March in review

Spring does feel like it’s finally arrived, the weather is still typically unpredictable but things to do seem milder, and daffodils are out in lots of parks and gardens around here. I am looking forward to the two-week Easter holidays – I’m definitely in need of a break, and I hope for a good bit of reading time, as well as having plenty of other things pencilled in. Nine and a half books read, which these days is pretty good – I managed two books for #ReadIreland17 hosted by Cathy and stepped royally out of my comfort zone with not one but two of the books I chose.

I began March reading The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning, the first book in her Balkan Trilogy, events take place in Romania during the first year of the Second World War. It brilliantly recreates a city living in fear of invasion, and the atmosphere that exists there for a group of ex-pats. I am looking forward to the next two books in the series, I should get around to the next one soon. I have found that I love Olivia Manning’s writing, and have a few books tbr.

A Winter Away by Elizabeth Fair was a review copy sent by Dean Street Press – who publish the Furrowed Middlebrow novels, it made for perfect, lazy weekend reading. A Winter Away takes us to a small English village, and introduces us to twenty-year-old Maud Ansdell, who has come to stay with her father’s cousin Alice and her companion Miss Conway. She starts work as secretary to a local, wealthy eccentric, and becomes involved in the lives and loves of several village neighbours.

My local MP is Jess Philips who has recently published Everywoman, part memoir part feminist manifesto – it is perhaps not my usual reading fare – but I was convinced to read it after attending a talk with Jess Philips at Waterstone’s here in Birmingham. I recommend it heartily to everyone.

The Librarything Virago group are choosing a different Virago author for each month this year – Edith Wharton was our author for March and I had had Roman Fever a fabulous collection of stories tbr for ages. It is one of those collections where every story is quite honestly superb.

Molly Keane’s Conversation Piece was the first of my two reads for #ReadIreland17 and although it won’t be my favourite Keane, it was a good read despite rather too much racing/hunting stuff. Set amongst the shabby, gentility of rural Ireland; the world Molly Keane knew from the inside.

One of my favourite reads of the month was Every Eye by Isobel English – a Persephone novella, with a brilliant final line (that alone should make you want to read it).

The second book which took me outside my comfort zone was Hisham Matar’s brilliantly poignant memoir The Return – it is the story of his father’s disappearance at the hands of the Libyan regime and of his own return to Libya more than thirty years after he left it as a child. It has recently been longlisted for the Orwell prize; awarded for political writing.

Friends and Relations; Elizabeth Bowen’s third novel was my second read for #ReadIreland17 – Elizabeth Bowen qualifies as she was born in Dublin though most of her books are not set in Ireland. This one like several others set in London, where we meet four families linked by two couples who marry a few months apart in the early part of the novel.

My second Dean Street Press book of the month was, Arrest the Bishop by Winifred Peck, one I bought after reading a great review of it somewhere. Review still to come, but I did enjoy this Golden Age crime story set in a Bishop’s palace.

I am now reading A Wreath for the Enemy by Pamela Frankau – which Simon reviewed recently – it was the nudge I needed. I love Pamela Frankau – well I have loved the three I have read to date, and about half way through this one I can say I am enjoying it hugely.

So, April is here with the #1951club on the horizon, hosted again by Karen and Simon. I have three or four books which were first published in 1951 – so just need to decide which I will read. The LT Virago group are reading Elizabeth von Arnim in April, and although I am tempted to re-read The Enchanted April – I have three or four other von Arnims tbr which I will select from instead. I recently bought my mum a copy of The Enchanted April – she’s never read EvA – and I really hope she likes it.

On the subject of reading weeks,someone recently asked me if I was going to be hosting a Mary Hocking week again this year. The obvious time to do it is around her birthday which is April 8th – but I had already decided to not host anything this year – so, sorry, no Mary Hocking week this year.

What have you been reading in March? Anything I should know about?