Thanks for the new thread Southeast
Warning – the books mentioned below annoyed me!
68. Common Ground – Rob Cowen
Why use one simile when 20 will do? Honestly, I really wanted to like this nature writing book about the wildlife in the edge lands of the author’s home town of Harrogate, but unfortunately I didn’t. What particularly irritated me was the made-up stories around some of the animals. For example, in the chapter about hares, a homeless man becomes the narrator, Sir Hare, and talks about his life. He also does it in a particularly sexist way, judging young bottle feeding mothers (oh the horror) and a ‘vacuous housewife’ in a coffee shop. I think what the author was trying to do was good, draw attention to the diversity of life in the lands around towns, which are likely to be built on and therefore lost, and which have their own unique histories, but the style of writing was way off sometimes. Irritating.
69. All That Man Is – David Szalay
This is on the Booker Longlist and is good quality writing. As the title suggests, it’s about men; each chapter is essentially a short story about a man, somewhere in Europe at a different stage of his life, from young to old. There are no real connections between the men, except the first and last. However, what women there are, bloody hell, I found it annoying. The women were either totally up for sex with all these men (unlikely) or they were evil divorcing harpies. Sexist. And therefore annoying. Very annoying.
70. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Yes, it’s a good mystery story, yes it’s readable, yes I enjoyed it but again, what is with the women characters? They are either dead, getting pregnant or lusted over and objectified. Sort out your representations of women people. Sort it out.
71. The Shepherd’s Life – James Rebanks
The best of the books I have read recently. I know a lot more about sheep than I did before I read this and have a better idea of the difficulties, challenges and hardships fell farmers have to endure. Whilst his is not a bad thing, I did have very mixed feelings about the author. I guess farming communities are extremely insular and this comes across very strongly. Hmm.