviour have recently been questioned but a nonetheless exceptional book about the collapse of the life of a high school sports hero following a terrible crime committed by his daughter.
Book Group - March 21 Recommendations
Love After Love - Ingrid Persaud. Highly recommended story of an unconventional household (Mother, Son & Lodger) in Trinidad and Tobago.
Light Perpetual - Francis Spufford. A ‘what might have been’ tale of 5 children who died in the bombing of Woolworths in New Cross in 1944.
After Me Comes The Flood - Sarah Perry. An atmospheric debut novel about a man given shelter by strangers.
The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker. A retelling of ‘The Iliad’ from the perspective of the women who had no say in the events of the Trojan Wars.
The House with Chicken Legs - Sophie Anderson. A children’s book about a girl whose house moves and whose grandmother is Baba Yaga, a witch.
The Diary of a Young Naturalist - Dara McAnulty. Written when the author was 14, describing his intense connection to the natural world around his Northern Irish home.
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art - James Nestor. The author’s 10 year investigation into breathing and how to improve it.
Forensics - The Anatomy of Crime - Val McDermid. Fascinating delve by the renowned crime fiction writer into the history of the use of forensics in solving crime.
The Grave Tattoo - Val McDermid. What would have happened if Fletcher Christian had come back from Pitcairn to visit his childhood friend William Wordsworth…a rattling good tale.
Becoming- Michele Obama. Perhaps overly long, but the fascinating story of the first black ‘FLOTUS’ and her struggle to balance political and family life under the gaze of the world’s media.
Book Group - February 21 Meeting recommendations
The Book and the Brotherhood - Iris Murdoch. Difficult to get into but nonetheless enjoyable.An intriguing and absorbing book.
The Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England - Ian Mortimer. Social history of 14th century, Good to dip into with excellent illustrations.
The Last Juror - John Grisham. Legal thriller set in Mississippi about the aftermath of a notorious trial.
The Naming of Eliza Quinn - Carol Birch. Described as the Author’s tour de force, this is based on a true story and is set in 3 time zones in rural Ireland.
Lady in Waiting - Anne Glenconner. Autobiography of a lady in waiting to Princess Margaret. Highly entertaining tale of an extraordinary life.
Rags of Time - Michael Ward. A Thrilling Historical Murder Mystery Set in London on the Eve of the English Civil War.
Sarah’s Key - Tatiana de Rosnay. This is a dual-timeline historical fiction novel about the arrests of Jewish families in France during WWII and their terrible experiences.
DI Kim Stone series - Angela Marsons. Police Detective series set in the Midlands.
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris. Series of Essays by the American humorist about his life.
Camino Winds - John Grisham. Welcome back to Camino Island, where anything can happen—even a murder in the midst of a hurricane, which might prove to be the perfect crime . . .
The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley. A group of old college friends are snowed in at a hunting lodge . . . and murder and mayhem ensue. Our reader was not gripped by it.
The Silver Dark Sea - Susan Fletcher. A man with no name is washed up on the stones of Sye, it appears a mythical figure has returned. Our reader loved it.
Difficult Women- Helen Lewis. A history of feminism in 11 fights.
The Postscript Murders - Elly Griffiths. The death of a 90 year old turns out to be more suspicious than first appeared.
The Haunting of Alma Fielding - Kate Summerscale. Described as true ghost story, this follow the investigation into a poltergeist in a London home in 1938.
The Century Trilogy - Ken Follett. The 3 books follow the stories of 5 families through the major events of the 20th Century. Highly absorbing, historically accurate and worth a read.
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote. True life crime telling the story of the notorious murder of 5 members one family in Kansas in 1959 and the perpetrators.
The Kings Curse - Phillippa Gregory. Historical novel set at the time of the Tudors. The story of Margaret Pole and how she negotiated her way through the court of Henry VIII.
Jews Don’t Count - David Baddiel. A view on why anti-Semitism is not seen as racism by many. Thought provoking and very readable.
The Silent Patient - Alex Michalides. A shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband. Great twist at the end.
Book Group - January 21 Meeting recommendations
Work and Love - Tove Jansson. The definitive illustrated biography of one of the most unique and beloved children's authors of the 20th century, the creator of the Moomins.
Murder in Cold Mud - Emily Organ. Elderly deceives solve a murder mystery at the village fair.
Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez. How data is biased against women in a world designed for, and by, men.
Things in Jars - Jess Kidd. A spellbinding Gothic mystery that collapses the boundary between fact and fairy tale to stunning effect and explores what it means to be human in inhumane times.
Sophie’s World - Jostein Gaarder. A Norwegian Girl seeks the answers to life’s questions through philosophy.
Threads of Life - Clare Hunter. A chronicle of identity, protest, memory, power, and politics told through the stories of needlework.
The Law of Innocence - Michael Connelly. Legal thriller - a lawyer is found with the body of a client in the boot of his car…
Metropolis - Philip Kerr. One of the Bernie Gunther series of Detective stories set in inter war Berlin.
Talking to the Dead - Harry Bingham. The murder of a woman and 6 year old child start the mystery for Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths.
The Lying Lives of Adults - Elena Ferrante. A novel about the transition from childhood through adolescence to adulthood in Italy from a very popular author.
Book Group - December 20 Meeting recommendations
The Shardlake Series - C J Sansom. A series of mystery tales featuring a hunchback Tudor Lawyer as the protagonist.
The Wreckage - Michael Robotham. One of a series of books featuring Joseph O’Loughlin, clinical psychologist.
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman - P D James. A classic PD James detective book with an early example of a female detective.
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier. A recent remake of the film prompted a re-reading of this atmospheric story of a gauche new wife haunted by the presence of her glamorous predecessor.
Between the Stops: The View of My Life from the Top of a Number 12 Bus - Sandi Tokswig. An autobiography
The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman. A tale of detection by a group of elderly folk.
The Dutch House - Ann Patchett. The story of a family living in an extraordinary house and the course of their lives after their mother disappears and father remarries. Highly recommended.
Working Wonders - Jenny Colgan. Described as ‘Laughs, love, office life. And a little touch of magic …’
Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy L Sayers. Another classic, first published in 1933, detection by Lord Peter Wimsey set in an advertising agency.
I Wanna Be Yours - John Cooper Clarke. Autobiography by the ‘Poet laureate of Punk’
The Lost Pilots: The Spectacular Rise and Scandalous Fall of Aviation's Golden Couple- Corey Mead. The true story of aviation pioneers Jessie Miller and Bill Lancaster in the 1920’s
Commisario Brunetti mysteries - Donna León. Crime series set in Venice, 29th published this year.
Westwind - Ian Rankin. A pre-Rebus spy story recently republished, set in the 80’s. Mysterious goings-on at a satellite facility.
Greenlights - Matthew McConaughey. Autobiography described as ‘Raucous stories and outlaw wisdom from the Academy Award-winning actor’
Book Group - November 20 Meeting recommendations
Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War. Collection of short stories by different authors set in the aftermath of WWI
The Hearing Trumpet - Leonora Carrington. Described as the occult twin to Alice in Wonderland this is a classic of fantastic literature.
The Drivers Seat - Muriel Spark. A psychological thriller dealing with themes of alienation, isolation and loss of spiritual values. Highly recommended.
The Weight of Water - Anita Shreve. A historic murder revisited on a island off the New Hampshire coast and its consequences for a modern day photojournalist.
Roman Woman - Lindsay Allason-Jones. Set in Roman Britain, a story of a woman coming to terms with new customs and reconciling cultural differences. Highly recommended.
Cold Comfort farm - Stella Gibbons. Classic, comic novel written in 1932. Parodies doom laden accounts of rural life at the time.
The Final Solution - Michael Chabon. Published in 2004, a novella which reimagines the 19th century detective story. A charming story of a small boy and his parrot. Highly recommended.
A Song for the Dark Times - Ian Rankin. The latest John Rebus story with all the well established characters. A now retired Rebus gets caught up in a family crisis. Generally felt to be not as good as previous books.
Swallowing Grandma - Kate Long. The story of an orphaned teenage girl who is the carer for her Grandmother. Perceptive, fun and sad tale about the obligations and duties of family life. Highly recommended.
Hungry - Grace Dent. Journalist and food critic’s autobiographical story of her family life growing up in Cumbria. Both funny and charming it is a story with unexpected twists and poignant recollections of her father’s decline. Highly recommended.
The Brighton Mysteries - Elly Griffiths. A series of books set in Brighton in the 1950’s featuring DI Edgar Stephens and magian Max Mephisto who served together in WW2 in a shadowy unit called the Magic Men.
The Slough House Series - Mick Herron. Starting with Slow Horses, a series of thrillers featuring ex MI5 officers who have been dumped from the service. Highly recommended.
The Forsyte Saga - John Galsworthy. A series of novels published between 1906 and 1922 telling the stories of an ‘nouveau riche’ upper middle class family. Dramatised in 1967 by the BBC in 26 parts.
Inspector Maclean series - James Oswald. Set in Edinburgh, a series of Crime novels which combine very modern policing with a supernatural twist. A touch on the gory side but an engaging twist on the standard police tale.
Book Group - October 20 Meeting recommendations
Girl in a Green Gown - Carola Hicks. The history and mystery of the Arnolfini portrait.
Nurse Matilda books - Christianna Brand illustrated by Edward Ardizzone. Beautifully illustrated children’s books first published in the 1960’s
The Girl with the Louding Voice - Abi Dare. Extraordinary story of a courageous girl.
Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel. A Pandemic story! What happens when the tradings of civilised life are stripped away.
The Ruth Galloway Books - Elly Griffiths. Series of 12 books weaving police process and forensic anthropology set in North Norfolk
The Familiars - Stacey Halls. Set at the time of the Pendle Witch trials, a haunting story of a young woman’s struggle for survival.
A Woman of No Importance - Sonia Purnell. The extraordinary true story of a woman who worked with the French resistance in WW2 and became the Gestapo’s most wanted spy.
In the Ditch - Buchi Emecheta. Set in the 60’s, the story of a young Nigerian single mother’s determination to succeed for her family.
A Fortnight in September - R C Sheriff. The story of an ordinary family’s holiday in the 1930’s. Almost nothing happens but still a delight.
Timbuktu - Paul Auster. A touching tale of a dog and his view of the world.
Troubled Blood - Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling) The latest in the Strike series. Too long at 950 pages but an absorbing tale which rattles along but left me wondering what has she got against S E London?
Our latest Book Group Recommendations
Rodham - Curtis Sittenfeld. What if Hillary hadn’t married Bill Clinton.
An Expert in Murder - Nicola Upson. The first of a series of murder mysteries featuring the real author Josephine Tey as the lead character.
A Season for the Dead - David Hewson. The first of a series of thrillers featuring an Italian detective, Nic Costa.
Slow Horses - Mick Herron. “ You don’t stop being a spook just because you’re no longer in the game”
The Centre of the Bed: An Autobiography - Joan Bakewell. This is no celebrity autobiography but a memoir which draws a thought provoking portrait of Britain in the last 70 years.
We have always lived in the castle - Shirley Jackson. A deliciously dark and funny story of Merricat, tomboy teenager, beloved sister … and possible lunatic.
Sisters - Daisy Johnson. Something unspeakable has happened to sisters July and September…
Miss Austen - Jill Hornby. Why did Cassandra Austen burn her sister Jane’s letters?
The Courilof Affair - Irene Nemirovsky. An assassination is plotted in pre-revolutionary Russia … the victim proves more complex than he outwardly appears.
The Bloody Chamber and other stories - Angela Carter. A feminist retelling of classic fairy tales in a dark, gothic and erotic tone.
The Summer Book - Tove Jansson. ‘a profoundly life - affirming story’ of the summer of a six year old girl and her Grandmother.
The Wycliffe novels - WJ Burley. More Detective fiction this time set in Cornwall
Queenie - Candace Carty-Williams. ‘A darkly comic and bitingly subversive take on life, love, race and family’ This one divided opinion.
The Book Group had a Zoom meeting on the 18th June. Recommendations included:
How We Disappeared - Jing Jing Lee. A story set in Japanese occupied Singapore during WWII.
The Tale of Murasaki - Liza Dalby. A fictionalised account of the life of the 11th century Japanese writer Murasaki Shikibu written by the only westerner ever to become a Geisha.
Our Souls at Night - Kent Haruf. An exploration of Grief, Loneliness and Love.
Tidelands - Philippa Gregory. Set in England in 1648, during the English Civil War, the story of a woman caught by contemporary fears of those who are ‘different’.
Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh. First Book of the Ibis Trilogy, a ‘vehement indictment of the source of imperialism and colonialism’ set in 1838 on the eve of the first Opium War.
The group members have also been reading a lot of detective fiction and recommendations were made of the books of Robert Crais, Mick Herron, J M Dalgliesh and Ann Cleeve.
I've been reading...
'Old St Paul's by Harrison Ainsworth: a novel written in 1841. Not for the faint-hearted as it includes some very grisly scenes of plague-stricken London in 1665. Re-reading it after many years I was surprised that I had bought this book as a girl, but then I've always loved history. Ainsworth had clearly read Pepys and the details of the city, and the progress of the plague, are fascinating (if you like that sort of thing). The hero of the tale is a grocer's apprentice (Leonard) who adores his master's beautiful daughter from afar, and most of his time is spent trying to protect her from the advances of the wicked Earl of Rochester who adopts various disguises in an attempt to carry her off. There is an evil plague nurse who is in league with an undertaker to kill and rob plague victims, a mysterious blind piper with a beautiful daughter who may not be who she seems to be, and a great deal of walking through a maze of streets which formed the 'vast' city of the time (though locations such as Paddington were country villages). I had completely forgotten the ending and that there are also vivid descriptions of the Great Fire so all in all it was an enjoyable read for me.
'Adventurous Love' by Ben Okri. This is set in 1970s Nigeria. A young man who is an aspiring artist nurtures an illicit passion for a young woman in his community who has been forced into marriage with a much older man. I found this very atmospheric but in the end just too depressing to finish.
Now reading 'Evan Harrington' by George Meredith, another Victorian novel, set in Regency times. Very overwritten and wordy but mildly entertaining. A young man (Evan) who is the son of a tailor, tries to pass himself off as a gentleman because of his good looks and education. His sisters have all married 'above their station' and are desperate to keep their past a secret but Evan isn't really comfortable with the whole charade...however he has fallen for an aristocratic young lady and dare not tell her the truth...not sure how this is going to end but I suspect not that well! One of his sisters is as conniving as Becky Sharp but it's definitely not in the same league as Vanity Fair.
Katherine S
I seem to have read an awful lot...
First of all 'Middlemarch' by George Eliot. Don't be put off by the length of this book as it will carry you along with the strength of its characters. I felt as if I lived in Middlemarch for the weeks it took me to read it. When I had finished I felt completely satisfied with the resolution of the plot. I must say that some of the scenes during Dorothea's unhappy marriage were quite painful to me but only because they touched on memories of my own. The insight into human nature is exceptional and one character reminded me so strongly of a former work colleague that it was quite disconcerting. So I'd thoroughly recommend this book.
Following that it was impossible to go straight into a book of any depth so I read through at least five of Patricia Wentworth's detective novels at great speed. The first was somewhat thin (it was written in 1929) and they all tend to have a romance woven through them in a rather repetitive way but they're entertaining in a mild fashion and good garden reading.
I'm now reading a Trollope which I picked at random from my shelves, 'The Small House at Allington.' Don't worry about the rather tedious first chapter, as after that the plot races along nicely, the characters are engaging, and if you like Trollope, you'll certainly enjoy it.
Katherine S
I am reading loads. 2 to 3 books a week. One of the best of the current lot is The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris Not as grim as the title suggests but a story of love and hope in the most extreme circumstances. Based on a true story. Highly recommended
Asha
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. Great dystopian follow up novel to the Handmaid’s Tale. Brilliant writer.
Jacky
The Murder of Harriet Monckton by Elizabeth Haynes is an excellent book. Based in Bromley and on true events, it tries to unravel the circumstances around her death and who did it. (Does contain some adult content.
Nicole B
I finally made it through The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel, a weighty tome in every sense! The third part of the Wolf Hall trilogy tells the story of Thomas Cromwell from the execution of Anne Boleyn through to his own similar end. As in the earlier books it is beautifully written and evokes the rising tension as Cromwell sees his position and then his life slipping away from him and actually raises some sympathy for a man who traditionally is not remembered in a positive way. Having said that at almost 900 pages it felt like a real effort to get through it which is not how I like to feel about a book, I think a bit of serious editing and reducing the page count by about a third wouldn’t have detracted from the telling of the story. I would be interested to hear what others thought of it.
The other book I have read in the last few days is The Five by Hallie Rubenhold. This tells the story of the 5 accepted victims of jack the Ripper and tells the story of each of their lives in great, and harrowing, detail. Rubenhold has undertaken meticulous research into the stories of these tragic women and the book starts from the premise that they were not all, as was thought at the time and is still believed, prostitutes. They were complex women who led full lives as daughters, wives, mothers and participants in society. It makes clear that the paths that they took were ordained by the treatment of women under the law and society at the time. It is a fascinating and obviously very sad book. It does not discuss their killer in any way or describe how they died , it reclaims them as women rather than just victims and if you have any interest in social history is well worth a read
Alyson McG
I have just finished reading the 7th book in C J Sansoms The Shardlake series. The books come under the umbrella of historical mysteries and are based on Tudor England. The description narrated by Sansom about England and in particular London are second to none.
A gripping read thoroughly recommended.
Sally M
I picked up a copy of 'The Tale of Murasaki' by Liza Dolby in a charity shop. It's a novel written in the first person about Lady Murasaki who wrote the world's first novel, 'The Tale of Genji' in 11th century Japan.
Liza Dolby is an anthropologist specialising in Japanese culture. She is also the only Westerner to have become a geisha. This is novel is painstakingly researched using Murasaki's diaries and poems (the poems are quoted in translation). I found it fascinating to begin with, especially the fact that it was a mark of beauty for women to blacken their teeth. However I ground to a halt about a third of the way through. It's very beautifully written but (as is so often the case when basing something on diaries) it is so detailed, and so slow, that I lost patience with it, despite the fact that I am in three month isolation because of my asthma.
I'd be interested to know if anyone else has read this, or heard of it. It was completely new to me. When life returns to normal, I'd be happy to lend out this book.
Katharine
The books that I would have mentioned are The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. I really like her writing and would also recommend her Regeneration trilogy and Life Class and Toby's Room. The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of the women in the tale and it is still a modern story with relevant themes. It's not a grim read even though it does draw parallels with modern slavery and I found it really poignant and it has stuck with me.
I've also enjoyed two books by Diane Setterfield recently. I read The Thirteenth Tale when it came out and then missed Bellman & Black when it came out. That is a good gothic tale. And I also really enjoyed Once Upon a River which has a more mystical quality but some of the same sadness as her other books.
And I'd recommend anything by Kate Atkinson - Life After Life brings me something new every time I read
Alison S
I finally got around to reading The Longest Memory by Fred D’Aguiar, one of Laura’s recommendations, and was very glad I had. A hideous event on a slave plantation in the USA is told through the effect it has on a number of different characters, it is shocking and sad in equal measure. I read today a piece on the BBC website about the last slave in the USA who was known to have been transported from West Africa, Matilda McCrear was brought to the US in 1860 at the age of 2 with her mother and sister from whom she was quickly separated. She lived her whole life in Alabama, did not marry but had a longstanding relationship with a white German man who was thought to be jewish and with whom she had 14 children. She was rebellious throughout her life and always wore her hair in a style common in Nigeria which she must have learned from her mother. She died in 1940 having tried to claim reparation for her slavery. This was a fascinating counterpoint to The Longest Memory but also told a true story of resilience and spirit.
The other book I read recently was Dressed for War by Julia Summers which is a not quite biography of Audrey Withers who was the editor of British Vogue during World War II. It does briefly talk about her life but mostly describes the development of Vogue as a magazine from it’s first publication in the UK in 1916 to the pivotal role it played on the Home Front during the 1940’s. Withers pioneered the use of photojournalism in the magazine using Lee Miller, an American Photographer, to describe not just first hand accounts of battles but also the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp. Withers edited Vogue from 1940 to 1960 and also introduced Elizabeth David to the British public in a cookery column that she ran in the magazine.
I thought the book was very interesting and well written if rather too long. I really enjoyed the story of the development of the magazine from being a high society fashion magazine to being a publication which better reflected the interests of women in general.
I also have a copy of Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light waiting for me ….. not quite ready to dive in yet.
Alyson McG
Happy to contribute to a list, but a lot of what I'm reading are random charity shop finds and crime novels . One current read is by Stella Duffy London Lies Beneath. It's a good read, set in South East London a century or so ago and feels very local.
Alison MacD
I have been dipping into Unquiet Women by Max Adams. There are stories of powerful women from Roman times up to the 1930s. I am dipping in to it as it’s not a book I can read from cover to cover in one go. It has a chapter on the woman in the Spitalfields sarcophagus, chapters on women’s clothing, their fortunes and stories of oppression. It is very interesting.
On the other hand I am reading lots of detective stories. Angela Marson is one author I am reading. She writes of a woman detective. I enjoy her novels as they keep me engrossed which is quite important at the moment.
We also have the new Hilary Mantel book to read, its looks quite daunting and is much too big to read in bed but I am looking forward to reading it.
Hazel