Welcome to this week’s blogpost. Here’s our roundup of your comments and photos from last week.
Ah yes, last week. The recent unfortunateness, along with reading Clear Waters Rising, by Nicholas Crane has prompted a good question from tiojo:
A tale of his long walk along the watershed of Europe from northern Spain, along the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Carpathians to Istanbul. A trek that took place in the early 90s not long after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. As he approaches the end of his journey he dodges and criss-crosses boundaries in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Macedonia. The last named a country that did not yet exist. He talks to a shopkeeper who says, ‘The only people who gain from nationalism are the politicians and the chauvinists.’
I wonder what he might find and what he might have to say if, 25 years later, he walked the length of the UK.
Broken Ghost by Niall Griffiths also seems “very appropriate indeed” to safereturndoubtful:
In a Bukowski/Vlautin style, Griffiths presents his pessimistic vision of the effect of austerity and discontent by emphasising a malaise in society. The book is a richly textured evocation of a small town living with a gritty concoction of depravity, sex, drugs, alcohol, and violence… The novel’s fascination with squalor might be too much for some, but if you can bear it, Griffiths’ unflinching approach succeeds. It’s an explosive journey of rot and recovery all the way up to the repression of its harrowing finish.
BaddHamster has just started The Devil I Know by Claire Kilroy and :
So far so absolutely excellently written. This is a satire of the excesses, greed and ugliness of the Celtic Tiger years in Ireland and, so far at least, it’s funny and moving in equal measure and the prose is so good it’s provoking extremes of admiration and jealousy in me. The bottom line is that whenever I put it down, I can’t wait to get back to it to see what happens next. Can’t be a bad sign.
“Sandra Ireland is well worth reading,” says storm46, who has just finished her first book:
Beneath the Skin sounds quirky, even off-putting to some, but stick with it. Walt takes a job at an Edinburgh taxidermist which is described in the blurb as not his wisest move since, ‘already suffering from combat stress, and struggling to outrun the horrors of his time on the front line, he finds himself confronted by the undead on a daily basis.’
I am not going to say much more as it is the development of the story and the characters which draws you in and keep you gripped and not knowing too much will make it more enjoyable. Her writing is brilliant, pithy, with heart, compassion and humour.
“I’ve been immersed in Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles,” says UndercoverOps:
I’ve rushed through the first two (up to December 1941) and feel I should now have a break to read something else, but I can’t because I so want to know what the characters are going to do next. I keep thinking about them all! Howard writes her characters with empathy so it is hard not to care about them, despite their flaws and weaknesses. She seems to have a very humane kindness and understanding of people’s complexities. It’s particularly satisfying to see how the children develop as the years pass.
In The Distance by Hernan Diaz seems unusual to jimitron5000:
I find this a difficult book to describe and it doesn’t necessarily fit any genre that I can think of. It’s a book of existence I suppose, a young boy from Sweden arriving in the US in the 1840s or 50s or thereabouts and learning about his environment and responding to it. He lives a solitary life for the most part and yet his deeds take on a near mythical status leading him becoming a wanted man. So much of what we might consider needed or essential is rendered as irrelevant in this story. It’s a bit different, but well worth a read.
Finally, Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay has impressed Empsk:
It seemed to me to be a sort of statement about the uselessness of ‘Englishness’ - rosebushes and poetry and soft pale skin - when contrasted with white Australian-ness, which is rougher, more practical. I enjoyed the sense of menace that ran through the book, and the idea that the wilderness is no place for people.
I have a feeling that we’ll be hearing plenty more about the uselessness of Englishness in the not too distant future…
Interesting links about books and reading
“English majors, cast off your Starbucks aprons: A desperate nation finally needs you!” Why good readers might help stave off the collapse of American democracy.
Erica Wagner on how reading has changed in the 2010s.
Mexico recalls Argentina ambassador for alleged book theft.
Deborah Levy would like to drink with Virgina Woolf.
Enjoy disagreeing with The New York Times list of the 10 books of the year.
If you’re on Instagram, now you can share your reads with us: simply tag your posts with the hashtag #GuardianBooks, and we’ll include a selection in this blog. Happy reading!
