What we’re reading (Jan/Feb 2020)
Mairi
JUST READ: I normally read lots over Christmas but have been writing a book and so have been head down on that (it involves endless reading but I won’t count that). Before I got so deeply into it, I read Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five, winner of the Baillie Gifford prize. Highly readable and somewhat enraging in what it reveals about historical and contemporary attitudes to women. I gave Caroline Lea’s The Glass Woman to a friend for Christmas and then promptly received a copy myself and managed to read it in the break for some downtime. It’s a quick read, reminiscent in plot of The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton and in setting of Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. Before that I read Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy; it’s brilliant.
PLAN TO READ: When I finish writing the book I’m working on I have another to write, and as part of the research for that I’m looking forward to dipping back into John Francis Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands. I’ve been sent Seòl mo Bheatha by Donald Meek — it’s on the top of the pile. And my dear friend Anthony McGowan has written How to Teach Philosophy to your Dog, which has had brilliant reviews. I’m really looking forward to that.
JUST READ: I like to keep a few short story collections around to dip into during spare moments, it’s a favourite form of mine. Recent examples have included Curtis Dawkins prison collection The Graybar Hotel and Reinaldo Arenas Mona & Other Tales, while revisiting Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge in advance of her 2019 title The Memory Police. I’ve also discovered the largely forgotten dystopian classic Wild Harbour by Ian MacPherson, written in the 1930’s but frighteningly prescient.
PLAN TO READ: I try to balance my reading pile, with a focus on Scottish writers while keeping an international outlook. A Scottish debut of interest is Graeme Armstrong’s The Young Team, which looks to feature voices often ignored in Scottish literature. Scabby Queen, Kirstin Innes’s follow up to Fishnet is also one to note, as is Kapka Kassabova’s non-fiction return to the Balkans with To The Lake. Holiday Heart by Margarita García Robayo is an Argentinian work reaching us through Charlotte Coombe’s translation from the Scottish publisher Charco Press, with the collection Fish Soup having whetted the appetites of anglophone readers. The LA-based crime writer Ryan Gattis is also dropping a new title in 2020 that promises to be unmissable, if as raw and full of heart as his previous work.
JUST READ: After a difficult few months and a general feeling of post-PhD exhaustion, I’m afraid to say that my Just Read list is considerably shorter than my Plan to Read list! What I have been doing is returning to old comforts and rereading Georgette Heyer, the Anne of Green Gables novels and Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole series. During challenging times, there really is nothing better than losing yourself in a familiar story. I have managed a few new reads lately that were very enjoyable; I relished the double-edged sword that is Tayari Jones’s An American Marriage. I loved Zinzi Clemmons’s What We Lose — keeping an experimental narrative so tight and engrossing is a real achievement. I wept reading Damian Barr’s You Will be Safe Here and gobbled up Kate Atkinson’s Big Sky.
PLAN TO READ: I still haven’t read Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, which I have been saving for a moment when I can really savour it. High on my list is Candice Carty-Williams’s Queenie and I am keen to get my hands on a copy of Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous. I’m excited by the premise of Jane Alexander’s A User’s Guide to Make Believe. Deborah Orr’s Motherwell is on my non-fiction list and in poetry, I am keen to read Janette Ayachi’s Hand Over Mouth Music, Danez Smith’s Homie and my friend Mariah Whelan’s The Love I Do To You. Having consumed the Neapolitan quartet in a week, I’m eagerly anticipating Elena Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults, looking out for Anne Enright’s Actress and just like everyone else, I am desperate to get my hands on copies of Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light and Ali Smith’s Summer.
Viccy
JUST READ: Unusually crime heavy for me! As I write this, I’m prepping to chair the Edinburgh launch of Helen Sedgwick’s latest novel, When The Dead Come Calling, and as part of that I’ve also revisited Claire Askew’s DI Birch series (All The Hidden Truths and What You Pay For). I had a couple of long train journeys recently and that gave me the time to finally read Philip Pullman’s Book of Dust series (volumes 1 & 2), inspired by watching the BBC adaptation of Northern Lights over the festive break.
PLAN TO READ: One of my reading resolutions for 2020 is to make time for more non-fiction… Constitution Street by Jemma Neville, which I’ve been excited about since I heard Jemma talk at the Edinburgh International Book Festival back in August and nagged my family to buy for me for Christmas; Fierce Bad Rabbits: The Tales behind Children’s Picture Books by Clare Pollard, which my Mum saw in a bookshop and knew I’d love, and a friend’s poetry collection that has just come out: All Particles and Waves by Dave Spittle.
JUST READ: I like waking up very early in the morning and read for a couple of hours before starting my day. About my kind of readings… I am interested in anything, books by all genders are welcome and enjoyed in the same way!
At the moment, I am reading Chernobyl Prayer: Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich, Anna Gunin, Arch Tait. One of my last reads was The Communist Manifesto by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx: I found it an interesting book to know more about this currently, so popular topic. I also enjoyed Tantra by Shashi Solluna; it is a key book to know what the Tantra spirituality base is. After travelling to Latin-America I decided to read the Ursua books by William Ospina: a three-book series which introduces you in the world of the Spanish conquistadors and their crimes committed during the discovery of America.
PLAN TO READ: Follow my no-discrimination way of choosing reading, I am planning to read Journey of souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives by Michael Newton — a birthday gift. I want to give a second opportunity to The Doors of Perception: And Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley, which I started to read some months ago but didn’t finish. Also I look forward to starting a historical novel, Shoot Me, I’m Already Dead by Julia Navarro, to learn more about the Palestine-Israel conflict.
