Tag Archives: Books

The Best Books I Read In 2023

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This is a bit of a déja-vu situation. At the beginning of last year, I returned to blogging with my best of list and then wrote a post for January in Japan. I had every intention of blogging regularly again but so many things went wrong, so many heartbreaking things happened. GLM was the date I had fixed to finally return but plans were made without me. I wish I had at least been consulted or informed . . . It felt like having climbed a mountain only to be pushed down again upon arrival. In many ways, that fit well into the overall theme of 2023. What a sad and exhausting year. But enough of this. Lets get to my list.

At the beginning of 2023 I went through an Elizabeth Strout phase, reading many of her books. I didn’t get to the Olive Kitteridge books or they might have been on the list but I read all the Lucy Barton novels and really loved them. Reading them felt like listening to someone tell you about their life. I can’t remember all the details but I remember how much I enjoyed them.

Maybe one could say, this was the year of life stories as I’ve read a few of them this year. Marzahn Mon Amour was one of my favorites. At forty, the author, an unsuccessful writer,  decided to become a chiropodist and was working in Marzahn. Marzahn used to be the biggest prefabricated housing estate in the former GRD.

When I visited Berlin, I went to see Gropius Stadt, which is similar, but not as huge. The atmosphere in Marzahn is quite oppressing, yet the people Katja Oskamp meets are full of life, colorful, eccentric. I highly recommend this book. I read it in German, so I don’t know who translated it but since it was published by Pereine, I’m sure it was done very well.

I don’t think that Volker Weidermann’s  Mann vom Meer has been translated yet but since other books by Weidermann have, it is posible this will be picked up by an anglophone publisher. I liked the idea and the book very much. It looks at Thomas Mann’s life and novels by focusing on his love for the sea. It contains a lot of quotes from his masterpieces like Buddenbrooks or Der Zauberberg. The book made me want to reread and read everything Mann has written. I also learned quite a few things about his life I didn’t know or had forgotten.

Josie George suffers from a condition that causes her incredible pain. She’s had it since she was a child and it has affected every area of her life. Most days she can barely walk. Doing things takes immense strength, leaving her exhausted. But A Still Life is more than an account of an incurable illness and the frustrations that come with it (also regarding doctors and medicine). It’s a story of remarkable resilience and of someone who is able to capture the beauty of the smallest things. The book is full of beautiful descriptions and observations. Its wise and gentle and ultimately very uplifting.

Whenever I read one of Eduard von Keyserling’s novels, it is bound to be among my favorites. I just love his writing so much. Abendliche Häuser is another one of those mournful tales of a dying society. In this novel, duels and class consciousness are slowly perceived as being less honorable than absurd. At the heart of Abendliche Häuser is a strong, independent young woman who follows her own heart and convictions. It seems this novel, which was published in 1914, was translated into English in 1927 but I don’t think it’s still available.

In Ascension is such a haunting novel. I always find it fascinating to read about people who are so passionate about what they are doing. The protagonist of this novel, Leigh, is a microbiologist. She first joins a team that explores an unexplainable deep vent in the ocean and then  goes on a space mission. The story of this book is captivating but what I liked even more was the atmosphere. It’s hard to describe but it’s so lovely and amazing to see and experience the world trough Leigh’s eyes. Some parts towards the end reminded me a bit of the movie Gravity.

At Weddings and Wakes was my second Alice McDermott novel and once again, I was in awe of her writing. Is there anyone else who writes scenes like she doe? Her style is so amazing. But I also like her protagonists and settings. Most of her books are set in Brooklyn among Irish Catholic immigrants. Needless to say, religion plays a role. The family in this story is very eccentric which I enjoyed a lot. It was often like reading about big Italian families and since I’m half Italian, many characters felt familiar.

Cold Enough For Snow might be my favourite novel of 2023. It’s a bit surprising as initially I didn’t think it was all that good. Funny enough, I’m still not sure it is but I loved it. I loved it because it spoke to me and reminded me of places and things that are important to me. It also reminded me a bit of some of Tabbucchi’s stories. The main character and her mother are on a vacation in Japan. The descriptions are beyond beautiful. But there are other descriptions of places which I liked even more. The protagonists mother is from Hong Kong and there are passages describing the beauty of Hong Kong that capture it exactly as I remember it. The landscape around it, the mountains, the lights and skyscrapers and that balmy air I’ve experienced nowhere else. The book also explores a theme that fascinates me a lot – the way families tell their stories and how sometimes they tell various versions of a  story. In the end, nobody knows, which is the true story.

Ogai Mori’s The Wild Geese was the only book I reviewed last year. Here’s a snippet from my review:

What impressed me the most, is how immersive this story was. Reading it felt like making a trip to a distant place and time. The imagery, themes, and story are so haunting, I don’t think I’ll forget them any day soon.

The link  to the review is here.

Kick the Latch is such a unique book. Until you pick it up for yourself, you’ll probably never understand what makes it so great. It is based on a series of interviews that Katrhryn Scanlan did with Sonia, a horse trainer from the Midwest. Scanlan herself stays completely out of this, also its not rendered in interview form but like short and very short accounts of a very unique life and a world most of us haven’t experienced. To say, Scanlan stayed out of the story is misleading though. She’s not present as a character or the interviewer but she is very present in the way she chose to tell this story, in the way she condensed, chose titles for even the shortest chapters. It’s brilliant. I loved the book as much for its style and form as for the subject matter. Its touching, moving, heartbreaking and infused with a strange, wild beauty.

I might not have read as much as I usually do, but I’ve read a few books, especially at the beginning and towards the end of the year, that I’m not likely to forget.

How about you? Which books stood out for you?

The Ten Best Novels I Read This Year

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Happy New Year. I hope you’re all doing really well and that 2023 will bring you light and joy.

I’ve been gone a while. Over a year, to be precise. Since summer I knew I wanted to return to blogging, if only to help myself remember what I’ve been reading. It’s easy to remember the books that make our top ten lists at the end of the year but all the others? Not so much. There are a few titles I saw on other people’s lists that I read too but until I read those lists, I’d totally forgotten about them. Needless to say, they won’t be on my list. Very often this has nothing to do with their quality at all. It has more to do with me as a reader. I’ve been an extremely distracted reader this year. I read far too many books in parallel and abandoned far too many. Nevertheless, the ten novels on my list not only captivated me, but they stayed with me.
I’ve read a lot of memoir and other nonfiction books this year. as well Also some poetry. More than usual, but to keep the list short, I’m only mentioning the novels.

Über Menschen by Juli Zeh

This chunky book hasn’t been translated yet. Possibly, because it was very controversial. It tells, among other things, the story of a woman who befriends a Neo-Nazi and tries to understand where he’s coming from. But it’s also set during the beginning of 2020 and the narrator flees to the country to avoid strict lockdown rules. I loved it for the writing. They way Juli Zeh describes people and places is just so immersive. I also found it courageous.

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

This was not what I expected. I had high expectations but more for the story, less for the writing. The stellar writing was a huge surprise. The rhythm of the book conveys the music the protagonist listens too. Each short chapter has its own flow, own rhythm. Some sentences, images are repeated, some sections meander, others are written in a staccato rhythm. The story, too, is beautiful and heartbreaking. As a woman, I’m often afraid to walk through certain neighborhoods as it can be scary to find yourself totally alone facing a hostile looking stranger. Now I know that young black men must feel like this just as often.

Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri

What a haunting book. And so unusual. I don’t want to give away too much, I will just say that it tells the story of a homeless man, of social invisibility, using a very ingenious approach.

Passager de la nuit by Maurice Pons

This hasn’t been translated. Too bad as I loved it. It shows a side of the war of Algeria, or rather how the war played out in France, I was less familiar with.

Sunday in Ville-d’Avray – Un Dimanche à Ville-d’Avray by Dominique Barbéris

A dreamy, lyric, short novel with a rich mood. Two sisters meet, speak about their childhood, their dreams, and one confesses a secret love story.

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

Not one of Pym’s lighter novels, this story of four people who might not exactly have had the life they wished for, is still typical Pym. As usual, the character portraits are rich and detailed and the story, while sad in places, isn’t depressing. I liked it a great deal. She’s such a sharp observer.

In a Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor

Another novel from a sharp observer. This might not be my favorite Taylor novel but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The main character, a widow, marries a far younger man and it soon becomes clear, she might have made a huge mistake. Wonderful character portraits and a surprisingly enjoyable story.

The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley

Such a beautifully nostalgic novel. It begins during a summer holiday at the outbreak of WWII which will change everyone present. Fifty years later, the protagonists meet again for a funeral. It’s not a very straightforward novel but very immersive nonetheless.

The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sherriff 

I’m so glad I saw this mentioned on Twitter and elsewhere several times as I wouldn’t have discovered it on my own and that would have been such a shame. I read it in September and loved every page of it. Such a gentle, delightful book that tells of the holiday of an ordinary family and of the little joys and woes the holiday brings. Even though this book came out in 1931, most of what Sherriff describes is still relatable now. A timeless classic of a family holiday.

Mrs England by Stacey Halls

I can’t say that this historical novel was flawless, yet I still had a book hangover after finishing it, wishing it had been longer and looking for other, similar novels after putting it down. Mrs England tells the story of an Edwardian marriage and its dark undercurrents. The ending didn’t work for me, but the way Stacey Halls captured Edwardian England was so descriptive and captivating.

 

When I look at my best of list, it wasn’t such a bad reading year, but being able to easily whittle it down to ten, says a lot about the year as a whole. Normally, I always include a few crime novels in my end of year lists, but this year I managed to pick one dud after the other or just books that didn’t speak to me at all.

I decided to focus on novels in this post, but I didn’t want to end without mentioning my favourite memoir of the year, Horatio Clare’s The Light in the Dark, a Winter Journal. It’s about winter, the Yorkshire countryside, nature, depression and, as the title says, the light in the dark. Stunningly beautiful. Maybe my favourite book of the year.

 

 

 

 

Ljudmila Ulitskaya – The Funeral Party (1997)

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I am one of those readers who have a tendency to jump from one new-to-me author to the next. I wasn’t always like that though. When I was younger, especially while studying French literature, I would often stick to one author and read one of their book after the other. When you like an author, it’s such a marvellous experience. You will see how their style developed, which themes and topics they are drawn too, recurring imagery and style elements. Lately, I feel like I don’t have the time, that there’s just too much to discover, so that I can’t do that anymore. But then I return to an old favourite and remember how rewarding it can be.

This finally brings me to Russian author Ljudmila Ulitskaya, an author whose writing I fell in love with when the first translations appeared in the 90s in German and French. I quickly read the first two, Sonechka and Medea and Her Children, and declared her one of my favourite authors. But then the third, The Funeral Party, came out, which I bought as well, but never got to. If it hadn’t been for a wonderful review of Jacob’s Ladder on Julé’s blog (here), one of Ljudmila Ulitskaya’s latest works, it might still be languishing on the piles. Returning to her work was like meeting an old friend you haven’t seen in ages. Even though an eternity has gone by, so much is familiar and it’s all very exciting.

The Funeral Party is set in the 90s, during a hot sweltering summer in New York City. The protagonists, mostly women, are Russian émigrés, gathered around the sick bed of Alik, a famous painter. Alik lives in a big loft, where a small corner has been portioned off and serves as his sleeping room. Even before Alik became ill, the place was always full of friends and people who just passed through. Parties went on for hours and days. Now that he’s ill, and it’s obvious to everybody but his wife that he will die, there are even more people there to watch over him, entertain him, and care for him. Among these people are five women. They are lovers or friends of Alik. In the novel each woman gets her turn to tell her story. How they came from Russia to New York and what Alik meant to them. Some of them knew him already in Russia, others met him in the US. Those stories are so rich that each of them could be a novel in its own right.

It’s not often that you read a book about death and dying that is profound but at the same time uplifting. The end alone is worth reading this book. It will make you smile.

The Funeral Party is also about change. What will become of his entourage after his death? What will become of the émigré community since Alik’s death coincides with the fall of the Soviet Union?

This isn’t one of her longer novels, but the beginning was still a bit confusing as all the women’s names sound similar – Valentina, Irina, Nina, Joyka. Once it’s clear who is who, it’s a wonderful reading experience. The characters are so colourful and there’s a richness and generosity to this tapestry of Russian émigré life. Reading it was like going to a party where everyone is interesting.

I hope I could convey how much I enjoyed this book and how happy I was to rediscover Ljudmila Ulitskaya’s work.

Last year I reread Tolstoy’s famous The Death of Ivan Illych, such a sad and depressing account. I thought of it while reading The Funeral Party. These two books are great companion reads, like two sides of a medal, one black, one white.

If you haven’t read this important modern Russian writer yet, this is a good starting point. And so is her first, the novella Sonechka.

The Push by Ashley Audrain (2021)

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I don’t usually buy books that have just been published without reading at least one review but in this case, I had to. In December, I saw The Push announced as one of the most promising debuts of the upcoming year. The premise sounded compelling and I was in the mood to read a suspenseful psychological thriller, so I got it when I saw it at the book shop. It’s one of those books that is massively hyped. Rights have already been sold to 34 different countries.

The Push is told by Blythe who addresses her husband, telling him, her side of the story. It starts with Blythe outside of his house, where he lives with their daughter, his new wife and young son. The story then goes back to the beginning, tells us how they met, the marriage, and Blythe’s first pregnancy with their daughter Violet. From the beginning Blythe is scared to be a bad mother as her own mother who’d been abused by her dysfunctional mother, abandoned her at an early age. Over the course of the book, we will get to know both stories.

What follows isn’t always easy to read. Blythe does things that are appalling but then again, Violet is a more than difficult child and would test the patience of many mothers.

It’s not easy to write much more as this book could easily be spoilt. I found it immensely readable, could hardly put it down. I didn’t think that the main theme – bad mothering will be passed on from one generation to the next – is that well executed but it’s an interesting idea. One that book clubs will love to discuss. What I loved was the suspense and finding out whether Blythe was an unreliable narrator. Were the things she said about Violet true? Was Violet really evil or was everything Blythe said just an invention to cover up her own bad mothering? But then again, is Blythe really a bad mother because she will have a second child,Sam, and with that child everything is so simple. Does she simply not love them the same?

While Blythe was scared to be a bad mother to Violet, in Sam’s case, she’s scared for her child. She’s turned into an overanxious mother. Maybe with good reason?

This is a chilling read. Thought-provoking, suspenseful, and creepy (not in a supernatural way). And, I would say, it does deserve the hype. It has been compared to We Need to Talk About Kevin but for me, they aren’t the same genre. I read this like a psychological thriller, which Lionel Shriver’s book is not. What they have in common, is that they both focus on the themes of nature versus nurture and the challenges of motherhood. But story, mood, style and pace are very different.

The Push is a compelling page turner, with short, bite-sized chapters, that will make you want gulp it down in one sitting. It’s also a perfect Book Club choice.

Best Books I Read in 2020

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Evening at home
       Edward John Poynter (UK, 1836-1919)

I think I’ve been saying this for three years in a row now, but I have to say it again – this wasn’t a great reading year. Looking over the list of books I read, most would say I didn’t pick many duds but unfortunately, I still didn’t like them. Of the books I’ve read, I found 60% disappointing and underwhelming, a few even quite bad. That’s possibly why I reviewed so little. I just didn’t want to write one negative review after the other, although some books would deserve it and I may still do it (“Queenie” I’m looking at you). Once you stop reviewing, it gets hard to get back into it again and so, sadly, I also didn’t review some of those I liked a great deal.

Leaving all the books that annoyed me aside, I was still left with something like thirty that I enjoyed, seventeen of which I loved. So maybe that’s enough? None of them made it onto the “all-time favourites” list though. That’s always a bit disappointing.

Best literary fiction

  

Cormac McCarthy – The Road – I read this early last year. Before the pandemic. I liked it more than I thought I would. Liked the style, the mood, atmosphere. I did, however, hate that it was so anthropocentric. The loss of animals isn’t mentioned or mourned. I can’t say that I found the thought that humans survive while all the other animals are gone uplifting or hopeful.

Richard Russo – That Old Cape Magic – One of the books that surprised me the most. I expected something more lyrical, which it wasn’t but instead it was witty, funny, and just brilliant.

From my review:

When I started this book, I expected something different. Something more lyrical, more atmospheric. But that’s not the way Russo writes. There’s a subtlety here but its more psychological, sarcastic, and humorous. I think it says a lot about a book when someone like me, who prefers lyrical, atmospheric books, ended up enjoying this as much as I did. It’s not only funny but says so much about family dynamics, marriage, broken dreams, family rituals, coming to terms with the past, and also the bond between parents and children and between spouses.

Angela Carter – Love – I loved this. One of the best Angela Carter books I’ve ever read, and I haven’t read anything bad by her so far.

From my review:

Opening an Angela Carter novel is like entering an opulent, sumptuously decorated room. It’s lush, it’s whimsical, it’s anything but minimalist. Love is no exception; it might even be one of the lusher ones I’ve read. Heroes & Villains has always been my favourite because of the imagery. Love has similar elements. The landscape, the apartment, the people, they are a bit wild, a bit mad, and reflect Angela Carter’s very distinct aesthetic. The book also reminded me of one of Le Douanier Rousseau’s paintings. He used to be my favourite painter as a child.

Molly Keane – Time After Time – My second Molly Keane. A delightful story about an eccentric and very dysfunctional family who lives in an old house that has seen much better days.

From my review:

In her foreword Emma Donoghue compares Molly Keane to Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. The book combines, as she says, social comedy, grotesque descriptions and plot twists. I’m not so fond of comparisons like that, but I agree, Time After Time, has all these elements, combined with a terrific writing style, that’s very much her own. For some people these characters might be a bit over the top, but I liked them very much. They are eccentric and mean, but tragic in their own way. And, most importantly, never dull.

Elizabeth Taylor – The Soul of Kindness – While this isn’t one of my favourite Elizabeth Taylor’s novels, as it focuses on too many people, it’s still in many ways a typical Taylor and therefore had to be on this list.

From my review:

There’s a lot to enjoy in this novel but I don’t think it’s as good as others. I believe it doesn’t succeed at being the portrait of one central character like Angel for example, but that’s how the beginning reads. All the initial chapters place Flora at the centre but this cohesion eventually fizzles out. As if Elizabeth Taylor had realized too late that Flora wasn’t a big enough character to carry a whole story. I could be totally wrong, of course, as critics have called this one of her, if not her best book.

Best classics

Hermann Hesse – Knulp – Three short stories about the life of the vagabond Knulp. They tell his story chronologically and from different points of view. I absolutely loved this and would urge anyone to read it, especially if you like Hesse anyway. For others, it’s a nice introduction to his writing.

Henry James – Daisy Miller – Daisy Miller is one of many of Henry James’ tragic heroines. It’s cruel to watch how she moves towards her undoing.

From my review:

The society James describes in this novella, is very cruel. They have their rules and if you don’t play by them you get shunned or ostracized. No matter how rich you are.

Daisy Miller is highly readable and very accessible. Even though the end is tragic, it’s neither sombre nor depressing as so many of James’ other books.

Gustave Flaubert – Un Coeur Simple – This impressed me because Flaubert manages to capture a whole life in a few pages.

From my review:

It’s a story that is famous for the way Flaubert handles time. It’s masterful. In sixty pages, he manages to tell the story of a whole life, alternating between fast-forwarding and slowing down. At the end, we almost think, we’ve read a novel because, thanks to his writing style and technique, there’s so much to find in this novella.

Eduard von Keyserling – Am Südhang (not translated)

From my review:

It’s a beautiful novella. Rich in emotions and descriptions. Nature and the weather always play important parts, mirroring the feelings of the protagonists. In this story, the garden descriptions are so very lush. Von Keyserling paints with words. He captures scents and sound, colours and forms. We sit next to Karl Erdmann in his carriage and feel the cool shade under the trees, hear the soft rustling of the dew in the leaves. We can see the family waiting for Karl Erdmann’s arrival, the women in their white summer dresses standing on the stairs.

André de Richaud – La douleur (not translated)

Albert Camus said that André de Richaud’s novel La douleur  – The pain – inspired him to become a writer. When it came out in 1930, it created a scandal. The author was just twenty-three years old and had sent his manuscript to the Jury of the Prix du premier roman of the Revue Hebdomadaire. The jury was so shocked but impressed by the writing, that nobody won the price that year. While they considered La douleur too shocking for publication, it was clearly the best book. Despite the risk of a potential scandal, Bernard Grasset published the novel anyway that year, as he liked it so much.

From my review:

Edith Wharton – Summer – This was not what I had expected. I knew it was called the summer version of Ethan Frome and for some reason that made me assume it was more light-hearted. It isn’t. It’s just as tragic as Ethan Frome, only takes place in summer. As usual, I was impressed by Wharton’s style.

Best YA

Jacqueline Woodson – If You Come Softly – This moved me so much. It’s a love story with a tragic ending. It shows that if you’re an African-Americaa, one tiny little mistake can have fatal consequences.

From my review:

As I said before, this is a short book but it’s powerful and tightly written. You won’t find a superfluous word or passage. Only key scenes that manage to move and touch.

Best crime /sadly none of them reviewed)

At the beginning of the pandemic, I couldn’t read any crime anymore. Crime usually works as escapism, but not in this context. From May on though, I read one after the other and several were very good, some more than just good.

Good

Jane Harper – Force of Nature

Emily Barr – The Sleeper

Nicci French – The Lying Room

These three books have a lot in common. They were highly readable, absolute page turners, each with a striking premise but sadly, all three of them with a slightly implausible denouement. In each case, I found the perpetrator unbelievable, but since they were so well written and gripping, they still deserve to be among the best of.

In Force of Nature, a survival workshop goes very wrong. One woman doesn’t return.

In Emily Barr’s The Sleeper, a woman who usually takes the sleeper train to London, disappears. The first parts, told from the POV of the woman who uses the sleeper train was so good. It gave me a great idea of what it must be like to commute like this every week.

In The Lying Room an adulterous woman finds her dead lover and tries everything to cover up the relationship.

Very good

Benjamin Myers – These Darkening Days – I regret that I didn’t review this as I found it amazing. It’s obvious that Myers is way more than ‘just a crime writer’. He’s a stylist. His writing is impressive, and the story and characters were convincing too.

Megan Abbott- The Song is You – The Song is You is historical crime fiction based on a true story, the disappearance of. the starlet Jean Spangler in 1949. She left for a night shoot and never returned. Abbott is a wonderfully atmospheric writer, and this was as good as some of the noir it was inspired by.

Max Billingham – Lifeless – This book has been on my piles for ages. Last year, I read an interview with Billingham and liked what he said about writing. Remembering that I got this on my piles somewhere, I picked it up and finally read it. The book is set in London among the homeless community. The detective who works on the case goes undercover and investigates among the homeless. It’s a chilling read. We learn a lot about what it means to be homeless. After a while, I forgot that this was a crime novel. I was far more interested in the social commentary. That it was suspenseful was just a bonus.

*******

I hope your year has started well and wish you all an excellent reading year ahead.

Time After Time by Molly Keane

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Published in 1983, Time After Time, is Anglo-Irish writer Molly Keane’s second novel under her own name. Before that she published ten novels under her pseudonym M. J. Farrell. There was a break of almost thirty years between her first ten and her last three novels. The early death of her husband was the reason for that long silence. Molly Keane also wrote plays.

Time After Time is my second Molly Keane. Back in 2011, I read and reviewed Two Days in Aragon which I liked very much. At the time, I wanted to know which one to read next and several people recommended Time After Time. Now, finally, nine years later, I picked it up.

What a wild ride. Not what I expected and not how I remember Two Days in Aragon, which was far more about the end of an era, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like Time After Time. Molly Keane is a brilliant writer. She’s sharp, witty, and has a very distinct sense of humour.

The Swifts, four siblings in their sixties and seventies, live in a ramshackle mansion, Durraghglass, that has seen better days. Their fortune is long gone and so is their youth. The only thing they seem to have in common is a love for their late mother. Because of their mother’s will, they are bound to live together under the same roof. Jasper, May and June have never been married. The oldest sister, April is a widow. If it wasn’t for her and the money she inherited from her late husband, they would have had to sell most of their land. Still, it’s obvious they have no money as the house is constantly cold and decaying.

It becomes obvious very soon that this isn’t an entirely realistic novel. Each of the four characters has a disability. Jasper is one-eyed, April is deaf, May has a hand with only two fingers, and June, the youngest, never went to school because she’s dyslexic. They each have a pet, the sisters have dogs, Jasper has a cat. Just like the siblings, the pets are at each other’s throat constantly. This isn’t a harmonious household. On the contrary. These are four, selfish eccentrics who hate each other.

The character’s eccentricities and aversions, their feelings of self-importance, made reading this so much fun. The dialogue is sharp and witty. The characters behave a lot like characters in one of those hotel novels, we all like so much. Thrown together by fate but kept together by some sort of lethargy. They could avoid each other, but no, they always eat together. And since Jasper reigns over the kitchen, together with his formidable cat, he holds a lot of power. When he wants to punish his sisters, he lets them wait for their dinner or serves something he knows they hate. The meals are, invariably, accompanied by bickering and snide remarks. Here’s a short snippet

 (. . . ) there was silence until Jasper broke it with a curious cry: “What are you doing May? Picking the cucumber out of your salad?”

“You rather forgot my ulcer – I can’t eat cucumber.”

“Can’t eat this, can’t eat that. Why must you have such a lower middle-class stomach?”

“Perhaps it has something to do with your idea of Cordon Bleu cooking?”

“It takes imagination and a reasonable digestion to appreciate good cooking.”

“You don’t usually cook cucumber, do you?” The argument drifted into silence.

Pudding time came. Baby rhubarb and rice cream with a vaporous suggestion of nutmeg.

“I hope the rhubarb isn’t too acid for your ulcer.” Jasper eyed May’s lavish helping.

“My ulcer must take its chances (. . . )”

While the book is often farcical, the characters aren’t devoid of tragedy. They are all elderly and suffer from different ailments. Even though they try to hide it as best as they can, they are very lonely. This and many other uncomfortable truths are brought out into the open when a long-lost childhood friend appears on their doorstep —cousin Leda from Vienna, who they believed had died in a concentration camp. Leda, who once was a great beauty, is now very fond of alcohol and food. But since she’s blind, she still believes she’s charming and imagines her friends to be still as young and charming as herself.

These were the submerged days that Leda’s coming rescued from a deep oblivion. Since she could not see Durraghglass in its cold decay, or her cousins in their proper ages, timeless grace was given to them in her assumption that they looked as though all the years between were empty myths. Because they knew themselves so imagined, their youth was present to them, a mirage trembling in her flattery as air trembles close to the surface of summer roads.

The safety and monotony of their days is soon gone because Leda isn’t as cute or nice as they remember her. Oh no. She’s rather diabolical and a master schemer. If they weren’t so desperate for company and flattery, they might have been able to see through her. Being gullible, they fall into her traps. By the end of the novel, the siblings must face unflattering truths about themselves and nothing is as it was before.

In her foreword Emma Donoghue compares Molly Keane to Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. The book combines, as she says, social comedy, grotesque descriptions and plot twists. I’m not so fond of comparisons like that, but I agree, Time After Time, has all these elements, combined with a terrific writing style, that’s very much her own. For some people these characters might be a bit over the top, but I liked them very much. They are eccentric and mean, but tragic in their own way. And, most importantly, never dull.

Some Thoughts on Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

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I don’t read a lot of bestselling mainstream novels. Very often, I don’t even hear about them. But from time to time there’s a book that sells so many copies that I’m interested to find out what the fuss is all about. Especially when the premise sounds intriguing like in the case of Where the Crawdads Sing. The premise of a girl growing up on her own in the swampy marsh of Northern Carolina and becoming one with the nature that surrounds her. Delia Owens is well known as a wildlife scientist and published three nonfiction books before writing her first novel. That, too, sounded intriguing. That was also pretty much all I knew about the book when I started to read. You can imagine how surprised I was, when I discovered that there’s a dead body in the swamp at the beginning of the book. It’s only then that I became aware that the book was called a blend between love story/crime/court room drama. And that brings us right to my biggest reservation – sometimes a blend works but in this case it doesn’t. It’s neither a proper crime story, nor is it purely a love story and the courtroom part, I’m sorry to say, is ludicrous.

I did like the beginning which was mostly set in the past, in the 50s, and told the very tragic story of a small child, Kya, who was first abandoned by her mother, then by her siblings and finally also by her father, an abusive drunk. She’s only ten and decides to survive on her own, knowing very well if the authorities found out she’s been abandoned, she’d land in the foster care system. These parts not only introduce us to an amazing ecosystem but also to a way of life. It seems like the marsh is a world of its own, with its own rules, outside of society. Because Kya is intelligent and observes the world around her, she’s able to survive. She also gets some outside help from a black family, pretty much outsiders too, in this small town. She also meets a boy who teaches her to read and write, which will have very surprising consequences.

While the beginning was strong, the descriptions of the landscape so detailed that I felt like I was visiting the marsh, the book quickly went downhill after that. I had a feeling that Delia Owens had an idea for a story, a very intriguing idea, and a love for a landscape but no plot. And, so, she decided to add a crime story that then turned into a courtroom drama à la To Kill a Mockingbird.

The crime idea might not have been a bad one. There are many novels about a crime that are very successful without being really crime novels. But for me, this one didn’t work. She should have written either proper crime or searched for a plot somewhere else. The result is full of inconsistencies and lacks realism. The character development is also rather dubious, and the use of vernacular is just terrible.

You’ll be surprised to hear that despite all these reservations, I didn’t mind reading the book. I loved the way this landscape was brought to life. I found the way Delia Owens conveyed how Kya fought against her loneliness by becoming one with the flora and fauna that surrounded her believable and well done.

It’s less a bad book than a missed opportunity. This could have been very good. The question that remains is – why did this become such a major bestseller? She sold over 4million copies of the book even though the publisher only printed 23,000 copies at first. The reason might be the choice of setting. I wasn’t surprised to find out that many people who loved this novel are very interested in ecological themes. I don’t know many books where nature plays such a significant role and where the intricacies of ecosystems are shown so well. I have no doubts that Delia Owens is a very good nonfiction writer.

I hope I was able to give you an idea, especially, if, like me, you were curious about this book. Maybe, now that you’re forewarned about the flaws, you might enjoy it more. Nature lovers, people who are interested in the marshes of North Carolina, those with in an interest in ecology and specific ecosystems, will still find a lot to like here.