Zennor in Darkness: Helen Dunmore

1917:  DH Lawrence and his German wife Frieda have taken refuge in Cornwall, in Zennor, surrounded by local mistrust and vilification.   The sickening anxieties of the First World War cause upset and difficulty even in rural communities far from the metropolis, as more and more men from the village are called up and disappear to fight, and people feel tense and suspicious. Clare Coyne and her extended family live in Zennor too, and it is Clare's story and her short love affair with her cousin that is most fully narrated.  

Cornwall itself, and its coastal landscape, are poetically described, as are certain relationships: that between Clare and her cousins, her father, DH Lawrence and Frieda.  This might be an imaginary story, despite having elements of fact in the narrative concerning the Lawrences, but it seems a very true one.  This story shows us  lives often difficult, challenging,tedious and impoverished too: but described with tenderness, subtlety and delicacy.

He Kills Coppers: Jake Arnott

I had a slightly love-hate relationship with this novel.  More hate really.  I had read The Long Firm (the two books form part of a trilogy) with some - um - not enjoyment; it's far too grungy for that, and expected to react similarly to this one.  He Kills Coppers spans three decades from the 1960s to the 1980s.  There are stories of corruption, in the Police service principally, but also in the world of journalism: it reminds us, in the section recording developments in the ‘80’s, of the sheer nastiness of much of Thatcher's Britain.  

The three main characters, who take turns with the narrative, are hard to warm to and are somewhat two dimensional, while all other participants in the narrative remain strictly one dimensional.  Each, in their different ways, has an interest in small time criminal-turned-murderer Billy Porter.  

I remained fairly unengaged by the story.  But as a memorial to country going though profound social change, corrupt in many of its institutions, it makes an interesting if rather horrifying read..

Pure: Andrew Miller

Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a well qualified yet naïve young engineer, is sent to oversee the removal of the many thousands of bodies from the cemetery of Les Innocents in Paris, some 4 years before the French Revolution.  This is the story of the unsettling year he spent there, dealing firstly with the foul conditions engendered by the over-spilling burial ground, the locals who despite everything, remained attached to the staus quo, the hard-to control and understand Flemish miners hired to do the work of exhuming and moving the cadavers, and the - to Baratte - wholly unfamiliar world of personal relationships particularly with women.

Miller conjures a vivid picture of the daily round in this little part of eighteenth century Paris: the smells, whether of sour breath or rotting vegetables or a dusty church; and of a world about to change, in the destruction of the cemetery and church which has for so long been at the heart of the community Baratte finds himself in.  Violence and death are ever present.

Unsettled by the narrative, the reader is left with an mpression of a world about to change, a world which is already changing in ways its citizens cannot comprehend.  Uncertainty is what draws the reader in.

The Kitchen Diaries II: Nigel Slater

I haven’t finished this book yet.  I shan’t till December.  But I’m enjoying reading Nigel’s Kitchen Diary one month at a time.  That way, there’s every chance I’ll be making some new seasonal dishes in the course of the month.  It was my new year’s resolution to make at least one, preferably two new dishes every week, to broaden my repertoire.  Nigel Slater’s writing is so good there’s no problem turning the pages and feeling as greedy and eager as he about the meals he has in mind, and that enthuses me to try them too.  I love the fact that he’s opportunistic, seizing upon ingredients that interest him, and only later wondering what he could do to bring out the best in them.  This book will be with me all year long.

When we were bad: Charlotte Mendelson

I struggled at first to get into this book.  So many characters, all equally important as the story unfolds.  All so flawed.  All so Jewish.  That isn’t a criticism.  Just an observation that understanding the Rubin family (and all the characters are family members) means getting to grips a bit with what it means to be Jewish too.

I persisted.  It was worth it.

The lives of every family member begin to unravel as son Leo’s life very publicly does, the day he leaves his wife-to-be some 4 minutes before they take their vows. It turns out that he isn’t the only one in inner turmoil. 

By turns funny, touching and embarrassing, I was engaged with every character, despite their many and obvious flaws, long before the conclusion of the book.

Arlington Park: Rachel Cusk

Five mothers who live in prosperous Arlington Park are the subject of this book.  We look at their lives during a single rainy day.  Their husbands are shadowy, their children pretty ghastly, and the women themselves seem, for different reasons, to be a pretty grim bunch.  They have lives that are pretty dreary, choked with unpleasant routine.  

And yet it’s a book to read with satisfaction and pleasure.  It can be funny, despite everything, and its real joy is the detailed yet telling descriptions of familiar things: a shopping centre, a bedroom, a kitchen the morning after, and in its evocation of mood. 

I wouldn’t want to pass much time with any of these women in real life, but between the pages of a book, they were definitely worth getting to know.  

Small Wars: Sadie Jones

I loved this book.  Mainly set in occupied Cyprus in the late 1950’s, its subject is a young couple: Hal, a bright young officer who hasn’t been taught to have any kind of real emotional life, and Clara, his young and dutiful wife.  

The book divides itself between looking at Hal, appalled and yet brutalised by the conflict he is a part of, and Clara, bored, frightened and powerless.  As Hal's military involvement increases, the couple become increasingly unable to communicate. Cyprus itself is beautifully evoked, but it casts no spell over the protagonists.  

I was unconvinced by the faltering reconciliation at the end of the book, but as an examination of Englishness, and the effects of war on everyone involved, as well as a portrait of a country I’ve never visited, it was a gripping and involving read.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother: Amy Chua

As John Crace said in the Guardian in his Digested Read, 'Never has mediocrity seemed so appealing.' 

I read the book in a day appalled and fascinated in equal measure at this true story of an American mother of Chinese ethnicity bringing up her children the Chinese way: no sleepovers, no drama clubs, and no down-time in front of the TV.  Schoolwork, perfecting their Mandarin and music practice dominated her children’s out-of-school time……  If her children were forced to work hard, Chua herself had a punishing schedule fitting her demanding job in with the demands she placed on her children. 

Glad I read it, even if it exhausted me.