Tag: Read

My Week in Books – 22nd April ’18

whatcathyreadnext9 Comments

MyWeekinBooks

New arrivals

The Cornish DressmakerThe Cornish Dressmaker by Nicola Pryce (paperback, review copy courtesy of Atlantic Books)

Cornwall, 1796: Seamstress Elowyn Liddicot’s family believe they’ve secured the perfect future for her, in the arms of Nathan Cardew. But then one evening, Elowyn helps to rescue a dying man from the sea, and everything changes. William Cotterell, wild and self-assured, refuses to leave her thoughts or her side – but surely she can’t love someone so unlike herself?

With Elowyn’s dressmaking business suddenly under threat, her family’s pressure to marry Nathan increasing, and her heart decidedly at odds with her head, Elowyn doesn’t know who to trust any more. And when William uncovers a sinister conspiracy that affects her whole world, can Elowyn find the courage to support the people she loves in the face of all opposition?

The Boy at the DoorThe Boy at the Door by Alex Dahl (proof copy courtesy of Head of Zeus)

What would you do for the perfect life? Would you lie? Would you steal? Would you kill..?

Cecilia Wilborg has the perfect life. A handsome husband, two beautiful daughters and a large house in the picture-postcard town of Sandefjord.

But then Tobias enters her life. He is a small, friendless eight-year-old. And he threatens to bring Cecilia’s world crashing down.

HoldHold by Michael Donkor (eARC, NetGalley and 4th Estate)

Moving between Ghana and London, Hold is an intimate, moving, powerful coming-of-age novel. It’s a story of friendship and family, shame and forgiveness; of learning what we should cling to, and when we need to let go.

Belinda knows how to follow the rules. As a housegirl, she has learnt the right way to polish water glasses, to wash and fold a hundred handkerchiefs, and to keep a tight lid on memories of the village she left behind when she came to Kumasi.

Mary is still learning the rules. Eleven-years old and irrepressible, the young housegirl-in-training is the little sister Belinda never had.

Amma has had enough of the rules. A straight-A pupil at her exclusive South-London school, she has always been the pride of her Ghanaian parents. Until now. Watching their once-confident teenager grow sullen and wayward, they decide that sensible Belinda might be just the shining example Amma needs.

So Belinda is summoned from Ghana to London, and must leave Mary to befriend a troubled girl who shows no desire for her friendship. She encounters a city as bewildering as it is thrilling, and tries to impose order on her unsettling new world.

As the Brixton summer turns to Autumn, Belinda and Amma are surprised to discover the beginnings of an unexpected kinship. But when the cracks in their defences open up, the secrets they have both been holding tightly threaten to seep out.

The Devil's Half MileThe Devil’s Half Mile by Paddy Hirsch (eARC, NetGalley and Atlantic Books)

Golden Hill and Hamilton the Musical meet Gangs of New York in this sweeping historical crime drama set in 18th century New York

New York, 1799: Justy Flanagan, lawyer, soldier, policeman, has returned to his native city, bloodied and battered after fighting in the Irish Rebellion against the English. Determined to hunt down the man who murdered his father, his inquiries lead him to Wall Street and the fledgling stock market there.

But as his investigations into the past move ahead, the horrific murders of young slave women in the present start to occupy his time. Convinced that there is a link between his father’s murder, the deaths of the young women, and a massive fraud that nearly destroyed New York’s economy, Justy can trust no one.

As the conspiracy deepens, it becomes clear that those involved will stop at nothing to keep their secrets. Justy is forced to choose: will he betray his father’s memory, compromise his integrity, and risk the lives of his closest friends, to get to the bottom of a tale so dangerous it could change the landscape of America forever?

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I took part in the blog tour for The Black Earth by Philip Kazan, sharing my review of a book I absolutely loved.

Tuesday – Another blog tour, this time with an extract from Stories We Tell Ourselves by Sarah Francoise.  The Top Ten Tuesday topic was a freebie, so I put together a list of ten books set in a school or college.  Finally, I shared my thoughts on the books that have made it through to the shortlist for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2018.

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just finished reading, what I’m reading now and what I’ll be reading next.   I also published my review of White Houses by Amy Bloom, a fictionalised account of the relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and journalist, Lorena Hickok.

Thursday – I took part in the blog tour for Warrior of Woden by Matthew Harffy, sharing my Q&A with Matthew.  My Throwback Thursday book was The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen by Collins Hemingway, a fun book that imagines that…well, the title says it all really.

Friday – I shared an excerpt from crime novel In The Cage Where Your Saviours Hide by Malcolm Mackay.  And, as part of the blog tour, I published my review of Suitors and Sabotage by Cindy Anstey.

Saturday – Another blog tour, this time for Tapestry of War by Jane MacKenzie.  I shaed a lovely guest post from Jane about writing a book set in a location with which you’re familiar.  I also shared my thoughts on ten ways book bloggers and book lovers can support their local literary festival.  Finally, I shared my review of Staying On by Paul Scott as part of The 1977 Club. Phew, what a busy blogging week!

Challenge updates

  • Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge – 57 out of 156 books read, 4 more than last week
  • Classics Club Challenge – 13 out of 50 books read, same as last week
  • NetGalley/Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2018 (Silver) – 19 ARCs read and reviewed out of 25, 2 more than last week
  • From Page to Screen– 10 book/film comparisons out of 15 completed, same as last week
  • 2018 TBR Pile Challenge – 5 out of 12 books read, same as last week
  • Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2018 – 28 books out of 50 read, 3 more than last week
  • When Are You Reading? Challenge 2018 – 7 out of 12 books read, same as last week
  • What’s In A Name Reading Challenge – 0 out of 6 books read, same as last week
  • Buchan of the Month – 3 out of 12 books read, same as last week

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Blog Tour: Port of No Return by Michelle Saftich
  • Blog Tour/Guest Post: The Lost Children by Theresa Talbot
  • Q&A: The Artist and the Soldier by Angelle Petta
  • Book Review: The Good Father by S R Wilsher
  • Book Review: The Great Darkness by Jim Kelly
  • Blog Tour/Q&A: The Picture by Roger Bray
  • Book Review: Prussian Blue by Philip Kerr
  • Book Review: Our Kind of Cruelty by Araminta Hall
  • Book Review: Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir
  • Blog Tour/Guest Post: The Concubine’s Child by Carol Jones
  • Book Review: The Visitor at Anningley Hall by Chris Thorndycroft

How was your week in books?  Unputdownable or indescribable?

Book Review: Staying On by Paul Scott #1977club

whatcathyreadnext4 Comments

the1977club

Staying OnAbout the Book

In this sequel to The Raj Quartet, Colonel Tusker and Lucy Smalley cling to their bungalow in the hills of Pankot after Indian independence deprives them of their colonial status. Lucy, fed up with accommodating her husband, tries to assert her own independence.

In scenes both poignant and hilarious, she and Tusker act out class tensions among the British of the Raj and eloquently give voice to the loneliness, rage, and stubborn affection in their marriage.

Format: Paperback (pp.)                   Publisher: Granada
Published: 1978 [1977]                      Genre: Literary Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Staying On on Goodreads

My Review

Staying On is my book for the #1977Club organised by those great book bloggers, Stuck in a Book and Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings.  This was a re-read for me of a book I read quite a few years ago now because it is a sequel to Paul Scott’s The Raj Quartet series of novels that I really loved when I read them.    The Raj Quartet was televised as The Jewel in the Crown in 1984, introducing a number of actors who subsequently went on to great things, such as Tim Piggott-Smith, Geraldine James and Art Malik.  Staying On was also adapted for television in 1980, starring the wonderful Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson.

Goodreads tells me I gave Staying On three stars when I read it for the first time and I have to say my feeling towards it this time is pretty similar.  This is despite the fact that it was awarded the Booker Prize (as it was known at the time) in 1978 by a panel of judges chaired by Philip Larkin, no less.

The most successful character for me was Lucy Smalley who felt the most fully-rounded creation and engaged my sympathy more than the other characters.  It helps, no doubt, that the reader is party to more of Lucy’s thoughts and feelings than of the other characters.   In contrast, Tusker remains rather a remote, tragic figure.

Tusker’s declining health and concerns about her financial position should the worst happen prompt Lucy to reminisce about her girlhood, her first meetings with Tusker, their courtship, eventual marriage and move to India.  She recalls movingly her struggles to adjust to the strict social hierarchy of the British in India, and the petty rules and humiliations meted out to her by other wives.

Lucy is an engaging character because it’s clear she thinks of others whereas Tusker seems only to think of himself.  As Lucy observes, ‘He hears.  He listens.  But doesn’t let on.  And he rejects and obfuscates.  He rejects anything he hears which it doesn’t suit him to hear.’   I found it sad that Lucy and Tusker seemed to have stopped being able to communicate, to understand each other and appreciate their respective needs.  It’s not until very late in the book that we get an insight into Tusker’s feelings for Lucy, feelings he is sadly unable to express directly to her.  Her reaction to what she learns is very moving.

I felt that many of the secondary characters – like the awful Mrs. Bhoolabhoy – bordered on caricature.  However, most problematic for me was the handling of racial difference.  For instance, in the following quotation – and I apologise in advance if any of the terms cause offence – Lucy recalls that, ‘one of the earliest lessons she had learned in India was of the need to steer clear, socially, of people of mixed blood and she had quickly been taught how to detect the taint, the touch of the tar-brush in those white enough to be emboldened to pass themselves off as pukka-born.’   I appreciate that what is being depicted were different times (although the book is only set in 1972) but that word ‘taint’ brought me up short when I read it.

I also felt uncomfortable about what seemed like stereotyping of the different races, especially as I didn’t get a clear sense that I was being encouraged by the author to challenge such generalisations.  Lucy recalls, ‘She’d been told that the Eurasians (Anglo-Indians as they were then called) were very loyal to the British; that without them there would have been no reliable middle-class of clerks and subordinate officials. [….] they formed an effective and in-depth defence against the strange native tendency to bribery and corruption which, coupled with that other native tendency to indolence, could have made the Indian empire even more difficult to run than it already was.’

What Staying On does well is evoke the end of an era.  Tusker and Lucy represent the last remnants of a different kind of society, social order and way of life.  As Lucy confides in a letter to a friend, they are now literally the last of the British permanent residents ‘on station’ in Pankot.   Their situation has become precarious both financially and practically as plans for development of Smith’s Hotel threaten The Lodge which is their home.    As Tusker observes, “I still think we were right to stay on, though I don’t think of it any longer as staying on, but just as hanging on”.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

In three words: Moving, tender, elegiac

Try something similar…The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott

Paul ScottAbout the Author

Paul Scott was born in London in 1920. He served in the army from 1940 to 1946, mainly in India and Malaya. He is the author of thirteen distinguished novels including his famous The Raj Quartet. In 1977, Staying On won the Booker Prize. Paul Scott died in 1978.

Goodreads