Tips, links and suggestions: what are you reading this week?

I rarely read a book which I enjoy so much that I keep it as I know I will want to read it again. Having just luxuriated in Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! it has been returned to my bookshelves next to a book which came to mind as I was reading it, Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song. Both feature strong women living and working on the land. I was delighted to find that I have My Antonia in one of my reading piles so cannot wait to return to the prairies and meet another of Cather’s heroines.

A man left for dead out in the prairie. A gunslinger with gold teeth. A marshal who makes himself scarce. Two Shakespeare sonnets. And more twists than a rattler. All in 14 tight pages. Everything except “Print the legend.” That was added in the script.

Found it in The Portable Western Reader from Penguin. The best piece so far.

I’m rereading my old copies of Little House on the Prairie this week. The important life lessons of that book series on courage and carrying on even when disaster strikes are inspiring. And it is fascinating to learn about Americans in those days as well. Great set of books for most people! I plan to read the second book next.

“Words are the deadliest weapons: merciless, vicious, diseased. Cut them and pus would ooze out.”

It’s an extraordinary novelist who can capture that Cape Cod light in words alone. Here it’s done, with a beguiling charm and a summer sadness. You can taste the sea salt, feel the beach sand, and hear the gulls cry. Heaven in the details - a creak of a floorboard, the lid of a secret tin, the flicking of cigarette ash after midnight. A charming tale of artistic ambition, cruel disappointment, post-war dislocation and the kind of jealousy that can only exist between a husband and wife.

Beautifully done. Pulled that sweet trick of making me feel nostalgic for a time I never knew.

He’s back in form… Must be careful to avoid spoilers, but in the hope of encouraging people who aren’t already fans to give it a try I will just set the scene. It’s 2020 and as a result of the unexplained Spontaneous Anthropomorphising Event back in 1965 the UK is inhabited by 1.2m human-sized, English-speaking rabbits. Britain is governed by UKARP (UK Anti-Rabbit Party) and rabbits are restricted to living in officially designated colonies. However there are exceptions; Major Clifford “call me Doc” Rabbit, decorated for heroism in Afghanistan, and his family move to the picturesque little village of Much Hemlock. The equally picturesque but viciously bigoted inhabitants are appalled and seek to enlist the help of Peter Knox, mild-mannered accountant with the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce. Cue a virtuoso display of the unique Fforde mix of satire, action, erudition and inventiveness.

I’m only a few chapters in but, the phrasing, descriptions and character details are exceptionally good. It made me feel like I know them. Everything described is easily and vividly pictured. No doubt, Cosby is one hell of a writer. The plot, as it is evolving, is fascinating. It’s great to read something in a well established genre that feels and reads so fresh.

I’m a fan of his work but this National Book Award winner from 1979 is a very peculiar kind of war novel. It’s something like a Don Quixote of the Vietnam War. A strange fantastical journey of odd side stories and madness. I’m halfway through and not sure if I like it or not. I like his style, Hemingway-like in its economy. But it’s not having the impact of The Things They Carried, which I thought was a masterpiece.

Finally read Cold Comfort Farm. Always resisted before because I am very fond of one of the novels it parodies. (Mary Webb’s Precious Bane.) I didn’t think it was as hysterically funny as often claimed but, yes, I did enjoy it. Particularly liked all the Jane Austen references.