Summer reading mixture

A bit of a mixed bag of books have been read this summer ( but my winter reading is just as much of a mixture as well)

Marilyn Robinson's Lila was a book club read, and provoked quite a bit of discussion on and around the story. Several others in the Book Club had read the author's other two books in this trilogy, Gilead and Home, although I hadn't at the time. I'm slowly reading Gilead at the moment. Marilyn Robinson' s writing beautiful, spare prose is a delight to read, with not an unnecessary word, but sufficient to build a picture in one's mind of the people and places she delineates.Lila is the focus of the story and sometimes the narrator in a sort of stream of consciousness. Lilais rescued from a traumatic and neglectful situation in early life by Doll, who is a drifter. Both Doll and Lila are taken and looked after by an old woman who cares for them both, helping to bring Lila back to normal health. Lila and Doll live a drifter sort of life, along with a group of others, finding work where they can and living rough. Doll does find settled work for a while, and sends Lila to school for a year, during which Lila learns to read and write and impresses the teacher with her innate intelligence. Doll kills a a man, possibly Lila's father and is put in jail,.Lila, after a job in a brothel in St Louis where she quickly prefers to do the cleaning, drifts away and finds shelter in a small abandoned cabin in Gilead. Eventually she meets the Reverend John Ames  almost by chance, while he is preaching a sermon in his church- she takes shelter in the church during a rainstorm. I loved the writing and the thoughts about theology that the Reverend John Ames displays, as well as Lila's reactions to him and the people in the town.

Rachel Johnson's Winter Games was a completely different read. Set in the 1930's and 2006, it is a family story, of a sort. Daphne is the heroine of the earlier period, which is set mostly in 1936 and in Germany, where Daphne is sent to be "finished", aged 18. Francie, Daphne's granddaughter goes to Germany in connection with her job as a feature writer for a glossy magazine, and discovers a picture of her grandmother there. Francie is wildly attracted to her boss, Nathan and has a brief fling with him, despite being married to Gus. The story goes back and forth between past and present, although not in a confusing way. A good, light read with some very amusing comments about modern urban life, although given the subject matter of Daphne's part of the story, not too light -hearted.

Julian Barnes' Nothing to be frightened of is an interesting meditation and exploration of the fear of death and dying, combined with a sort-of family memoir. (review here )Although the subject of death and dying is serious one, this book is very funny in places, and I mean laugh-out-loud funny, especially some of the family memories and how truthful they actually are. Various family members of the author's family make their appearance, notably his brother, a professor of philosophy. There is also some discussion about the reliability of memory ( Julian and his brother often recall the same event quite differently) and the contrast between memory and imagination.



The last of this mixed bag of reading is Esther Freud's Lucky Break, a story of a small group of actors who meet for the first time at drama school. We follow their lives through their college days and their early acting careers. The group is mixed in many ways. Sita is Asian, Charlie has a Nigerian father and an Engkish mother, while Nell, Dan, Pierre and Jemma are all English. nell and Sita join together to do some work, Sita gets offered "Asian girl being forced into arranged marriage" parts too often for her liking. Nell eventually gets offered a lead part in a film, the premiere involves meeting Royalty. Charlie seems to be headed for success as soon as she leaves the drama school, but her career later apparently founders. Dan and Jemma marry and have 4 children; by the end of the story, he seems to be successful.  An interesting look at behind the scenes of actors lives, the highs and lows, and the many and varied links they have with each other, those who mange to stay in the profession and those who leave for their own varied reasons.

A reading medley

I've read a mix of books recently, but not yet blogged about any of them. Two of them were very interesting non-fiction , Coastlines by Patrick Barkham and The Edge f the World: how the North Sea made us who we are by Michael Pye.

Patrick Barkham's Coastlines, subtitled The Story of our Shore  is a ramble round those parts of the English coast which are owned by the National Trust under Operation Neptune, which was set up in 196, to protect those same parts from development - places such as Brownsea Island in Dorset, part of the Isle of Wight from the Needles, Tennyson Down and Blackgang Chine, part of the Durham coast, where coal mining took place. Many are popular spots for visitors, while others are small, less significant places, known mainly to local residents. 
A bit of a rag-bag of stories, but an interesting read, especially if one has visited any of these coastal areas. The writing usually flows well and each chapter ends with references to walks in the area, relevant maps and further readings. Should one want to follow these up, they would provide a lifetime of excursions and reading.

The Edge of the World : how the North Sea made us who we are by Michael is an historical look at the development of Northern Europe after the Romans left, about AD 400 up to the latter part of the 17th century. The author's premise is that the North Sea was at least as important in the cultural, political, social and any other development of Northern Europe as the Mediterranean sea. He has chapters on the Book Trade, Fashion, the Invention of Money,  and the Plague laws, all containing interesting anecdotes, and documented examples of how individual people or  groups took part in these activities or helped develop them. But much of what he quotes is fragmentary and although the author puts a lot of emphasis on the sea and the development of trade and shipping, it is not very detailed. A very interesting read but at times frustrating, as for me it raised almost as many questions as it purported to answer.  I think that most people with some interest in history and what happened after the Romans left Britain will enjoy it, but may also want to read more detail elsewhere.



Sarah Dunant's Blood and Beauty is one of her historical novels set in the Renaissance about the Borgias, specifically Pope Alexander Vl and his children Lucrezia and Cesare. Although a novel, obviously much research has been done, but this does not impinge too much on the story, as Sarah Dunant tries to concentrate on the thoughts and feelings of the characters which are may not necessarily be part of recorded history. Lucrezia comes across in this tale as a more sympathetic person than the myths that have come down to us would make us believe, but Cesare and his father the Pope seem to be as bad as they have been described by history. An interesting and enjoyable  read despite  or because of the scheming , mayhem and numerous murders for which the Borgia papacy was famous.




I picked up The Parasites by Daphne DuMaurier on a visit to my local library, as it was one of her novels I hadn't read. It is the story of the Delaneys, Maria, Niall and Celia and their talented parents. Maria is a talented actress, Niall a composer of popular songs, Celia cares for her increasingly frail father, a renowned singer. Their mother was wonderful dancer, their childhood one of touring with their parents. It is Maria's husband Sir Charles Wyndham who describes them as parasites. This comment cause the three Delaneys to reflect on their lives, their relationships to each other and their parents. Maria and Niall are not actually related to each by blood, as each is the child of Pappy and Mama by previous relationships. Celia is half-sister to both. The novel moves back and forth in time from their reflections of the past to the weekend which changes all their lives.  

Recent Doings

 Two concerts and a visit to an abandoned medieval village have been part of the entertainment recently while in France. The concerts, both held in small village churches were both delightful though very different from each other. The first concert  we attended  together with about 60 other people, local residents, second home owners and their visitors was in the church at Le Vaulmier, was part of a series organised by the Festival of Baroque Music in the Auvergne with Cantica Sacra. Concerts  are usually held in some of the many Romanesque and other churches in the Auvergne region. The two women musicians making up  a part of Cantica Sacra, Bogumila Gizbert-Studnicka (harpsichord)and Paulina Tkaczyk (flute and harpsichord) were excellent and played a variety of Baroque music. The second concert was by a solo pianist, Jean Baptiste Mathulin  and was superb. This took place in the church in Trizac, a large village a few miles away, under the auspices of  Les Hauvergnales,  a local organisation holding a series of events celebrating the village and its area.
I also visited the site of Cotteughes, an abandoned village on the plateau de Trizac. The abandonment took place during the latter part of the 14th century, possibly due to a variety of causes, including the Plague, the I00 Years War, which affected the Auvergne quite badly, and a change in the climate for the worse, making life up on the plateau which is over 1200 metres above sea level, that much more difficult. The site has been excavated, but few articles of interest have been found. 

The guides to the visit were a lady who was very knowledgeable about the history of the site, and a gentleman who explained the local plant life, of which the former inhabitants  made good use. Cotteughes is situated close to the Marilhou stream, which also has a small waterfall not far away through a pretty woodland path.

The Marilhou cascade, September 2015.

 This year the waterfall may not be so full of water, as this region  has had no rainfall for several weeks now, and the local farmers are beginning to move their cattle down from the high summer pastures,  they are now so dry the grass is insufficient to feed for the animals.