june 2025 books…

There Are Rivers In The Sky (Elif Shafak): This is our latest Storysmith book choice (theme: water). Our bookgroup meets on the first Wednesday of each month and so, at 480 pages long, it represented a challenge to read it in such limited time (but, of course, some of us don’t have jobs to go to!). The novel connects a lost poem, two rivers (Thames and Tigris) and three people linked across space and time - whose lives intertwine from Victorian London to modern-day Turkey. It’s an ambitious, absorbing, fable of a book which, surprisingly, I read it quite quickly. Typical of Shafak, the tale is clearly the result of much detailed research, but I frequently found her rather overly-descriptive style somewhat pretentious or even show-offy. I often struggled with its magical-realist/fable narrative (which reminded me of her book “The Island of Missing Trees”, which I’d read last year). I also found the links between the three characters’ stories a little too contrived. I liked the fact that each of the chapters was devoted to one of the three characters but, overall, found the characters and plot (and often the dialogue) somewhat unconvincing. Enjoyable, but did I love it? Well, not quite…
Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes (Billy Collins): Collins is one of my favourite poets – funny, profound and observing incidental details of life. I’ve been using these poems (first published in 1988) as part of early morning routine and have found much pleasure in re-reading them (I first came across them more than 10 years ago).
William – An Englishman (Cicely Hamilton): First published in 1919. It’s a novel about a couple honeymooning in the remote hills of the Belgium Ardennes when the First World War is declared. William and Griselda, both passionate activists in the Suffragette movement (‘cocksure, contemptuous, intolerant, self-sacrificing after the manner of their kind’) are completely unaware that this major conflict had erupted, literally on their doorstep. The both held a naïve belief that the likelihood of any future world war breaking out on mainland Europe was remote in the extreme. Clearly, they were in for a severe shock! The situation made me reflect on what’s happening in our world today (more than 110 years on). How many UK citizens would realistically believe that we might soon find ourselves fighting another major conflict that would utterly disrupt (or worse!) our lives here in Western Europe? Given Trump’s unpredictable tendencies, you wouldn’t rule ANYTHING out. I’ll resist saying much more as far as the story is concerned (*no spoilers!*)… except that I found it a very impressive, powerful and harrowing novel (which owes much to the author’s experiences volunteering in northern France… in the words of the book’s preface: “organising concerts to entertain the troops, the sound of gunfire a nightly accompaniment to her scribbling”).
Inside The Wave (Helen Dunmore): I keep coming back to this book and, once again (like the Billy Collins’ book), I’ve been reading it (out loud to myself) as part of my early morning routine. Helen Dunmore died in 2017, aged 65 and this book of poems is her final collection. They address the borderline between the living and the dead… and relate to her interest in landscape and the sea but, crucially, about her personal experience of dying (she knew she was dying of cancer). Once again, I found the book both eloquent and moving. As I noted in a previous blog post, Dunmore and I shared two connections: living in Bristol and loving St Ives.
One Day I Shall Astonish The World (Nina Stibbe): I like Stibbe’s writing style and humour, but really didn’t get on with the last book of hers I read (‘Reasons To Be Cheerful’). So I approached this one with a little apprehension. It’s about two women, Susan+Norma, who’ve been ‘best friends’ ever since they worked in a haberdashery shop in 1990s Leicestershire. The story deals with their loves, work and friendship over the next 30 years. I found the main character, Susan Faye Warren, opinionated and annoying at times (as well as frequently funny). Actually, it was fine. Amusing and silly – which was what I need at the present time, given all that’s currently go on in the world!