It’s the story of an ark – a huge ship built to preserve some of humanity from a futuristic world of privation, anarchy and death. Emphasis on 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦, and that’s where the moral drama lies. The story is told from the point of view of the daughter of the ‘Noah’ character, who becomes an increasingly critical voice, worrying what will happen to the world they have left behind, whether it was justified to leave, and what will happen in the future when the bounty of the ship starts to run out.

This is a book that has elements of fable but at the end of the day feels very real. The protagonist is a believable 17 year old, finding out who she is at the same time as dealing with loss and uncertainty. The other passengers are drawn like tiny detailed portraits – we see only a little of them, but a lot of humanity is revealed in one glance. The themes of the book are built on and built on as the stakes get higher towards the end, there is wonderful ocean imagery – and the ending… was the only one possible.

Recommend for anyone who wants a smidge of fable woven into a sadly believable reality.

It tells the story of Eileen O’Shaughnessy, often to date in history referred to only as author George Orwell’s ‘first wife’. In an imaginatively constructed melee of historical research, fictional narrative (though based on the research), and personal memoir/reflection, Anna Funder brings to life a woman who played a very significant role in history and literature, and yet is wilfully forgotten by both. Such is the patriarchy.

I was more shocked by the discoveries of this book than I expected to be – not just in some fairly difficult revelations about Orwell’s own conduct towards women in his personal life, but in the means by which Eileen’s role in history was covered up. Funder, in her writing, becomes a connoisseur of ‘reading beyond the passive voice’. If a job came up or an exit visa was found, or indeed a manuscript was planned, edited and typed, you can more or less assume that there is an unnamed woman behind it, doing the work.

There were so many quotes in this book that I would like to save, but have not yet done so because I listened to it as an audiobook, while on the move. For now, one sentence that has really stayed with me is something like ‘we are all part fact and part fiction’. Funder does not set out to vilify Orwell. She is very aware (as an author herself) that writers put their best selves into their work, and they themselves cannot always be their best self. There is a divide between author and work, between ideas put forward and private conduct, between who we are and who we would like to be.

A fascinating book, highly recommend.

I found this such a gripping read. We follow Ann Stilwell, who flees a mysterious and troubled past to work in gothic art museum The Cloisters, and falls in with charismatic but equally troubled colleagues who have an academic obsession with tarot and divination.

It is a beautifully sinister study of obsession, toxicity (of both plants and people…) and the role of fate versus free will. 

“Dying now would be a waste, given how much time I spent learning how to live.”

– A Month In Siena by Hisham Matar

The amount of emotional, poetic and critical punch packed by this short book is amazing. It explores the month spent wandering Sienese streets and looking at Sienese art that the author spent as a retreat after returning from his Libyan homeland, having tragically failed to find his disappeared father.

Within the calm of Siena’s walls Matar recounts conversations had with strangers and with acquaintances new and old, and critiques the art he sees with a light and philosophical hand. The themes are love and death, and the art that winds about the two.

I can’t stop thinking about this book. Highly, highly recommend –

I loved the hook of this novel, which has a wonderful air of mystery surrounded by very human feeling. Set in Georgian London, we meet Bess Bright, a lower class young woman, who leaves her newborn daughter at the Foundling Hospital so that it can be well cared for, intending to save money to then reclaim her later. But when she returns after six years, she discovers that her daughter is gone – reclaimed (apparently), the day after she was brought to the hospital, by none other than… Bess Bright. 

There was a lot I really liked about this book, and a few quibbly thoughts. The latter did not end up impacting how engaging I found the read, but I did nevertheless find my reactions interesting.

The novel is told from two perspectives – that of Bess, and that of Alexandra, a slightly older and very much richer mother, who takes Bess on as a nursemaid. I particularly enjoyed reading from Bess’ perspective – her voice felt authentic and likeable, and the lives of the poorer half of London felt very real through her eyes. Alexandra was also interesting, being a protagonist who I found ultimately unlikeable – yet who still had me wanting to turn pages. 

The descriptions of life in Georgian London seemed well researched and were engagingly described, such that I felt immersed both in the gritty, narrow passages of Bess’ slope-floored home within the city walls, and in Alexandra’s stately but lonely three floor house in Bloomsbury. 

In terms of quibbles, I did feel that there were some about-turns for both main characters towards the end which for me could have benefitted from some earlier set-up, in the form of reader insight into the critical motivations, inner lives, choices and changes that each character was experiencing. We do experience some of that, with Alexandra’s backstory in particular, but I did still find the ending a little abrupt. 

I think part of why this was, structurally, is that the two perspectives were told in big chunks, rather than skipping between both in a faster way. So the whole beginning of the novel is from Bess’ perspective and a big chunk of the middle from Alexandra’s, and by the time we come back to Bess there have been some really crucial things happening to her that we have had no direct sight of, because we haven’t been in her head. Equally, Alexandra’s choices at the end do not seem to match up well to the choices she makes all the way through the book, because we are apart from her at a really critical time for her character development around the 75% mark – and I think I would personally have enjoyed a more gradual and explicit transition. 

That said, I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it. It’s well-told historical fiction, with an intimate cast, and a really good hook that has you wondering from the get go.

A touch of the magic of the natural world runs through this book (which I very much enjoyed), though I would say that for me the book sits firmly in historical fiction rather than speculative. There’s also a strong sense of place – with one of the links between the women being the village of Crow’s Beck in Cumbria. Another overarching theme is women’s experience across the centuries, and the book is unapologetic in portraying the hard and dark side of that experience. It’s worth noting some trigger warnings around abuse, assault and pregnancy. 

I found this book a really engaging read which I struggled to put down – particularly in the latter half where the three stories really being to entwine, and mysteries start getting solved. For me I would say it’s a little less of a character or prose driven book, and more one driven by its strong themes, gripping plot lines which have you rooting for the characters, and clever weaving together of different time periods. I would very much recommend it for that.

What did you recently finish reading?
What are you currently reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

RECENTLY FINISHED

1. “Best of Friends” by Kamila Shamsie (review). This was a five-star read for me – a brilliant exploration of female friendship and experience in multiple realms: the street, power, politics, ambition, home, love and friendship.
2. “The Memory of Animals” by Claire Fuller (review). This is a dystopian suspense thriller, and while I found the reading experience bleak in some ways (it’s set in a very bad pandemic), I also found it imaginative, characterful, gripping and sometimes very moving.
3. “The Ladies of Grace Adieu” by Susanna Clarke. Whimsical short stories set in the world of “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell” – a fun read.

CURRENTLY READING

1. “Weyward” by Emilia Hart. I’ve just started the e-book, having been intrigued by the little I know of the book – three perspectives of women in different time periods, linked by a particular village in Cumbria UK, and some witchiness!
2. “The Jasmine Throne” by Tasha Suri. I started reading this last autumn and didn’t have enough time to do it justice, but really enjoying sitting down with it now. It’s a sapphic epic fantasy in a beautifully imagined world.

READING NEXT

I’m a mood reader so any plans for what I’m reading shortly come with caveats… but I do know I want to read “Small Things Like These” soon, as I’m late to the party, it’s short, I have heard so many good things about it, and think I will be in the mood for something beautiful and uplifting – which I think this will be!

The story is told in first person, from the point of view of Neffy, a volunteer in a trial to develop a vaccine for the pandemic that sweeps the world outside her hospital room. 

In the vaccine ward, only five volunteers (and no staff) remain, hidden from the apocalyptic world outside. It’s an insular, claustrophobic atmosphere, where subtle power plays abound, and there is an increasing sense of secrets kept. 

The main action progresses in a linear way, with the present tense of the narrative voice lending immediacy to the suspenseful dystopian drama. Interspersed within this narrative are flashbacks (engineered through an imaginative plot device) which plunge Neffy into scenes from her past, and enable us to piece together her wider story. 

The main narrative is also broken by letters written by Neffy to a captive octopus which she became close to in her previous job as an aquarist. These start quite whimsical but gain in seriousness as the novel progresses, lending weight to the exploration of the theme of captivity or incarceration. 

My reaction

I found the novel fast paced and a page-turner, finishing it quickly within a day. I enjoyed the imaginative devices used, including the octopus storyline, which at points I found very moving. I also thought the theme was interesting and creatively explored, and the characters were very well imagined. I sometimes struggled with the dystopian setting, simply because the apocalypse was so very bad that the scale of tragedy outside of the main characters made my reading experience feel at times quite bleak, and the small rays of hope felt very small indeed. This can however easily be remedied with something more uplifting for my next read!

Quotes

“From my window, I watch a piece of litter blow slowly from one end of the alley to the other. Its meandering journey is a take of doubling back and indecisiveness, while all the time having no choice but to be pushed forward because the invisible wind says to go back is only an illusion.”

‘The Memory of Animals’, Claire Fuller. p.206.