march 2026 books…

Penguin Modern Poets: Jackson, Nuttall+Wantling: First published in 1968 (Moira bought our copy the same year)… so, 58 years on, I’m not quite sure that the word ‘Modern’ in this Penguin series still applies! Once again, I read this book out loud to myself as one of my early morning routines. A real mixture of styles and, perhaps inevitably, some seemed somewhat dated… but enjoyable nonetheless.
Falling In Love (Donna Leon): When the world has lost its marbles, it’s probably time to read another crime novel(!)… and, of course, if it takes you to Venice in the process, then so much the better. This is another Commissario Brunetti story (I like him as a character… and his references to family life etc). This one involves an opera superstar (well used to adoring fans) at La Fenice in Venice one over-the-top anonymous admirer who inundates her with dozens of bouquets of yellow roses… in her dressing room and inside her locked apartment. She begins to fear for her safety and calls in an old friend. Enter Brunetti. Another enjoyable read.
Train Dreams (Denis Johnson): This is our next Storysmith bookgroup choice (which we’re reading and then seeing the film at 20th Century Flicks). First published in 2012, this novella tells the tale of a 1920s railroad worker, Robert Grainier. He’s an ordinary man – uneducated and unambitious, but a dependable worker – initially working preparing huge felled spruce trees for transportation down from Washington State. But it’s a fragile existence in the wilds of the frontier amid a world of bewildering changes. Indiscriminate, destructive forest fires are commonplace – and his wife and daughter fail to survive one of them). Grainier builds a makeshift shelter by the site of his destroyed home and falls into a grief that runs its long course, redefining him in the process as something of a recluse. Later, his dogged struggle is eased somewhat when he acquires a horse and wagon – which allows him to undertake odd jobs in the neighbouring town. It’s a book about nature, survival, sadness and grief. A tough, but rather beautiful book (I’ll be fascinated to see what the film version conjures up).
Paradise (Abdulrazak Gurnah): This is our next Blokes’ Book selection. This is a novel (first published in 1994) about an African boy's coming of age, a tragic love story, and a tale of the corruption of traditional African patterns by European colonialism. As a 12-year-old, Yusuf (in the decade before WW1), is sold by his father in repayment of a debt. From the simple life of rural Africa, Yusuf is thrown into the complexities of pre-colonial urban East Africa - a world in which Muslim Africans, Christian missionaries, and Indians from the subcontinent coexist in a fragile, subtle social hierarchy (with some communities fighting each other; trading safaris going badly wrong; and all this alongside the trials of adolescence). By the time he’s 18(?), Yusuf begins to comprehend the choices required of him but, just as he decides on the need to break free from his servitude under his so-called Uncle Aziz (“he isn’t my uncle!”), the German colonial forces invade and, instead of finding true freedom, a traumatized and desolate Yusuf chooses to run after the retreating German military column… and, almost certainly into a new form of bondage. A multi-layered, powerful novel about Africa on the brink of change. Hauntingly beautiful.
Legion (David Harsent): More early morning poetry. I came across Harsent poetry for the first time last month (‘Salt’) and was determined to read more of his work. This is a collection (first published in 2005) of various accounts of conflict from an unnamed war which, in a cruel irony, I started to read on the day the US+Israel launched bombs on Iran. Powerful - and frequently bleak - words that underline the starkness, pain and indiscriminate nature of conflict. Much food for thought.