Hay Festival Digital 2020

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Hay to you

The organisers of the world famous Hay festival have been hard at work to make a virtual version this year. Starting Friday 22nd May a mind blowingly brilliant program of speakers on a wide range of topics will be available online. Free live events with over a hundred speakers on politics, the environment, science, history, cosmology, linguistics, ethics, pandemics (of course) and lots and lots of fiction. I don’t even know where to start! If you’ve never been able to make it to the festival, this is your chance.

Hay Festival Digital has an equally brilliant special program for schools which starts today. Tell your school about it or use it for your own home schooling (or simply as a babysittter).

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

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The Big Sleep

The original whiskey drinking sleuth

The cynical, whiskey drinking, mac-wearing sleuth Philip Marlow is one of crime literature’s most enduring characters. Written in 1936, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler has stood the test of time despite a dash of homophobia and sexism which, today, seem so outlandish it just makes you laugh. The story involves the wealthy General Sternwood, his spoilt, unruly daughters Carmen and Vivian, and blackmail. Chandler was in a league of his own when it came to astute observations of people and places and it’s this that sets The Big Sleep apart from so many others in the genre.

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Echoes of City by Lars Saabye Christensen

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Echoes of the City

An intricate ode to ordinary people

Norway’s capital is perhaps not the most spectacular city in Europe, but it has seldom been more charming than in Echoes of the City by Lars Saabye Christensen, the first instalment in an ambitious trilogy tracing the lives of ordinary people in post-war Oslo. One of Norway’s most respected novelists, Saabye Christensen has managed the feat of attaining both critical acclaim and high sales.

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Becoming by Michelle Obama

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Becoming to the screen

Did you love Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming as much as I did? The Netflix documentary based on her book and life starts today, 6th of May, on Netflix. I’ll be watching! Here’s our review of her book.

We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson

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We Have Always Lived in the Castle

An American house of horror

I’m finding that bitesized, escapist fiction suits my concentration levels these days and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, perfectly fits the bill. The story of two mysterious sisters living with their ailing uncle in a grand, ivy-covered Vermont house is unsettling from the word go. We Have Always Lived in the Castle was Jackson’s – the American queen of ghost and horror stories – last and, many think, best novel.

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Normal People TV series

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Normal People on screen

Remember Sally Rooney’s dazzling, multi-prize-winning novel Normal People? The BBC and Hulu just released a TV-series based on the book and rave reviews are flooding in. You can find our review here. Watch the series or read the book or even both. Just don’t miss this gem of a love story! Here’s the trailer.

https://youtu.be/LoIBGYXlxW0

 

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

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I Feel Bad About My Neck

A bit of light distraction

As I’ve just found out, I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron can always be pulled out of the bookshelf and re-read. It’s the American screenwriter’s (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle) laugh-out-loud collection of essays about divorces, moustaches, the power of hair-dye, losing your eye-sight, why it’s pointless to bring a book to the hairdresser, and, yes, neck skin. Comic genius Ephron (the only woman in the White House JF Kennedy never made a pass on) knew a thing or two about turning tragedy into comedy and in her mid-sixties wrote a blisteringly honest book about ageing. She didn’t believe in upbeat books about old age. ‘Why do people write books that say it’s better to be older than to be younger? It’s not better.’ It might not sound like it but believe me when I say you’ll feel better after laughing your way through this book.

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron is published by Doubleday, 228 pages.

Home isolation

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And you thought home isolation was bad…

Getting a perspective sometimes make things feel better. These great books should do the job.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The ultimate ‘hard times’ book, written during the Great Depression. Classic Steinbeck with unforgettable characters.

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. Remember this one? A heart-wrenching but also very funny memoir by the Irish-American author who grew up in extreme poverty in Limerick, Ireland.

Blood River – A journey into Africa’s Broken Heart by Tim Butcher. A gripping non-fiction story of a journalist’s journey through Congo, one of the most dangerous countries on earth.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Set in Korea during the Japanese occupation, this family epic vividly describes the one-bowl-of-rice-a-day-existence.

The Five – the Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold. Being a poor, divorced or single woman in Victorian times is the last thing you’d ever want to be after reading this superbly researched Baille-Gifford prize winning non-fiction book.

…and, of course, ANYTHING Charles Dickens.

Women's Prize for Fiction short-list 2020

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Women’s Prize for Fiction short-list 2020

Just what we need right now. A curated selection of books by smart women in the know, the judging panel of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020. There’s a one time winner of the Booker Prize (Bernadine Evaristo) and a two-time (possibly a third?) winner of the Booker Prize (Hilary Mantel). There’s the wonderful Jenny Offill whose books (Weather and Dept. of Speculation) we love. And then there’s our recent favourite, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. Good choices judging panel!

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