January in review

It’s the 1^st February today, and can I really write a January in review post without acknowledging that yesterday was a pretty momentous occasion in the UK? Some of us are feeling rather bruised today – and that is all I am going to say on the matter.  

As many of you will know I have been struggling with chronic sciatica for the last two months, complicated by my Rheumatoid Arthritis – so I am off work, with more potential reading time on my hands. While I have read a couple more books than normal this month, my reading rate has not increased by much. Nevertheless, despite being sucked into mind numbing daytime tv and overlong afternoon naps, I have been enjoying reading just whatever I fancy. I think allowing my mood to direct my reading is working well for me, especially at the moment.

I started the month reading Milton Place by Elisabeth de Waal, a lovely Persephone book; an elegantly written novel about the changing fortunes of English houses and the families in them. It is also an unusual love story.

Your Duck is My Duck by Deborah Eisenberg was a good collection of stories, by a new to me author. While a couple of the stories fell a little short for me, the others were of a high standard.

The Way Things Are by E M Delafield only served to remind me that I really haven’t read enough of her novels. A novel both sombre and humorous, it depicts a woman in an unsatisfying marriage, who has her head turned by someone more interesting than her dull husband.

The Division Bell Mystery by Ellen Wilkinson is a really good, locked room style mystery. Though for me the real interest in the novel is in the setting of the House of Commons during the 1930s, and the fact the author herself was a labour member of parliament.

Magda Szabó is an author whose novels many readers have been discovering over the last few years. Abigail is the fourth of them to be published in English, translated by Len Rix. Set during WW2 in Hungary. A spoilt teenage girl is sent to a fanatically puritanical boarding school by her father. This is as far as I have got with reviewing – (I almost always review in the order I read). So, several books I read this month have still to be written about. I’ll get there in the end.

Miss Carter and the Ifrit by Susan Alice Kerby is another lovely offering from Dean Street Press. Another novel set during WW2, it is also a delicious piece of whimsical escapism. A middle aged woman throws a block of wood on her fire and unwittingly unleashes and ifrit (like a genie) who declares himself her slave. Miss Carter decides to name him Joe.

My second collection of short stories was A Romantic Hero by Olivia Manning, and I loved every bit of it. Fourteen beautifully written stories, portraits of lonely childhoods and complicated adult relationships. Olivia Manning is always such a good writer.

Business as Usual by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford is a review copy from Handheld Press which I had been really looking forward to. It’s not out till March I’m afraid, but it will be worth waiting for. An illustrated novel in letters, a well-educated young woman of good family from Edinburgh is determined to support herself for a year, working in a London department store.

No More Meadows by Monica Dickens is a book I found in a second-hand book shop in Devon last year. I had never heard of it, but really enjoyed it. The ending is a little depressing, but I found the story of a woman leaving her family and her job in a department store to marry an American naval officer and follow him to Washington, to be enormously engaging.

Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald is a fabulous portrait of Broadcasting House during the blitz. A novel that manages to be both touching and funny, Fitzgerald introduces us to a cast of often slightly eccentric but ultimately realistic characters.

Consider the Years by Virginia Graham – a rare collection of poetry. I began reading it for the Mini Persephone readathon last weekend and dipped in and out of it over the whole week. This is a collection of World War Two poetry by the woman who counted Joyce Grenfell as her closest friend. I had to skip a handful of poems as they are written in French or German – and my ability in either is non-existent.

So, in February I will continue to read very much by mood. My book group will be reading a novel in translation, Will and Testament by Vigdis Hjorth. I have missed some book group meetings recently, and I’m very unsure whether I will get to the next one (getting myself from A to B is a major issue just now) but I want to try and read this as it sounds so interesting.  I’m currently about a third of the way into Dust Tracks on a Road, the autobiography by Zora Neale Hurston. One of three beautiful new editions sent to me by Virago. I read Their Eyes were Watching God a few years ago, so looking forward to Jonah’s Gourd Vine at some point in the future. I can certainly highly recommend this one, such incredible writing. These gorgeous new editions are published in a couple of weeks, and the covers alone are just fabulous, I think.

Let me know what wonderful things you have been reading in January, and happy February reading to you all.