ramblingsthebookblog

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Book Review: Notes to Self by Emilie Pine

In Notes to Self, Emile Pine recalls her childhood, teenage years and adulthood through a series of essays. Pine muses on her parent’s divorce, her teenage years where she went out of control, her infertility and her career. She is honest and insightful and doesn’t hold back. Her essay on her parent’s divorce resonated with me in particular as it mirrored my own experience. It was too real and lingered in my mind long after I finished it. This is an incredible book about pain, as experienced by women and the expectations thrust upon us. 

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Book Review: Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver

“The Mere was utterly forbidden, the haunt of ferishes and will o wisps that dragged you to a miry death. And yet Maud felt drawn to the edge. She leaned over. Fish fled her shadow. In the deep green murk she saw the skeletons of drowned weeds.” 

Wakenhyrst is about one girl’s longing for freedom. It is also a murder mystery. 

Maud Stearne lives at Wake’s End Manor with her father, a strict protestant and her mother and brother. Her father is cruel and vindictive, her mother kind but stoic. Their home is surrounded by a Fen, a grassy wetland full of creatures and mystery. When the book begins we are told that Maud, now an elderly woman, still lives at Wake’s End. The house is surrounded in controversy because her father committed a gruesome murder. We aren’t told why. 

Paver is a master of building tension. The story builds slowly, diverting down different paths and leaves you guessing right up until the very end. Maud’s story is interspersed with her father’s horrifying diaries. As she grows into her girlhood, we witness his cruelty and coldness. We are led up one path and down another until the full horror of what is going to happen is revealed. 

This a fantastic gothic thriller. One to curl up with on a rainy day with a cup of tea and a biscuit. 

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Book Review: Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

“If you had asked me why I had joined the militia I should have answered: 'To fight against Fascism,' and if you had asked me what I was fighting for, I should have answered: 'Common decency." 

“When you are taking part in events like these you are, I suppose, in a small way, making history, and you ought by rights to feel like an historical character. But you never do, because at such times the physical details always outweigh everything else. Throughout the fighting I never made the correct analysis of the situation that was so glibly made by journalists hundreds of miles away.” 

I picked up HTC before I went on holiday to Barcelona and after I finished ‘A short introduction to the Spanish Civil War.’ George Orwell, despite being an icon for right wingers, was a trot who fought with the POUM during the Spanish Civil War. 

In HTC, Orwell fondly recounts the men he served with, their military operations (or lack thereof) and vents his frustration at how the war progressed. Later, he recalls his anger at how the Republic’s government managed the water and, in his opinion, betrayed his comrades and the working class. Orwell is disillusioned with the war by the end of book but clearly still passionate about its ideals. This is a gritty account of the war, far from the glossy propaganda pictures that adorn the internet. This is an outsider’s perspective on the war but an interesting one. 

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Book Review: The New Urban Crisis by Richard Florida

Recent conversations with friends: it’s slowly becoming very expensive to live in Belfast. Rents are creeping upwards. People are being evicted from their homes because the landlord wants to put the property on Air BnB. The city, emerging from conflict, is building hundreds of new expensive flats. Meanwhile, thousands are on the waiting list for social housing. 

What is happening in Belfast has already happened across the world. Cities are becoming unaffordable to live in. This isn’t about gentrification but housing becoming a commodity. In this situation, the rich benefit from urbanisation while service workers and the working class don’t. Florida’s book attempts to unpack the “new urban crisis” and suggests a solution: urbanisation for all. 

I wish Florida had gone into further detail about the political and economic reasons why cities are affordable but overall, this was a brilliant and insightful read. 

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Llibreria Antiquària Farré in Barcelona

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Book Review: The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner

“But then I feel pain in my mouth and my teeth hurt. In response, my lips grow more insistent, pressing harder; my tongue meets his and my teeth nip at his lips. I taste blood and pull away. Panting.”

In the woods between Moldova and Ukraine, Liba and Laya live with their mother and father among the trees and the wildlife. The two girls could not be more different. Liba is bookish and stern like her father. Laya is bubbly and a daydreamer. While Liba wants to follow and adhere to the Jewish traditions of her father, her sister dreams of escaping and charting her own path. 

When a family tragedy draws their father and mother away on a dangerous mission, the girls discover that they have magical powers. Liba has the ability to turn into a bear, Laya a beautiful swan. This gift, they learn, has divided their family for a long time and made them both valuable to either side. 

This is a charming story of sisters growing up and discovering who they are. The magic is wonderful and intertwined with the pain and excitement of growing up. 

Rossner’s writing is luminous and gripping. You can smell the forest on every page.I particularly enjoyed the fact that Liba’s chapters are written in prose, Laya’s in poetry. Liba, so fond of her traditions and structured life, tells her story the traditional way. Rossner writes Laya’s chapters in the third person, her words flowing like a song. Laya’s chapters seem free, like her character. 

This book is set against the Jewish pogroms in Ukraine in the 1900s, a period of history I don’t know much about. The historical parallels to today can’t be understated. Prejudice and xenophobia are rife. People are stirring up trouble and turning the community against the Jewish population. 

The series ends on a sad but hopeful note. There’s a hint  (I think) that the story could expand into a sequel. This is a wonderful magical tale about growing up and sisterly love. I hope Rossner publishes more. 

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Book/Poetry Review: Bloodroot by ANNEMARIE NÍ CHURREÁIN

“Rotational rubbing backwards and forwards with clasped fingers of right hand in left palm and vice versa to wear thin the heart lines.

Be a sister and repeat the law like a hymn into the sink. 

Do not commemorate: Do not remunerate. Do not let 

the wounded woman or her child speak in bare tongue. 

Wash in this way and rid your hands of Mother, Baby, Home.”

In Bloodroot, Ni Churreain digs her hands into the soil and recounts her pain and the the pain of Irish women over the centuries. This is about the Magdalene Laundries, the Mother and Baby Homes, the Catholic Church and the Eighth Amendment. The author also touches on her own personal grief that followed her around the world. The poetry is powerful, challenging and sums up the anger that propelled the movement to repeal the Eighth Amendment in 2017. I got to the end and wanted more. 

‘Shame’

Use this word when you speak of love.

A man of the cloth will come.

Your new home is among the brides.’ 

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Book Review: The Witches of St Petersberg by Imogen Edwards-Jones

“Adam’s Head, the dew of midsommer morn and the blood of a witch,” declared Stana and she swiftly sliced the stem close to the root. ‘It does not get more powerful than that.” 

You all know I love witchy books. Who knew the occult played had a role to play in the Romanov court in the lead up to the October Revolution? 

The Witches of St Petersberg is about two Russian Princesses from Montenegro, Militiza and Anastasia Nikolaevna, who became part Tsar Nicholas II’s inner circle. Along with famously introducing the Russian court to Rasputin, the two women were obsessed with the occult and jointly named the “black peril.” In Edward Jones’ story both women are practising witches, not only possessing  magical powers but the power to communicate with the dead. When Tsar Nicholas II rises to the throne, the women use their magical powers to rise through the court and advance their position. 

Edward Jones has written about a fascinating period of history and does a great job of charting the ins and out of the Russian court. Her characters are rich, spoiled and of out of touch, concerned with their petty trials and tribulations while Russian society suffers around them.  The revolution and its stirrings hum in the background of this story. Every time Edward Jones mentioned the extravagance and wealth of her characters, I winced. The whole story feels like one slow step towards disaster. The pages are filled with dread. 

Given the source material, the subject matter and the twists and turns, I expected more from this story than I got in return. This is a pager turner but the characters were unsympathetic and I wasn’t given a reason to care about any of them. Both witches lacked depth, so much so that they came across as one dimensional. The narrator of the book switches, unsure if it wants to be omniscient or objective. At one point, near the end of the book, you’re told, “Little did anyone know that it was the last time the Tsarina would ever see her sister, Ella, again.” Eh? This book could have been so much more than it was. 

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Book Review: The Fire Starters by Jan Carson

“In this city we have a great love of the talking. The talking can be practised on buses, park benches, from pulpits and frequently on gable walls. it swells in the presence of an audience, though a second party is not strictly required.” 

Along with ‘Multitudes’ this the second book I’ve read this year that features my home turf: East Belfast. I read this in July while the air burned hot and the humid air clung to my hair. When the bonfires were lit, I had Carson’s book in my hand. 

Firestarters is set in 2018 in Belfast. And the city is burning. Tall fires are going up all over the city, large bonfires that destroy buildings, department stores and houses alike. Nobody knows who’s doing it. The only thing the police do know is that a mysterious online entity is orchestrating the whole thing. Masked and dressed in black, the mysterious person is riling up the masses and egging his followers on. 

One man, an East Belfast man named Sammy, thinks he knows who the mysterious online figure is: his son. 

On the same side of town, Dr Johnathan Murray has been taken in by a siren. (Yes, you read that right. An actual siren.) While doing the rounds on a night shift, Johnathan is lured to an apartment and drawn into bed with the mysterious creature. It binds him for months, falls pregnant and disappears. Johnathan is left with the child. 

Sammy and Jonathan’s stories are strong and distinct, so much so that this feels like two books meshed into one. Both plots exist together because both men are grappling with the same thing: they are afraid of their own child. Sammy, an ex loyalist paramilitary thug, is scared of his son Mark. He fears that the behaviour of his past has tainted his son and touched him like curse. Jonathan fears that his daughter will grow up to have a hold over him. He worries that she will manipulate people and control others. He ponders, in his darkest moments, cutting out her little tongue. 

This book is full of magical realism. Through his daughter, Jonathan discovers the “unfortunate children of Belfast.” Children born with strange, bizarre abilities.  There’s the girl with wings, the girl who can turn into a boat and a boy who can see the future in every liquid. 

Sammy and Jonathan have the same fear but they live in different worlds. Sammy is working class. Jonathan, middle class. They live five minutes away from one another in the same part of the city. Firestarters brilliantly illustrates the class divide in East Belfast and the invisible line that runs between the Upper and Lower Newtownards Road. Jonathan is completely ignorant of his working class neighbours and the hidden world of the unfortunate children. 

“And why did I never hear about any of this before Sophie?” 

“Cos-no harm intended-Doctor, you’re too posh to have known what was going on at the other end of the road.”

I think there’s a reason why Carson sets her story in post Good Friday Agreement Belfast. Firestarters is about the legacy we leave to our children. It’s about a younger generation that looks back at the past and sees glory instead of pain. 

“They talk of the loud violence their parents knew, as if it is a kind of birthright denied to them.”

Are the Firestarters the young arsonists or the generation that engaged in the violence of the Troubles? That, more than anything, is at the heart of this book. 

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Book Review: The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

“And yet-there in the garden, with the dirt caking the fabric at his knees and my body balanced on the balls of my feet, ready to fall over at any second, was something new. In a hot rush I realize that love may not be off limits for me after all. An opportunity.”

Lia, Grace and Sky live with their mother and King, their father figure, in a secluded part of an island. The skies are blue, the sea rocks against the shore. The girls are living there, we are told, to survive. Their mother and King talk of toxins in the air, men gone mad. The girls are forced through horrific rituals to keep them safe: the drowning game, the fainting game. Every so often King gets on a boat and travels back to the old world until he safely returns. Women travel to the Island to seek the help of their Mother and her “water cure.” Then, one day, King is gone. Then, after a while, three men appear. 

The Water Cure keeps you going. It isn’t clear whether this is set in a post apocalyptic future or a handmaid’s tale style version of the future where men have gone mad. There are hints that this is more of a cult. What is clear is that Lia, Grace and Sky are being abused by their parents. Their mother is possibly a victim too. Grace falls pregnant and the only man she’s had contact with is King. 

The Water Cure makes you feel like you’re peering through the trees of the Island, squinting to see what’s really going on. The book is creepy and unsettling in the stomach. There’s a twist in the end that turns the whole thing on its head. This was a compelling read but the vagueness of the story, the murky atmosphere, was frustrating. Most of the time, I felt like reaching into the book and shaking the characters to make them feel whole. 

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Book Review: The Binding by Bridget Collins

“I was a binder now, whether I liked it or not. And what if the binder’s fever was still in my blood, like an ague?”

What do you think about a world without books? A world where books are bought and sold on the black market and out of sight of people’s hands? 

In a mysterious land with English undertones, a young man named Emmett tiles the days away at his father’s farm. He is recovering from a serious illness that made him go mad and attack his family. Just when he thinks he’s getting his life back on track again, he is sent off to be an apprentice to a Binder, a woman the locals fear is a witch. Sent away without much of an option, Emmett discovers that he has the power to bind people. That very power turns his life on its head. 

In Collin’s world, buying books is frowned upon. There are novels but they are looked down upon. A book, we learn, contains people’s memories. They are the extracted thoughts and memories of people, removed from their heads so they never think of them again. They aren’t objects to be bought and sold but dangerous objects that, in the wrong, hands could spell disaster

Emmett, to his horror, discovers that there is a book with his name on it. 

The Binding is clever in how it flips its own concept on its head. This is a commentary on literature: the essence of their very being is that they connect with an audience. They are treasured things. Reading them is like stepping inside someone’s head. 

The world of the binders is fascinating. This is a world where the power to take away someone’s memory is highly prized and feared. Is it something to be wary of or something to be scorned? Both, as the ending makes clear. 

At its heart, the binding is a love story. A gay love story at that. Saying too much will give away spoilers but the the central relationship between Emmett and *bleep* is the best thing about this book. It is heartfelt, sweet and I cared deeply about the characters. 

The love story aside, I came away disappointed with this book. The world building is fantastic, the premise is brilliant but I came to it with expectations that weren’t matched in the story. 

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Book Review: Beyond the Border: The Good Friday Agreement and Irish Unity After Brexit by Richard Humphreys

One of the nerds. Richard Humphreys has read your tweets saying Brexit will lead to a united Ireland and why it breaches the Good Friday Agreement...and he’s produced a book to help you out. Incredibly niche, Humphreys tackles the tricky question of how the Good Friday Agreement affects Brexit and a future united Ireland. This is as much a history of the GFA as it is a necessary discussion on how the Agreement can shape a future Ireland. As a unionist, I found it interesting reading. Of particular note is Humphrey’s argument that the Good Friday Agreement applies post unity. He argues that there should be parity of esteem for unionists in a united Ireland as well as a role for Britain in any future state. This book isn’t without criticism but feels like the start of an important discussion. 

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Book Review: The Familiars by Stacey Halls

“I’d heard of wise women, who could give you a cup or something and make you bleed so your stomach went flat again.’ 

Witch books are my jam this summer. When The Familiars popped up in my Goodreads recommendations, I was there with bells on. 

The Familiars is set during the notorious Pendle Witch Trials in Lancaster. James I is on the throne and local officials are looking to cement their loyalty. Eight women are accused of being witches and brought for trial. 

In the middle of chaos is Fleetwood Shuttleworth, a 17 years old, newly married and in charge of her own household for the first time. She and her husband are having difficulties getting pregnant and the couple have suffered multiple miscarriages. When the book opens, Fleetwood is again pregnant. To her horror, she has discovered a letter from a doctor, to her husband, stating that she will die when she gives birth. This letter drives Fleetwood to desperate measures and in the direction of the Pendle Witches....

The Familiars is a compelling read full of brilliant characters and magic. Its charm is in its main character and her wilfulness to do the right thing. It also manages to turn the story of the Pendle Witches into one of female friendship. There is magical realism here, the message that we are more than what society makes us. 

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Book Review: Multitudes by Lucy Caldwell

‘This country,’ she says to my mum. 

‘This country,’ my mum says back to her and neither of them say anything else.

Northern Ireland is going through a literary ‘moment’ right now. Thanks to Anna Burns, local authors are getting a moment in the limelight The “wee six” has always produced excellent literature, artists and poetry but it is constantly overlooked. Lucy Caldwell’s ‘Multitudes’ is a reminder that Northern Irish literature was doing well and getting highly praised before Burns took the Man Brooker Prize. 

Multitudes is a collection of short stories set in East Belfast and centred around the experience of women. Her stories address class, gender, female friendships and mother/daughter relationships. One of her stories is about a transgender woman finding her way in the world. Another about two schoolgirls who fall in love. 

Multitudes is the first book I’ve ever read that actually depicts my childhood and teenage years. Her streets are my streets. Her characters drink in the Cairnburn Park in East Belfast and go to Dundonald Ice Bowl. They eat in the KFC in Ballyhackamore (now a posh Italian restaurant). Her stories are beautiful and heartrending and left me wanting more. Caldwell is fantastic at describing the pain of women and the different layers of life that weigh us down. This is a stunning collection and one I’ll return to again and again. 

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Book Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney

“In school she had believed herself to be above such exchanges of social capital, but her college life indicated that if anyone in school had actually been willing to speak to her, she would have behaved just as badly as anyone else. There is nothing superior about her at all.”

‘Normal People’ by Sally Rooney gained mythic status by the time I nipped into Waterstones to read it. Touted as the ‘the great millennial novel’ it has been discussed and dissected in every newspaper and literary journal from top to end. I was wary, when I finally opened the book, that the hype would ruin my enjoyment. 

Happily, I was wrong. 

I read Normal People a week and a half ago. It still sits with me. I keep thinking about certain sentences and scenes, playing them over and over again in my head. I haven’t felt this way about a book for a long time. 

There is nothing millennial about ‘Normal People’ other than the fact that its protagonists are millennials. They use social media, their conversations are laced with social justice discourse and light touch socialism. Both protagonists grapple with mental health as part of their normal lives. Apart from that, this is a love story. 

Connell and Marianne meet in school. He’s popular and well liked, she isn’t. Connell is from a working class family and his mother cleans Marianne’s home. Marianne’s brother and mother are abusive while Connell’s mother is warm and friendly. They are both whip smart. One night, after a conversation in Marianne’s kitchen, they kiss. Soon they are having a secret “relationship” (if one can call it that) in secret. It is sexual but deeper than that. Neither character is sure how they feel about it. 

Marianne and Connell’s relationship is the centre of the book. They get together, they fall apart, the get together, they stay together then they fall apart again. Both characters grapple with the edges of their being, unsure of who they are and what they want. 

Marianne thinks she is unlikable. Her entire personality is driven by her desire to have the people around her confirm what she wants to think about herself. “She felt confined inside one single personality, which was always the same regardless of what she said.”  Later she tells Connell, “I can’t make people love me.”

Connell is torn between two versions of himself. He is guided by what people think of him and hates it. He remarks at one point that he doesn’t define himself but lets himself be defined by the people around him. He loves Marianne. He also loves her because she validates him. 

“At times he has the sensation that he and Marianne are like figure-skaters, improvising their discussions so adeptly and in such perfect synchronisation that it surprises them both. She tosses herself gracefully into the air, and each time, without knowing how he's going to do it, he catches her."

It isn’t clear whether the relationship between Connell and Marianne is healthy or not. They clearly love each other, they see each other the way they want to be seen but there is something twisted at the heart of it. They have power over each other but it isn’t clear where it lies. Marianne wants to please Connell but she knows that she can make Connell do what she wants. He likes the way she makes him feel. He likes the power he has over her. 

I feel like Marianne and Connell seek each other out so they can emotionally grow to be the people they want to be. Their relationship is about growing up and learning to be happy, unstrapping the past and the image we have ourselves. There are rules in life and nobody every tells you what they are. You spend most of your life trying to figure them out. When you get there, you become a normal person. 

This is a fantastic read. Your children will have to write essays about it in University. It isn’t just a chin stroking Man Brooker Prize piece but a great page turner. 

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Book Review: The Spanish Civil War by Helen Graham

“Our modest task...is to organise the apocalypse.” 

Can you tell I read this after finishing Labyrinth? I studied the Spanish Civil War in school but, like most taught history, the nuances and interesting parts were skipped over. The education system made the events of 1930s Spain seem incredibly dull. Zafon’s ‘Shadows’ series, Hemingway and C.J Sansom’s ‘A Winter in Madrid’ taught me otherwise. 

I’m going to Barcelona in August so I picked up Graham’s book to refresh my mind. This is an excellent overview of the Civil War and its aftermath. One can’t help but notice the similarities between 1930s Spain and now. The parallels are striking: a culture war, establishment anger at left wing social reforms and far right solidarity across borders. Parallels are often drawn between the Trump era and 1930s Germany. The Franco era has lessons for all of us. 

If you’re looking to start learning more about the Spanish Civil War, this is the first book you should pick up. 

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Book Review: The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafron

“Few are the occasions when life allows us stroll through our dreams, caressing a lost memory with our hands.” 

I first picked up Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s “The Shadow of the Wind” when it was first published over 18 years ago. It was, I think, a Richard and Judy bookclub recommendation. I poured over the pages, completely hooked on Zafon’s writing and characters. Daniel Sempere, Fermin, Bea and the Sempere and Sons bookshop: I’ve grown up with these characters and I keep coming back, squeezing myself into their lives. After I read Shadow I also read The Prisoner of Heaven and The Angel’s Game. The ‘Shadow’ series opens up Barcelona in your mind. Zafon’s is a magical, gothic place. 

Labyrinth of the Spirits is the last book in the Shadow quartet. Daniel is back along with Fermin and Bea and the wonderful Sempere and Sons bookshop. This time the story centres on a new character: Alicia Gris, a gritty spy/investigator for the Franco administration who is investigating a missing government Minister. Alicia is an orphan, a woman from Fermin’s past, recruited to fight and work at the whims of the handler who groomed her from childhood. 

The Labyrinth of the Spirits is the name of a book at the heart of this story. It’s a series by an author named Victor Matatix. In it, a young girl falls into a twisted version of Wonderland, a “Barcelona of horrors” and becomes slowly darker and nastier as the series drags on. Zafron didn’t name his main protagonist by accident. Alicia is our Alice and her life is the Labyrinth, the slow, twisted descent into hell. 

Labyrinth is about goodness and what it takes to set oneself free. It isn’t just Alicia that has to find her way through darkness but Daniel as well. The Shadow of the Wind opens with Daniel, as a boy, waking and screaming because he can’t remember his mother’s face. Isabella Sempere is the heart and soul of this story. After learning that his mother was murdered in a previous book, Daniel plots his revenge. Zafon has him fall down the rabbit hole. As the chapters go on, we watch something dark and frightening consume his soul. 

Apart from ‘Shadow’ this is my favourite book in the series. A great lump of a book, I swallowed it whole over a few days.There are a lot of characters in this and multiple points of view. Somehow, the story doesn’t feel crowded. Alicia is an absolute triumph. I’m so sad that I only get to have one book with her. 

Take the leap, fall down the hole. You’ll enjoy finding your way out.