The Fire Of Joy (Clive James): As you are probably already aware, James was one of my absolute heroes. This is an anthology of 80 or so poems that James, a highly gifted poet himself, recalled in the last months of his life. His vision had been impaired by surgery and he was unable to read but these were poems that he knew best and remarkably (for someone like me who can hardly recite any lines of poetry), that he was able to recall by heart. Although I very much enjoy reading poetry (and am usually able to sense a piece’s rhythm and timing), I frequently struggle with a poem’s meaning and/or the circumstances behind its composition (don’t even ask me about iambic pentameters!)… so, for me, this book is something of a treasure. James provides advice on how to read poetry (advocating that it should be read ‘out loud’ – with which I concur). He offers a commentary of each poem (sometimes a historical or critical note, sometimes background details regarding its author, or sometimes just a personal anecdote of the role the poem played in his life). Somewhat shockingly, perhaps, I have to admit that around half the poets were entirely new to me (no bad thing… and not all that surprising!). I know that it’s a book I’ll continue to dip into for years to come. It’s informative, entertaining and very lovely.
Homesick (Catrina Davies): This is a memoir/story of a personal housing crisis. Aged 31, barely making the rent and homesick for the landscape of her childhood, Davies moves away from the city (Bristol) and into a tiny, dilapidated shed in Cornwall. It doesn’t have a loo or any electricity… and it only has an outside tap. It’s an honest, stark, intelligent personal (and sometimes funny) story of survival and determination: the difficulties of finding affordable accommodation when the only jobs available pay the minimum wage… set against a backdrop of second homes, holiday homes and the “economic absurdities that seem to benefit only retirees and the rich: of landowners and their offshore advisers who pay minimal tax and minimum wage; of her sister’s family of five who, despite a reliable income, can only afford their own home by renting it out for three months each summer and moving into a tent” (as The Guardian’s Gavin Francis review describes it). The book is much more than a political rant (she describes the beauty of wildlife, nature, the sea, surfing, music, environment, friends and family… as well as her personal struggles), but it does include some telling, quite shocking details. For instance (and I could choose from a LOT of other extracts): “While the government gives private developers public money to build more houses, a million homes in the UK are empty… There are 9,000 second homes in Cornwall alone. Six and a half thousand of them don’t pay any council tax or business rates, because of something known as the ‘seaside loophole’. This loophole (small-business rate relief, introduced by the coalition government of 2013) costs Cornwall Council £11 million a year, while the sudden influx of people in the holidays puts a huge burden on services…”. An excellent, thought-provoking, beautifully-written book.
Such A Fun Age (Kiley Reid): This is our next Storysmith bookgroup’s book longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize). I read a review (from the ‘Spectator’) that described it as “a satire of white saviour syndrome, woke culture and virtue-signalling motherhood” and, although such descriptions are rather alien to me, I think it sums up the book pretty well. The scene is set very early in the book where a black baby-sitter in her mid-twenties is apprehended at a supermarket in Philadelphia for ‘kidnapping’ the white child she’s actually babysitting… her rich employer (in her early thirties and married to a local news anchor, with a social media career that has sprung from her knack for soliciting freebies via politely written letters) resolves to ‘make things right’. It’s essentially a tale of race, money and class. In truth, I’m not a great lover of ‘modern’ American novels (the dialogue sends to annoy me – sorry!) and, frankly (as someone who doesn’t have a phone capable of connecting to the internet!), I have something of a built-in resentment of people who have lives centred around their various apps and social media groups (I’m talking here about people who appear to ‘live’ on their phones) – both the babysitter and her employer (who I really didn’t like at all) have separate groups of their close girlfriends who are constantly offering online advice and inane chat (yes, I know I’m a dinosaur when it comes to technology!). There were lots of things that I enjoyed about the book (the author absolutely nails the ‘race, money+class’ issues; it’s frequently funny and often quite piercing; it’s very readable; and I loved the relationship/dialogue between the baby-sitter and her three year-old ‘charge’). But I wasn’t altogether convinced about the way the employer’s character was developed and I felt that the book’s plot seemed to owe far too much to amazing coincidence. In truth, I didn’t absolutely love this book (in fact, I found the first 100 pages quite annoying at times), but it did grow on me eventually… but I have a feeling that I’m likely to be in the minority as far as my bookgroup is concerned (maybe it’s just an age thing?).
Alexa, What Is There To Know About Love? (Brian Bilston): Moira gave me this book as a Valentine’s present (I know!). I have to admit that I hadn’t previously heard of Bilston (apparently dubbed the ‘poet laureate of twitter’), but this short book of poems is rather lovely (and frequently very funny). The quality varies (in my view)… there’s some pretty ordinary stuff, but there’s also some real gems. It’s one of those books that I’ll continue to dip into – especially when I need something to make me smile.
Neither Here Nor There (Bill Bryson): As you probably know, I’m a great lover of Bryson's books. This one, first published in 1991, is a book of his travels in Europe (he’d previously undertaken a tour of Europe with his outrageous friend Katz – who I’d previously come across in ‘A Walk In The Woods’ - in 1973)… starting a little north of Oslo and proceeding, gradually, to Istanbul. The journey takes in such places as Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Rome and Sofia (and many more) en route… mainly travelling by bus or rail and staying in hotels along the way. I’m just a few years older than Bryson and we share a similar love of beautiful places, nature, art, museums, cities, good food and drink… and also a somewhat intolerant view of littered streets, unhelpful people, queues, bad architecture, MacDonald’s and people who don’t stick to the rules(!). Bryson is forever, it seems, coming across places that exceed, in terms of beauty, any other place he’s ever seen in his life… and uses the word ‘splendid’ far too often (but I forgive him!). He’s forever complaining that his meal or a glass of beer cost him the equivalent of a king’s ransom… and has a wonderful way of describing people (especially waiters, the occasional receptionist and people manning ticket offices!). It’s frequently laugh-out-loud funny and, for me, was the perfect book to get me through February's cold and dark lockdown days!
