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- Next round of voting begins here. If you click on the book photos you will be taken to its Amazon page to find out more or buy…..
- To cast your vote choose a book (A or B) from each No. (1 to 13) and email to Valley Readers
- So simple!!!
THE RESULTS
No.1
A – “The Ashes of London” by Andrew Taylor
A medieval mystery, to quote the publisher’s blurb – ‘a city in flames’,
‘ a woman on the run ‘, ‘a killer seeking revenge’
NB this is a longish tale, 480 pages, but I found it a good read. Cannot vouch for the historical accuracy but no jarring elements, The Times Literary Supplement
compares his ability to portray a ‘vanished world’ to Hilary Mantel!
B – “The Japanese Lover” by Isabel Allende **THE WINNER** (11 votes to 2)
Originally published in 2015 in Spain, this is a much slimmer volume, 321
pages! The story of a hidden love affair, pieced together by the grandson and
care worker of an elderly lady who receives mysterious gifts and letters; which
reveal the secret passion that has endured for almost seventy years.
This is the kind of book that ‘stays with you’.
No.2
A – “Little Boy Lost” by Marghanita Laski **THE WINNER** (7 votes to 6)
Written in 1949, the image of a deeply divided post-war France, still prostate from its brutal invasion, it is brilliantly and chillingly evoked. Laski’s sharp intelligence foretold how difficult the process of restoring French pride would be, yet she remained an optimist. As the 1949 Daily Mail reviewer wrote: the novel ‘takes in its sweep, without ever halting the story, the whole tragedy of post-war corruption – yet still leaves one with faith.’
A beautifully written story and only 232 pages!
B – “Gut” by Giulia Enders
The Times said ‘ the world’s most surprising page-turner. A publishing sensation that …. sets out to free toilet talk from its taboo.’ This book reveals the latest science on how much our digestive system has to offer. This really is a good, light read, written with charm and childlike enthusiasm, both funny and informative. 262 pages
No.3
A – “The Jane Austen Book Club” by Karen Joy Fowler
This book may be too lightweight for some, but it would make a good, short summer read. The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler has had mixed reviews, none of which call it a masterpiece. A small book club of 5 women and 1 man meet each month, as we do, and the story follows them through six months of Jane Austen’s books. It is a story of relationships, affairs and other traumas but all in the context of these books.
B – “The Cemetery of Secrets” by David Hewson **THE WINNER** (10 votes to 3)
Longer, more complicated and much darker. The Cemetery of Secrets by David Hewson is set in and around Venice. It starts in the present day but the actions of the protagonist (and a violin), take him back to the early 18th century. Parallel stories of “passion, betrayal and danger collide”. Vivaldi’s Venice to the modern day with intrigue, cultural history and a bit of detective work.
No.4
A – “A Man Called Ove” by Frederik Backman **THE WINNER** (7 votes to 6)
This Swedish writer is a journalist. He introduces a man whom some might call the neighbour from hell, a curmudgeon, picking others up for the slightest faults as he potters round his community. I’m not selling it am I? Sounds like my father-in-law, at least that was my thought to begin with. Ove exasperated me at first. You’re in his mind. You may not like it but initially you see things through his eyes. He’s anal. Then this beautifully crafted novel introduces other characters (some immigrants to Sweden and other odd bods) and with it come their perspectives of him, a better understanding of him, a huge empathy with and sympathy for him. His wife. I won’t say any more, that’s part of the poignancy. And, as more of his complicated and detailed backstory surfaces, you understand him better and also start to laugh. Actually, you’ll laugh and you’ll cry. I did both. It has beautifully black humour but at the same time is almost unbearably moving – and in the end very life-affirming.
B – “Exposure” by Helen Dunmore
She was both a poet and an author of very engrossing and page-turning, diverse fiction. I heard her speaking on the radio last spring just before she died (at 64). She had just finished her final book. But I thought this one might be more enjoyable. Click Here for review
No.5
A – “The Trouble with Goats and Sheep” by Joanna Cannon
453 pages (big print) in paperback by Borough Press. Sunday Times Bestseller
The goats and sheep are metaphorical, from a bible reference. It is really about how to sort out good people from bad people. Quote from back cover:
“ten-year- olds Grace and Tilly decide to investigate the matter of missing person Mrs. Creasy. But as doors and mouths begin to open and the cul-de-sac starts giving up its secrets, the amateur detectives find more than they could have imagined…..”
“quirky, moving and beautifully written tale of 1970’s Britain (the long hot summer of ’76)” – brought back memories for me
“Part whodunnit, part coming of age, this is a gripping debut about the secrets behind every door”.
“A very special book that makes us think about ourselves and others more deeply….a terrific pageturner”.
If you have already read ‘Goats and Sheep’ you might prefer something more stimulating/challenging, so see below.
B – “La Casa de Bernarda Alba” by Ferderico Garcia Lorca **THE WINNER** (8 votes to 5)
91 pages in Spanish edition (including Introduction in English), Hispanic Texts, Manchester University Press. Or if you prefer to read it in English, available from Kindle in 3 different English translations, cheapest 99p. All have 5 full stars.
The Manchester edition has an extensive vocabulary at the back, and helpful notes as well as the Introduction. This 3-act play was finished just 2 months before Lorca’s murder by the Fascists at the age of 38. It is considered to be his greatest masterpiece.
“The theme of vitality and repression…. takes on a clearer social dimension in the ‘drama de mujeres en los pueblos de Espana’, with the presentation of a household of 5 unmarried daughters tyrannised by their mother’s excessive concern with social class and obscurantist village morality.”
It is a tale of jealousy and love and murder and suicide. It is almost a video of late 19th C. village life in the towns of Fuente Vaqueros and Valderrubia where Lorca grew up, just about 20 km. north-west of Granada.
The play is fictional, but the Albas were a close branch of Lorca’s family, and the actual house of the play still exists, just around the corner from the Lorca house in Valderrubios. If enough of you were interested, we could perhaps organise a guided visit to the small museums in the houses in each of the little towns. The countryside is quite flat and perhaps not much changed from the ‘campo’ of his plays, and the houses still contain some of the original furniture and artifacts, as well as writings by and about Lorca.
No.6
A – “Small Great Things” by Jodi Picoult **THE WINNER** (10 votes to 3)
She is one of my favourite authors as I find her writing easy-to-read without being ‘simple’, whilst the stories are well-researched and quite gripping. Her characterisations are extremely rounded and mostly credible.
This novel has a somewhat current theme of race and prejudice and may therefore resonate?
Brief content:
Kennedy McQuarrie is a lawyer who defends those who would otherwise be helpless, and would not consider herself a racist by any means.
When a white supremacist accuses Ruth of a crime that leads to the death of his new-born baby, and costs Ruth her job, Kennedy knows it is the kind of case she became a lawyer to win.
As the trial unfolds and the efforts to establish the truth about what happened in the hospital continue, all three – accused, accuser and defender – will be forced to confront much bigger truths: the truths they tell themselves about the world they live in, the values upon which they’ve raised their families and the beliefs around which they’ve lived their lives.
Never afraid to confront the moral dilemma of our times in the most human terms, SMALL GREAT THINGS is Jodi Picoult at her thought-provoking, life-affirming best.
B – “Elizabeth is missing” by Emma Healey
(323 pages)
She is a new author and I found the approach to her first novel a little unusual. It is a funny, yet touching read.
Brief content:
Meet Maud.
Maud is forgetful. She makes a cup of tea and doesn’t remember to drink it. She goes to the shops and forgets why she went. Sometimes her home is unrecognizable – or her daughter Helen seems a total stranger.
But there’s one thing Maud is sure of: her friend Elizabeth is missing. The note in her pocket tells her so. And no matter who tells her to stop going on about it, to leave it alone, to shut up, Maud will get to the bottom of it.
Because somewhere in Maud’s damaged mind lies the answer to an unsolved seventy-year-old mystery. One everyone has forgotten about.
Everyone, except Maud . . .
No.7
A – “Guerra” by Jason Webster **THE WINNER** (10 votes to 3)
Following Duende and Andalus, Jason Webster embarks on a journey across Spain, this time in order to look at the Spanish Civil War and explore its lasting effects upon modern Spain in his own uniquely adventurous way. He looks at the brutality and the humanity that engulfed the nation during the years of battle between fascism, communism and democracy, and investigates the unspoken taboo that still suppresses open discussion of that bloody period amongst the Spanish to this day. Written with passion and an insider’s knowledge of the country, Guerra will raise the question: Could the divisions that led to the Civil War still be simmering under the surface, and is it possible that they may yet erupt again? [308 pages]
B – “The Lavender Keeper” by Fiona McIntosh
Provence, 1942 Luc Bonet, brought up by a wealthy Jewish family in the foothills of the French Alps, finds his life shattered by the brutality of Nazi soldiers. Leaving his abandoned lavender fields behind, Luc joins the French Resistance in a quest for revenge. Paris, 1943 Lisette Forestier is on a mission: to work her way into the heart of a senior German officer, and to infiltrate the very masterminds of the Gestapo. But can she balance the line between love and lies? The one thing Luc and Lisette hadn’t counted on was meeting each other. Who, if anyone, can be trusted – and will their own emotions become the greatest betrayers of all?[512 pages]
No.8
A – “Circling the Sun” by Paula McLain **THE WINNER** (7 votes to 6)
The author of ‘Paris Wife’ takes us to the heart of another true story: set in the 1920’s colonial Kenya, ‘Circling the Sun’ is about an unforgettable woman who lives by nobody’s rules but her own. She was the daughter of Edwardian England, transplanted to Kenya as a young girl by parents who dreamed of life on an African farm. But by the time Beryl Markham was sixteen, that dream had fallen apart. Catapulted into a disastrous marriage, she emerged from its wreckage with one idea, to take charge of her own destiny. ‘Circling the Sun’ takes us from the brittle glamour of the 1920’s Happy Valley set, fuelled by gin and adulatory, to the loneliness of life as a scandalous divorcee, from the spectacular beauty of the Kenyan landscape to the manicured lawns of Nairobi’s Muthaiga Club. Dazzlingly beautiful, brace, passionate and reckless, Beryl is an unforgettable heroine, whose tragic loss in love compels her to pursue her own dream – of flight and freedom.[385 pages]
B – “Gray Shadows” by Julia Gousseva
(Born and raised in Moscow, she grew up through the social, economic and political changes of the early 1990’s. She now lives in Arizona)
From Amazon the first part of a very long synopsis:
When Nikolai Volkov finished his military service in Cechnya, he expected a calm civilian life. But life in post- Soviet Moscow was more turbulent than he had ever experienced outside a war zone. With the new business opportunities brought about by the budding democracy, Moscow saw an unprecedented spike in violent crime. As Nikolai looked for a way into this new life he discovered an urgent need for a new paramilitary profession of a bodyguard…….
No.9
A – “ Together” by Julie Cohen **THE WINNER** (9 votes to 4)
“On a morning that seems just like any other, Robbie wakes in his bed, his wife Emily asleep beside him, as always. He rises and dresses, makes his coffee, feeds his dogs, just as he usually does. But then he leaves Emily a letter and does something that will break her heart. As the years go back all the way to 1962, Robbie’s actions become clearer as we discover the story of a couple with a terrible secret – one they will do absolutely anything to protect.”
“This is not a great love story. This is a story about great love.”
(I have just finished reading this book and enjoyed it very much. I found it to be tender, poignant and well written, without being a ‘typical’ love story. The ‘secret’ is very well kept until the end.)[353 pages]
B – “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows
It’s 1946 and Juliet Ashton can’t think what to write next. Out of the blue, she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey – by chance, he’s acquired a book that once belonged to her – and, spurred on by their mutual love of reading, they begin a correspondence. When Dawsey reveals that he is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, her curiosity is piqued and it’s not long before she begins to hear from other members. As letters fly back and forth with stories of life in Guernsey under German Occupation, Juliet soon realizes that the society is every bit as extraordinary as its name.
(I read this a few years ago and loved it. I enjoyed the way the story was told entirely through letters.)[274 pages]
No.10
A – “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead **THE WINNER** (8 votes to 5)
This brand new book (published in June) has so many plaudits its remarkable, and is in the process of winning lots of awards, including the Pulitzer. Set against the backdrop of slavery in America’s south it tells the story of escape from a southern plantation using this ingenious route. People are likening elements to Kafka, Toni Morrison and Marquez, so even if you aren’t a fan of the historical insight it provides it is so well written I would strongly recommend it. Apparently, I am in good company, as a certain African-American ex-President is raving about it as a portrait of race in America…..
B – “Catherine of Aragon” by Giles Tremlett
Tremlett will be known to most of us from his Ghosts of Spain which gave an unusual insight into a country we have all enjoyed getting to know ourselves, and this book comes very highly recommended. Catherine of Aragon spent much of her childhood in Granada, before setting off for England, and so this account gives us our local fix as well as taking us through the life of a very steely woman who had to bear far more than she is credited for. If you have read any other of the biographies of her life, then you know that Catherine is perhaps the most interesting of Henry VIII’s wives, and this book is well written and eminently readable.
No.11
A – “Sweet Tooth” by Ian McEwan
Set in 1972, when the cultural Cold War was still raging. In the novel, a low-grade MI5 officer, Serena Frome, is asked by her bosses to check out whether they should fund the work of Tom Haley, a promising young writer. What follows is an engrossing story about their relationship, about betrayal, and – fascinatingly – about the writing process itself. The story is told in hindsight from the present day by Serena herself. In an interview with the author at the time of publication, McEwan revealed that the impetus for writing Sweet Tooth had been a way of writing a disguised autobiography about his own life as a writer in the 1970s. Sweet tooth is not a spy novel in the traditional sense. The real story is one of romance between two, well-meaning and honest young people from the British middle class. One happens to be a promising writer prepared to criticise conventional Left-wing thinking and who needs to make a living; the other an inexperienced intelligence officer tasked with providing this living from Government funds without telling her writer-lover of Government (ie Security Service) involvement. And so the deception begins: initially a small, unavoidable omission of fact which risks eventually bringing the love affair, in all other respects destined for success, to a messy end.
B – “Instructions for a Heatwave” by Maggie O’Farrell **THE WINNER** (10 votes to 3)
A novel about a family crisis set during the legendary British heatwave of 1976.
I read an interview with Maggie O’Farrell. In it she said that she couldn’t recall a time when she didn’t stammer, when she didn’t fear the spoken word. O’Farrell is convinced that her stammer helped her to become a writer, “after the minefield of speech, watching words flow without pause from your pen or cursor is a keen, pure joy” Despite the link, O’Farrell’s stammer has never made it into one of her novels. However, whilst writing Instructions for a Heatwave, she felt that the youngest of the three siblings in the novel required some kind of curse. Around the same time the authors own son was diagnosed with dyslexia. It seemed to her that dyslexia was a close relative of the stammer, a stammer in it’s written form. She then wondered how it would be, to be a dyslexic before the condition was properly recognised. The novel is about a family with disastrous communication skills, they talk a lot without telling each other anything important. The cursed character became Aoife (Ee-fa), an undiagnosed dyslexic, stranded in a time of ignorance and condemnation, an adult who can’t read and is committed to pretending to all around her that she can. The dyslexia is borrowed from the authors son, but Aoife’s lifelong act of fear and concealment is lifted directly from O’Farrell’s own stammer.
No.12
A – “Hagseed” by Margaret Atwood
It is a re-telling of ‘The Tempest’ but do not be put off by this, it is an easy read centring on a successful but small time theatre director called Felix who having been knifed in the back by a colleague lands up teaching Shakespeare in a prison and begins to plot his revenge on those who have wronged him. Margaret Atwood is regarded as one of Canada’s most famous living writers. She has written several books of poetry and sixteen novels, the most famous of which is probably ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and was nominated for the Booker three times eventually winning it with her tenth novel in 2000 (her fourth nomination) for ‘The Blind Assassin’.
B – “Canada” by Richard Ford **THE WINNER** (7 votes to 6)
Richard Ford who is himself American. It has a great opening line ‘First I’ll tell you about the robbery our parents committed, then about the murders which happened later’. It tells the story of how 15 year old Dell Parson’s life is spectacularly derailed by a single uncharacteristic act by his mother and father, namely a bank robbery. The story starts in a 1950’s one horse town in Montana and moves to a ‘half a horse’ town just over the border in Canada as the consequences of the bank robbery play out. It is an interesting study of the consequences of a sudden tragic rupture in the fabric of an ordinary family’s life.
No.13
A – “Our Little Secrets” by Roz Nay **THE WINNER** (9 votes to 4)
Our Little Secret is a twisted tale of love, pain, and revenge that will stay with the reader long after they turn the last page. They say you never forget your first love. What they don’t say though, is that sometimes your first love won’t forget you…
(winner of thriller award and highly acclaimed first novel.)
B – “The Power” by Naomi Alderman
This is a modern equivalent of the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and I thought we could read the Alderman text and compare them… or watch one and read the Alderman.
Just Saying Once 