Tips, links and suggestions: what are you reading this week?
Welcome to this week’s blogpost. Here’s our roundup of your comments and photos from last week.
Let’s start with some Reasons To Be Cheerful. Nina Stibbe’s comic novel is “just what I wanted now” says lonelybloomer:
Funny, light, touching, sarcastic. Like Adrian Mole, but with a girl (for the record, Adrian Mole is my desert island book). I just love the working-class British struggle, and books where everyone eats toast. I see there’s more to come in the series, and I’m excited to read it.
Rick2016 has enjoyed We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson:
Merricat and Constance are two of the best protagonists in fiction and Jonas is one of the best cats. Narrated by Merricat, an intelligent, emotionally disturbed, sensitive girl of 18 (but who seems younger), it’s such an engaging, tightly written and convincing book.
The genius of Jackson’s writing is the way it mixes a creeping sense of horror with wonderfully cozy descriptions of life at the house. Plenty of other writers would have made the latter deliberately saccharine, but I found myself desperately wanting everyone to leave Merricat and Constance alone to enjoy their idyllic life. Which, given the actual events of the book, says something about the spell that Merricat’s narrative voice is able to cast.
I don’t want to say too much more, for fear of spoiling the plot (and, while the book’s main strength is its atmosphere, it’s probably worth avoiding the blurb if, like me, you hate spoilers). But I’d recommend it unreservedly and will definitely be reading more of Jackson’s work.
Lynne James has just reread Mary Renault’s The Mask Of Apollo:
Anyone who thinks historical fiction is trash needs to read Renault. The politics of 4th century BC Sicily are very like our own times, and the re-creation of Greek theatre with its actors and techniques is very interesting
“I have dipped my toe into the world of Elizabeth Taylor,” says GELBuck who has been reading The Sleeping Beauty:
A love story, I suppose, but the plot acts more as a vehicle for the author’s sweetly vicious social observations. I suspect she would have been a malicious presence at a cocktail party – you wouldn’t even realise she had slipped a stiletto between your ribs until you turned away and noticed the blood pooling in your Gucci loafers.
Jacqueline Susann’s The Valley Of The Dolls has made Swelter laugh:
I’ve been enjoying Valley of the Dolls as a bestseller-y kind of combination romance novel/sordid show-biz expose, but I just read what may be the greatest cat-fight in literature, which had me laughing and chortling for five pages. I had to see if I could find the scene from the film; I did, but it’s no match for the book’s version, which just has so many wonderful touches that serve as grace notes to the confrontation. Ah, the inimitable art of a master author!
“This week I was introduced to one of literature’s greatest characters,” says safereturndoubtful, “Frank Mansfield, from Charles Willeford’s Cockfighter”:
When this was first published in 1962 the ancient blood sport of cockfighting was on its last legs in the US, only still legal in Louisiana and New Mexico. Yet Willeford’s novel has gained admiration and a cult status by far more than just the aficionados of the sport, and that is his huge achievement. Another, is that it has aged so well… Willeford writes boldly and with sympathy for his flawed hero and the sport which the reader initially can see only see as barbaric and cruel, with a revulsion for those involved, and is steadily won over by the wonderful writing; a fine example of the power of great literature.
Finally, Full Moon, a Blandings Castle novel by PG Wodehouse, has been “working its magic” on Dennis89:
If you’re in need of a pick-me-up then may I heartily recommend. Daft? Yes. Formulaic? Yes. But God in terms of writing, narrative and language then you’re in the hands of a true master.
It makes me recall something that Stephen Fry once said ... that a large proportion of Wodehouse’s readership came from those confined to prisons and hospitals. And that all of us, for a greater or lesser part of our lives, are sick or imprisoned in one way or another, all of us in need of this remarkable healing spirit, a balm for hurt minds.
There’s definitely a case for prescribing Wodehouse novels through the NHS.
Interesting links about books and reading
Why does anyone need permission from Harvard to make a movie about Emily Dickinson?
Mick Herron rereads the novels of John le Carré.
A beginner’s guide to becoming obsessed with Jeanette Winterson.
More proof of the heroism of librarians in a report into how libraries are helping to cope with the US opioid crisis.
William Burroughs wrote a treatment for a film called Bladerunner. (But not that one.)
If you’re on Instagram, now you can share your reads with us: simply tag your posts with the hashtag #GuardianBooks, and we’ll include a selection in this blog. Happy reading!
