This is, I promise, the last of my backlog:
Wild Girls: Paris, Sappho and Art: the lives and loves of Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks, by Diana Souhami. From the Amazon blurb:
About the bohemian world of Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks, two pivotal figures in the cultural life of Paris at the turn of the century.
This was somewhat episodic but enjoyable. There is some eyebrow-raising behaviour, spending of money etc. Fantastic as a wallow in 'how the other half live'.
Salt On Your Tongue: Women and the Sea, by Charlotte Runcie a memoir of the author's life filtered through her life-long love of the sea. It's packed with great descriptions and facts, and I learned a lot about things I already knew a tiny bit about (e.g. ancient myths/tales about the sea and its creatures) and some things that were new to me.
The Empty House by Rosamunde Pilcher A slim volume, a novella really, about a woman cast adrift and needing to find a new life for herself and her children. It's a bit golly-gosh in the way people speak; amazingly, it's set in the 80s although I think it could have been the 50s! I suppose that's Pilcher's world. This doesn't reach the dizzying heights of The Shell Seekers, which I adore, but it's a pleasant read and quite insightful about the protagonist and some of her key relationships.
My Name Is Leon, Kit de Waal About an eight-year-old boy with a much younger (baby) brother. Their mother can't cope and they're taken into temporary care. Much of the novel is taken up with what will happen in their longer-term future, or more precisely Leon's view of it, which is obviously immature as well as partial, as the adults don't tell him everything.
This is an excellent novel, I think. It can be hard to sustain a child's voice but Leon's is very convincing and realistic. In a funny way it reminded me of Adrian Mole, although Leon is that bit younger; it's set in the early 80s and has the requisite food and drink/TV/music etc cultural touchstones of that era, like AM. It's also set against the backdrop of wider social and political events, in this case the Handsworth riots. And we have the protagonist's voice, naive and not always in possession of/understanding all the info, but often highlighting or hitting on the heart of the matter. It's profound and sad, also funny and humane. Recommended.
All Change, Elizabeth Jane Howard Fifth and last of the Cazalet Chronicles. People on these threads have warned me/all of us off this, but I'm glad I read it. I think she's as perceptive and waspish as ever about people and relationships, and it was a joy to revisit the family. It certainly has a tougher and sadder feel than some of the earlier ones, with illness, bereavement, money problems and life crises of all kinds to the fore, but she is an effortlessly excellent writer.
Burntcoat, Sarah Hall. About a pandemic, not Covid and more virulent and terrifying, but with some similarities, particularly in the way government responds. This is also about love, art, meaning and all the big things really! I did feel at times that it was reaching for poeticness and profundity and instead coming across more as obscure; a few phrases stopped me reading and made me puzzle over their meaning and import, which took me out of the novel. Overall it is a beautiful piece of work, though.
Dancer, Colum McCann A novel based on the life of Rudolf Nureyev. This is fascinating because what we see of 'Rudi/Rudik', as various people in his life call him, is all through others' eyes (barring a very few passages from the POV of the man himself). So we never get to the heart of who he was from his perspective. But it builds a vivid picture of how he came across to others and what he meant to them all. Colum McCann is a brilliant writer and his turns of phrase and the way he uses different forms are IMO always on the money. The third of his I've read and I will definitely read more.
Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal by Lucy Cooke A zoologist writes on how zoology has since Darwin been in thrall to stereotyped malecentric views and approaches. In short, generations of scientists have accepted the narrative that male animals are aggressive/territorial/active and female ones passive receptacles, all about nurturing and nothing else. This book shows the many ways in which that is at best partial and often totally wrong, and how it's been perpetuated. One alarming thing is that often if scientists observe or hear of a female animal acting contrary to these expectations, they dismiss it as her being an outlier, or it having another cause.
Very accessible (I am very much not a scientist of any kind and found it largely digestible!), although she is prone to a bit much 'jokey' language like referring to animals as femmes fatales etc. TBF though she addresses that in the intro, and states that it's just in the interests of keeping it relatable for a lay reader.
Eye-opening stuff, albeit a bit alarming (I can't stop thinking about how, if this happens in zoology, bad and lazy science of the kind exposed here might happen across the board, including in areas like health research). An important book IMO.
Now on The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane and Dark Fire, C.J. Sansom.