Meet the bookworms - Ruth Muscat
HOW YOU HELP AT THE BOOKSHOP
FAVOURITE AUTHOR (AND WHY!)
SOMETHING YOU'VE BEEN READING RECENTLY THAT YOU'D RECOMMEND
You can't just have one!!
So here are a couple :-) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2005). This book is constructed as a series of letters from an ageing Congregationalist pastor to his very young son, in the assumption that he will be dead before the boy grows up. He reflects on his faith, his failings as a human being and as a religious leader, on love, jealousy and forgiveness. This is the most beautiful and moving book I have ever read, and it yields something new on every re-read (there have been many). It is a portrayal of reflective humanity in its richest, most humbling form and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It deservedly won the Pulitzer prize in 2005.
The Dark is Rising fantasy sequence by Susan Cooper. I'm REALLY cheating here as this is actually a series of five books written for children between 1965 and 1977. I have loved loved loved them since I was around 10 years old and I have reread them every couple of years for the last 40-odd years. They draw on Arthurian legend of the Welsh tradition and English folklore to tell the story of Will, who on turning 11 comes into his powers as the last of the Old Ones, destined to defend the Light in its eternal struggle with the forces of darkness. Stirring, powerful stuff whatever your age - read them with your children and grandchildren.
SOMETHING YOU'VE BEEN READING RECENTLY THAT YOU'D RECOMMEND
The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey. Only just published, this is a gem of a book. The story is narrated by Miv, about to turn 12 at the start. It is 1979 and the small Yorkshire town where she lives with her father, heavily depressed mother and aunt is preoccupied with one thing - the Yorkshire Ripper’s murders. Well, not just that; there is also near-universal scorn for Margaret Thatcher’s election as Prime Minister, and the National Front is gaining a foothold amongst restless teenagers looking for trouble.
As unrest grows locally with each new Ripper killing, and Miv’s father starts making noises about moving ‘down south’ to make a fresh start, Miv decides that this must be because of the Ripper’s proximity, and she and her friend decide that the only thing for it is to catch him themselves. So they start a List of Suspicious Things, and investigate each in turn, with ultimately devastating consequences. Over the course of the next few months Miv grows from a child into a young woman. Her growing awareness of the ways of the adult world - half-truths, racism, gossip, domestic violence - is portrayed beautifully and completely realistically. As someone born only a couple of years later than Miv, I could completely relate to her confusion and resistance to real adult troubles.
This debut is absolutely pitch perfect. It is a celebration of friendship, an acknowledgement of the violence against women that has gone too long unchecked in society, and a beautiful coming of age story. It is compellingly readable and moving, without sentiment or triteness.
YOUR PICK OF A BOOK THAT'S CURRENTLY IN STORE OR ONLINE
The Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker. The inspiration for the first novel in this series is the historical meeting between two First World War poets, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, at the psychiatric institution Craiglockhart. Pat Barker weaves together the legacy of the trenches, reimagines the genesis of the poetry written to depict the horrors of the war, and brings to life the pioneering psychiatrist WHR Rivers who brought compassion to his treatment of the traumatised boys who came back shell-shocked from the front. Her characters are a mix of fictional and historical people, their stories moving, engrossing, tragic and hopeful. As an account of that historical period, this trilogy wears its research lightly, but is a tremendous piece of writing that amply deserved the Booker prize awarded to the final novel in the series.