Tag: Reviews

#WWWWednesday – 13th March 2024

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

Hungry GhostsHungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein (Bloomsbury)

The music was still playing when Dalton Changoor vanished into thin air . . .

On a hill overlooking Bell Village sits the Changoor farm, where Dalton and Marlee Changoor live in luxury unrecognisable to those who reside in the farm’s shadow. Down below is the barrack, a ramshackle building of wood and tin, divided into rooms occupied by whole families. Among these families are the Saroops – Hans, Shweta, and their son, Krishna, who live hard lives of backbreaking work, grinding poverty and devotion to faith.

When Dalton Changoor goes missing and Marlee’s safety is compromised, farmhand Hans is lured by the promise of a handsome stipend to move to the farm as watchman. But as the mystery of Dalton’s disappearance unfolds their lives become hellishly entwined, and the small community altered forever.

Recently finished

The Story Collector by Iris Costello (Penguin)

Clear by Carys Davies (Granta)

Invader (Agricola #1) by Simon Turney (Head of Zeus)

What Cathy Will Read Next

The Book of SecretsThe Book of Secrets by Anna Mazzola (eARC, Orion via NetGalley)

Months after the plague ravaged Rome, men are still dying in unnatural numbers, and rumour has it that their corpses do not decay. The Papal authorities commission lieutenant governor Stefano Bracchi to investigate as subtly as he can.

Meanwhile, to the north of the city, Anna Maria Aldobrandini, Duchess of Cesi, is trapped in an abusive relationship with a much older man she was made to marry when she was only a girl. Her friend, Sulpizia Vitelleschi, is in a similar position, but there is no prospect of divorce or escape. To the south, Cecilia Verzellina fears that, once her jealous son-in-law is released from prison, he will kill her beautiful daughter.

Bracci’s investigation at the Tor di Nona will introduce him to horror, magic and an unthinkable discovery. And he begins to wonder: should certain deeds should remain forever unpunished…

Book Review – Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf

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About the Book

This is a love story. A story about growing old with grace.

Addie Moore and Louis Waters have been neighbours for years. Now they both live alone, their houses empty of family, their quiet nights solitary. Then one evening Addie pays Louis a visit.

Their brave adventures form the beating heart of Our Souls at Night.

Format: ebook (194 pages) Publisher: Picador
Publication date: 4th June 2015 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Find Our Souls at Night on Goodreads

Purchase Our Souls at Night from Amazon (link provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme)

My Review

Our Souls at Night was the February pick for the Waterstones Reading book club. It’s fair to say that some members struggled with the absence of quotation marks and found the book a little too slow-paced for their taste. ‘Monotonous’ was one word used, although I would disagree with that.

Addie’s unexpected suggestion that Louis spend his nights with her sets in train a relationship that progresses from quiet conversation about everyday topics to revealing exchanges about events in their lives. Lying side by side at night it’s almost like a confessional allowing them to disclose things they may not have shared before: regrets, feelings of guilt, things they should have done differently. It brings them both comfort.

‘So life hasn’t turned out right for either of us, not the way we expected, he said.
Except it feels good now, at this moment.
Better than I have reason to believe I deserve, he said.’

Gradually their relationship moves from simple companionship to something much deeper.

Our Souls at Night is a quiet, gentle book but no less emotionally powerful for that. I loved the way the author includes little details, such as Louis’s careful preparations for his nightly visits, that reveal so much about the characters.

I really loved Addie for her courage and her determination to ignore what others think about her relationship with Louis. It turns out small town America is not the most forgiving place when it comes to unconventional relationships but I loved Addie’s and Louis’s bold response to the gossipmongers. And when Addie’s grandson Jamie, a troubled child, comes to stay, Louis proves a natural, instinctively knowing how to draw the boy out and bolster his confidence.

I wasn’t alone in finding the behaviour of Gene, Addie’s son, reprehensible. Forcing her to choose between her relationship with Louis and continued contact with her grandson was horrid, if not downright cruel. Gene’s own experiences – a failing marriage, a failed business and spiralling debts – seemed to have made him capable of seeing only mercenary motives in Louis’s friendship with his mother. A bit rich, if you’ll pardon the pun, since it’s Gene who expects his mother to bail him out.

Although sad in some ways, I felt the conclusion of the book left open the possibility that all was not lost, just that it might have to happen in a different way.

I really enjoyed this tender story of love in later life. I was sad to learn that it was the author’s last novel and was published posthumously.

In three words: Intimate, emotional, perceptive

About the Author

Author Kent Haruf

Kent Haruf was born in eastern Colorado. He received his Bachelors of Arts in literature from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1965 and his Masters of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1973. For two years, he taught English in Turkey with the Peace Corps and his other jobs included a chicken farm in Colorado, a construction site in Wyoming, a rehabilitation hospital in Colorado, a hospital in Arizona, a library in Iowa, an alternative high school in Wisconsin, and universities in Nebraska and Illinois.

Haruf is the author of Plainsong, which received the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Maria Thomas Award in Fiction, and The New Yorker Book Award. Plainsong was also a finalist for the 1999 National Book Award. His novel, The Tie That Binds, received a Whiting Foundation Award and a special citation from the Pen/Hemingway Foundation. In 2006, Haruf was awarded the Dos Passos Prize for Literature. All of his novels are set in the fictional town of Holt, Colorado. Holt is loosely based on Yuma, Colorado, an early residence of Haruf in the 1980s.

Haruf lived with his wife, Cathy, in Salida, Colorado, with their three daughters. He died of cancer on November 30, 2014.