May in review

Posting this May roundup, a day late as I had to make way for my Elizabeth Taylor giveaway yesterday.

Well May was a funny old month. I haven’t been a hundred percent – and although I am pretty much back to full strength now, I found myself signed off work. Forced into more reading time, and feeling pretty grumpy, I immediately spent untold hours retreating into Netflix. I did read more than I usually do – though nothing like as many books as I could have done.

I started May reading Effi Briest by Theador Fontane, one of the latest Persephone titles, it is a German classic which unusually for Persephone publications is already in print in other editions. It is a novel which really should sit alongside such classics as Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary – it was a wonderful read.

The 12.30 from Croydon by Freeman Wills Crofts – one of the British Library Crime Classics was a great piece of escapism. A slightly different take on the usual Golden age mystery – as in this story we know just who the murderer is
– but will they get away with it.

My next read Slaves of the Lamp by Pamela Frankau, sporting a pretty dreadful 1960s cover – was the sequel to Sing for your Supper which I read a few months ago. More superb characterisation from Frankau, as she weaves together stories of theatrical people with those of advertising and the world of spiritualism.

The Librarything Virago group were reading Willa Cather during May, and I chose The Professor’s House as it was the last of her novels I had to read. It is brilliant novel, quietly introspective, it tells the story of a mid-western university professor and the brilliant student who is never far from his thoughts.

Since reading My Name is Lucy Barton, I had been meaning to read more by Elizabeth Strout. I enjoyed Olive Kitteridge even more, the structure is more of linked short stories and the writing is utterly brilliant.

A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark is quite a quirky little novel, there is a hint of darkness perhaps – but the novel heighted for me what an interesting writer Muriel Spark is.

Nina Bawden is one of those writers I reach pretty much knowing I am going like, maybe even love what I find. A Little Love, A little learning is a particularly good Bawden, she is at her best I think when she is writing about families.

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith is the book of a film I watched a long time ago – of course the book is better – is also the first in a series of five. In Ripley, Highsmith created an enduringly fascinating character.

The third book in the Balkan trilogy, Friends and Heroes by Olivia Manning brought that compelling trilogy to a fantastic ending. I am now looking forward to the Levant trilogy.

A Note in Music by Rosamond Lehmann, was a book I had wanted to read for years. It absolutely didn’t disappoint – her second novel about the disappointments within marriage it written in the most glorious prose.

My very small book group chose to read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, although we don’t meet to discuss it until the week after next. I first read it somewhere between about 1987 (when my edition came out) and the early 1990s and although I had forgotten many of the details – the essence of it had stayed with me. I was simply blown away by it, and gulped it down in two days.

Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham was my final book completed in May. It is the second of the two books reissued by Persephone in April. I can’t adequately express how much I loved this novel. A Canadian novel which tells the story of a young woman who falls in love with a Jewish man, and her father’s horrendous anti-Semitic attitude. It is a definite contender for my best of list at the end of the year.

Those two final novels of course I still need to review – but I may have a breather for a couple of days as I have been churning out blog posts this week.

After finishing Earth and High Heaven I reached for an Anita Brookner novel, Family and Friends, most of which I did read during May but I actually finished it over breakfast on June 1st so it can go at the bottom of June’s pile.

And so to June. The Librarything author of the month for June is Margaret Laurence – and I am hoping to get around to The Stone Angel. She is an author I have never read before. Having dispensed with that Anita Brookner – which was very good I have just started reading Mrs Eckdorf in O’Neill’s Hotel by William Trevor I really should have read more of his books than I have.