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Archive for December, 2021

‘Outrunning the Demons’ by Phil Hewitt

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , on December 30, 2021| Leave a Comment »

This book is a collection of essays about the transformative and healing power of running. Phil Hewitt has been a runner for many years, but after being mugged and stabbed in South Africa it became a kind of therapy for him.

Here he publishes the stories of many other people around the world who have also gone through their own trauma or tragedy, and who found solace through running.

I dipped in and out of this book, reading it between other, longer books, and for me that was the best way to read it, as I think if I had simply set out to read it from beginning to end, it could have brought me down somewhat. All the people featured have gone through something terrible, and as much as they have found a way of dealing with it, it’s still not always easy to read about.

As a runner myself, I can certainly attest to the therapeutic powers of the sport – especially in 2020 during the first Covid-19 lockdown, when I was on furlough and running was the one chance I got in the day to not screw my mind up with fear and worry about what was to come. However, I would say that yes, running is great – for SOME people. For others, it might be swimming or walking, or something non-physical like knitting or doing a jigsaw. And whatever it is that helps, if you are going through a particularly hard time, it probably won’t be enough on it’s own. (This book does state that, but it does veer towards putting running on pedestal.)

Phil Hewitt does write well, and also comes across as a thoroughly lovely man; however for me, I far preferred his book Keep on Running, about his addiction to marathon running, as it was just much more light-hearted than this one.

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‘The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories’ by various authors (edited by Martin Edwards)

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , on December 28, 2021| Leave a Comment »

I always like to read a Christmassy themed book at this time of year, and for 2021 I chose this book of short crime stories all set at Christmas time. The book is part of the British Library Crime Classics series and each story has a short biographical introduction about it’s author.

There are eleven stories in all, and as with any compilation, some are more enjoyable than others – and which are which will be down to the personal opinion of the reader. I particularly liked The Christmas Card Crime by Donald Stuart, Sister Bessie or Your Old Leech by Cyril Hare and Twixt the Lip and the Cup by Julian Symons (the last one was probably my overall favourite).

The book also features stories by Baroness Orczy, Carter Dixon, Francis Durbridge and others. Some are rather old fashioned and as such feel quaint or tame, but given when they were written this is only to be expected. I would have preferred a more Christmassy feel to most of them – some of the stories were deemed to be seasonal just because they were set in December or there was a bit of snow falling and in most cases, the season itself was irrelevant. Nonetheless, the book was an interesting diversion and for the most part very enjoyable.

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‘Untold Story’ by Monica Ali

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , on December 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Imagine if Princess Diana had not died in a car crash in Paris, but had instead faked her death, changed her appearance and escaped to small-town America, to live a life free from the glare of publicity and gossip. That is the premise of Monica Ali’s novel untold story and as preposterous as it sounds, it is told in a way which makes it feasible.

Lydia Snaresbrook is a British woman living in a quiet town in America. She has made a small but close circle of friends, she has a job at a local dog rescue centre, and she has even started a relationship with a lovely man. However, she is never quite able to relax for fear that someone will find out her true identity, and she will once again become the focus of publicity. Only one person knew the truth about her death and that was her private secretary Lawrence. But then a face from the past comes to town and spots Lydia – and he thinks there is something very familiar about her indeed…

The story is told in chapters which alternate between Lydia’s point of view, and the point of view of a significant other character (no spoilers though) – both told in the third person. There are also a few chapters which are excerpts from her private secretary’s diary, which give insight into the state of mind which Lydia was in before, during and shortly after her disappearing act.

I really enjoyed the first 80%-ish of this book. Monica Ali writes beautifully and brings all her characters to life. She captures both the freedom and the fear of exposure that Lydia feels – freedom to finally live her life as she chooses, but all the while worrying about threats to that freedom. Bravely she portrays Lydia as a complicated woman, sometimes high-maintenance and difficult to deal with, but also having had to deal with tremendous pressure.

However, I did feel that the story took a strange turn towards the end and I was slightly disappointed in how it turned out. But I was interested throughout and I always enjoy when the same scene is shown from different points of view, which happens here several times.

Overall an enjoyable reading experience, and I would definitely read more by Monica Ali.

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‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St. John Mandel

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , on December 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »

I wasn’t entirely sure that I had picked the best time to read this book – after all it is about a global pandemic which brings about the collapse of civilisation and changes life as we know it for ever. And I read it during the current Covid-19 pandemic, just as the world was made aware of a new variant of the Coronavirus that is certain to become the dominant strain.

Nonetheless, I decided to give Station Eleven a go, having heard so many good things about it. The play opens in the present day, in a theatre in Toronto. Famous film star Arthur Leander is on stage playing King Lear, when he collapses and dies in front of the audience. On the same night, a deadly flu virus which comes to be known as the Georgia Flu, due to where it originated, starts sweeping the world, wiping out thousands of people every day.

Twenty years later, civilisation has collapsed. There is no electricity, there are no computers or mobile phones, cars and aeroplanes have become obsolete, and the world is no longer a safe place to live.

Kirsten, a child actor in Arthur’s King Lear play, who saw him die on stage, is now part of a travelling symphony – a group of musicians and actors who travel around the country performing Shakespeare plays and musical concerts. They face the possibility of danger and hostility at every turn but they are determined to survive.

The book alternates between the lives of Kirsten and the symphony, and Arthur’s life and rise to fame as well as his complicated love life. There are also several chapters centering on Arthur’s old friend Clark, who is determined to preserve the memories of the old world.

I’ll be honest, that when I started this book I was not at all sure I was going to enjoy it, and not just because of the reasons I mentioned at the start of this review. I initially found it difficult to invest in the descriptions of life 20 years after the pandemic; however, this story took hold of me and I ended up getting really drawn in, and I would say that this is definitely one of my favourite reads of 2021.

There are a large cast of characters, who we read about and then come back to later on in the story, and they were all so realistically drawn that I really cared about what happened to them. My favourite two characters were probably Jeevan (a somewhat peripheral character, maybe almost unnecessary character, but his part definitely added something for me) and Clark, who initially seemed like he would just be a background player, but ended up becoming central to the story.

Science fiction fans should be aware that this book does not fall into that genre. It’s definitely a dystopian novel, but it’s much more than that. It’s a book about appreciating what we have, remembering the beautiful things in life, and trying to remain humane to others during catastrophic times. It’s desperately sad in parts, but curiously uplifting at times.

I loved it, and highly recommend it.

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