Charl08 reads Voices and Visions in 2025 #2

I'm Charlotte, based in the northwest of England. I work in higher education (although my work along with a lot of UK HE is in the middle of a redundancy programme, so...) and enjoy reading, going to art galleries and museums and (when funds permit) travelling. Last year I went on a short break to Portugal, thinking I might aim for France this year.

The categories

I went to the Medieval Women: Voices and Visions exhibit at the tail end of last year in the British Library.

The exhibition was fascinating, many of the exhibits were beautiful. As there were lots of connections to books and writers I thought I could use them through this thread, and hopefully look at some of them a bit longer.

Reading my own books
Familiar Faces
New to me
Prizewinners
Women in translation
Graphic novels / manga
African Writers
History / Memoirs

Plus: Cat reads


https://www.artfund.org/explore/get-inspired/features/women-of-the-middle-ages

Ed. Most of the images are my photos of images in the book of the exhibition, Medieval Women (highly recommended btw!)

Reading my own books



"An anchoress entering her cell, from a Pontifical including an order for the enclosure of anchoresses; England, 15th century: Lansdowne MS 451, f. 76v."

Pretty sure anchoresses didn't get to just order stuff on amazon...

Try and read 10 books per month.

January

Space Invaders
Women Dreaming
Imperial Intimacies
Of Saints and Miracles
The Wind Knows My Name
I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me
Reality, Reality
Green Lion
Making History
Of Love and Other Demons

Target achieved in January? Yes! (10)

February
The Last Story of Mina Lee
Thunderclap
Secret History of the Rape Kit*
How to be a Revolutionary
Intimacies: short stories
Inside the Wave
A Woman's Story*
Aya: Face the Music*
History: a mess

Target achieved in February? 1 short...

March
Orbital (fiction)
Mrs Spring Fragrance (short stories)
A Soft Landing (fiction)
Father (fiction)
Tilt (poetry)
In the End it was all About Love (fiction)
The Window Seat: Notes from a Life in Motion (essays)
The Beautiful Summer (fiction in translation)
The Lark (fiction)
A Crime in the Neighborhood (fiction)

Target achieved in March? Yes! 10 read.

April
Nina Hamnett (bio/ art criticism)
The Silence of the Sea (fiction plus crit in translation)
Heart lamp* (short stories in translation)
1588* (crime fiction)
Fever* (crime fiction)
Lifting the Veil (short stories)
Tender Taxes (poetry)
Crooked Seeds* (fiction)
There's a Monster Behind the Door* (fiction in translation)
Last Seen: the enduring search by formerly enslaved people* (history)

My Cousin Rachel

Target achieved in April? Yes +1!

Currently reading my own books: (to different levels from having picked up recently to not having read in months)
Medieval Women: Voices & Visions: The Book of the British Library Exhibition
Everybody's Protest Novel: Essays (James Baldwin Centennial)
American Indians and the American Dream: Policies, Place, and Property in Minnesota
The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748–1789
The Bookseller's Tale
The Window Seat: Notes from a Life in Motion
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
The Persian Boy: A Novel of Alexander the Great
Father

* Means I only bought them this year. (Don't judge me!)

New to me (authors I've not read before)

I'd not heard of the erotic poetry of Gwerful Mechain, - the exhibition included a modern copy of 'Cywydd y cedor' (Poem to the Vagina) Wales, 18th century

From the notes: "Candid eroticism, audacity and humour characterise the poetry of Gwerful Mechain (d. 1502). She was one of the most extraordinary female voices in medieval Wales, although surviving copies of her works date from a much later period. This, her most popular poem, pokes fun at men who praise all women's body parts except for what she considers the best one...."



1. Deadly Company (crime fiction)
2. Of Saints and Miracles (fiction in translation)
3. The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou (historical / crime fiction)
4. The Stranger's Companion (crime fiction)
5. Greta and Valdin (fiction)

Familiar faces



Witches.

1. A Reason to See You Again (fiction)
2. Beg Borrow or Steal (romance)
3. Time of the Child (lit fic)
4. Life's too Short (romance)
5. Tuck (romance)
6. The Frozen People (crime)
7. Torch (crime)
8. Fever (crime)

Prize winners (and nominees)

"In February 1477, at the village of Topcroft in Norfolk, Margery Brews dictated a letter to her suitor John Paston III, calling him her 'right well-beloved valentine' and expressing the depth of her love. While John's reply to Margery does not survive, her words form the oldest known Valentine's letter in English.... "
(From the chapter by Calum Cockburn)

1. By the Fire We Carry (Women's Prize for NF LL)
2. A Little Trickerie (Women's Prize for F LL)
3. Ootlin (Women's Prize for NF LL)
4. The Persians (Women's Prize for F LL)
5. Good Girl (Women's Prize for F LL)
6. The Dream Hotel (ditto)
7. There's a Monster Behind the Door (Booker International LL)

Women in translation


Colophon of Estellina Conat, from her printed edition of Jedaiah Ben Abraham Bedersi's Behinat ha-'Olam; Mantua, 1476-80

The first known female Hebrew printer/ typesetter and one of the first known female printers in any language.

January
1. Space Invaders (Spanish)
2. Women Dreaming (Tamil)
3. Eliete (Portuguese)

February
1. The Island (Danish)
2. A Woman's Story (French)
3. Aya: Face the Music (French)
4. History: a mess (Icelandic)

March
1. Canoes (French)
2. A Perfect Day to Be Alone (Japanese)

April
1. Yeonnam-dong's Smiley Laundromat (Korean)
2. Heart Lamp (Kannada)
3. Ukraine, war, love (Ukranian)
4. Lifting the Veil (Urdu)
5. There's a Monster Behind the Door (French)

Graphic novels and manga



Art by Sibilla von Bondorf (d c1524), a nun in the Order of Poor Clares,
Detail from "St Clare and a group of nuns mourning St Francis of Assisi, from The Life and Miracles of St Francis of Assisi; Freiburg, 1478: Add MS 15710, f. 184v."

Reminds me of Lucie Attwell...

1. Pain is Really Strange
2. This Beautiful Ridiculous City
3. Curses (reissue)
4. Aya: Face the Music
5. The Restaurant at the Edge of the World
6. Elena: a hand made life

African writers

Noting this here:
https://brittlepaper.com/100-notable-african-books-of-2024/

January: Green Lion (South Africa)
February: How to be a Revolutionary (South Africa)
Ghostroots (Nigeria)
March: A Soft Landing (South Africa)
April: The Lion's Den (Zambia)
Crooked Seeds (South Africa)

History, memoir and other NF categories

"The author Christine de Pizan instructing her son, from 'The Book of the Queen'; Paris, c. 1410-14: Harley MS 4431/2, f. 261v."

1. Imperial Intimacies (memoir/ history)
2. V13 (journalism/ politics)
3. Challenger (history)
4. Hearts of Darkness (memoir)
5. Thunderclap (memoir / art history)
6. Secret History of the Rape Kit (history)
7. By the Fire We Carry (history / politics)
8. Embers of the hands (history)
9. Agent Zo (history / biography)
10. The Story of a Heart (medical history/biography)

11. Why Fish Don't Exist (biography / memoir)
12. Last Seen: the enduring search by formerly enslaved people (history)

Plans for Colourcategory reading... (aim is to read from my own shelves here)

January - green
The Wind Knows My Name
Lucie Rie

February - Gold
Private Revolutions

March: Pink
Miss Spring Fragrance
The Lark

April: Brown
Nina Hamnett
Le Silence de la Mer

May: – Red

June: – Yellow

July:– White

August:– Grey

September:– Silver

October:– Black

November: – Blue

December:Purple

Read:

Detail from 'The decorated opening of Ippolita's copy of Cicero's treatise on old age, written by her aged 14, and bearing her motto, emblem and an abbreviated form of her name; Milan, 1458: Add MS 21984, f. 3r.'
From essay "Ippolita Sforza, A Renaissance Education" Calum Cockburn. "Ippolita Maria (d. 1488) was a noblewoman born into the influential Sforza family, then rulers of the duchy of Milan..."

Month by month list (so I don't forget what I read when!)

January 26
1. Space Invaders (Women in translation/ reading my own books)
2. Deadly Company (New to me)
3. Women Dreaming (Women in translation/ reading my own books)
4. Imperial Intimacies (Reading my own books)
5. Someone Like Us (Familiar faces)
6. The Mighty Red (Familiar faces)
7. Lucie Rie (Reading my own books / Colourcat)
8. A Reason to See You Again (familiar faces)
9. What a Shame (new to me)
10. Of Saints and Miracles (Reading my own books/ green)

11.V13 (NF/ journalism)
12. The Wind Knows My Name (Reading my own books)
13. Challenger (NF)
14. Man Down (Familiar faces)
15. In Skates Trouble (ditto)
16. Eliete (Women in translation)
17. The Secrets of Hartwood Hall (bookclub)
18. I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me (Reading my own books)
19. Pain is Really Strange (graphic NF)
20. Reality, Reality (Reading my own books)

21. The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou (new to me)
22. Beg Borrow or Steal (familiar faces)
23. Hearts of Darkness: my life in the FBI (NF)
24. Green Lion (African writers / reading my own books)
25. Making History (Reading my own books)
26. Of Love and Other Demons (Reading my own books)
Library books read in January: 11

February 24 (50)
1. The Last Story of Mina Lee (Reading my own books)
2. Glorious Exploits (New to me)
3. The Island (Women in translation)
4. This Beautiful Ridiculous City (graphic novel)
5. Deep End (familiar faces)
6. Private Revolutions (history / biography)
7. Time of the Child (Familiar faces)
8. Thunderclap (NF / reading my own books)
9. Wedding Dashers (new to me)
10. Moon Garden (familiar faces)

11. The Secret History of the Rape Kit (history/ Reading my own books)
12. Curses (GN)
13. How to be a Revolutionary (African writers)
14. Life's Too Short (familiar faces)
15. Unorthodox (book group book)
16. Intimacies (Reading my own books)
17. Ghostroots (African authors)
18. The Stranger's Companion (new to me)
19. By the Fire We Carry (Prize winners / NF)
20. Inside the Wave (poetry, reading my own books)

21. A Woman's Story (Reading my own books/ Women in translation)
22. Aya: Face the Music (Reading my own books/ GN / Women in translation)
23. Tuck (familiar faces)
24. History: a mess (Women in translation / reading my own books)

Library books read this month: 9

March 26 (76)

1. Orbital (Reading my own books / prize winners)
2. Embers of the hands (History)
3. Canoes (Women in translation)
4. The Option Play (Familiar faces)
5. Mrs Spring Fragrance (Colour cat: pink / reading my own books)
6. A Little Trickerie (prize winners/ nominees)
7. Ootlin (prize winners/ nominees)
8. A Soft Landing (African fiction / reading my own books)
9. A Perfect Day to be alone (Women in translation)
10. Father (Reading my own books/ colour cat)

11. A Poisoner's Tale (new to me)
12. The Persians (Prize nominees)
13. Tilt (Reading my own books)
14. Story of my life (Story Lake) (Familiar faces)
15. The Long Water
16. The Fox Wife (new to me)
17. In the end it was all about love (Reading my own books)
18. The Window Seat: Notes from a Life in Motion (Reading my own books /Familiar faces)
19. Frozen People (Familiar faces)
20. Beautiful Summer (Reading your own books / New to me)

21. Good Girl (Prize nominees)
22. Agent Zo (Prize nominees / History)
23. The Dream Hotel (Prize nominees)
24. The Lark (Colour cat / reading my own books)
25. One Star Romance) (new to me)
26. A Crime in the Neighborhood (Reading my own books)

Library books read this month: 13

April 28 (104)
1. Amma (Prize nominees)
2. Once Upon a Broken Heart (New to me)
3. The Story of a Heart (Prize nominees)
4. Torch (Familiar faces)
5. Nina Hamnett (Reading my own books)
6. Why Fish Don't Exist (Prize nominees / NF)
7. Fundamentals in Flirting
8. Jane Austen's Bookshelf (History)
9. Murder by Memory (new to me)
10. Yeonnam-dong's Smiley Laundromat (Women in translation)

11. La Silence de la Mer (Reading my own books / colour cat)
12. Heart Lamp (Reading my own books / Women in translation)
13. The Restaurant at the Edge of the World (GN)
14. Greta and Valdin (new to me)
15. 1588: a calendar of crime (Reading my own books)
16. Fever (Reading my own books)
17. Ukraine, war, love: a Donetsk Diary (Women in translation)
18. Deadly Code (familiar faces)
19. First Time Caller (ditto)
20. Elena: a hand made life (GN)

21. 32229266::The Lion's Den (African writers)
22. Lifting the Veil (Women in translation / Reading my own books)
23. Tender Taxes (Poetry, reading my own books)
24. Crooked Seeds (African writers, Reading my own books)
25. There's a Monster Behind the Door (Women in translation/ prizes / reading my own books)
26. Last Seen: the enduring search (history / Reading my own books)
27. My Cousin Rachel (Reading my own books)
28. Birding (Prize nominees)

Library books read this month: 13

Well, two months in I've read 19 of my own (physical) books, and donated er, some of them to the charity shop.

February was really busy, including two book events in the same week, one to see Marian Keyes (who was wonderful) in the beautiful St George's Hall in Liverpool. I think the biggest book related event I've been too - and easily the most enthusiastic. The response when someone asked about the new tv adaptation was beyond enthusiastic!l

My work book group are reading the book for our next meeting at the end of March.
https://stgeorgeshallliverpool.co.uk/

The second event was in the Athenaeum, a private library which boasts former members including Melville. They hosted the annual Centre for the Study of International Slavery talk, with Toby Green giving the lecture. The lecture was about the restitution of objects to Africa. For my money, I did think he over-academic-ed this, given that most of the audience (as far as I could make out) were members of the community and museum professionals (we have the museum of World Slavery in Liverpool). The Q & A pulled things back though, to the practical implications of the costs, the gap between rhetoric and actual return and even the trustees of the Liverpool museum and their lack of speed was under scrutiny.

Despite myself I was tempted to add the new art museum in Benin City to my travel wishlist. (Travelling back from Benin City to Ibadan in 2008 is one of the "how the hell did we survive the roads" memories of my fieldwork. But its a long time ago now).

How much this issue is moving: Netherlands to return Benin Bronzes
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly8397e7gno

Happy new thread, Charlotte. You are doing great reading from your shelves, and filling in your various categories.

I know I ask you this every year, but do you have any predictions for the Women's Prize? I am rubbish at predictions, but would like to see There Are Rivers in the Sky on the list.

Orbital (Reading my own books)
Although a slim book, this took a lot of concentration for me, I think partly because it doesn't really have a conventional storyline. Broken down into the different successive orbits of an imagined crew on the international space station, it's more about the experience of being in space. Some beautiful writing, resonant reflections on global conflict and the impact of what happens when people work together in a small space with a view of the world out the window.

Not visiting the moon still (apparently) rankles for Russian spacemen though...

It isn't that, being a cosmonaut, he normally dreams of the moon or space - on the contrary, being a cosmonaut he normally has very practical dreams about how to use a wrench to get himself out of the small window of a room on fire. Training dreams. But lately his nights are flooded with images, his dreams odd and wistful as if they are not really his but someone else's. And now this repeated one, no doubt because of those astronauts who left Cape Canaveral yesterday. He dreamed - of all things, of all damned American things - of the infamous image taken by Michael Collins during the first successful moon mission, back in 1969: the photograph of the lunar module leaving the moon's surface, and of the earth beyond.

No Russian mind should be steeped in these thoughts. There is no talk of it on their side and the silence is wholly begrudging the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth Americans to soon land on the moon's hallowed dusted crust, and yet still not a single Russian boot. Not one. Not a single Russian flag. No Russian brain should be dreaming about it, not this moon landing and not the first or the second or the third or fourth or the fifth or the sixth, but how do you stop your dreams?

>12 BLBera: Thanks Beth.

You reminded me that I posted a list from (one of Deborah's favourites) booktubers
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V-qLPW1PeAg
https://m.youtube.com/@EricKarlAnderson

On the last thread here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/366923#8772879

This time of year reminds me that I don't read much new new fiction. I've not read any of these!

>11 charl08: Very impressed with your reading so many of your own books. I always start out the year, full of good intentions, but this goes up against reading the books in the Tournament of Books in March and loses. After that, it's catch up for the rest of the year.

I envy you seeing Marian Keyes. She seems like she'd be fantastic in person. Which book are they adapting?

>15 RidgewayGirl: This is the first I've heard of this!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2024/bbc-new-drama-marian-keyes-walsh-sisters

Also Netflix is doing a version of Grown Ups

>11 charl08: I never really got into Keynes, I tried Watermelon early in her career and never revisited her. Do you have a recommendation Charlotte?

Your second event is interesting as it is a subject I've been thinking about with all its complexities. I live it when a Q&A turns an event into something special.

>16 elkiedee: Yay! That is exciting, thanks.

>17 Caroline_McElwee: A friend who does not like chick lit at all gave me Rachel's Holiday years ago, telling me she'd loved it. It's a good starting point, but I also really liked Sushi for Beginners.

>15 RidgewayGirl: Well, I realised unless I counted ones I'd got recently I wasn't going to keep going, so I've given myself quite a big get out clause!

She was well worth going to, and I was really impressed by the organisers. Two small local bookshop owners who've got together to organise large book events in our area. I had such a good time I booked to see the author of The Ministry of Time.

>16 elkiedee: Thanks for posting this.

>17 Caroline_McElwee: It has been a long time since I first read her books, not sure if I'm the best person to recommend one to start with. (And thanks to >18 RidgewayGirl: I don't have to! Hurrah! Thanks Kay.) As part of the session she mentioned just how long she has been (successfully) publishing for, and some of the comments she had had from others when talking about her work.

(Male guest): What do you do?
(MK) I'm a writer.
-Patronising, disbelieving look- What kind of books do you write, would I have heard of them?
Really bloody successful books, actually...

I'm paraphrasing but it sounded all too likely!

>18 RidgewayGirl: Thanks Kay, I'll give one a go.

Both the events you attended would interest me. I am more envious of the Keyes event though since it's less likely that I'd get to hear her speak. She is one of my favorites of the genre. I will have to keep an eye out for those adaptations.

My favorites are Rachel's Holiday, Sushi for Beginners, The Other Side of the Story, and Last Chance Saloon. Some I haven't read in over ten years, though!

I find the lack of (real) movement on restitution of art and artifacts to Africa and other places infuriating.

Also, was just looking through your previous thread and will try to get The Window Seat from the library. I was not familiar with Forna at all, but looks like my kind of book. I will probably end up using it for my recommended by a friend square for Bingo!

Happy New Thread

>14 charl08: https://www.librarything.com/topic/366923#8772879

Of this list, I've only read There Are Rivers in the Sky, Intermezzo and Real Americans. Good lists though, lots of interesting sounding books.

>13 charl08: I also loved Orbital; it is so beautiful.

>21 purpleiris: Yes, when I was looking for info about Toby Green's new book (not out yet) I found quite a few online events. From what he said at the talk, he's thinking about publishing something around restitution in the future.

>22 purpleiris: I'd recommend all Forna's books, but I have a special spot for The Memory of Love, set in Freetown. In the essays she touches on her own family's experience in Sierra Leone.

>23 lowelibrary: Thanks!

>24 BLBera: I love lists like this but they are so dangerous for my plans to read my own books. My library loans are maxed out and I need to take some back sharpish!

I've requested:
The book of days
A little trickerie
The lion's den by Iris Mwanza

Happy new thread, Charlotte! You're doing so well reading your own things. I'm still working on number 1 of mine.

>25 charl08: Thank you! I will add that one as well.

>26 charl08: I know what you mean, Charlotte. All of those books sound good. My library doesn't have them yet...

Women's prize for fiction longlist 2025

Added to the wishlist:
Good Girl by Aria Aber (Bloomsbury)
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis (Weidenfeld)
Somewhere Else by Jenni Daiches (Scotland Street Press)
Amma by Saraid de Silva (Weatherglass)
Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings (Holland House)
All Fours by Miranda July (Canongate)
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami (Bloomsbury)
The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji (4th Estate)
Birding by Rose Ruane (Corsair)
The Artist by Lucy Steeds (John Murray)

Requested from the library:
Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell (Scribner)
A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike (Fig Tree)

Have a copy to read:
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4th Estate)

Read already:
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre)
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout (Viking)

Didn't get on with before for the Booker, not sure I will try again:
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Viking)

>30 charl08: Hi Charlotte! We've read the same two! I already have some on my library reserve, but some haven't been published here yet. There are quite a few debut novels, which is exciting.

Nesting is 99p for Kindle - it's not listed in the daily deals - I discovered this while adding other books to my wishlist late last night, ie after midnight but before the Women's Prize longlist went up. I have 3 other books on Kindle already, have borrowed The Safekeep as a library ebook and think I'm high enough on the reservation list to get a copy of Dream Count when it arrives, but I already have several newish books out that others have reserved, and more that haven't yet been requested, to contend with.

>30 charl08: I've read The Ministry of Time which didn't grab me (I realise I'm the exception when it comes to this), and I will be reading The Safekeep as I'm reading the Booker shortlist. Nesting really appeals, as does A Little Trickerie and I've always enjoyed Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie's work. But a lot of the rest aren't really shouting at me to be honest.

In all the longlist excitement I failed to reply...

>27 susanj67: Well, the short ones anyway, Susan.

>28 purpleiris: Look forward to hearing how you get on with them.

>29 BLBera: I may have put some more requests in at the library...

Happy new thread, Charlotte.

I'm not normally big on fiction, and even less big on Booker Prize winners (I've struggled to understand most of the ones I've tried!), but I must admit to be very tempted by Orbital.

>31 BLBera: I am even more pleased I get to hear Kaliane Bradley next month given that she's longlisted. Lots of interesting fiction in my future.

>32 elkiedee: Thanks for the heads up re Nesting: I've ordered a kindle copy.

>33 SandDune: Always interesting to hear how different people are approaching the list. Hope you like The Safekeep.

>35 Jackie_K: It wouldn't take you long: less than 200 pages!

Interesting and exciting Women's Prize Longlist, Charlotte. I have read Nesting, which I really loved and did a review on my thread. I also read The Safekeep which did not work as well for me. I purchased Fundamentally from my local bookstore, and picked up Dream Hotel from the library today. A Little Trickerie does appeal to me, but so far my library does not have and I have not ordered it. But we'll see. I need to look into the others more to decide what else I might like to read. Somewhere Else and Crooked Seeds grab me too.

Embers of the hands (history)

. At best, some of them might merit a metaphorical footnote in the annals and legends of history. But for the most part this is about those who were never in the stories in the first place. They may have sat round the fire telling and listening to the stories, or caught snatches of these tales as they brought in the food and cleared up afterwards. They may have missed the stories because they were outside answering the call of nature or getting up to indecorous activities under cover of darkness. Or they may have been listening to the distant laugh-ter and chatter from beyond the warm circle of firelight because they were never invited in the first place. In other words, this is a history of the Viking Age with the ordinary humans left in.

Really loved this accessible history of the Vikings, which focuses on the lives of "ordinary" people, from the musical instruments they played to their overuse/ lack of washing facilities (it depended who you asked!). Beautifully illustrated, it includes a blink and you'll miss it mention of my town. Although that may only be interesting to me, of course. There are also several references to Northern monument survivals that make me want to go visit, including the Gosforth cross, also carved with runes.
https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/after-empire/2019/03/06/gosforth-cross/
on the Lewis Chessmen:

Yet the chess pieces in themselves represent a cultural shift, the result of new influences that had spread from southern and eastern lands and made their way through Europe....

the pensive little faces of the chess pieces look both forwards and backwards in time. Bishops dressed in liturgical vestments clutch their croziers and bestow blessings: these holy men embody the contemporary Christian establishment. But on the chess board they stand next to berserkers, those fearsome, semi-legendary warriors of the Viking Age past who were said to work themselves up into a battle fury by biting on the rims of their shields, and fought either naked or wearing animal skins.

>37 vancouverdeb: It's an intriguing list of new-to-me books, apart from two. Plenty to add to the wishlist. Hope you enjoy the two you've ordered. I've ordered Crooked Seeds in paperback (due out April).

>38 charl08: This sounds great, Charlotte. It was one on the nonfiction list that most appealed to me. My library has a copy and I will get it eventually. Famous last words.

I was happy to see so many debut novels on the women's longlist for fiction. Most are available at my library; I guess I will worry about the ones that are not when I've read the available ones. ;)

>40 BLBera: I'm hoping they keep the same cover art for the paperback, as I will be tempted to buy my own copy. It reminded me of the Viking bit of the Usborne Time Traveller collection, my first history book. Loved that book. Hours of fun. There seems to be a new version, tempted to see what has changed!

Elizabeth created a rating list for the Women's Prize Longlist here - https://www.librarything.com/list/46341/2025-Womens-Prize-for-Fiction-Longlist. Rate them as you read them, Charlotte, or Beth or whoever is also reading from the Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist 2025.

Thanks Charlotte, and thanks for the info about Crooked Seeds. I think Crooked Seeds is here in North America already. Elizabeth mentioned it being on sale on Kindle.

>42 vancouverdeb: Thanks for sharing Deborah. The list function is so handy.

I'm glad you are enjoying The Little Trickerie, Charlotte. That is one I would like to read too. Let me know what you think. It is not yet available in North America , so maybe I will order it from Blackwelll's , or maybe I will wait.

I meet some literary people, chief among whom is the editor of the magazine who took my first Chinese stories. He and his wife give me a warm welcome to their ranch. They are broad-minded people, whose interest in me is sincere and intelligent, not affected and vulgar. I also meet some funny people who advise me to "trade" upon my nationality. They tell me that if I wish to succeed in literature in America I should dress in Chinese costume, carry a fan in my hand, wear a pair of scarlet beaded slippers, live in New York, and come of high birth. Instead of making myself familiar with the Chinese-Americans around me, I should discourse on my spirit acquaintance with Chinese ancestors...

Finished this amazingly pink book, part of a lovely set called "torchbearers". The reading experience was definitely better due to the introduction by C. Pam Zhang, explaining the significance of the author (the first Chinese-American writer). Facing discrimination and stereotyping, Sui Sin Far wrote idealised Chinese characters in response. Although written over a hundred years ago, the account of border officials removing children from their mothers hadn't dated as much as I wish it had.

>44 vancouverdeb: Will do!

A Little Trickerie
I loved this, one of the novels longlisted for the women's fiction prize. Tibb, the narrator, is a homeless child living with her mother at the start of the book, sometime in the late 15th century . The king has declared homeless people as criminals "vagabonds". Her mother has a plan to get them out of poverty, but things don't quite go as she was hoping, and Tibb is left to fend for herself. I loved how Tibb was so resourceful, but that the book manages to convey the threat to her, so as a reader you don't lose the sense of just how difficult things could get.

Her commitment to her friendships vs her experience of the hypocrisy of the church in the face of so much poverty, meant that I was firmly on her side as she carried out the "little trickerie" of the title. Her tireless energy made for a character it was impossible not to root for her "happy ending", despite the criminality involved. The author's "little trickerie" in putting short sections told from the perspective of her imprisoned friend between the "story" of Tibb's adventures meant I was really worried for them all, a sign of the book's success.

Don't you know that sometimes you must stand up and holler and shout?

This night is hot and I can't lie here when there are horses galloping inside of my skull. I climb out of bed with that candle and I am sitting in the great arm-chair which has leather stretched across its wood frame and which swallows me up whole. I dangle my legs over the arm.

In the bed Ambrose sits up. 'Would you come and sleep, Tibb?'

No, sir. I am thinking of all the clever plotting that my ma did do oftentime and all of that sneakery she taught her own daughter besides. Lessons to live by, Tibb!

He says to me, 'What are you planning?'

The man suspects me of foul play and wicked deeds which will ruin the life of my oldest friend Ivo. I glance at this long bookshelf beside me with all these heavy books and their creased spines and their dust. Godly books. I take one.

'I am reading a book,' I tell him.

'Tibb,' he whispers. 'You cannot read.'

True.

Ootlin

Running at full pelt across the farm field then climbing up onto the top of a hay bale. I feel strong and invincible and like the sky is blue because it loves me. When I get home I am going to read a book under my covers by glow-worm. The library van stops outside our caravan once a week. It is loaning me everything it has to read and the librarian is always so nice to me. I have found a way to escape my world every night.

It is everything!

Words are actual magic.

They take me away to the only place I belong without apology.

A tribute to the power of survival, this memoir documents the author's experience of growing up in the Scottish care system. In two adoptions she was mistreated and abused. From a young age she dealt with this via substance abuse. In foster care and care homes others in the community used her vulnerability and trauma to sexually abuse her. With a small number of exceptions, officials come off as judgemental, unhelpful and effectively facilitating her abuse by unscrupulous men. How she came out the other side and managed to become a writer goes against everything the "story" of the book is suggesting, as it's clear from her account that her fellow care inhabitants are no less vulnerable but less fortunate in terms of their "escape" from the cycle of abuse and addiction.

Its also (bleakly) funny.

The guidance teacher has said - you are the person most likely to surprise everybody.

What the fuck does that mean?

- Like, in a good way.

- How do you know she meant in a good way?

- I am assuming, Jenni.

- She could have meant I am going to grow up to be a serial killer, or have the first hybrid alien/human baby? I'd do that actually. I would totally have an alien baby.

- I don't think that's what your guidance teacher was thinking.

A Little Trickerie sounds like great historical fiction. It's not available here yet. :(

Ootlin sounds like a tough read.

Women's prize (fiction) update

Requested from the library:
Good Girl by Aria Aber (Bloomsbury)
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis (Weidenfeld)
Amma by Saraid de Silva (Weatherglass)
All Fours by Miranda July (Canongate)
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami (Bloomsbury)
Birding by Rose Ruane (Corsair)
The Artist by Lucy Steeds (John Murray)

Ordered a copy:
Somewhere Else by Jenni Daiches (Scotland Street Press)
Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings (Holland House)

Have a copy to read:
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4th Estate)
Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell (Scribner)

Read, would like to see on the shortlist
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre)
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout (Viking)
A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike (Fig Tree)

Didn't get on with before for the Booker, not sure I will try again:
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Viking

Currently reading: The Persians

>49 BLBera: Hope you can get hold of A Little Trickerie when it does come out: a lot of fun. Ootlin was grim reading but well written, it was a surprisingly quick book to read. Lots of short chapters and the author doesn't really sit on the violence done to her, just waits until the end of the book to say (paraphrased) "we can do better than this by our children."

There were close-ups of men putting on make-up, brushes on their faces, lipstick on their mouths, glitter scattered on their cheekbones, looking unintimidated at the camera: pictures of cross dressers the pictures sepia-toned; pictures of people in vintage clothing. in fade braids, bald headed, wearing Spoti Pantsula hats. And then pictures of the sea, uncalm. and of the sea, calm.

'Where do you find these people?" Andzani asked.

"They inbox me on Facebook... Yolula said. But some are people I have studied with.'

One of the books I picked up browsing in the lovely bookshop Clarks, this first novel by a South African writer centres on Andzani, as he grows up in a small community bullied because he is seen as not-manly-enough, and then in the second half, as he comes to terms with his lgbtq+ identity living in the supposedly more liberal Cape Town.

When Neo and Andzani walked to school, the clouds threatened to pour, only releasing scattered raindrops. The road was uneven with edges in the middle where the rain had swept the topsoil. Andzani knew that by the time they returned from school, the holes would be filled with maize-meal sacks packed with sand to allow the bakery lorry to deliver bread to the spaza shops. The previous night, Andzani had wished, when he'd heard the rain drumming on his roof before it lulled him back to sleep, that it should rain till morning so he would not be forced to face his bullies at school.

Hardly a word was exchanged between Andzani and Neo as they walked the way to school. Andzani pointed at major turns and spaza shops so Neo could learn and remember the route. 'This is the amarula tree, also a taxi rank, but you won't find taxis here, it's a drop and go. This is a café, they sell food, but it's also a hardware, see the timber? You can see it all the way from school, it's so long. This is the fastest route to get to the school, after passing this café you will find this passage. And out of this passage you are met by that big house with the red tile roofing. It is one of the few houses that have tile roofing around here as you can see. After you have passed the house you will see these boulders... I wonder how they got here, but these big rocks should be the last thing you see before you get to school.'

There's a lot here, from the unchecked abuse he suffers at school, to the development of local gangs, the community's response and the fragility of his mother's mental health. There's also a thread about the belief (or lack of) in "traditional" religion, which seems to just get abandoned in the hustle for narrative resolution.

Despite the quibbles, so impressive for a first novel, and I hope more to come.

Found you again! Trying to get back into the LT swing of things. : ) Have fun with the Women's Prize list!

>53 Berly: Aw, thanks for visiting Kim. Your writer event sounded fascinating: a book I want to read.

>54 charl08: I'll try to post when I am going to read Solito with my daughter. Maybe I can get a few LT friends to join in!!

A Perfect Day to Be Alone

After a loooong week at work this short novella is about my speed. Chizu moves in with Ginko, an elderly woman she's never met before, when her mum moves to China for work. In the course of a year she worries about her boyfriends, her lack of a career, and whether she and Ginko get on. She also wonders about the significance of all the cat photos in her room. It was written back in 2007 when the author was in her early 20s, and it does feel like a book from a young person's perspective.

She told me the story of her youthful, thwarted love. "He was a good man, kind, tall, with these big round eyes. He'd come over from Taiwan, but his Japanese was excellent. We wanted to marry but everyone opposed the match, and before I knew it he'd disappeared back his own country. I couldn't stop crying. You know, raging against the world I think I used up a lifetime's worth of anger back then."
"A lifetime's worth?"
'Yes. I don't really get worked up about things any: more."
"But how did you manage to use it all up?"
"I don't remember."
"I feel like maybe I should use up all my sadness now, while I'm young. So I don't end up all miserable when I'm old."
"No, Chizu, you can't go using it all up now. If you try and save all the fun for later, you'll be my age before you know it, and dying will seem like a pretty grim prospect. "Is that how it feels to you? "Oh, you bet. Pain, suffering - that stuff's always scary, no matter how long you've been around.

I just finished Fagin the Thief which I loved! No review as yet. I am starting Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis. I've only read about 10 pages so far, but it seems interesting and humourous. I hope it remain that way, Charlotte.

Well, I'm just a little further into Fundamentally. It's seem like kind of light hearted read so far, such that I don't think it will make the shortlist, but that could change. I hope .I'm going to go now and try to get some reading time in on Fundamentally.

Found and starred you! :)

Did I never notice the category challenge before? It is VERY tempting, I love my lists, but I also tend to get stressed when I can’t keep up with my own reading plans and one thread is enough to manage right now. Maybe next year, I could still visit and follow the 75ers, like you do.

>57 vancouverdeb: >58 vancouverdeb: I've wondered the same about The Persians, Deborah. It deals with some heavy stuff (as you would expect, given some of the characters are living through Iran's recent history) but the tone is black humour.

>59 Deern: Thanks for visiting, Nathalie.

I've found it goes a bit slower than the 75ers, and I like being able to focus on categories.

Yesterday I met up with a friend and we visited the "official" reopening of Ebb and Flo, an indy bookshop in her town. There was a band and cake - It was packed! Now has a separate children's room and a back room too. I of course couldn't resist a purchase. Or two.

Hooray for indie bookstores!

>62 BLBera: Yes, lovely to see this one expanding. Hope it does well in the new location.

Finished a couple of books. Neither my own book, so I have quite a bit to do if I want to meet (my own) target this month! It's tricky when I want to read as much of the longlist as I can, but those come from the library.

The Poisoner's Tale
A story based on accounts in the archives in Italy of a female poisoner who was accused (and confessed) to helping women kill their husbands in the 1400s. In Kemp's hands this becomes the story of redemptive revenge on the state and on abusive men. The church can't stand the threat to their authority and use their formidable power to seek out the women. Although there are some mystic elements here, it's mostly a pretty pragmatic response to unwanted (and inescapable) marriages. Although the setting is atmospheric and the idea of a protagonist who used poison in this way an intriguing one, for me, the second half of the story seemed to drag, and the daughter's love affair and the Pope's obsession were left unfinished.

The Persians (Women's Prize longlist)

A funeral is when the truth comes out, when everyone comes out of the wood-work. All the secret lovers, all the people the dead cheated with, or on. It's spectacular! A real shit show, as they say, and it's only a shame that the dead aren't there to witness. But I suppose that's the whole reason it happens. Nobody has any shame once you're a corpse. The shame melts away. This one better be especially good-she's been dead for over a month-can you believe that? Khatm is supposed to happen on the third day. Now they'll be ready for the extra juicy shit."

I liked this a lot, but not helped much by Libby which I'm finding quite an intrusive reading experience (perhaps because I'm used to kindle and borrowbox? Not sure).
Following multiple generations of women from the same elite Iranian family, the rise of the Ayatollah leads to most of the family shifting to the US "temporarily" - which of course turns to decades. Hit by increasing restrictions the Iranian side of the family must see their freedoms increasingly limited, despite considerable wealth. In the US, holding on to money (and earning more) is not enough to escape the gaze of a small and watchful migrant community. Like a lot of these novels that jump around between periods, hard not to resent the more "modern" characters for interrupting the stories from further in the past.

"What if I want to stay in America?" Niaz asked.

"Don't get your hopes up. Visiting America is like going to the circus. It's not real."

Women's prize (fiction) update

Requested from the library:
Good Girl by Aria Aber (Bloomsbury)
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis (Weidenfeld)
All Fours by Miranda July (Canongate)
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami (Bloomsbury)
Birding by Rose Ruane (Corsair)
The Artist by Lucy Steeds (John Murray)

Ordered a copy:
Somewhere Else by Jenni Daiches (Scotland Street Press)
Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings (Holland House)

Have a copy to read:
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4th Estate)
Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell (Scribner)

Read, would like to see on the shortlist
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre)
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout (Viking)
A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike (Fig Tree)
The Persians

Didn't get on with before for the Booker, not sure I will try again:
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Viking

Next up:
Amma by Saraid de Silva (Weatherglass)

You are doing so well with your Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist reading, Charlotte.

I have read The Safekeep and Nesting. So far Nesting is my favourite.

I'm reading Fundamentally and it's improving - I'm at about page 85.

I own Dream Count and plan to read it. I have The Dream Hotel out from the library and hope to read it. I'd like to read A Little Trickerie but so far it is not available in North America.

Of course there are others to read, but I try to get to them.

So far, only Nesting is on my shortlist.

>64 charl08: This sounds good. My library does have it on order. I'm not sure how much of the longlist I will get to before the shortlist is announced.

>66 vancouverdeb: It feels pretty slow to me, Deborah. I think because I am also trying to read the NF list and NF always takes me longer. Currently reading Agent Zo about a Polish woman who was an outstanding part of the underground in wartime Poland.

I found a copy of Good Girl on Libby at work, so reading that now instead of Amma. It's set in Berlin, I feel like I've read several set there over the past few years.

>67 BLBera: I'm waiting for the paperback for at least one to come out in April, so I shouldn't think I'll get most read before then. Maybe half?

Well, I've got two women's prize for fiction longlist books to read, half way through Agent Zo (NF list) and endless of my own books to read, all of which would meet categories...

Instead I've picked up a Stef Penney, The Long Water.

A question: my bookgroup wants to read something about neurodiversity for April. Anyone read anything recently they thought was good / authentic? I'm tempted to recommend Helen Hoang's The Kiss Quotient, but given the NSFW content and the fact we *meet at work* it might be a bit challenging...

>70 charl08: This month's CultureCAT theme is Neurodiverse Voices, so you might see something in that thread. Most of my suggestions would be non-fiction, I'm not sure how suitable that would be for your book group. Katherine May's The Electricity of Every Living Thing is very readable though, and definitely safe for work :)

>71 Jackie_K: Thanks Jackie. I'll have a look, I'd missed that. ETA and I've missed The Electricity of Every Living Thing which looks good too.

Tilt (Reading my own books)
I picked up a pile of poetry in Edinburgh and haven't made much of a dent in it. Picked this up and found to my surprise the author was from just down the road.
https://sofa-nt.co.uk/natterjack-toads/

From "The Birkdale Nightingale"

On Spring nights you can hear them
two miles away, calling their mates to the breeding place, a wet slack in the dunes. Lovers hiding nearby are surprised
by desperate music. One man searched all night
for a crashed spaceship.

For amphibians, they are terrible swimmers: where it's tricky to get ashore, they drown.
By day they sleep in crevices under the boardwalk,
run like lizards from cover to cover
without the sense to leap when a gull snaps.
Yes, he can make himself fearsome,
inflating his lungs to double his size.
But cars on the coast road are not deterred

Story of my life (Story Lake) (Familiar faces)
Romance by an author I've picked up before. Not sure if it was the timing but this didn't quite suit me, not sure I'll pick up the next one in the series.

The Long Water
Loved this, the blurb says its a "literary mystery". Set in rural Norway during the "russ" (a kind of madcap period for leaving students) from the perspective of different members of the community. When tragedy strikes, the narrative weaves them all in, from an elderly woman who remembers when the town centred around mining and young people at the same school as the victim. Lovely nature descriptions too. With a recent travel documentary, making me want to go tour the fjords!

Now, a flash of movement over the water catches her eye and she stops. It's a white-throated dipper, bobbing on an ice-glazed rock. There's something so cheerful and resolute about a dipper: compact and round, with its jaunty tail. She's heard snatches of its sweet, bubbling song, but this is the first one she has seen today. Marylen watches.

The Jhalak Prize longlists are out - there are now 3 awards - for prose, poetry and Children's/YA books

How did I miss your new thread? Oh well, I'm here, late but here.

>74 elkiedee: Looks good!

>75 Helenliz: I'll let you off...

I finished Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis and my review is on my thread, and on the Women's Prize for Fiction group. It was good enough read, but not one I think will make the short list. It was just " okay". I'm taking a break from the Longlist and am reading Three Days in June which I am quite enjoying so far. And it's only 176 pages.

The Fox Wife (new to me)

"Are you awake?" she says.

Softly, softly. A polite voice, full of concern. And instantly Bao is chagrined. What was he thinking to be so afraid of her, for isn't this the way that all stories begin? A beautiful woman taps on the door of a scholar's study and enters with the night. The dull rushing thump of blood echoes in his ears. He thinks irrationally that this tale is wrong, because Bao is an old man and he's not studying for the Imperial examinations or writing poetry by lamplight, because he's been stabbed by Tagtaa's crazy grandson. Before he realizes it, he's blurted his thoughts out loud. What's come over him?

But the tension breaks, and the woman who has entered his room bursts out laughing. "That's the best reaction I've heard in years," she says, dabbing at her eyes. "You're too old, indeed! Most men never think that of themselves."

The author says in notes at the back that she has always been fascinated by the Korean/Chinese stories of trickster foxes, who change between animal and human bodies to deceive people. Her novel has a much more benign view of an alternative group of people somewhere amongst us, suspected but rarely identified, mostly just trying to survive the violent repercussions of people's fears of the "other". Set in early 20th century China and Japan and framed around a chase narrative, this was a rare example of dual voices where I wanted to read both equally. I loved the footnotes (actually side notes in the margins) which engage with the text. The author says that she took some out, thinking that readers might not like them as much as she did. Hoping for a "director's cut" with them all put back in

Each of those tales features missing wife or child. Kuro said, "I wrote and rewrote them for myself."

"With happy endings?"

"I believe a literary critic called it a 'forlorn and wistful collection.'"

"I never would have imagined you to have such a poetic soul."

"I was very sad without you," he said simply.

There's not much one can say to declarations like that. It's my fault for having married someone who makes me blush with his seriousness. To change the subject, I said, "You should have added the tale about Shiro and the provincial governor's wife. Now that was a scandal." Indeed, it was so notorious that Shiro had to avoid Chang'an for seventy-five years.

"Speaking of Shiro," Kuro said, "I heard that he's on his way to Formosa to set up a sugar refinery."

"How is he?" Frankly, I was surprised that Shiro had survived. The determined look on Zhou Yuling's face had suggested that she was just as capable as Mr. Chen of maintaining her own private prison.

Truly, humans are fearsome creatures.

I'm now not sure where I got the recommendation from for this, I really loved it, so thank you if it was you...

>77 vancouverdeb: Deborah, sorry I missed your post. I've slowed down on my women's prize reading. Hoping to find another one I love though!

>62 BLBera: That looks fun Charlotte, books and cake is a perfect equation.

>80 Caroline_McElwee: It was a fun thing to go along to, Caroline. Possibly the busiest bookshop, outside of a festival, I've been to!

Just realised in my excitement to get hold of the latest Elly Griffiths, I forgot I was supposed to be reading the latest bookclub book...

>78 charl08: This sounds really good; I think I have read something by this author...

>82 BLBera: Yes, I think this is her third book. I'd be tempted to seek out the others if it wasn't for the groaning TBR pile.

In the end it was all about love
An introspective novel set in Berlin where a Ugandan writer deals with financial failure and the hangover from the death of his father when he was a child.

The first sections feel familiar from any contemporary article about living as a writer in the Internet age (ie, less cash). These reflections are interspersed with grim calculations about comparative racism experienced in Berlin vs London.

In the final section the narrator returns "home" to Uganda. There is real power in his encounter with his father's legacy and loss. He comes to understand how others in his family have coped with leaving the country (and in the case of his mother, returning).

For the longest time, you couldn't work out why your uncle was so obsessed with Uganda, why he couldn't just let it go for the prosperity the had found in the West. You know now that it was responsibility-because your uncle knew that for every person like him there were thousands who had not made it out, whom the army had given just three days to leave their homes with whatever they could carry and if they had refused to do so were shot on sight. Your uncle knew that there were hundreds of thousands more, almost two million more at their peak, who were marched at gunpoint into the countryside, far from any source of food, water or sanitation, and, circled by rifles, were left to die. For twenty-five years, just a few hundred kilometres to the south, your uncle has slowly and patiently worked with dozens of survivors, a cluster of others who made it out, to bring an end to this slow-motion genocide and make the best of its aftermath.

I think I would have liked this novel more if I hadn't already read Teju Cole who covers similar territory (at least in terms of the writer in Berlin).

I've slowed my Women's Prize reading too, Charlotte. I intend to read more, but it is not too long until they announce the shortlist , April 2 I think.

>85 vancouverdeb: It seems to have come round very quickly this year.

Laila Lalami's book came in at the library yesterday, so I might get to that one before the announcement.

Annoyed as realised yesterday that a work meeting means I won't get to the work bookgroup this week. (Can't get too annoyed, as suspect it was my own fault that I didn't spot this earlier...)

18. The Window Seat: Notes from a Life in Motion (Reading my own books /Familiar faces)
Loved these essays drawing on the author's many travels, from witnessing the Iranian revolution as a teen (diplomatic parents) to more recent encounters with Sierra Leone's only private vet. This is the kind of book that I can't bear to give away.

I saw the Irish racehorse trainer once more, when he came to ask my mother to help him out of the country and gave me a vivid account of his escape from the Komiteh who appeared at the stables, he said, to arrest him. They set fire to his office. Before he fled, he ran through the stable blocks and loosed the horses rather than leave them to burn or to starve to death locked in their pens. Sometimes when I think of Iran, the summer of 1979 before a people's hard-won freedom was scattered by the wind, I imagine the Arab horses galloping through the suburbs of the city, past the houses and the factories towards the desert-and pray that they at least never were recaptured.

19. Frozen People (Familiar faces)
V good! But when will the next one be out?

>84 charl08: I have this book on my tbr and am glad to read your review.

>88 RidgewayGirl: It's an interesting addition to the "foreigner in Berlin" genre, of which I think you have read far more examples than me. I appreciated his descriptions of the joy in discovering cafes around the city.

20. Beautiful Summer
A short book translated from Italian, which comes with a rave intro from Elizabeth Smart and a similarly effusive blurb from Jhumpa Lahiri. Which I think is why I bought it.

Told in a breathless style, the experience of a young girl who works in a shop and has a very ordinary life until she meets a "bohemian" group of painters.

I think this is one of those books I'd need some critical notes to appreciate, as the significance of her supposed coming of age / loss of innocence just seemed overblown and had not dated well in terms of male/ female relations. The painters seemed like sexist self-obsessed idiots and the main character in desperate need of some kind of role model or mother figure. And the level of ignorance about an STI... argh.
Love the design of this series:

The Women's Prize Non Fiction Shortlist is out:

A Thousand Threads by Neneh Cherry (published by Fern Press, Vintage, Penguin Random House)
The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke (published by Abacus, Little, Brown Book Group, Hachette)
Raising Hare: A Memoir by Chloe Dalton (published by Canongate Books)
Agent Zo by Clare Mulley (published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Orion Publishing Group, Hachette)
What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World’s Ocean by Helen Scales (published by Grove Press, Atlantic Books)
Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China by Yuan Yang (published by Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury Publishing)

>91 elkiedee: Interesting (and thanks for posting it!). I am taking a long time on Agent Zo but it is a good read.

Good Girl

My parents and I recoiled from one another, month by month. I was home neither in Rosenwald nor in Gropiusstadt. And like so many children before me, I became my own exile.

AT SCHOOL, THE girls wore padded down jackets and boots I had seen only in equestrian ads. They knew how to ride horses and drank ex-pensive water and used Dr. Hauschka products, which felt so expensive back then, I believed only millionaires could afford them. Longingly, I used a pump of their creams, inhaling that herbal scent. I dreamed of affording Evian one day...

I usually enjoy books about wandering Berlin, but this one not so much.

A bildungsroman featuring a lot of drugs, bad sex and bad choices, I winced for the protagonist as she made one awful decision after another. Most of those decisions feature a much older writer, self-absorbed, unpleasant and ultimately violent. But apparently impossible to resist.

Lots of interesting individual elements, but I never felt I really understood where the author was going (and in placed desperately just hoped it would all just Stop!)

Lots of discussion about "Art". It struck me as more pretentious than relevant, but I liked this Kafka quote.

As dawn poured its blue light upon my room, one of Kafka's diary entries returned to me like a child-hood prayer. I brought out a piece of paper and wrote it down, then pinned it on my wall:

"The tremendous world I have in my head. But how to free myself and free it without being torn to pieces. And a thousand times better to be torn to pieces than to retain or bury it in me. That's why I'm here, after all, that's completely clear to me."

ETA This is a first novel, so I'd pick up her next one. This did feel a bit like she threw everything at it...

Women's prize (fiction) update

Requested from the library:
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis (Weidenfeld)
All Fours by Miranda July (Canongate)
Birding by Rose Ruane (Corsair)
The Artist by Lucy Steeds (John Murray)

Ordered a copy:
Somewhere Else by Jenni Daiches (Scotland Street Press)
Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings (Holland House)

Have a copy to read:
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4th Estate)
Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell (Scribner)

Read, would like to see on the shortlist
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre)
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout (Viking)
A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike (Fig Tree)
The Persians

Read, not a fan:
Good Girl by Aria Aber (Bloomsbury)

Didn't get on with before for the Booker, not sure I will try again:
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Viking

Reading:
Amma by Saraid de Silva (Weatherglass)
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami (Bloomsbury)

You may feel that your reading on the Women's Prize is slow, Charlotte, but it's much better than mine. I think I will wait until the Shortlist is announced to read any more from the list. A Little Trickerie sounds good, but it's not published in North America yet. I am looking forward to Frozen People , and have a hold on it at the library , but it is still not available in North America.

>95 vancouverdeb: Just generally blah at the moment Deborah. Hoping for better days!

Agent Zo
Starting this review by saying that this is a fascinating life, and a good read.

She was a very strong lady,' Marzenna recalled. 'For her, nothing was impossible.

Elzbieta Zawacka (or Zo) is a famous figure in Polish resistance in WW2. The only woman to parachute back into Poland as part of an elite group of British-trained agents, she travelled across occupied Europe on fake papers, was part of the Warsaw uprising and even convinced the government in exile to recognise women's service.

Amazingly after the war she was imprisoned by the communists, but used the time in prison to make sure the illiterate fellow prisoners were educated. (The authorities only noticed when far more prisoners started writing letters home.) Once out of prison, she made it her mission to record those who had served, despite this being in the face of the official Russian/ USSR narrative.

The descriptions of Agent Zo's (lack of) personal skills reminded me of my gran. Everyone loved her, but not for her small talk!

Oh, and (most of) the men really couldn't cope with her direct speaking and lack of interest in being seduced with stockings:

Harold Perkins, the head of SOE's Polish Section, reluctantly made the arrangements (to put her in touch with the forces' organisations for British women). A few weeks earlier, Perkins had put Zo forward for a British honour. Now he had his doubts about her, perhaps after talking with the bruised Sixth Bureau men. She is 'delving into political and military-organisational matters', Protasewicz wrote nervously. And she has 'established extra-military contacts, especially among women. Please consider the above when using her for further work'.
.... 'Elizabeth Watson'*, he warned, 'is inclined to take the militant female dictator view of things!'

*Elizabeth Watson was her British code name.

Going to add a personal gripe: this is definitely one of those "hidden histories" where actually what the author means/ acknowledges is "*English speakers* didn't know about it...".

>93 charl08: The quote is wonderful, must copy it for myself. I haven’t heard of the book and just read the blurb for the German version on amazon. Definitely giving it a pass.

>90 charl08: I also haven’t read anything by Pavese, it’s been a while since I read a novel in Italian. Might look that one up, it should be in the local library.

Edit: just bought the Kindle version for just 0,89 Euro, so I have the dictionary included. Italian reviews are mixed as well, but it’s short, so I’ll give it a try.

>97 Deern: Oh I'd love to know what you think. Always so disappointing when admired authors rave about a book and I miss the point completely...

I am not seeing a lot of love for Good Girl. I thought Agent Zo sounded like an interesting book. I will definitely read it at some point.

>99 BLBera: Litsy isn't enthusiastic either. Definitely one of those books I can chalk up to the prize lists "widening my usual reading". Not sure I'd have finished it otherwise!

The Dream Hotel
One of those books that I found properly creepy. Lalami imagines us at some point in the future, where devices have further entrenched themselves into our lives. After a shooting, the US government agrees to pre-emptively incarcerate all those with a risk rating above a certain level. The risk rating comes from everything from traffic violations to flame wars online. Sara, a mum of two toddlers, gets pulled up at security travelling back from London to LA. Her rating has spiked after a misunderstanding on the plane. She can't possibly be incarcerated for just that though, can she?

Horribly realistic, from the data "agreements" used as justification for harvesting incriminating data to the way those held are forced to work (for the profit of the private company running the detention centre, of course).

With the blade Sara cuts a square piece of fabric from her sheet. She places a strip of toilet paper across the middle, folds the fabric over it, and loops a rubber hairband around either end. "How's this?" she asks as she fits Emily with the mask. "Good? Can you breathe?"

"Kind of."

"Do you smell smoke?"

"Not so much," Emily concedes.

"Then it's working." Sara quickly makes a second face covering and puts it on, adjusting the straps until it fits snugly. The reflec-tion that meets her in the mirror reminds her of the pandemic of her childhood. Unlike some of her classmates in school she never minded wearing masks: they concealed her bouts of acne, the rage she felt whenever a boy told her she needed to smile more, her impatience with strangers who asked, "So what are you?" She couldn't have known that the skill would come in handy so many years later.

Sara stands at the window again. The sky is a bright orange, and the cloud of smoke has edged closer....

Women's prize (fiction) update

Requested from the library:
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis (Weidenfeld)
All Fours by Miranda July (Canongate)
Birding by Rose Ruane (Corsair)
The Artist by Lucy Steeds (John Murray)

Ordered a copy:
Somewhere Else by Jenni Daiches (Scotland Street Press)
Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings (Holland House)

Have a copy to read:
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4th Estate)
Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell (Scribner)

Read, would like to see on the shortlist
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike
The Persians

Read, not a fan:
Good Girl by Aria Aber (Bloomsbury)

Didn't get on with before for the Booker, not sure I will try again:
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

Reading:
Amma by Saraid de Silva (Weatherglass)

>101 charl08: This does sound horribly realistic. I will see if my library has it.

Thanks for the update on your Women's Prize for fiction Longlist , Charlotte . I have The Dream Hotel out from the library, but I an not sure how soon I will read it. So far no one else has placed a hold on it.

Well, Charlotte, I just bit the bullet and ordered Somewhere Else and A Little Trickerie from Waterstones. I had to pay 15 pounds shipping! Argh! But the free shipping places in the UK, Blackstone Book's and Kenny's Books in Ireland are out of Somewhere Else. And I can't find either one in North America. The things I do - pay - for books! sigh.It was only a L 1.5 more to order a second book so I thought what the heck, get them both from Waterstones.

The Dream Hotel does sound really good, Charlotte. I am anxious for my turn at it!

>91 elkiedee: This prize is dangerous for me. I've already bout 4 of the 6 Charlotte.

>103 purpleiris: I wonder if the realism will put a lot of readers off: the scandal with facebook/Meta selling data kept coming back to me.

>104 vancouverdeb: >105 vancouverdeb: I hope you like A Little Trickerie as much as I did, Deborah. I also ordered Somewhere Else but only a paperback, so I have to wait.

>106 BLBera: I'm not usually one to pick up a dystopian novel, but glad I read this one.

>107 Caroline_McElwee: But which four? I shall head over to your thread to find out.

I made my "read my own books" target this month. Woo!

>109 charl08: - Way to go!

(I did not make mine...)

>110 katiekrug: I may have avoided a few job applications in order to do so. See also: housework.

More books finished thanks to the delicious lazy weekend.

The Lark (Colour cat / reading my own books)

I read and loved E Nesbit as a kid (and probably past recommended age) with old paperback versions of classics like Five Children and It. Notwithstanding all the critiques of Nesbit's work by modern readers e.g. clichéd portraits of the working classes and worse pictures of majority world communities I was charmed by this, the story of two young women who find their guardian has invested their inheritance "unwisely" and they've lost (almost) everything. Nesbit has the two decide to try and work for a living, making a home in a small village and trying (with limited success) to run businesses.

I've clearly been working in HE for too long, as I'm writing this and thinking it would make a great source to discuss Bourdieu and cultural capital.

I suspect anyone who's been in a similar position without social support would find it less funny.

Although Nesbit wrote to support her family due to a husband who had no business success, so...

Review of a bio of Nesbit: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/books/review/the-life-and-loves-of-e-nesbit-e...

25. One Star Romance (new to me)
Well-written romance. Athough I think I've reached my limit on the rather meta conceit of romance with the popular novelist as the main character. TW for a young mum with cancer.

A Crime in the Neighborhood (Reading my own books)
Not entirely sure where I acquired this! Suspect it was motivated by the "women's prize" label on the front cover, as it has an awful moth-based image on the cover (I am not a moth fan) which otherwise would have put me off.

But a creepy cover fits the book. Set in a Washington suburb in the 1970s, an adult looks back at her pre-teen memories of a summer when another child was killed. There's no classic crime resolution, it's a literary novel. But there's all of that grim atmosphere that you'd expect in noir, as well as the weird over-the-shoulder perspective you get with an adult relating childhood memories. Marsha's perspective as a child is flawed, but ultimately relatable.

The period and setting is immersive:

By the time I swung back outside, clouds had blown in over the parking lot and the breeze had quickened, rustling plastic wrap on the bake-sale table, and bringing with it the pewter smell of river water. Luann was waiting for me and looked almost grateful when I handed her a bottle. Together we drank our orange sodas, burping quietly deep in our throats, watching the parking lot darken around us.

My mother hadn't noticed I was gone. Mrs Lauder was describing a church scandal involving a youth director and the choirmaster, and forgot to lower her voice when she reached the moment they were discovered partially clothed in the recreation room behind the bongo drums. 'Right under a banner that says "Love is Eternal," she said. 'Oh no,' said my mother. 'Oh yes,' said Mrs Lauder, accepting another Kool.

A baby screamed from across the parking lot, which was darkening by the minute. With her cigarette burning, Mrs Lauder ate a pecan sandy and a brownie. A letter, she said, had later been presented to the congregation. Far off toward Bethesda, bells began to chime.

>111 charl08: - It's important to have priorities :)

>113 charl08: - I read the Berne novel a couple of years ago and thought it was very good.

(PS: I think the touchstone is wrong for the romance...)

>114 katiekrug: I think I'm judging it more harshly because of the moths. I really don't like them. Spiders, creepy crawlies, worms fine. Moths, even quite small ones, just give me the heeby jeebies.

Have fixed the touchstone, thank you! One of those weird ones where the first book it went to was a completely different title! Have also added a trigger warning thing.

I picked up Barbara Boswell's And Wrote My Story Anyway again last night, a book I picked up during the Cape Town book festival last September. She discusses lots of fiction by black women authors in South Africa, most of which is new to me, and by authors new to me. I have a bit of an African Writers' Series collection*, and one thing pretty much led to another. So this is a new reading project!

And They Didn't Die
Muriel at the Metropolitan
Mother to Mother
Daughters of the Twilight
The Slave Book
Jesus is Indian

*Although looking at the fine print, I'm not sure if any of these will actually be AWS editions. Hey ho.

>116 charl08: I will watch for your comments on this project.

>109 charl08: Congrats on reaching your goal. I am not doing so well...

The Lark sounds like one I would enjoy, and I do own a copy. I should move it to my "read soon" shelves.

"I've clearly been working in HE for too long, as I'm writing this and thinking it would make a great source to discuss Bourdieu and cultural capital." This made me smile.

>109 charl08: Go, you!

Women's prize update

I finished Amma, which I found underwhelming, although again I read this on Libby and I'm not getting on with the app!

Told between three generations of a family travelling between Singapore, Sri Lanka and Australia, New Zealand and the UK (well, London). Lots of interesting ideas but not much plot or story development, and without that it felt too long for me.

I think this will be the last book I finish before the announcement tomorrow. Intrigued to hear what they go with!

Women's prize (fiction) update

Requested from the library:
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis (Weidenfeld)
All Fours by Miranda July (Canongate)
Birding by Rose Ruane (Corsair)
The Artist by Lucy Steeds (John Murray)

Ordered a copy:
Somewhere Else by Jenni Daiches (Scotland Street Press)
Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings (Holland House)

Have a copy to read:
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4th Estate)
Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell (Scribner)

Read, would like to see on the shortlist
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike
The Persians

Read, not a fan:
Good Girl by Aria Aber (Bloomsbury)
Amma by Saraid de Silva

Didn't get on with before for the Booker, not sure I will try again:
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

>117 BLBera: I was glad I read the comments about Nesbit after I'd finished the book! Holding off reading the rest of Boswell's critique for similar reasons.

>118 purpleiris: Thanks!

>119 charl08: Nice post, Charlotte! I'll be awake at midnight tonight when they announce the shortlist.

I have read The Safekeep, Fundamentally and Nesting. Although I did not love The Safekeep I think it maybe on the short list. I hope that Nesting is as well. I don't think Fundamentally will make the shortlist - or at least not if was a judge.

I own Dream Count and hope to get to it.

I have ordered A Little Trickerie and Somewhere Else from the UK and plan to read them. I have hold on Tell Me Everything at the library and will read it if it makes the shortlist. I also have Dream Hotel out from the library and will read it if it is one the shortlist.

Well, not too long now.

Well , Charlotte, the Women's Prize for fiction is a bit of surprise to me. No Nesting, among other things. At least I have read 2 of the six.

>122 vancouverdeb: And to me, Deborah!

The 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist

Good Girl by Aria Aber

All Fours by Miranda July

The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis

I've only read Tell Me Everything, which I didn't think would make the shortlist. I am not good at predictions! I have Fundamentally, The Safekeeping and The Persians from the library!

>124 BLBera: Will be interested to hear what you make of those, Beth. I have ordered the three I haven't read from the library, hopefully will get the chance to look at them before the announcement.

Too bad more of the books you read didn't make the short list, Charlotte. But isn't that always the way?

>126 Familyhistorian: I got a bit bored the year I'd read everything at this stage, Meg, so there's something for having some left to pick up...

Once Upon a Broken Heart (New to me)
What I thought would be a nice light fantasy read, but I just found annoying because of the style. Lots of info dumping, people saying things real people would never say. And it ends on a cliff hanger with no resolution. Argh.

The Story of a Heart (Prizewinners)

In the UK, the numbers are smaller but still remarkable. In 2022-23, organs donated by 1,429 people after their death saved the lives of 3,575 people. Right now, there are currently over 60,000 people alive in Britain - planning their child's birthday party, setting off on a bike ride, enjoying an ice cream, savouring the summer sun thanks to the gift of another person's heart, liver, kidney or lungs.

One from the women's prize NF list, I found this compelling. Clarke uses on transplant story to tell the history of transplants more broadly. Both children's stories are heartbreaking (no pun intended), Keira's life pulled from her and Max living on the brink of death for so long. My mum worked in the hospital where Barnard was based, and I'm not surprised to read criticisms about his approach here. The nurses know!

Hi Charlotte! I'm just catching up with you; I'm off to a slow start again this year (and, yes, I know we're four months into it now).

I'm really enjoyed Tell Me Everything, Charlotte. I'm glad you are enjoying the Women's NF prize list.

>128 humouress: I'm no quicker at getting round: I'm blaming getting used to the new features Nina (!)

>129 vancouverdeb: I'm not sure how many (more) of the NF list I'll get to, but all the ones I've read so far I would recommend.

Torch (Familiar faces)
Book 2 in this crime series (mostly) set in Glasgow, although there was a lot of Edinburgh in this one. These ones were written in the early 2000s, so interesting what has changed (and what still seems to be the same). Someone left their phone behind and they just go on with their day...

Nina Hamnett (Reading my own books)
I love this series by Eiderdown books. Each book takes a different artist as a focus. Here, Hamnett, whose still lives and portraits of a wide range of individuals give a window into the 1920s and 30s.

Popular writing on bohemian life, from Henri Murger's Scènes de la vie de bohème (1851) to George du Maurier's inter-national best-seller Trilby (1895), told the story of male artists and their female model/lovers....In 1932, few women artists had written about their lives, the best known being the aristocratic Ukrainian artist Marie Bashkirtseff, whose journal was published in 1887, three years after her death.
.... What Hamnett did that was new with the artist's autobiography, and with the myth of bohemia (which, by 1932, was well-trodden ground, and which she displayed a critical distance from in her writing), was that she made her life as a woman artist public herself, and included accounts of her bodily experience and sexuality. This was both original and important: Hamnett herself told her story, with some humour and pleasure, devoid of shame and with no tragic denouement...

This isn't so far from me. I should go see it.
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/still-life-153821

Why Fish Don't Exist
I've seen mixed reviews of this one, but for me I was very glad I picked it up. The book is a hybrid memoir and biography of a late 19/ e20c academic and scientist who has been widely lauded following his death. Miller uses him as a kind of oppositional figure, tracing her own apparent "lack" of resilience in the face of loss and difficulty, versus William Jordan's apparently undefeatable ability to pick himself up again after devastating loss, both professionally and personally.

Although NF this includes imaginative and fantastical monochrome illustrations at the beginning of each short chapter.

"Every age gets the lunatics it deserves," British historian Roy Porter once wrote.

So what will become of us?

This nation programming its kids to ignore reality when convenient. To whisper anything they need to keep themselves going. Is there any downside to living life behind rose-colored lenses?

>132 charl08: I really enjoyed this one! I listened to the audiobook, so I missed out on the illustrations.

>133 Charon07: I could imagine it would be a good audio book (given the author's experience of NPR).

Jane Austen's Bookshelf

Novels like Smith's used storytelling to warn women against the dangers that the status of the femme couverte created. It is natural that novels about women in this era would focus on the most critical point in a woman's life, one of the few moments where she exercised power: the question of marriage. Those who denigrate courtship novels rarely consider these plots with the law of coverture in mind. When a man has that much control over your life and your children's lives, the kind of man you marry can literally be a question of life or death. The history of English courtship novels is a literary history of women's protest against the femme couverte.....Austen's novels are a conscious contribution to this larger tradition.

A step away from the prizes to read a shiny new book that was just sitting on the "new book" shelf at the library. A very accessible look at some of the women authors Jane Austen read (and referenced) in her work. Romney is a TV figure on (US) auction programmes (I've not seen them, I'm going from the book blurb - she doesn't mention this in the book). Her day job is rare book dealer (rather than literary scholar) and so she is interested professionally in finding out more and putting together collections for scholarly libraries. She includes her searches for rare books, and discusses how the creation of a "canon" of great novels operated to exclude women's writing - and some of the ways earlier scholars worked to get books back into print (before we could all look them up and read them online).

As you would expect given her job, Romney clearly loves books (not just the rare editions and other expensive ones that make her business), and that shines through throughout.

When Austen revisited Lennox's novel in 1807, seventeen years later, she was more than twice the age as when she first read it. She found it every bit as good. It was to Austen what Austen's novels are to many readers today: a book you know will live up to your warm memory of it....

On the one hand, we come back to certain books because we want to experience, again, the feelings they first sparked. But books inevitably change with us. We notice new aspects of old favorites because our lives are different. Books are not static things. I've said that one reason I love reading is that I can examine the emotions it stirs safely from a distance, at my own pace. When I'm rereading, I'm doing that, and more. I'm remembering the emotions of the last read. I am remembering my past self. Simultaneously, I'm noticing the emotions of this read. I am marking the outlines of my current self. In that way, reading is not a separate act from the rest of my life. It is central to it.

>135 charl08: Ooh - that could just be a book bullet. Let me see if I can find it ...

>136 humouress: I'm very tempted to buy it when it comes out in paperback here!

>135 charl08: Adding that one to the TBR list. Thanks!

>138 bell7: I'd love to hear what you think of it, Mary.

>135 charl08: This looks excellent. And you are right; it looks like one I would like to own,,,

>140 BLBera: Too many tempting books, Beth. I've started a list of ones I want to read that she mentions, but realised I have plenty to be getting on with, really.

I finished The Silence of the Sea, a very short novella that was published in France during WW2. My cover is a kind of reddish-brown so I've tagged it for the colour challenge for this month.

Although the story itself is short, this translation came with the original French text (I skimmed this), a discussion of the history surrounding it and a literary discussion.

I was most interested in the historical discussion, which talked about the way the author was involved in printing for the resistance, and the message of the story around collaboration. I had no idea they printed during the war, and was kind of amazed about it. It's such a noisy process, how on earth did they get away with producing books that were explicitly anti-Nazi? I thought the story itself was less interesting, told from the perspective of a rural man who has a German officer billeted in his house. Having read the context though, can see that the sparse style reflected the goal of the author. The limited dialogue manages to capture a great deal, and was effective according to the critics here, who describe a book that reached even further than the limited print run during the war permitted.

>127 charl08: It's often best to have other readers weigh in on a book. I find they often point out things that I would miss. Like I never would have picked up a book like Jane Austen's Bookshelf without your nudge in that direction. But, after reading the description you gave, it's now on my library hold list.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did, Meg. I don't know very much about literature in this period, so found it eye opening.

I am about 40 pages into A Little Trickerie and really enjoying it so far, Charlotte. An interesting book so far.

>144 vancouverdeb: Glad to hear it Deborah. A fun read.

I am conscious I've not finished many of my own books lately, so this target is looking a bit tricky for April!

Library books to read (starred ones I've started)

The first fifteen lives of Harry August
Our London lives
Birding : Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025*
The lion's den*
All fours
The safekeep
Deadly code
The Artist : LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025
The last colony : a tale of exile, justice and Britain's colonial legacy
The book of days
Golden age
All the lonely people : conversations on loneliness
Banyan moon
The book forger : the true story of a literary crime that fooled the world
Ukraine, war, love : a Donetsk diary*
Set my heart on fire
Suzuki, Izumi, 1949-1986
Free : coming of age at the end of history

My "currently reading" list on LT (minus the library books starred above)

First Time Caller e-book
Lakiriboto Lagos set
Muriel at Metropolitan linked to Barbara Boswell's discussions
There's a Monster Behind the Door Booker international longlist
Fundamentally Women's prize shortlist
The Bookseller's Tale a book about books...
The Girl Who Knew Too Much Kindle
Everybody's Protest Novel: Essays (James Baldwin Centennial) Tiny book, unfinished for ages, poor on my part.
Medieval Women: Voices & Visions: The Book of the British Library Exhibition such a tome! Beautiful though.
Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families (history)
And wrote my story anyway : black south african women's novels as feminism
The Persian Boy: A Novel of Alexander the Great unfinished work book group book
The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748–1789 (history)
Greta and Valdin (work book group book)
American Indians and the American Dream: Policies, Place, and Property in Minnesota (interesting, but got distracted)
Writing for busy readers : communicate more effectively in the real world e-book. Keep forgetting it.
Lifting The Veil Short stories. Work lunchtime book.
The Bookseller's Tale: Oxford Medieval Mysteries, Book 1 a reread.
Prague Nights also a reread, although I only saw this when I went to add it to LT!

Best of luck with all of your reading, Charlotte, and Happy Easter Weekend.

>146 vancouverdeb: I have finished my bookclub book, and am thinking I might have a bit of a mini (fictional) crime spree.

Reading 1588 a calendar of crime and thinking of sunny days walking near St Andrews.

Heart Lamp (Reading my own books / Women in translation)

This is on the international booker shortlist, short stories which are set in a small rural Muslim community in India.

The Restaurant at the Edge of the World (GN)
A very sweet YA graphic novel set in a magical world where a young woman is a chef in a restaurant. It turns out her boss is a wrong 'un, and she and her best friend decide they have to "do something". A bit *too* sweet for me, but a lovely message. And of course I am not the target group!

>135 charl08: May have been caught in this net. I have a great volume about Oscar Wilde's books. Oscar's Books (Thomas Wright). Due a reread.

>149 Caroline_McElwee: I think I still have a copy of that one. Another good read.

Greta and Valdin (new to me)
This was a bookclub book, set in New Zealand. Took a while to get going, told in alternative chapters by two siblings, one a TV presenter, the other doing a masters degree in Russian literature. Surrounded by a colourful family, who save the book from feeling like it was aimed at people in their twenties. In places made me laugh out loud. I'm wondering how the rest of my bookclub will have taken it.

e.g. This made me nod, and also laugh, rather heartlessly.

What if a nineteen-year-old sees me crying in the corridor on their way to a compulsory tutorial that they're already five minutes late to? Why is this tutor crying? Did he get a horrible class review because he doesn't know shit about – I don't know what I look like I could be a tutor of – anthropology? People were always crying when I was a postgrad, but only in the special postgraduate areas designed for crying and printing out hundred-page documents. Not me though; I wasn't crying. I didn't start crying until after I graduated.

1588: a calendar of crime (Reading my own books

My crimes against reading in order continue, but this one was unintentionally done, honest. Hew is a lawyer and landowner outside St Andrews at the time of the Spanish Armada. In five separate short stories, he has to uncover the truth in cases where belief in witchcraft and suspicion of Catholicism are difficult to overcome. I particularly liked the case linked to the Lammas fair, as in all the stories here lots of local, and historical detail.

Fever
More crime, this one thanks to LT.

Swiss crime from the 1930s. Sgt Studer is thrown into a confusing case when he visits friends in Paris. He is told a tall tale by a "White Father" on leave from missionary work in north Africa, predicting the death of two Swiss women. When the predictions start to come true, Studer tries to work out how this can be possible. The possible solutions involve elaborate identity theft, estranged brothers. As just one example that definitely reflects the period when the book was written, it also has the kind of uncomplicated approach to colonial exploitation of resources that makes the modern reader wince. But of course, clearly authentic to the period.

Ukraine, war, love: a Donetsk Diary

This was tricky to read, which seems ridiculous given what the author has been through to write it. Lots of short diary entries detailing what it was like to live in Donetsk in 2014 as separatists with Russian support declared an independent state. Although the translator included excerpts from news reports and endnotes, I still felt a bit lost at times. Stiazhkina writes from the perspective of friends, colleagues and other community members for some of the entries, and it could be difficult (for me) to work that out at times. Plus the different factions, changing geographies and strategies: I imagine this is a very different read if you are more up on your recent Ukrainian history than I am. What struck me most was that the first thing described that I remember from news reports was the Air Malaysia plane crash. It's late in the diary, just conscious of how little I had registered at the time.

And then there are some entries that require no explanation or context.

It's scary when they burn apartments because of flags.

It's scary when we find bodies with the stomachs sliced open.

There is a lot of news like this. Too much. Two, three, four stories an hour.

They're like shells that keep hitting closer and closer: your neighborhood, then your street, and then your building. They've been personal for a long time now, all these news stories.

There's a lump stuck in my throat. Just sitting there, like a highway patrolman who's found a lucrative spot. But I don't have anything to buy him off with anymore. I haven't had tears for a long time. Vodka has no effect. The doses of antidepressants keep getting higher, pre-tending they're just innocent little vitamin C. There's a strong urge to go out there where the shooting is, so it'll all just end instantaneously.

In those moments-always-and I've underlined "always" a hundred times, it's too bad you can't see it, in those moments I always get a text:

"Summer's still on! Tam-Tam Group boutiques invite you to come in and see their new collection of swimsuits and light summer jackets from the world's wildest, most in-demand designers!"

A list of designers is usually attached.

I know these boutiques. But I don't know why they are texting me, of all people. A bra strap from one of these boutiques costs as much as my monthly paycheck. Okay, maybe half a paycheck.

"Summer's still on!" Those boutiques and I are all in the same city. They see all the same news I do.

I swear to you, my dear Tam-Tam Group: after all this is over, the first thing I'll do is visit you. It'll be hard but I'll do it. Because now we all know that money's just papег. I'll come and buy everything...

Deadly Code (familiar faces)
Continuing my reading of this crime series set in Scotland. This one was first published about twenty years ago, and Rhona's discussion of DNA and the possibilities I think reflects that. The plot is fuelled by some of the wilder anticipations linked to Dolly the sheep: a key character is genetically engineered from scratch by a guy in his home lab (!!?), and the "baddies" rely on there being sufficient intrinsic differences in DNA to be able to be used in biological warfare on a racist basis. I don't think anyone would construct a plot on this basis now and not be laughed out of the editor's office. Kind of an interesting window on the recent past.

First Time Caller (familiar faces)
Romance: a jaded radio presenter meets a single mum looking to step back into the dating game. The plot is kind-of inspired by Sleepless in Seattle. Not suitable for anyone with moppet allergies.

Elena: a hand made life (GN)

A memoir in graphic-novel form about the author's grandmother, who was sent to the UK to escape the Nazis and became a GP after the war. Elena (Gran) sounds like a character, described as a local celebrity in the small Northern town where she practiced (a visit to the post office, it's noted, would take all morning, as everyone wanted to say hello).
Although when the book really came alive for me was the memories of her "awkward" side: argumentative, and willing to lean into the advantages of being allowed to behave "badly" in retirement.

Here's the local paper's take on the book:
https://www.wigantoday.net/news/people/wigan-borough-gps-extraordinary-story-sha...

The Lion's Den (African writers)

A first novel by a Zambian-American author (and lawyer/activist). Set in the 1990s as Grace, a rookie lawyer in Lusaka, attempts to discover what happened to a young gay man, accused under Zambian (colonial-era-inherited) laws against men having sex with men.

There's a lot covered in a relatively short book: I've mentioned the homophobia, but there's the AIDS epidemic and the corruption in the modern Zambian state that Grace has to deal with to defend her client. Grace is from a small rural community but studies with wealthy students who look down on her poverty. She attempts to navigate between "traditional" and Catholic beliefs too. There are some moments that are particularly compelling: President Kenneth Kaunda gives a speech to her graduating class: (paraphrasing) the World Bank told me to cut university spending, but I said no... so Why do you protest against me? All of this makes for a good read, but it's all a bit neatly wrapped up, or in other cases, characters just disappear. I wanted more Mr Patel... I guess this is first novel syndrome though.

She inhaled deeply, the smell of eucalyptus trees reminding her of university. When she had first arrived from the village, she thought that she was in heaven: green lawns, a lake full of tiny fish, and tall eucalyptus trees that made the campus smell sweet. She'd roamed around marvelling at the buildings, the lecture halls, cafeterias, dorms, the chapel with stained-glass windows, and her favourite place, the library. Five floors full of books... She felt like a philosopher, studying her law books and browsing the shelves on other floors, selecting an eclectic range of books that piqued her interest. She could study uninterrupted in the library without scavenging for time between hoeing, watering, weeding, picking, pulling, gathering, pounding, cooking.

Lifting the Veil
This has been my lunchtime read at work for ages, so I decided to bring it home to finish it. The late author was an innovative writer on Urdu from the 1940s. She describes the inner workings of marriages, relationships between people of different classes and faiths. One story describes her development as a writer and the barriers to writing about "real life". This included being legally challenged: there's writing here about that too.

I was a spoilt brat and used to get bashed up often for telling the truth. But when the disputes were taken to Abba Mian, he would decide in my favour. My elder sister, who had become a widow at nineteen, was extremely bitter about life. She was greatly impressed with the high society at Aligarh, particularly the Khwaja family. I couldn't get along with the begums of that family even for a moment. I was a madcap - outspoken and ill-mannered. Purdah had already been imposed on me, but my tongue was an unsheathed sword. No one could restrain it.

The world around me seemed like a delusion.

Some of the stories are a window onto a particular moment: she describes the impact of politicisation of religious belief at Partition. In her account, told via a potted biography of two previously neighbourly families, the flags of India and Pakistan go up and conversation stops.

One extended family prepares to leave, but the elderly matriarch refuses to abandon the home, filled with memories of children's births and the final illness of her husband.

I'll be interested to hear what you think of Crooked Seeds, Charlotte.

>159 vancouverdeb: I'm behind with reviews Deborah! I liked it, but not sure if some of that was recognising (bit of) the areas the book was set.

As mentioned up there, I'm behind with reviews.
Tender Taxes (Poetry, reading my own books)
This one did not work for me, at least partly because I don't know anything about Rilke! It's gone on to be rehomed, so hopefully the next reader will be better informed?

Crooked Seeds (African writers, Reading my own books)
This was longlisted for the women's prize. It's set in Cape Town, down the (train)line from where my auntie used to stay, so perhaps that familiarity is what's made me like the book more than most of the reviews I've seen elsewhere. It reminded me (in tone) of Disgrace and Triomf (a book which I never finished because it was so unbearably bleak, but still).

Set in a dystopian (not too far in the) future where water is such short supply in South Africa that it's delivered to individuals by tanker every day, and tankers are held up at gunpoint. Deidre is living in squalor in a bedsit, cadging cigarettes and booze from neighbours who are equally poor. She is a hard to like character, and as the book progresses it's increasingly clear she's not going to take any responsibility for her own situation. As the book scrapes back the surface of her family's history, all the self-justification and self-pity becomes even more self-evidently ridiculous.

>161 charl08: Good review of Crooked Seeds, Charlotte. I was in a bookstore yesterday and they had a copy of Crooked Seeds, just one and the first I have seen. My library does not have it. But I didn't buy it since it was in hardcover and so expensive. If it had made the shortlist I might have bought it. It does sound very interesting.

Thanks Deborah. I think you're being too kind there. I have a bit of a collection of fiction from South Africa, so this fits in well with that.

My book lists are crashing, I'm going to start a new thread!