A beautifully written complicated love story: a child searching for love after being abandoned by her mother, and falling in love with a neighbour boy who can’t reciprocate what is for her an obsessive love.
The Light Between Oceans – ML Stedman
Another sad story about the consequences of lies and guilt, set in Western Australia in the 1920s.
The Shining Girls – Lauren Beukes
A serial killer and time travel, for an imaginative thriller.
Ghana Must Go – Taiye Selasi
A sad story of an estranged family reunited by the death of the husband/father; story in both Africa and America. Issues of (no) communication and secrets.
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
Introspective book about relationships (my favourite topic); a single woman teacher and a Lebanese-Parisian family of three. The “woman upstairs” is a female construct – quiet, polite and causes no trouble; because of putting oneself down, becomes invisible and discounted. There is a terrific section describing the difference between longing and desire.
Trans Atlantic by Colum McCann
Trans Atlantic is a wistful Irish-American story that follows 4 generations of women. A beautiful book. (previous book = Let The Great World Spin) –
The Pope’s Bookbinder by David Mason
A memoir by a book lover, a book binder (briefly) but mostly a book seller in Toronto. As a memoir, mostly filled with anecdotes but a wistful look at the era of second hand bookshops that is disappearing.
Falling Angels by Barbara Gowdy
Another dysfunctional family book with abusive father, an alcoholic mother who dropped/threw a child into Niagara Falls (postpartum depression?) and three sisters who are the focus (how children cope). There is a chapter entitled Disneyland which is superb black humour; the next chapter is heartbreaking. Gowdy also wrote Fearless about a 9 year old girl who is abducted; the abductor is delusional and obsessed but amazingly becomes somewhat sympathetic because he tries to suppress his pedophilic tendencies. Both these books are tough reads but excellent.
September 2013
Notable titles:
- Winter’s End by Mark Helprin;
- The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman;
- Old Filth by Jane Gardam.
What David Read 