I've been wanting to do this for a while. Once a month, report back on what I've read and what I thought. Being a new year, it's time to have a look at what I got read over January. I'll go in finishing order.
Book One
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
4 stars
This was our January book for book group - and the second time I'd read this. Instead of a paper copy, I listened to it on the way back from Adelaide - and it stood up to the second reading.
It's a genre bending novel, a little bit of science fiction, a bit historical, with a bit of romance mixed in for good measure. You end up sort of falling in love with one of the main characters - Graham Gore, who was an actual person. It made me want to go out and learn more about 19th century polar exhibitions.
Comes recommended.
Second book:
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
5 Stars
Loved, loved, loved this book. Again, I took this in as an audiobook, and it was flawlessly produced.
And epistolary novel, you follow the life, family and friends of Sybil von Antwerp, a lawyer, judges clerk, a mother and grandmother as she ponders her later years, her life and the things she wishes she could to over.
It's extraordinary. I was so sad when this finished.
Highly, highly recommended.
Third book:
By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult
5 Stars
Okay, my Shakespearean biases come out here. I'm not normally a Jodi Picoult fan, but I loved this as it took in two of my favourite things, Shakespeare and Theatre, and turned it into something great. Split into two different stories. The first of Melina, a playwright in New York in 2019. The second story looks at Melina's long lost relative, Emilia, a courtesan and writer who was working in the time of Shakespeare. Themes of a woman's role in creativity, sexism, family and friendship are all contained in here.
I loved it. As a revisionist history, it's the absolute bomb.
Book Four.
Babel by RF Kuang
4 Stars
I was reticent to read this after reading the author's well-known book, Yellowface - which I really did not like at all. A friend gave me this to read in England, saying, "You'll like this."
I did.
For fans of Philip Pullman, Babel tells the story of Robin Swift, a boy rescued from the slums of Hong Kong to become a student at the School of Translation in Oxford, where they are housed at the Tower of Babel, which is a part of an alternate Oxford University - just like Pullman. With themes of racism, bettering oneself, fitting in and doing the right thing, this is a long and wordy book, but well with the effort. At 550 densely packed pages, this took me six weeks to read. Rather than race through it, I read a chapter a day and let it permeate my being.
I can see why it received a British Book of the Year award. It's worth savouring every page. And thankfully, it's nothing like Yellowface.
Fifth Book
A Guide to Berlin by Gail Jones
4 stars
I picked this up last year, then worked out that one of the things this book was about was the writer, Vladimir Nabokov, writer of Lolita. I got about thirty pages in before working out that I really should fill that reading hole and read Lolita before finishing this book. Which is what I did.
Lolita is amazing - very disturbing, but the writing....oh my goodness!
Regardless, I came back to finish this.
It's a slow burn, but Jones' writing is remarkable.
Recommended for more literary readers. It's a gentle novel about travel and friendship in strange places.
Sixth Book
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
Stars 4.5
Okay, I've always been a huge fan of Geraldine Brooks, and this is up there with her best. (If you haven't read her Year of Wonders, what have you been doing?)
Like By Any Other Name there are a number of converging stories. In modern times, Jess, a scientist working at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. becomes involved in the hunt for answers over some horse bones found in the attic. Bring into this Theo, a Fine Arts PhD candidate who is looking for answers about a painting he found on the side of the road.
In the 1800s, we meet the slave Jarret, and his foal, Darley, who becomes Lexington, the most famous racehorse in pre-Civil War times, and what happens to this incredible duo.
My only small criticism of this book is that it closely follows Brooks' formula which she's used on a number of other books - The People of the Book being one of them. However, her fastidious research and wonderful writing shines through.
In all, January was a great reading month.
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