july 2022 books…

Tuck Everlasting (Natalie Babbit): This is our next Storysmith bookgroup book. We’ve come up with an occasional theme of 'my favourite book I don't mind others laying into' series… and this children’s book (first published in 1975) is the first selection. It reminded me of Max Porter’s wonderful book ‘Lanny’ and also ‘The Buried Giant’ (Kazuo Ishiguro). On the face of it, perhaps not an obvious bookgroup choice (especially for an old codger like me!)… The book starts in 1880. The Tuck family lives in the small rural town in New Hampshire. There is a spring there, with water that will give you immortality and you’ll never grow old. The Tuck family knows this because 80 years earlier they drank the water and haven't aged a day since. But then 10 year-old Winnie Foster stumbles on their secret and the Tucks take her home and explain why living forever at one age is less a blessing that it might seem. Complications arise when Winnie is followed by a stranger who wants to market the spring water for a fortune. *no spoilers*! A rather lovely story (sometimes perhaps a little haunting/frightening if you read it/were read it as a youngster?)… which made a welcome change to UK politics!
The Anonymous Venetian (Donna Leon): My third Commissario Brunetti Venice-based ‘mystery’. Instead of joining his family on a refreshing holiday in the mountains, Brunetti is forced to investigate a gruesome murder (“a body so badly the face is unrecognisable”) as Venice struggled against the full intensity of the summer sun (somewhat ironically, I read it on the day the UK recorded its highest ever temperature!). As ever with these books, it’s set against a background of power, politics, corruption and scandal in the dark Venetian underworld… and, in this case, transvestite prostitution. I love the Brunetti character (and his rather engaging family) and, of course, the fact that it’s set in Venice. Another clever plot and very enjoyable read. I thoroughly recommend the series.
Let Me Tell You What I Mean (Joan Didion): Didion is probably my favourite writer. I love the way she writes, the way she describes people and places… and the wide-ranging stuff she wrote about (she died last December, aged 87). This is a collection of a dozen wide-ranging essays from 1968-2000 (but mainly from the early part of her career), taking in such subjects/individuals as a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, a visit to William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon castle, Nancy Regan, Robert Mapplethorpe, Martha Stewart and Ernest Hemingway (I particularly enjoyed the Hemingway piece). As always: astute, illuminating and penetrating prose.
The Pursuit Of Love (Nancy Mitford): Apparently, this book (first published in 1945) is one of Alan Bennett’s favourite novels… so, if it’s good enough for him. It’s a novel about an upper-class English family in the interwar period focusing on the romantic life of Linda Radlett, as narrated by her cousin, Fanny Logan (but, bizarrely, in my head I gave the narrator the voice of Alan Bennett – which, for me, actually worked perfectly!!). It’s a book about the tedium of growing up… “longing for love, obsessed with weddings and sex” (as the book’s cover explains). Apparently, Mitford always claimed that the early chapters were largely autobiographical. It’s all very complicated (there were times I felt I needed a sketch of the family tree as a reminder of who was who) – with engagements and marriages that go wrong; wealth (and the lack of it); war and babies. Beautifully written (I’m glad not to have seen any of the televised versions of the book). Very amusing and sometimes quite tragic. Perhaps surprisingly, I rather enjoyed it.
A Venetian Reckoning (Donna Leon): My fourth Commissario Brunetti Venice-based ‘mystery’ (I know!). Another excellent novel (published in 1995) – well-written and cleverly conceived – albeit that the subject (involving the horrors of human trafficking, prostitution and worse) makes for difficult reading at times. Although fiction, it clearly reflects yet another appalling, depressing aspect of our world (as if one needs any reminders… with all our narcissistic, powerful, greedy, lying politicians and corporations!). Nevertheless, the combination of murder mysteries, descriptions of Venice and Brunetti’s rather lovely family provide some sort of justified compensation. The books give a whole new meaning to ‘Death in Venice’ and I’ve consumed each of them in a couple of days.