Down but not out

The Road - Cormac McCarthy: Wow - what a book! First time reading McCarthy and I was blown away by how good this was. The hopelessness, the utter despair, the almost complete absence of anything normal, and how vividly he depicts it all with his sparse language. I look forward to reading more of his work.

A Slanting of the Sun - Donal Ryan: A very interesting collection of short stories from Ryan which, as well as themes and settings one might expect, also includes some much darker elements I wasn't expecting, and all of it is written impeccably.

Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi: Another book club choice and one I really didn't expect to like as I'm not one for sagas but, especially in the early chapters, it really drew me in. Beginning in west Africa in the 1700's during the slave trade the author tells the stories of two families, generation by generation, tracing their lives right up to the present. At times the story felt a bit rushed and the jump from one generation to the next a bit jarring but overall I liked it.

The French Intifada - Andrew Hussey: I've always had a certain grá for France - maybe it's all the years I spent watching the Tour - but my recent discovery that my birth father is Breton coaxed me to buy some books about the country. Written by the same author as Paris: The Secret History (still tbr), this was a very readable book, a real eye opener about the roots of so much of the conflict in the Arab world and beyond, and like Homegoing, it pulled no punches in describing the absolute savagery and barbarism of the colonists.

For God's Sake: The Hidden Life of Irish Nuns - Camillus Metcalfe: An odd choice for the book club and one I didn't expect to be able to read. I have no time for religion and, as an adoptee, I have nothing but contempt for the Catholic Church. And I didn't want to have to deal with the anger a rose-tinted account of how wonderful the nuns were and how none of the abuses took place was likely to provoke. But this book proved to be nothing of the sort. Instead, I feel I got a genuine insight into the life of nuns and I found that strangely cathartic. The system they existed in was nothing short of cultish - they were robbed of their identity, their autonomy, their agency - and though this does not for one second excuse the cruelty they meted out, it does go some way towards explaining the source of that cruelty. This is not a book I would ever have read off my own bat but I'm very grateful to the book club member who suggested it.

Separately, after nearly 300 pages of Cryptonomicon I'm not prepared to waste any more time on this drivel. I was determined to stick with it despite not liking it as it had been recommended by a friend whose recommendations are usually worth a read (The Fountainhead and Neuromancer being two that come to mind) but this book is just awful. The language is crass, the writing is terrible, and there's just so much unnecessary detail.

Where Are You From? No, Where Are You Really From? - Audrey Osler: As a former taxi driver Where are you from? was a question I asked and was asked frequently and it made for some very interesting conversations. However, the question can also have some very negative connotations and I was hoping the author would deal with the question from that perspective. Instead she brought the reader on a very interesting journey through her family tree which was very good in and of itself but it wasn't what I wanted for from the book unfortunately.

Foster - Claire Keegan: When I spotted this very short book - not even a hundred pages - in the local library I was quick to grab it as I've been wanting to read something of Keegan's for a while now and I'm so glad I did as it's just a beautiful little story. The portrait of rural Irish life has been done so well so many times that I'm always surprised when another author depicts it anew. There's something about the elevation of the mundane, the everyday, that gets me every time. In Donal Ryan's Strange Flowers it was the tea and turf smoke and in Foster it's tomatoes and onions chopped fine, apple tart and cream, an awkward moment involving some rhubarb. But there's something else besides, a way in which I found I kept running up against the physical presence of the things depicted - be it a hot bath or the well or the fields, or even the people - the prose is punctuated by them and it's just wonderful. And it's wonderful that this little book can say so much in so few pages. Like William Trevor's Sitting with the Dead this is another one that will stay with me.

So Late in the Day - Claire Keegan: Another very small book but not nearly as good as Foster. It really ought to have been a bit longer in order to properly explore the themes raised in the story.

A Ghost in the Throat - Doireann Ní Ghríofa: The granular detail of autofiction may not be to everyone's taste but the poetic flourishes in this book club choice made it a joy to read.

They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper - Bruce Robinson: You wouldn't think it but I'm not especially interested in true crime. My interest in Zodiac stems from David Fincher's brilliant film and this book was a damaged copy going cheap in a local book shop and as it's written by the maker of another favourite film of mine I thought why not. It's a big book, it's a long read, and I wasn't always sure I'd be able to see it through till the end as Mr Robinson doesn't hold back. The level of detail he goes into is matched only by his scathing contempt for the ruling elites of late Victorian Britain. To begin with at least it all came across as a bit of rant - quite a bit of a rant to be sure - but as it went on I began to see the justification for his contempt and the credibility of his thesis re the identity of the Ripper. Before reading this book I knew comparatively little about Jack the Ripper and his crimes but now I'm eagerly anticipating going down some rabbit holes to see what Ripperology makes of it all. A great read about Jack and the times he lived in.

Black Butterflies - Priscilla Morris: This months book club choice is a fictionalised account of life during the first year of the Siege of Sarajevo inspired by the experiences of the authors family. By focusing on the ordinary, the everyday, and by not indulging in sentiment or tending towards overstatement, Morris brilliantly brings to life the awful reality of living through armed conflict. A very good book to read in these troubled times.

When All Is Said - Anne Griffin: This months book club choice told it's story - of a recently widowed old man looking back on his life - in an interesting way and there were definitely some very good passages in it but over all this book didn't do much for me.

Shade - Neil Jordan: I really, really enjoyed reading this book. The storytelling is Gothic, Banvillian almost, but the writing is very much Jordan's own and this story of life, love and death in early 20th century Ireland and beyond unfolds beautifully and was a joy to behold.

At this point I've half as many books read as I did last year and slightly ahead of schedule so I might surpass forty books by the end of the 12 month.

Having said that I recently began Ducks, Newburyport, a curious book which I really like but it's a long read and I'll be a while getting through it.

On the nonfiction front I'm back reading Paris: The Secret History and when that's done I hope to return to Grand Hotel Abyss which has been on hold for too long.

I think Ulysses is still a long way off, though I'd like to reread Portrait of the Artist before that. So too my intended return to Wolf Hall, and there's still Malone Dies, the only outstanding work of Beckett's prose fiction I've still to read.

And for the season that's in it this months book club choice is The Haunting of Hill House.

So as ever lots to see and do.

Normal People - Sally Rooney: I loved the TV series but tried and failed a while back to read the book as I struggled with the style of writing - something about it just didn't click with me. Glad I tried again because it's a wonderful story and both the novel and the TV adaptation do such a wonderful job of depicting pain and the struggle to keep on going when life gets to be too much.