8 The Fell by Sarah Moss
I really love Sarah Moss’s books. They don’t stay with me the way some do, because the plots tend to be quite slight (here, woman isolating after being a close contact of someone with Covid goes for a walk in the hills, hurts herself and mountain rescue get involved) but this was really moving and gentle. I thought she did teenage boy angst and anger particularly well but I also loved the different perspectives – the elderly neighbour, the mountain rescue guy – and the way they all laid over each other.
9 Cover Her Face by PD James
First (I think) of the Inspector Dalgleish books. I’ve not read a PD James before – perhaps it isn’t fair to compare her to Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, as maybe they aren’t as closely aligned as I think, but this was less engaging than many of the Barbara Vines I read and loved last year. On the other hand it was a clever whodunnit and I did enjoy the whole family set up and story telling.
10 Midnight In Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham
Having watched the (excellent) series on SKY a year or so ago, a lot of this was familiar but it was absolutely gripping. I think he did a great job of getting out of the detail and showing how systemic failures throughout the Soviet machine led to the catastrophe but also how close we came to a much bigger disaster which was only averted by some real heroism on the part of workers and fire fighters who stuck around with zero protection to try to stop the blaze. If you have any interest in the accident or in learning more about the Soviet Union’s last days (he’s particularly good on drawing out how – in Gorbachev’s view at least – the accident was a significant contributor to the end of the Soviet Union). You can’t help but feel for the Ukrainians – they were part of the system and ran the plant, but Russia really has visited one disaster after another on them over the years.
11 Foster by Clare Keegan
So short I’m not sure I should include it and you’ve all done a better job of reviewing it than I have. I think Razorstorm summed it up upthread. I’m not sure I liked it quite as much as Small Things Like These but that’s because I prefer a more plot driven story. I like things to happen too!
12 Cryptocurrency: the Future of Money? By Paul Vigna and Michael J Casey
Read as part of my attempt to learn about stuff I didn’t know about and also out of a vague professional interest as some of this stuff is coming my way. It was written a few years ago and would really have benefited from being a bit more up to date but I learned a lot, got a bit closer to understanding where the cryptoevangelists are coming from and to general derision from my family, bought £20 of Ethereum to see what all the fuss is about. In summary, it’s (probably) not the future of money. But it (probably) is part of the future.
13 Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
This is my idea of a very good book. I know Franzen has wanged on a bit (ok a lot) in recent years and nothing has come close to his earlier books but this is his best, I think, and I’m delighted it is going to be a trilogy. It’s a slightly unusual structure – the first half of the book or so is set on one day just before Christmas in 1971, with a variety of flashbacks to develop the plot, then the rest of the book focuses on episodes over the next few months and years.
Russ is a pastor in a church in Indiana, frustrated by his interactions with the young cool youth worker Ambrose who has frozen him out of the church youth group, and tormented by his lust for a young widow in his congregation. Marion, his wife, is bored and tormented by her past life, which is hidden from Russ. Their marriage is distinctly precarious and it’s clear from the start that neither is happy.
Clem is at university, obsessed by sex with his girlfriend and torn between duty and desire as he tries to decide if he should write to the draft board to say he won’t use his deferment and will go to Vietnam instead. Becky is at high school, popular and cool and furious that her parents won’t let her follow her dreams, tormented by her lack of faith and lust for a musician who hangs around the youth group and consumed by loathing for her younger brother Perry. Who is, to be fair, a bit of a monster – brilliant, obsessed by dope and never one to let the opportunity for a smart alec remark go past.
They are all – in different ways – both pathetic and endearing. The only family member to get off lightly is Judson, the youngest, but that is only because we never hear his perspective.
There are so many moments where you cringe on behalf of the characters as they say or do things they really shouldn’t. Marion in particular has some excruciating encounters with men who don’t have her best interests at heart, and suffers terribly as a result, while Perry descends deep into a pit of drug-fuelled misery in the most abjectly awful way. And Russ is just a disaster – self absorbed, blind to his faults, aggressive and yet trying and failing to do the right thing, coming so close but never quite succeeding.
This is a long, detailed, engrossing family saga that has a lot to say about morality, religion and loyalty.
I really enjoyed it, and will be really looking forward to the next one.
14 Wintering by Katherine May
I loved this, then hated it, then loved it again, then got a bit bored. I wish I’d been curled up in an armchair looking at the sea, rather than (mostly) crammed onto busy tube trains. It wasn’t really a book to do anything other than meander through. I liked her stance on wintering – we all do it, at some point or other, and there are ways to do it that are more or less bearable. I want to go to Finland and roll in the snow after a sauna and I definitely want to go to Stonehenge for the solstice some time.
15 Kindred by Octavia Butler
I must have picked this up in the Kindle sale recently. I saw it billed as sci-fi which I don’t think it quite right, it’s more historical fiction with time travel. The premise was great – Dana is repeatedly pulled back from the 1970s to antebellum Maryland to rescue Rufus, a son of a slave owner, each time his life is in danger. Unfortunately for Dana, she is black and therefore her existence in Maryland is precarious and dangerous, and Rufus gets himself into dangerous situations a lot. The execution was a little tedious after a while. There were too many journeys back into the past, and the narrative got a bit muddled in places. But I can see that this is structurally interesting and the relationship between slaves and their owners was well drawn.