august-september 2026 books...

A Century Of Poetry (Rowan Williams): Another early morning/read out loud book. A hundred poems from a hundred years (Williams was keen to point out that they’re not intended to be the ‘best’ poems – simply ‘good’ poems which, in his view, “open the door to some fresh, searching and challenging insights about the life of faith”) and I read them (out loud to myself) on a daily basis over a 100 days (with Williams’ own reflections accompany each poem). I’m a great admirer of Williams and, while I found some of the accompanying notes quite helpful, I also felt (for me, at least), they were often much more than I needed (eg. two pages of detailed notes/sermon on each brief, half-page poem) and I ended up trying to focus on the poems themselves – which, in all honesty – I generally found pretty disappointing. Perhaps, given my own labouring faith journey, I expected too much? All in all, not for me I’m afraid. 
Night Swimmers (Roisin Maguire): I came across this novel by chance. 50-year-old Grace lives alone in a coastal village in Northern Ireland… filling her days with wild swimming, fishing and quilting. She’s quite a character – grumpy, irascible and sharp-tongued! A father arrives for a week, grieving the recent death of his infant daughter, but becomes trapped there by lockdown… he’s joined there by his 8-year-old son (who is deaf and with whom he has struggling relationship). A rather beautiful story evolves… mental health and marital struggles, compassion, community, loneliness and nature. I really enjoyed it (with one or two reservations)… and particularly loved the Grace character.
Up Late (Nick Laird): Yet more read-out-loud-early-morning-poetry. I hadn’t previously come across Laird, but really enjoyed this collection of his poetry/musings. In particular, I loved his piece that formed the title sequence ‘Up Late’ – a profound meditation on a father’s dying, written over the course of his final days. Incredibly powerful and hugely moving.
Sorolla And The Paris Years (Ed. Blanca Pons-Sorolla+Maria Lopez Fernandez): My good friend Tony introduced me to the work of Spanish artist Joaquin Sorolla, 1863-1923 (after I’d posted a note about the British artist Harry Watson on FB). Very embarrassingly, I have to admit that I knew virtually nothing of his work (I know!) – despite the fact that he was an internationally-acclaimed artist who produced some 2,200-3,000 paintings during the course of his career (not to mention more than 20,000 drawings+sketches – including nearly 2,000 oil sketches!!). Thanks to our neighbour, the Central Library, I’ve now read this illustrated book about his life and his art (during his time in Paris) – which, I have to say, I thought was quite wonderful: confident brushwork and dazzling colour. Sorolla visited Paris for the first time in 1885 (shortly after turning 22) and he went on to flourish there – winning prizes and exhibiting in prestigious galleries. A very impressive and illuminating book on a brilliant artist.
This Is Happiness (Niall Williams): I read this on the recommendation of my very good friend Tony - big thanks Tony, AGAIN! (I’d begun to be somewhat melancholic in my observations about the world!). It’s a novel that recounts the story of the 17-year-old Noel Crowe (written from the perspective of now-78-year-old old man) who, after dropping out of the seminary, finds himself back in Faha, a small Irish parish “where nothing ever changes, including the rain”. The book is full of wonderful phrases, observation, humour and sadness – like many from Ireland, Williams definitely ‘has a way with words’! One reviewer described it thus: “Williams has the eye of a poet and the raconteur’s knack for finding a tale in the most unpromising nook of everyday life, as a now-adult Noel, summoning the Faha of his nostalgic imagination…”. It’s a beautiful, uplifting novel which I enjoyed immensely – one of those books you just don’t want to end. 

more august 2026 books…

The Water Table (Philip Gross): I’ve only recently come across Gross’s writing and was particularly drawn to this book as it includes several references to the Bristol Channel - “with shoals and channels that change with the forty-foot tide” – which I know well. Overall, I found his works hauntingly vivid and elegant… but have to admit that there were some sections that I found difficult to read aloud (the words felt somewhat awkward) and to fully appreciate - but perhaps that’s just me! I’ll continue to explore his poetry over the coming weeks/months.
A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess): Hard to believe that the film is more than 50 years old (1971). The novel (first published in 1962 – SIXTY-FOUR years ago!) tells the confessions of a 15-year-old delinquent, Alex, who – with his three friends – goes about creating violent mayhem in his wake. I bought the book second-hand a few years ago… started it, but didn’t finish it. I recall being put off by the ‘nadsat’ dialogue (eg. “Alex and his three droogs tolchock an old veck, razrez his books, pull off his outer platties and take a malenky bit of cutter”!). This time, I persevered (a little like attending a Shakespeare play and finding the first 5 minutes incredibly confusing and nonsensical… but then the words just suddenly start to make sense?). Brilliantly written and conceived – but a frightening portrayal of human choice between good and evil… and breathe!
Dog Day (Sarah Hayes): I appreciate that including a children’s book in my book blog might be regarded as cheating somewhat, but (thanks to Moira) I re-read this rather wonderful 2008 (blimey!) book – written by our good friend Sarah (Hannah’s mother-in-law!) and beautifully illustrated by Hannah to coincide with Hannah+Fee acquiring a dog (their cat Kitsu may have other ideas!). Goodreads described it thus: “Ben and Ellie have a new teacher. But wait a minute – the new teacher is a dog named Riff! With Riff in charge, reading, writing, and arithmetic are abandoned in favour of lessons in barking, scratching, and digging holes…”. I still think it’s a rather delightful book and re-reading it brought back lots of memories of doing so with our various grandchildren. Once again, it made me smile!
1989 (Val McDermid): Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, this was the first McDermid book I’ve read. Why has it taken me so long? As the title suggests, it’s something of a snapshot of a by-gone era – a time of Lockerbie, Hillsborough, when AIDS was ravaging the UK and when the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse. McDermid’s fictitious crime story is set against this genuine history… featuring investigative journalist Allie Burns battling against the gutter of the UK mass media. She stumbles over a story about HIV/AIDS that ends up taking her into a world of “skullduggery in the medical research labs and seismic rumblings behind the Iron Curtain”… including murder. It’s a page-turning thriller and I found it utterly compelling!
Good Work (EF Schumacher): I first read this book in 1981 (45 years ago!) and, on a whim, decided to re-read it – essentially to reflect on what Schumacher said about the plight of businesses all those years ago (and whether his views had proved valid or way ‘off beam’). What I’d forgotten was that, ‘in those days’, I used to highlight paragraphs and scribble notes all over the text (something I would never dream of doing today!). Reading the book was a reminder about how much has changed in the intervening years. Schumacher frequently used his Coal Board experiences to illustrate his points; emphasis is placed on the ‘battles’ between the coal and oil industries – and, for example, very little reference to environmental concerns… and, of course, all this was well before the world of the internet and AI. Fascinating to reflect on that very fact alone. Schumacher was clearly a very intelligent man, with lots of sensible and insightful opinions but, for me, much of the time in this book, he failed to keep my interest (eg. he frequently used too many examples – sometimes more than four - to illustrate his points!)… I wouldn’t have wanted to meet up with him for a beer! 

the summer book…

Moira and I escaped the heat and disappeared to the cool of the Watershed cinema to see Charlie McDowell’s adaptation of Tove Jansson’s 1972 book ‘The Summer Book’.
An elderly artist, her recently-widowed son and her 6-year-old granddaughter (Sophia) while away a summer together on a tiny island off the gulf of Finland.
The bulk of the film, like the book, is an account of the relationship between the old, cantankerous, cigarette-smoking woman (rather delightfully played by Glenn Close) and her grandchild… Frequently funny and full of candid, sometimes argumentative, conversations between them. The location is beautiful and their simple, isolated, summer lifestyle enviable. Nothing much actually happens but, in many ways, that’s the film’s charm.
Fundamentally, it’s a film which conveys thoughts about passing time, memory, wisdom, loss and nature and, like the book, I really enjoyed it.
PS: I first read this book more than 50 years ago and re-read again it last year (Jansson – who died in 2001, aged 86 – spent several summers living on the island). Jansson wrote the book a year after her mother’s death and she drew on the things that were most precious to her.  When I re-read the book last year, I was struck by the fact that, when I first read it, I wasn’t a grandparent… and now there are 6 grandchildren – three of them are adults!).

august 2026 books…

A House In Flanders (Michael Jenkins): I first read this book 32 years ago(!)… where did the time go/how did that happen? It’s set in the early 1950s (but was not published until 1992): a 14-year-old English youth is dispatched to France to live for a long summer with the ‘French side’ of his family. It contains the following lovely note from the author (who, incidentally, went on to study at Oxford, become a British diplomat, receive a knighthood and was made a KCMG in 1989): “This book is based on a real period in my boyhood, but the telling of it owes much to my imagination and any resemblance between the characters and persons now alive is both accidental and coincidental”! I’d long forgotten much of the book, but am so pleased to have re-discovered it. I really enjoyed reading about Jenkins’ coming-of-age experiences in Flanders and thought his elegant descriptions and portraits of the people he came across were really rather wonderful. A very pleasurable read.
Scratch City (Philip Gross): I’d not previously read any of Gross’s poetry, but was really impressed with this collection. As the title implies, these poems relate to city life (as it happens, he lives in Bristol!)… the everyday things that you see, but don’t notice perhaps? Gross’s words are frequently funny, challenging, haunting and unsettling… and I was duly impressed. I will definitely be seeking out more of his poetry.
The Ferryman And His Wife (Frode Grytten): I came across this book purely by chance, read it and really enjoyed it… and now my bookgroup has chosen it for its monthly book (theme: women in translation). No pressure then! It’s a tender, poetic, and meditative Norwegian novella. The ageing ferry driver Nils Vik wakes up knowing it is his final day alive and takes his boat out onto the fjord one last time. As he sails, deceased passengers - including his talking dog (I absolutely LOVED their conversations) and figures from his logbook - board the vessel to prompt reflections on his life… including Nils quietly waiting for his late wife, Marta, to join him on the boat. I thought it was quite, quite beautiful… a lovely treasure of a book.
Night (David Harsent): Yet another book of Harsent poetry… which, again, I read out loud to myself in my early mornings. There’s something about the way Harsent uses words that really works for me. The first part of the book is a sequence about a garden “in which the sureties of daylight become uncertain: dark, unsettling narratives about what wakes in us when we escape our day-lit selves to visit a place where the dream-like and the nightmarish are never far apart”. Powerful and thought-provoking.
The Rossettis (ed Carol Jacobi+James Finch): I bought this book (which accompanied the 2023 exhibition at Tate Britain) at the £5 Bookshop. I knew a fair amount about the art and writings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82), but far less about the work produced by Christina (1830-94) and Elizabeth, born Siddal (1829-62). The book explores the ‘ground-breaking careers’ of these three influential individuals in a series of new essays and illustrations surveying their work. A fascinating book of a fascinating time.

odyssey…

It was long (2hrs 53mins), it was loud… and, yes, it was impressive.
I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see Christopher Nolan’s film ‘Odyssey’ (Moira was put off by the film’s length) – featuring, among others, Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway.
You probably know the bones of the story: Odysseus, king of Ithaca, embarks on a perilous journey to return home after the Trojan War… but, crossing the Mediterranean Sea with his fellow soldiers, they soon find themselves battling not only the elements, but an array of deadly obstacles and mythical creatures along the way. Odysseus’s perilous homecoming journey after the ten-year-long Trojan War (plus his journey from Troy to Ithaca - lasting an ADDITIONAL ten years, during which time he encounters many perils and all of his crewmates are killed) – with the survivors no doubt suffering from PTSD. In Odysseus's long absence, he is presumed dead, leaving his wife Penelope and son Telemachus to contend with a group of unruly suitors competing for Penelope's hand in marriage.
Apparently, in 2018, BBC Culture polled ‘experts’ around the world to find literature's most enduring narrative… and Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ topped the list.
The film has received a high number of rave reviews and, yes, it WAS very impressive… but I’m afraid this type of ‘Hollywood blockbuster’ is really not for me.
I’m not really a fan of ‘action-packed drama’ at the best of times and, on top of that, old codger that I am(!), I’m afraid I often struggled with much of the hoarse, breathy, whispered tones of many of the actors (usually American, sorry!)… yes, it all sounds very dramatic, but actually leaves me wanting them to use sub-titles!
But, hey, if you’ve got the time, please go and see it for yourself.
PS: The afternoon screenings tend to attract a somewhat older audience(!) and, as you might imagine, this afternoon’s showing featured a fairly regular line of people making their way to the loo (not me, I hasten to add!).  

more july 2026 books...

Electric Shadow (Heidi Williamson): Apologies that my recent books have included quite a lot of poetry! I’ve been finding it a good way to start the day (especially sitting on our balcony, early in the morning, enjoying the emerging sun). I came across this book in the library (I’d never previously read anything by Williamson) – it was largely compiled during her time at a residency at the London Science Museum and explores less usual poetry subjects such as mathematics, chemistry and computer programming(!)… as well as space travel, electricity and evolution. Interesting, without being compelling.
Idle Thoughts Of An Idle Fellow (Jerome K Jerome): The author’s ‘Three Men In A Boat’ (first published in 1886) has long been a favourite of mine and so, having recently read Jenny Wren’s response to Jerome’s ‘Idle Thoughts’ book, it seemed only right that I should read the original for myself! Actually, having been a little disappointed by Wren’s book, I found this much more to my liking (with more of the typical ‘Three Men’ humour and tongue-in-cheek remarks… but also some surprising melancholic moments) – apart some of the horrible, dated, sexist remarks (eg. referring to men as the “intellectual sex”!). The author writes about all manner of subjects (eg. being ‘hard up’; vanity; weather; shyness etc) and frequently, rather like Ronnie Corbett’s meandering storytelling on tv, digresses from the subject in hand. An enjoyable, relaxing read (albeit very dated, of course!) and somewhat annoying at times!
Land (Maggie O’Farrell): I adore O’Farrell’s writing and, so, you won’t be surprised to hear that I absolutely LOVED this book. Set in 1865 on a windswept Irish peninsula (just a few years after the Great Hunger), it follows the life of a cartographer (and his family) mapping the scarred landscape for the British Ordnance Survey. I COULD write much more, but I think I’ll just leave this extract from the book’s cover to give a flavour of the novel: it’s “…about separation and reunion, tragedy and recovery, colonisation and rebellion. It is a story of buried treasure, overlapping lives, ancient woodland, persistent ghosts, a particularly loyal dog, and how, when it comes to both land and history, nothing ever goes away”. I really think you need to read it… it’s rather wonderful.
Fire Songs (David Harsent): As you might be aware, I’m a great lover of Harsent’s poetry. There’s something about his way with words that resonates for me… and I enjoy reading his poems out loud to myself in my early morning ponderings. That’s not to say that his poems aren’t challenging! This is how one reviewer described (accurately, in my view) this collection (published in 2014): “It delivers a stream of feverish, oneiric visions, of apocalypse brought about through war or environmental catastrophe or the boundless human capacity for self‑deception and bedevilment; and everywhere there’s the lick of flame – ‘it will be fire’ is a recurring line”. The poems aren’t all doom and gloom(!) but, a dozen years on, they still felt incredibly relevant to the daily turmoil of today’s troubled world.
A Different Kind Of Power (Jacinda Ardern): You might not like political memoirs (but I do!). For me, Ardern was an utter breath of fresh air during her term as New Zealand’s leader (2017-23) and she will no doubt continue to be an inspirational figure outside politics. Sincere, personable, intelligent, decent, respectful, and empathetic. The book provides a fascinating insight into the making of a politician, a mother and a head of state (and, typically, all done in an understated, honest and informative way). It underlines many of the challenges and difficulties that come with high political office (in her case, these included a pandemic, a volcano, floods, fires and shootings… climate change, child poverty, gun control, LGBTQ+ issues, international trade deals etc). But such roles take their toll and are almost impossible to sustain effectively for a prolonged length of time – when people in her position are not only having to withstand all the political pressures, but also the type of hate and abuse that get reported about on a daily basis. I was very sad to see her go. I very much enjoyed this memoir – informative, often quite funny… but also quite moving (one passage had me in tears)(I know!). What comes across is Ardern’s humanity and compassion. I read it in the week that Andy Burnham became the UK’s latest prime minister… it would be good to think that he might bring some of Ardern’s qualities to that office.

blue heron...

It seems like an awful long time since I last went to the Watershed (very nearly 2 months!), but I’m really pleased that I made the effort to go this afternoon.
I went to see Canadian film-maker Sophy Romvari’s excellent, powerful, painful film about a
Hungarian immigrant family grappling with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD - a behavioural condition in children and teens characterised by a persistent pattern of angry or irritable moods, argumentative and defiant behaviour, or vindictiveness).
On a flippant level (I’d never previously heard about such a condition – I was totally ignorant), it seemed to me to sum up the behaviour of a lot of children at the end of the long school summer holidays(!)… but it’s absolutely NOT. It’s an utterly awful disorder.
The film is set on Vancouver Island in the 1990s. A young girl, aged 7-8 years, named Sasha (Eylul Guven), lives with her two brothers and older teen half-brother Jeremy (Edik Beddoes). They’ve just arrived at their new house; their parents (played by Iringó Réti and Ádám Tompa) are Hungarian and, emotionally, they’re all really, really struggling. Jeremy is deeply troubled and his behavioural condition means he refuses to cooperate with his parents’ increasingly desperate requests. He behaves destructively and dangerously, threatening to burn the house down, and is often brought home by the police in handcuffs.
As you will appreciate, the film is NOT a bundle of laughs… but it IS utterly compelling and somewhat underplayed (thankfully) and definitely not ‘in the Hollywood style’.
In fact, the film is partly autobiographical - based on Romvari’s own childhood experiences with her own troubled brother… with the film’s Sasha being upset by Jeremy’s behaviour in a way that her brothers aren’t. The mysterious condition wounds Sasha as a child and even more so as an adult – with the adult Sasha (played by Amy Zimmer) working as a film-maker and played in flash-forward scenes (including videoing a panel of social workers discussing Jeremy’s case).  
I found it a very moving, dignified film which (in the words of CBC Arts review) “beautifully blends documentary and fiction to explore the slippery, often unreliable nature of childhood memory”. The kind of film that will linger in my memory (in a good way).