This month's books

 Just out of this month's book group and what can I say - I'm having an awesome run of fantastic books. 

For book group we read Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees, a family saga set in the troubles of Cyprus in the 1970's where a Muslim Turkish girl falls in love with a Christian Greek boy and of course, all hell breaks loose in a big way. This is offset by our view of the couple's teenage daughter 30 years later and what she is going through with her fractured family. It's an interesting take on things, particularly as part of the book is narrated by a fig tree which is living in the back yard. It's a small epic - one that took me about 100 pages to really get into, but by then I was too invested in the whole scenario. What made it a little better was having Cypriot friends in London - the book explained a bit about why they were where they were. Mind you, by the time I was in London, the worst of the troubles were over. Shafak is a master writer. I still preferred her Ten Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World, but this was still very good. 

Then yesterday, I finished my audiobook - Damon Galgut's The Promise. There is so much to unpack in this one. Yet another sweeping family drama, the book relates the story of the Swart family and the book takes place over four funerals over a period of 30 years. It starts when the country is in the last days of Aparthied, and flows through into the release of Mandela, through the Zuma years until the present day. The narrrator is of that close third person omniscient type that can feel claustrophobic at times. 

This also won the Booker Prize last year, and I can see why.

Having been around South Africans for years, it was an interesting perspective (mind you, this family were Afrikaaners, most of my friends are of the British / European variety) but what it was presenting was the stuff that most families go through, from the fights, to the grief to the shock, the the family memories which nobody can really know if the promise made actually happened - and why this has never been resolved. 

I'm thinking of putting this up for book group next year. It's extraordinary. 

And finally. My new audiobook, started today, is Julia Baird's Phosphorescence. 

What I thought was going to be a science book is nothing of the sort. It's part anecdote, part self-help book, part donator of wisdom. I'm only a few chapters in, but I am looking at her way of looking at the world. The is the perfect antedote to the lockdown blues. It was published in 2019, but I know it was in the best seller's list and has won many prizes. Even though I've only just begun the journey with this book, I'm thinking I'll be recommending it. I've already told my colleagues about this one. It's a gem. 

And now for the next dilemma - what to read next? Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait? One of the two Sally Rooney's I haven't read? The last Sofie Laguna which I haven't read that is sitting on my nightstand? Or should I read next month's book group book now (Diana Reid's Love and Virtue) . 

I have too much choice, I'm afraid. 

Today's song: