Paul Davidson
[Draft]
1. Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner ★
Sentences you could lick.
Edith Hope, a writer of romantic fiction under a more thrusting name, remained standing at the window, as if an access of good will could pierce the mysterious opacity with which she had been presented, although she had been promised a tonic cheerfulness, a climate devoid of illusions, an utterly commnonsensical, not to say pragmatic, set of circmstances - quiet hotel, excellent cuisine, long walks, lack of excitement, early nights in which she could be counted upon to retrieve her serious and hard-working personality and to forget the unfortunate lapse which had led to this brief exile,
Mme de Bonneuil was also in black, but then she always is; I think she has two or at the most three black dresses of an ageless, shapeless, timeless, and indeed fashionless type into which she changes every evening. I would be quite unable to describe these garments to you in detail, largely because they contain no detail.
To have a fraction of that skill and control.
2. The Future by Naomi Alderman
S’OK I guess. Plagued with too on-the-nose characters. She could have (albeit at the risk of lawsuit) called her them Elon, Mark and Jeff and lose nothing. Leans too heavily into the great man of history thesis for me too. I don’t think, even in fiction, the solution would tie up as neatly as this.
3. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray ★★
Don’t read this review. Go read the book instead. So, so good. I’m still aching weeks after reading it.
4. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga ★
I love a first perason story relateed by an obivous idiot. Feel I know more about an aspect of India now too.
5. Lost by Mariajo Illustrajo
I don’t normally include the books I read with Piglet, but as I got this out fo the library and we read it every night for almost a month, I think it’s worth including. Right down to the point after 2 weeks when she would “read” it back to me. It was an audience with the memory poets of old.
6. The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo
Brilliantly over the top solution which I don’t mind not guessing at all. Layton meets Poirot.
7. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
Reading books is brilliant and you’ll be a better person for it says this book.
8. What by John Cooper Clarke
Songs as much as poems. A man with a voice so distinct that you have to spit the poems out in broad Mancunian.
9. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez
Another collection of horror stories riffing on class and unspeakable history a la Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny, but from Argentina and focusing on the crimes of the junta this time. Highlight for me was Kids who come back, but there aren’t any duds in the collection.
10. The Mirror and the Light by Hillary Mantel ★
He himself, Cromwell, meets his end. Pete Mitchell off of that Twitter (I think rightly) characterises Cromwell as middle-ages Beria, but likes these books regardless. The charm and writing are irrefusable.
11. 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
Anti productivity. Good newsletter in book form. Newsletter is a better format.