september 2023 books…

The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd (Agatha Christie): First published in 1926 (nearly 100 years ago!). I’ve been intending to read it for quite some time (it's been on our bookshelves for some years!)… and it didn’t disappoint. It has the ‘usual’ Christie murder mystery features: a peaceful English village is stunned by the death of a widow from an overdose of Veronal… then, less than 24 hours later, a man she had planned to marry is murdered… oh, and there’s also blackmail… and, of course, Hercule Poirot (who had ‘retired’ and become a recent anonymous inhabitant of the village). He ends up being asked to apply his little grey cells’ to a wonderfully intriguing mystery. It’s clever, baffling, controversial and audacious… I’ll say no more!
Bournville (Jonathan Coe): Bournville, as you probably know, is a village and a factory, built by the Quaker Cadbury family in the 19th century – some 4 miles of so from Birmingham’s city centre (my brother lives in Harborne – only a mile or so away). In this novel, Coe examines Britain’s postwar history through the eyes of a Birmingham clan. Like Coe, my family has deep roots in the Midlands (in our case Birmingham). Although this is a work of fiction, the character of Mary Lamb is based closely on his late mother. Mary was born 1934 and my own mother, also Mary, was born in 1928 – and so their respective stories have a certain mirrored poignancy. Lots of the novel’s city locations (eg. Handsworth, Soho Road) also have very strong associations with my own upbringing. The book is structured by seven ‘milestones’ that Mary and her family experienced over the past 75 years or so – VE Day celebrations; the Queen’s coronation; the World Cup final; the wedding of Charles and Diana; the funeral of Diana; and the 75^th anniversary of VE Day – which take new perspectives on the past and its role in shaping the present, both personal and national (how we lived then and how we live now). I’ve seen it described as a ‘state-of-the-nation’ novel and think that’s pretty accurate. I’ve come to really enjoy Coe’s writing and observations and found this book clever, frequently very funny… but also tender and rather beautiful.
Shrines Of Gaiety (Kate Atkinson): I love Atkinson’s writing – she’s a wonderful story-teller and one of my favourite authors. This novel is set in 1926. The country is still recovering from the Great War; London has become the focus of a new night life (‘Jazz Age London’). At the heart of this glittering world is the notorious Nellie Coker – ruthless, but also ambitious to advance her six children. She owns several Soho clubs where peers of the realm rub shoulders with gangsters. But success also breeds enemies and her empire is under threat “from without and within”. It’s a long novel (515 pages) and, frankly, it took me perhaps 100 pages to get ‘into it’… but, once I had, I found it absolutely enthralling. I loved the key characters and the intricate plot. Excellent.
The Book Of Bristol (ed Heather Marks+Joe Melia): This book of Bristol-themed short stories is our next Storysmith’s bookgroup book. It comprises ten stories from a range of autors (apart from the sadly departed Helen Dunmore, I hadn’t come across the other contributors (or indeed the editirs). In truth, I thought the stories were ‘interesting’ rather than ‘compelling’(!). In addition to Dunmore’s offering, the story I most enjoyed was KM Elkes’ “Malago Days” – about the elusive angel who turns up at a struggling café along the Malago river (which in a somewhat strange way reminded me a little of Tom waits’ song “Highway Café”). No doubt I’m wrong, but I kept thinking that some of the authors had been told that “if you mention key Bristol locations and venues, then it might help your case to be included in the forthcoming book of Bristol short stories”!  
People Person (Candice Carty-Williams): I’d finished the two books I’d taken with me on holiday and so ended up ‘borrowing’ this one from Moira’s holiday reading pile. It’s about five half-siblings whose father was a negligible presence in all their lives. The half-siblings (young adults/adults in our story) had four different mothers between them; their father was never physically, mentally or emotionally present in their lives; had difficulty in remembering their names (or their birthdays) and was frequently asking them for money when times were hard. He worked as a bus driver, but spent much of his time chasing and flirting with women. I won’t go into details (*no spoilers*), but the half-siblings come together after a “catastrophic event” reconnects them. The book explores, among a whole range of things, racial discrimination within the police, toxic relationships, social media, generational trauma and the objectification of Black men and women. I have to say that this wasn’t ‘my kind of book’. I struggled to come to terms with many of the ‘easy relationships and attitudes’ between some of the young adults, but found the characters’ struggles to accept the indelible failings and traumatic legacies of their childhood… about who they are and how they want to be quite impressive. It’s witty and very readable… but just not quite my cup of tea.