Books to plan a holiday around
By What Sarah and Lou Read
Books to plan a holiday around
By What Sarah and Lou Read
The Feast: The Summer Holiday Seaside Crime Classic
Margaret Kennedy
£9.99 £9.49One to whisk you away to the Cornish coast in an instance. We both really enjoyed this book. Kennedy's writing has been compared to Austen's and I can see why. It's the summer of 1947 in Cornwall and a cliffside hotel has just been buried in a landslide. Jumping back a week we follow the hotel staff and guests in the build up to the disaster. Kennedy's characters are beautifully and colourfully written. Within a few pages I felt as if I knew everyone and was invested in their stories. Friendships are formed, marriages crumble, there's deceit, romance and lots of mischief making. The children plan a Feast and invite everyone. But who will go and celebrate and who will stay in the doomed hotel? It's a gentle, comforting read, but there's satire, social commentary and lots of humour too and a Seven Deadly Sins theme underlying it. Treat yourself to this and savour it! I'm off to read more books by Margaret Kennedy. (Louise)
Beautiful Ruins
Jess Walter
£8.99 £8.54Italy We both love this book, a wonderful atmospheric Summer read set in a tiny, rocky coastal village in Italy. Poignant, beautiful and nostalgic. (Sarah)
The Garnett Girls
Georgina Moore
£14.99Escape to the beaches of the Isle of Wight with this delightful family saga. Loveable characters, intrigue, family relationships and lots of beach life. If you're looking for an insightful, atmospheric family saga, I'd really recommend this one. I loved it. Sisters Rachel, Imogen and Sasha are all negotiating changes in their relationships with each other, their partners and their free spirited mother Margo. Their alcoholic father left when they were younger and the reverberations of his abandonment of them affected all of them. I loved being immersed in the sisters' lives and finding out more about the secrets around their father's disappearance. It's sharp and perceptive on mother/daughter relationships and the complexity of bonds between sisters. I was fascinated to see how the relationships between the sisters changed but was still influenced by their childhood roles and experiences. The author's love for the Isle of Wight, where most of the book is set, shines through in her evocative descriptions of the the scenery, beaches and details of island life. Summer seems a long way away, but I'm already planning on recommending this as the perfect beach read to everyone I know. An engrossing, enjoyable and entertaining read. (Lou)
The Marriage Portrait: the Instant Sunday Times Bestseller, Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023
Maggie O'Farrell
£25.00ITALY: A must read for all Maggie O'Farrell fans and lovers of historical fiction. Set in Renaissance Italy, it opens as 16 year old Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrante, is becoming aware that her husband is trying to murder her. O'Farrell immerses the reader in Renaissance life. The people, the setting, the clothes and the music are all described in ornate detail. The claustrophobic nature of the life, the power struggles and the deceptions are skilfully painted. It's an intense, absorbing and vivid read. Just fabulous! (Lou)
Paul
Daisy Lafarge
£9.99 £9.49FRANCE: Larfarge’s debut novel snared me in much the same way the narrator finds herself swept along by the domineering title character. Set in France, it is split into three parts set over three consecutive weeks. For the first part, I wasn’t sure if the story was entirely convincing and I couldn’t get a handle on the narrator, Frances, an English post graduate running from a relationship in Paris, working on a volunteer farming scheme. The scenario, a dilapidated farm/commune of middle-aged dropouts, where Frances goes to stay and falls in love with the eponymous Paul, seemed overly romanticised and the plot was slow. But I gave it a chance because of its hypnotic evocation of a continental summer and the way it did remind me of travelling when I was younger. The second part explained some of the back story and teased out some of the themes that the book explores. And the third pulled everything together and brought the story to a simmering conclusion. In terms of atmosphere, dusty, langorous heat and a coming-of-age story, it reminded me of Hot Milk by Deborah Levy but actually I found Lafarge’s heroine much more believable and the story itself more compelling and complex with a much stronger resolution. It’s a book which would work well for a book club – there are so many literary and mythical allusions and I’m sure that it is a book in which you discover more every time you re-read it. I’m looking forward to seeing where Lafarge goes from here. She’s already been recognised as a great talent with a pre-publication Betty Trask award. She is definitely one to watch. (Sarah)
The Mystery of Henri Pick
David (Author) Foenkinos
£10.99 £10.44A delightfully quirky, witty book that transports you to Paris and rural Brittany so well that it's almost like a mini-break! An editor and her boyfriend discover a book they love in the 'Library of Rejected Manuscripts', supposedly written by the owner of the local pizzeria. When it becomes a literary sensation a journalist gets suspicious. Confusion, deceit and romantic entanglements ensue. It's a critique of the literary world, a detective story, love story and a celebration of readers and writers. I loved it. Enjoy it with a croissant or a glass of wine and you'll feel as if you're on holiday.
A Ghost In The Throat
Doireann Ni Ghriofa
£8.99 £8.54An extraordinary book. Immersive, haunting, powerful and brave. It's unlike anything I've ever read. Written by the Irish poet Doireann Ni Ghriofa, it tells the story of her obsession with the eighteenth century poet Eiblin Dubh Ni Chonaill and her epic poem, Caoineadh Airt Ui Laogharie. Ni Ghriofa details her life in modern Ireland as she raises her young children, and becomes consumed by her research into Eiblin Dubh's poem and life. The words of the poem reach out to her and she sees in them echoes of her own life and those of other women throughout the ages. Ni Ghriofa becomes engrossed in translating the poem anew and finding out tiny details of the poet's life through painstaking research. The writing is stunning, original and poetic, bringing the everyday sharply to life and imbuing it with meaning. I became completely absorbed in both poets lives and finished the book feeling as if I knew them. Her writing about motherhood is some of the most honest and evocative that I've read. It's a long time since I was at home with young children but I was immediately transported back to that time. It's an inspired mix of memoir, literary biography, social commentary scholarship that defies categorisation. Ni Ghriofa has created something highly original, memorable and brilliant. Read it and be astonished.
After the Party
Cressida Connolly
£9.99 £9.49The Isle of Man A reimagining of the set who revolved around Oswald Moseley and the consequences of being a supporter of his. Stylish and profoundly sad, society may have moved on a lot since the early twentieth century, but feelings and interior lives stay the same. The last part of the novel is set in an internment camp on the Isle of Man, reminding me of childhood holidays there (fortunately in happier circumstances). (Sarah)
The Magician: Winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize
Colm Toibin
£9.99 £9.49Munich A meaty paperback imagining the interior life of Thomas Mann. Spanning a lifetime and set in Switzerland, Los Angeles and Venice, it is the early parts of the book in Munich which would be the most rewarding to read in situ. (Sarah)