Apologies, I am pages and pages behind on the thread! Good news from me is that I am starting a new job next week :) Bad news is less time to read including this thread. I will post my reviews below then try to catch up reading everyone else's.
61. The Stranger Diaries, Elly Griffiths
Crime fiction about an English teacher who specialises in the gothic, and particularly one writer of spooky stories who used to live in the house which is now part of the school buildings where she (our teacher protagonist, Clare) teaches. His wife died in mysterious circumstances and one of the school legends is that her ghost can be seen falling down an old staircase. At the beginning of the book, Clare discovers that a fellow teacher and friend of hers has been killed, and that a quote from the author's most famous story has been found on a note by her body. The question, of course, is who killed her and whether Clare - or her teenage daughter - might be next.
I found this quite original in the way that the original spooky story frames the investigation into the murder, and Griffiths introduces suggestive supernatural elements - flickering lights, rooms that turn cold - as well as a group of teens dabbling in wiccan. The detective is great too - a young gay Sikh woman with a sarcastic sense of humour. I suspect, though, that any readers who are actual teachers, or who work in state secondary schools, will be distracted by the unrealistic picture of state school life that Griffiths paints. Annual residential conference for all the English teachers with rooms in a nice hotel?
62. My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell
Much read and reviewed here. Disturbing and cleverly done.
63. Swing Time, Zadie Smith
My love for Zadie Smith's novels comes from a very personal place; we're almost exactly the same age, and although she famously comes from NW London while I come from SE London, that late 80s-early 90s multicultural comprehensive school London childhood that she gives her characters - that's my childhood. As I read her stories, I find forgotten memories flooding back to me, kids from my class, crazes we went through, stories in the news that we learned about, the sounds and smells and feeling of being in London as a child at that time. Honestly, I don't know whether she is a good novelist if you don't have that aspect of her writing to enjoy - do the novels work? Are they evocative for other people? I don't know. I just know I love how she brings that time and place alive for me.
I think this was a good story on its own. Two little girls meet at a church hall ballet class, the only two mixed race, working class girls there. Despite differences in their circumstances and their characters, they are drawn together into an intense and rivalrous friendship which reminded me strongly of the central friendship in Elena Ferante's Neapolitan novels.
Told alongside this, and interwoven in terms of both plot and theme, is the story of the (unnamed) narrator's later life, in which she is working as an assistant to a narcissistic pop star, whose latest project is the building of a school in West Africa (the country is not named but is obviously based on The Gambia). This is a lively and subtle story which pulls together a number of characters from different parts of the world and causes them to question their assumptions about race, culture and identity. If that sounds a bit dry or worthy, it isn't - both the characters and the plot make it well worth reading as a story, and the issues are teased out gently and not always in the ways that you would expect.
64. Sourdough, Robin Sloan
Think this one was a recommendation from here. This is a quirky, funny, unique story set in San Francisco. Lois, a programmer working for a tech company, becomes the guardian of a sourdough starter, given to her by two rather mysterious brothers. She experiments with baking, gradually learning more about the process, until she is invited to audition for one of San Francisco's famous farmers markets. Meanwhile, her starter is behaving in unexpected ways.
This is a book with elements of rom com, sci fi, fantasy and probably a hundred other genres. It's a bit camp (not unlike Little Shop of Horrors at times), and full of good clever jokes and references from modern pop culture to ancient myths. When Lois enters the underground bunker which is to host the newest and most futuristic food market in San Francisco, she is offered a spoonful of Chernobyl honey.
In every legend of the underworld, there is the same warning: Don't eat the food. Not before you know what's happening and/or what bargain you're accepting.
(Lois, of course, eats the honey). I recommend this book, although it will undoubtedly leave you wanting to eat your body weight in bread, which probably isn't a good thing.