A Single Swallow, Horatio Clare

Here Clare follows the migration route of swallows, ones that nest in his mum's rafters in Wales in the summer and winter in South Africa. He sets off from South Africa in February and arrives in Wales in May, travelling off the cuff by car, bus or plane. Layers of anecdotes and meetings from the road with  chat about swallows in literature and cultures.

The lovely thing though is that the swallow idea enables and excuses the trip and it is certainly an obsession for Clare, but the trip and route is haphazard and loose. Clare seems like a lost 20 something, wandering in search of anything, and does return changed, broken down a little and re-formed.

Lullaby, Leïla Slimani

Lullaby opens with the death of two childern at the hands of their nanny.
A beautifully written, heavy and bleak vision of modern parenthood and the juggle between work and family life - for both parents and nanny. The author astutely and simply picks holes in expectations and presents a Catch 22 without offering any solutions, or seemingly even sympathy. Slimani creates understandable, unlikeable characters you don’t want to identify with. They paint portraits of personality and power, the situation is bigger than the characters. The mood is deftly and subtly changed through the novel, both the reader and characters fail to notice or stall the shift until it is too late. Full, bleak and worrying modern fiction.

Why didn't they ask Evans? Agatha Christie

 

As expected this is a great murder mystery. Likeable ‘plucky’ characters and twists and turns, much more adventure than other Christie novels I’ve read. Hairs prickled on the back of my neck when we did finally discover who Evans was.

The Typees, Herman Melville

Typee tells the story of sailors who desert ship on islands in the South Sea and their contact with the ‘primitive’ people there. It is part adventure story, part amateur anthropological study, and very of it’s time.
Melville slips into long passages of description which can get very tedious, but on the whole it is a good read, all the more interesting as it is based on Melville’s own experiences.

The Western Wind, Samantha Harvey

A mystery of a man having disappeared, probably drowned, told through the eyes of the village Priest. The novel moves backwards in time and deftly reveals both the character of the narrator and the answer to the mystery. The Priest is flawed but a good man and is compared to the over-zealous Dean; a medieveal chief inspector to the Priest’s detective. The novel is pre-occupied with the idea of forgiveness, both from a god, a community and self-forgiveness, it explores mistakes and sins- all though the internal monologue of the narrator´s empathetic, medieval mindset. Rich and compelling, full of questions.

The Enchanted April, Elizabeth Von Arnim

This is a completely captivating read. Four women (strangers) end up renting a small castle in Italy for the month of April. Arnim shows how being submerged in sunshine and beauty, and being away from anyone who knows them, allows the women to heal and blossom. The novel is very romantic and has an improbable fairytale ending but it is satisfying and uplifting. 

The Enchanted April has a lot to say about life; how people drift into being a certain way, become who they are treated as or flourish under attention and interest and how taking yourself out of your life for a while can give perspective and potentially avert or reverse a crisis. It is based in truth; Arnim went to stay with a friend, in Italy for April after the breakup of her marriage and it is this wish for healing that really comes across in the novel. 

Everything I Know About Love, Dolly Alderton

Alderton is a journalist and podcaster, here she talks about her teenage years and her twenties; the ideas she had about love at various points in her life and the situations that changed or augmented those ideas. She questions the way we see ourselves and how that is shaped by the world and popular culture and how self acceptance affects the way you can function. Alderton has warmth and an exuberant and pictoral way of writing which means the book doesn't at all feel like navel gazing, but honest discussion.

Everything I know about love is heartbreaking, joyful and hopeful. The undying love in the book is between Alderton and her close girlfriends, and the book points out a lack of importance shown to friendship in society, she makes a case for being as proud of an ability to keep an intimate and long lasting friendship as for a long lasting partnership or marriage. A warm, entertaining and nourishing read.