MARCH 2022 READING ROUND-UP

On the whole, I’m not a fan of crime fiction.  However, this said, there are a few crime writers whose work I do enjoy. Donna Leon is one of them.

She has created a wonderfully human fictional detective, Commissario Guido Brunetti who works for the Questura in Venice and shrewdly unravels a variety of  crimes.  I enjoy the meticulous detail, for example: what Brunetti is wearing,  or eating for dinner on a particular day –  tiny family details; the route of the vaporetto, or his rapid walk through the calle and over the many bridges; the Venetianness of it all.

I’ve noticed in both this month’s Leon novels,  that she’s not averse to taking a swipe at Italy’s cumbersome legal and bureaucratic structures, always expressed in cool, clinical terms. No soapboxing here, just critical reportage with a touch of cynicism. Her novels are multi faceted, one of the qualities that makes them so readable.

Throughout the many novels the same characters appear, familiar as ever, but with light touches of difference that make each read enormously enjoyable. Donna Leon provides her audience with a completely rounded story and for me, that’s the standout quality that brings me back again and again. And, as I often state: I don’t read crime. But I will, if its written by Donna Leon.  

FICTION

The Night Circus -Erin Morgenstern. Magical Fantasy. See my review 13 March 2022. https://thebooksmithblog.wordpress.com/2022/03/13/re-visiting-the-n

La’s Orchestra Saves the World – Alexander McCall Smith. WWII, Britain, gentle and philosophical . People exhibiting fortitude and courage during wartime.

Trace Elements – Donna Leon. Commissario Guido Brunetti, Venice,  an eco crime. Excellent, as ever. Authentic detail.

Doctored Evidence – Donna Leon. Commissario Guido Brunetti, Venice; the  title cleverly hints at the unravelling of the motive of the murder of an unpleasant old woman.

The Map of Salt & Stars – Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar. The 1001 Tales from the Arabian Nights and Al-Idrisi, the legendary mapmaker, melded with modern story of refugee family from the current Syrian war. History, myth, fantasy and the modern mingle and mix. Exotic and unusual.  

Weather – Jenny Offill. Brilliantly minimalist, no doubt, but not for me.

The Rules of Magic – Alice Hoffman. An enchanting family saga about a magical (literally) family. Herbalism, magical powers, animal familiars, tragic doomed loves, ancient historical family feuds. A jolly good read.

Ness – Robert Macfarlane & Stanley Donwood. Mythic prose poem. Nature overcomes human madness. Wildly unusual.

Unusual uses for Olive Oil –   Alexander McCall Smith. The gravely serious exploits of Prof. Dr von Igelfeld, recorded by that  comic genius, Alexander  McCall Smith. Priceless.

Hex – Rebecca Dinnerstein Knight. Bright sharp writing, but neurotic, obsessive narrator with supporting cast of solipsistic characters. Enjoyed the writing but not the book.

NON-FICTION

The Bookseller’s Tale – Martin Latham. Rave, rave ….. See my review 24 March 2022,https://wordpress.com/post/thebooksmithblog.wordpress.com/1429

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THE BOOKSELLER’S TALE – Martin Latham

The Bookish Universe is home to many tribes, clans and cults. For example:

There are Bookworms.

There are Book Bloggers.

There are Book Nerds

There are Bibliophiles.

But finally, leaving the best until last: there are BOOKSELLERS,  and most specifically, British Bookseller extraordinaire, Martin Latham of Waterstones, Canterbury, who has published his Tale.

After three decades in the book-trade, he shares a treasury of anecdotes, stories, histories, and personal memoir  which makes for fascinating reading. He reflects on all things bookish via Bookstores, Cultural  History,  Literature, Libraries, passionate  Book Collectors,  bookish cities (apparently #1 is Venice – who knew?) Marginalia, Book Pedlers of bygone eras … each page is a plethora of fascinating titbits, ideas, name dropping …. in one sentence we meet Fantasy  Writer Terry Pratchett and Dutch graphic artist, M C Escher, he of brain twisting geometric graphics.

Having read  the description of his father’s passion for collections, I am un-surprised by the splendid cornucopia offered by the book. After such a childhood one can forecast  a boomerang effect either towards Marie  Kondo-style  Minimalism or further enthusiastic squirreling.  I enjoyed the section so much that I’m giving you a taste of Maison Latham during ML’s childhood:

            My father was an extreme case as a collector  ….  He gathered up from London street markets and wartime souks not only thousands of books and coins but prints, fifteen or so walking sticks (he never used one) …. many toasters, a knobkerrie, an umbrella-stand full of spears, a Zulu shield of hide which groaned when a storm was coming  …. A sextant (he never sailed), scores of old tools, sash weights, three hand-operated drills (he never used an electric one), different grades of chain, an early intercom, two or three Smurf petrol tokens, and all sorts of promotional key rings, a few Roman toga brooches, the hand of an ancient Egyptian statue of Sekhmet … Hittite cylinder seals, both real and forged, an entire run of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, rescued from a skip outside the Society’s offices in Adam and Eve Mews, a rifle, a Luger pistol, a green glass ball to repel witches, a hand grenade with the pin in, a whole cupboard of clocks and watches he was gradually repairing, a wooden box full of cigarette cards, a magic lantern which smokes when in use, with eerie glass slides … a gilt set of stairs (only two feet high ) from his Aleppo war service, hundreds of years old ….a four-foot Aboriginal boomerang, two seventeenth-century Persian vases …. Two human skulls … hundreds of fossils, a Tsarist-era display box of gemstones, with inscriptions in Russian  ….

And these are merely extracts from the bulging list! I was enchanted, and simultaneously glad I wasn’t the cleaner at Maison Latham. By the way, I think ML falls into the squirrel category.

I loved his final chapter titled  ‘Bookshops’ which  seem to be owned and staffed by any number of wonderfully eccentric people, and patronised by the entire Who’s Who of contemporary culture. On the strength of this chapter alone, I am plotting to steal the book from Koeberg Library, but common sense tells me that its not worth incurring a lifetime ban from the Cape Town Public Library system.

Without doubt ML’s Bookseller’s Tale would be #2 on my list of essential Desert Island books. 

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RE-VISITING THE NIGHT CIRCUS

I seldom re-read books. Tempus fugit, and all that. Plus my TBR shelf growls and snarls at me, every time I walk by, which I do many times per day. I resolutely averted my eyes, ignored the miserable muttering from the books imploring: read me! read me! me-me-me! Instead I re-entered Erin Morgenstern’s magical world of The Night Circus.

I read the book when it first launched in a fireworks-flurry of promotion, hype, excitement and cultish rapture. Our Book Club bought a copy and I read it super-fast, because other members were hounding me, so I rushed through the story, barely comprehending the ending, in order to pass the book along to the next eager reader. I recall enjoying the story, but being vaguely puzzled by the rapturous reception. I have met readers who, upon finishing the book, raced to the nearest bookstore to secure their own copy, and have , by now, eleven years since publication, re-read it many times over. I used the word cultish earlier. I stand by it.

So how did the book perform, the second time around, after a much slower, careful read?

It certainly scores top marks for atmosphere, and for originality. Erin M weaves a skilful spell when it comes to creating ambience, otherness, magical delights and sensuous experiences. And no, the book is not dripping with sex. A little restrained eroticism, yes, but no purple pages. What does drip off the pages is esoterica, by way of runes, sigils, symbols, arcana, tarot, white doves, stars, misleading mirrors, vanishing doorways, smoke and mirrors . Like I said, very, very atmospheric.

The plot is more comprehensible the second time around, but I disliked the hoppy-skippy approach to time. My only complaint. The characters were acceptable, the major characters came across to maximum effect. Basically, its a story of two master magicians involved in a power struggle via their apprentices, bound to their masters, and set to complete a mysterious, unnamed challenge. Love and sacrifice are demanded, and given, but all finally ends well.

Did I enjoy it? Yes. It was an engrossing, atmospheric read.

Will I dash out to buy a copy? No.

I expect, by now, you’ve all read it. What did you think?

P.S.: Here’s the bookmark I used for this read. “The Weaving of the Enchantress” by Thomas Matthew Rooke (1842-1942). It struck me as the perfect bookmark. I keep old, favourite postcards and re-use them as bookmarks.

SEASONAL JOY STARTING IN FEBRUARY

What a thrill to discover my annual Christmas Gift Book from C, in my postbox! No matter that the book finally staggered in during the last week of February, despite being mailed from the UK in mid-December 2021. It arrived, so lets not moan about our dreadful postal system. I refuse to call it ‘our Postal service’ because service it ain’t.

Anyhoo. My dear friend C, now one of my oldest friends in terms of friendship-years, generously sends me a book every Christmas. Such a treat! Because this means that I can read books which are published in the UK, but not sold in this country, and unavailable on line. As you may imagine, I trawl through my Books Wish List, in search of that one, perfect book. And I always come up with at least one title. That’s half the fun.

The remaining fun-half is finally receiving the parcel, ripping off the wrapping, and admiring the book in all its shiny, new, glory. A brand new, hard-covered book is a rare treat in these days of trade paperbacks and Print-on-Demand cheapies.

I’m a fan of Lev Parikian. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense I know, given that he’s a British nature writer, writing about bird watching and the British countryside but I enjoy his book precisely because they’re about nature in the Northern Hemisphere and such a contrast to my arid, hot, wind-swept environment. .

The book arrived towards the end of February, and happily, that’s where the dated chapters begin 4-8th February …. which makes it a wonderful book to read, in dated segments during the year, as the days, weeks and months slide by .

What makes this particular book so attractive to me is that its based on the Japanese calendar system of 72 seasons, split (mostly) into 5 day sections. paying particular attention to seasonal natural events.

.The micro-seasons referred to were established in 1874, and are based on the solstices, the seasons, and cyclical events in nature. Each section has a heading, some jocular like “Starling Hullabaloo: 15-20 May”; some are poetic “Bracken turns to Bronze 7-11 November” ; while some some are vaguely menacing “Bats Sometimes Swarm 13-17 September”; and some sound like the evening weather report: ” Grey Skies are Unremitting 12-16 December.”

Directly below the tantalizing headings are the original haiku, in translation. For example, the Haiku for 12-16 December reads … Greater snow/Bears start hibernating in their dens . The Haiku are poetic miniatures – and perfect.

What a wonderful start to the day, sipping my morning coffee, and enjoying page or two of Lev Parikian’s gentle nature stories.

Thank you once again, dear friend.