Apologies, I have made some poor mental notes after catching up on the thread and have forgotten who they are directed towards.
To the person buying Persephone books for her mother (what a lovely gift), have a look at The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby, which I loved. It's a book about a middle-class Edwardian girl being groomed for marriage and not really sure that she likes any of her options. Also Bricks and Mortar (which I reviewed on here recently), a story that traces the course of a marriage between a couple who meet in the 1890s, and is just readable and interesting without any big hfty bits of Plot to contend with.
Thank you to the person who recommended the Thai book in translation, I have added it to my (ridiculously long) wishlist. Speaking of which, isn't it lovely when you read a recommendation here and go to add it to Goodreads, only to find that YOU ALREADY HAVE IT MARKED AS TO-READ. Amazing.
I love the idea of a crowd-written book by the 50 bookers. I fear that the delightful lesbian couple would soon be sent off on some kind of harrowing sea adventure before either being killed off or transported to an alternative universe where society runs on logic and science. I can imagine Mary very happy there.... Charlotte might be seduced by a passing wanking vicar....
10. A Very English Scandal, John Preston
I went to this for the true story of the Jeremy Thorpe scandal, after reading Adam Macqueen's fictional version in Beneath the Streets. This is a thorough and very readable account of an almost incredible story, in which Thorpe, a serving MP and leader of his party, conspired to have murdered a young man with whom he had had an on-and-off affair.
I think for me the book suffered from the fact that nothing in the story (appalling as it is) is as shocking as the thing that you already know at the beginning - the murder plot. The details of the lead-up to it, the various contacts between Thorpe and Norman Scott (his lover and would-be victim), the people who knew the truth and covered it up - they're interesting and dreadful, but, this being real life and not a thriller, things have a tendency to be repetitive, not to make sense, to go quiet when you expect a big reveal. And once you know that Thorpe will stoop to having someone murdered, then the rest of it (coercive relationships, dubious sexual consent, embezzling of party money) doesn't shock as it should, because you already know that he's a bad bad man.
Preston refers almost in passing to some of the company that Thorpe kept - two of his close colleagues in the Liberal party now known to be paedophiles, and the close links to Jimmy and Johnny Savile. It feels like there's a much worse story bubbling beneath the awful-enough one told in this book; the stories here of how the establishment covered up for rich well-known people gives some understanding into how many other terrible things may have been swept under the carpet, how many other victims ignored and discredited.
11. You People, Nikita Lalwani
The Vesuvio is an undistinguished pizza restaurant in a slowly gentrifying neighbourhood in London. The staff are a pretty mixed bunch. Some, like Welsh Nia, who has run away from her chaotic and unhappy childhood home, have been drawn there by the charisma of the enigmatic owner, Tuli. Others, like Sri Lankan Shan, are there because their need is more fundamental - Tuli, or somoene like him, is their only hope of making a life for themselves.
This one didn't grab me initially - I was confused about who everyone was, and what their situation was - but although I didn't think that the balance or pacing ever quite came together, the book grew on me to the point that I have been thinking about it every since I finished it. This is a humane and thought-provoking book about immigration and living with the threat of deportation, but it's a subtle book without easy answers. Nia's situation is very different to Shan's, but Lalwani is clever in the way that she binds them together, blurring the lines between them and showing how some of the dilemmas that we face - should you save yourself, even if it means leaving others behind? Is it OK to be dishonest, to cause hurt, if you are trying to achieve something good? - apply to all of us no matter what our situation.