A quick post today about
my IGISIRI programme – you may have wondered why things have gone a bit silent
on that front! If you remember, IGISIRI stands for I’ve Got It So I’ll Read It
and it’s all about tackling those books on your TBR pile, at the rate of two a
month. You choose them from your shelves quickly, without too much thought –
because if you dither for too long you find you want to read everything you own all at once and you make no decision at all!
I was doing well until the
summer. Summer, for me, is all about teaching. So my focus is on
useful-sources-for-illustrative-passages for my creative writing students
rather than damn-fine-reads-I-can-escape-into.
Here, then, is an update
of books I’ve read for pleasure since my last IGISIRI post, taking us through
the end of summer and the autumn.
On holiday after the
teaching gigs ended, I read a couple of thrillers: Karin Slaughter’s Pretty Girls, which was in the holiday rental we were staying in and Peter
Swanson’s Her Every Fear, bought at
the airport. The former was, I found, well done but far too long and pretty
distasteful, even though I have a strong stomach for the gory end of the thriller
market. Peter Swanson’s novel was OK but curiously flat and I was irked by the
errors of ‘British’ thought and expression when he was narrating from a British
character’s point of view. Both books, I felt, could have done with better
standards of editing.
Since then I’ve read Liz
Jensen’s The Rapture – extremely dark
and scary and I hope not too prescient. Then Michelle Paver’s Thin Air – like her previous
ghost/horror story Dark Matter, it
makes use of a chilly, inhuman location. In Dark Matter (which is one of my favourite ghost stories ever) she set the story
in the Arctic – here it’s the Himalayas. It was excellent, though not quite as
good as Dark Matter.
This month I’ve finished
reading Michael Haag’s The Durrells of Corfu, which I started back in the early summer. I loved it yet almost didn’t
want to know the ‘truth’ behind My Family and Other Animals and its sequels.
What was lovely was the recognition of the places mentioned such as the White
House at Kalami – we had lunch there twice when we holidayed in Corfu some
years back (see my post here). It made me want to return to the island with my extra
knowledge not just of Gerald Durrell but of Lawrence Durrell. I have to say
that this book has emerged as a result of the popularity of the Durrells series
on ITV, which I have watched occasionally because of the gorgeous scenery but
find irritating in the way it patronises Greeks as ludicrous eccentrics, though I
suppose the original books did that too.
Next, Jessica Bell’s
memoir Dear Reflection: I Never Meant to be a Rebel. This is a book that shocks you not only with the events it describes but with its degree of honesty. She lays bare what she did and why
she did it in such an unsparing, unflinching way you long to dart forward and
tell her to be kinder to herself. What is also extraordinary is that her mother,
musician Erika Bach, who suffered from psychosis brought on by withdrawal from
prescription painkillers and whose relationship with her daughter was intense
and love-hate all the way, writes directly to the reader at the end. Jessica
ricochets from depression to alcohol abuse to self-destructive melodrama in her
quest to reconcile herself to her family, society, the world and her own self.
Searing stuff.
Finally, many readers have
waited a long time for this treat – Philip Pullman’s long-delayed new trilogy
The Book of Dust. I wasn’t going to wait for La Belle Sauvage, the first in the trilogy, to come out in
paperback. I bought the hardback at the Book House in Summertown – see the
lovely bag that came with it?! Beneath the dust(!)jacket, the book itself is
beautiful with little gold speckles of dust on the binding and a lines from the
story inscribed down the spine. La Belle Sauvage is proof yet again that Pullman
is a master storyteller. Though it doesn’t pack quite the revelatory punch of Northern Lights, the first of the His Dark
Materials trilogy, it is an enthralling read all the same. It is a joy to
return to the alternative Oxford he creates and an added joy for me, as an
Oxford-dweller, to recognise the landmarks and places he describes, from the
Trout and Godstow nunnery all the way down the Thames – a Thames that decides
not to flow sweetly in this story, but to inundate the landscape and island the
spires of the city. (Not all that unlikely, given that Oxford is very prone to
flooding).
Till my next ISIGIRI
round-up, keep reading!
Next time, a guest post by
Yvonne Lyon, whose story The Hungry Sails appears in Distant Echoes, as does my story ‘Salt’,
published by Corazon Books - see the sidebar on the right.
Past IGISIRI posts are here - with links to previous ones at the foot of that post.
Read more about Jessica Bell here: http://literascribe.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/triskele-book-launch-power-of-writing.htmland her website is here. Jessica is a musician too. And a publisher and cover designer ...
Are you a writer - or do you want to be? Visit my website to download your free guide to launching a productive writing life.
Past IGISIRI posts are here - with links to previous ones at the foot of that post.
Read more about Jessica Bell here: http://literascribe.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/triskele-book-launch-power-of-writing.htmland her website is here. Jessica is a musician too. And a publisher and cover designer ...
Are you a writer - or do you want to be? Visit my website to download your free guide to launching a productive writing life.
