june 2020 books...

The Outrun (Amy Liptrot): This book was recommended to me by my lovely Urban Sketcher friend Judith. It’s something of a lyrical memoir. At the age of 30, the author finds herself ‘washed up’ back home on Orkney. The previous ten years of her life had been a nightmare; she left Orkney, went south, ended up in London and started a downward spiral of hellish alcohol addiction. She lost jobs, a boyfriend she loved, her health and self-respect – and ended up in rehab, with her psyche teetering on the edge of the abyss (I couldn’t see how anyone could survive what she had been through). I had thought of giving this book (which I’d heard very good things about) to a friend as a birthday present but, 100 pages into it, Liptrot’s story seemed so hopelessly pitiful that I changed my mind. Actually, I now regret that decision because I ended up thinking the book was absolutely brilliant. So, Liptrot returned home (she briefly tried a couple of times before without success). She was alcohol-free, but an absolute mess. She retreated to the ‘outrun’ (the name given to a rough pasture on her parents’ farm) and, very slowly, thanks to her amazing resolve and determination, her life is gradually restored and re-formed. For a time, she works on her father’s farm then gets a job on a survey of the endangered corncrake (which immediately set me back with my own memories of the corncrakes of Iona!), and eventually she retreats to the tiny island of Papa Westray, off Orkney. There she walks the hills, goes wild swimming, tracks the wildlife and discovers a new meaning for her life. Thanks to the internet, she constantly learns new things – astronomy, rock formations, history and the like… and, crucially (and wonderfully), for the past two years she’s remained sober (and resolved to being sober the rest of her life). She writes beautifully. It’s an incredibly brave, eloquent and hopeful book… and I doubt if I’ll read a better one this year. I’d highly recommend it.

All Points North (Simon Armitage): This is our next “Bloke’s Books” book (selected by Nick). First published in 1998, the book’s cover describes it as part-memoir and part-excursion” and that seems completely appropriate. It tells of the author’s formative years, growing up and being ‘northern’ (especially Yorkshire!). The observations and descriptions are frequently laugh-out-loud funny. Unsurprisingly, from someone who has now risen to the heights of poet laureate, it’s beautifully-written – and something of a celebration of the ordinary and remarkable things that go to making the wonderful patchwork world in which we live. When our bookgroup ‘meets’ to discuss the book, I think it’s essential that we’re all drinking pints of ale and spending some of the evening discussing who we think should be the new Entertainments Secretary of the Social Club (if we had one!).

Lowborn (Kerry Hudson): This is a pretty amazing book (published 2019). Hudson is a prize-winning author (“with a secure home, a loving partner and access to art, music, film and books”), but her life today is unrecognisable from the working class and dehumanising poverty of her childhood. This extract from the book’s introduction will give you a flavour: “1 single mother; 2 stays in foster care; 9 primary schools; 1 sexual abuse child protection inquiry; 5 high schools; 2 sexual assaults; 1 rape; 2 abortions; my 18^th birthday…”. In the book, Hudson revisits the towns she grew up in to try to discover what being poor really means in the UK today… and whether anything has changed. Before becoming a writer, she worked for a variety of NGOs and charities related to poverty and diversity. In her final chapter, Hudson points the finger to a “hostile government who, in the last eight years of austerity, has sought to take from those who can least afford it, to trim fat where there was only bone in the first plave, while offering tax cuts for the wealthy. The result? We live in the world’s sixth-richest economy but one-fifth of us live in poverty. Local Councils have seen a 49% reduction in government funding since 2010-11…”. A hugely powerful book that all members of parliament should be compelled to read.

Much Obliged, Jeeves (PG Wodehouse): I first read this some 9 years ago… It’s been an awful long time since I last read any PG Wodehouse, but I did enjoy this. There’s something rather reassuring about Jeeves+Wooster books – the humour; ridiculous snobbery; language; bizarre characters, the excruciating predictability and the outlandish names of the characters (such as Gussie Fink-Nottle, Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, Stilton Cheesewright et al) and the fact that Wooster refers to his aunt (to her face) as “old blood relation” and “aged ancestor”! Effortless, light reading… in these strange times.

Things We Lost in the Fire (Mariana Enriquez): Our next StorySmith bookgroup book (this month’s theme: short stories). The book’s cover describes it thus: “Twelve stories of ghosts, demons and wild women; of sharp-toothed children and stolen skulls” (it also advises that it’s a “sleep-stealing collection”)! First published in 2016, Enriquez’s stories relate to the crime-ridden streets of post-dictatorship Buenos Aires. In a sense, the stories reflect a country haunted by the spectre of recent dictatorships; they’re sinister, dark and somewhat gothic in character and very unsettling… and men are frequently seen in a pretty bad light. Not the kind of book that would make comfortable bedtime reading (I read virtually all of it at daytime!), but clever, imaginative and hugely challenging.