Run Riot (Nikesh Shukla): I’ve previously read occasional stuff Shukla’s written for the Guardian, but this is the first book of his I’ve read (I bought two books after hearing/meeting him at the formal opening of our wonderful new Local bookshop “StorySmith Books”). It’s a novel he conceived and drafted before the tragedy in Grenfell Tower in 2017 which, strangely, makes the story even more compelling and frightening.17 year-old twins and their parents were forced to move to a city tower block… they’d been forced to move there when their rent was doubled overnight and the father’s chemo meant he was unable to work. They make the best of the situation and ultimately regard the tower as their home and their community. But then they start noticing boarded-up flats and glossy fliers for expensive apartments… sinister truths begin to emerge… and they end up having to stand up for themselves and their community. This is a thriller, set in real time, with multiple narratives, in a single location… and surprisingly (for me at least – given its gangland setting and the violent intimidation from representatives of the establishment and even the police), it’s a YA (Young Adult) novel. It’s a powerful and, at times, pretty scary story by a very impressive writer.
A Distant View Of Everything (Alexander McCall Smith): My second of McCall Smith’s “Isabel Dalhousie novels”. I like McCall Smith as a writer but, I have to say, I was a little underwhelmed (bored even!) by this book. Dalhousie is a well-off, intelligent, middle-class philosopher, living in Edinburgh, with a perfect husband and two young sons… but there’s part of me that just wanted to scream at the main character and her world of moral curiosity, kindness and, frankly, interfering, too-good-to-be-trueness! Clearly, McCall Smith is able to churn such books out with ease… and that’s what came across to me with this book (he didn’t really have to stretch himself). Sorry.
Chinese Whispers (Peter May): The final book of May’s six-book ‘China Thrillers’. Another excellent murder mystery – this time involving the so-called ‘Beijing Ripper’. Very cleverly devised, well researched and, very definitely, another page-turner (I read the 450-page novel in little more than a day!). However, I felt the final ending was just a little too contrived for my liking, but very good nevertheless. I’ve very much enjoyed the series.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (Raymond Carver): A book of short stories, first published in the USA in 1981. All are set in north-west America “among the lonely men and women who drink, fish and play cards to ease the passing of time” (as the book cover describes it). Carver himself died of cancer in 1977 at the age of 50; he was born into a poverty-stricken family at the tail-end of the Depression and was the son of a violent alcoholic; he married at 19, started a series of menial jobs and his own career of 'full-time drinking as a serious pursuit', a career that would eventually kill him. After the first couple of stories, somewhat ridiculously perhaps, I was put in mind of some of Trump-supporting characters that featured in Ed Balls’ recent television documentary about the US President! I frequently struggled to come to terms with Carver’s colloquial language but, despite this, found it hauntingly compelling.
The Librarian (Salley Vickers): The novel starts in 1958 and concerns a young woman who has taken up a job as a children’s librarian in a run-down library in a small market town – with a view to firing the enthusiasm of its children. Vickers is the same age as me and I was able to relate to the world she described (but I was never a ‘reader’ as a child and certainly didn’t grow up in a small market town). Although I found much of the book rather too nostalgic and sugar-coated for my liking (I suspect Vickers deliberately adopted a writing style that matched the period times but, on occasions, it felt like reading something written by Enid Blyton!), I was very pleased I persevered. It touches on our changing society, on politics (closing down libraries!), on education, on the importance of reading as a vital way of stimulating imagination and, amongst other things, on families and relationships… and also reflecting on all of this from the perspective of maturity and experience (which, of course, I have in abundance!).
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