What I'm reading ...

I have started A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale. After the last book, I have high hopes of this one. It is very unusual for me to read two consecutive books by one author. Here’s the blurb:

In the golden 1900s, Harry Cane, a shy, eligible gentleman of leisure is drawn from a life of quiet routine into marrying Winnie, eldest daughter of the fatherless Wells clan, who are not quite as respectable as they would appear.
Winnie and Harry settle by the sea and have a daughter; conventional marriage does not seem such a tumultuous change after all. When a chance encounter awakens unacknowledged desires, however, Harry is forced to forsake the home and people he loves for a harsh new life as a homesteader on the newly colonized Canadian prairies. There, in a place called Winter, he will come to find a deep love within an alternative family, a love imperilled by war, madness and a man of undeniable magnetism.
In a dramatic departure from anything he has written before, Patrick Gale boldly projects his own fears and loves to tell the dramatic story of an Edwardian innocent's gradual understanding of his own nature. Based on the real life mystery of the author's own great-grandfather, and drawing on the understanding of psychology and relationships which infused Rough Music and Notes from an Exhibition, A PLACE CALLED WINTER charts the gathering of wisdom of a kind suppressed in most family histories.

A Perfectly Good Man - by Patrick Gale

I was recommended this book very highly, so I started it with optimism. This was not unfounded. The story is not too complex, but has little nuances which I found fascinating. The author leads the reader to realisation, instead of spelling everything out and he does this very skilfully. Each chapter is from a different viewpoint and has a title which is a character’s name and their age. The chapters do not appear in consecutive time order, so the effect of an action may be covered before the action itself. This sounds confusing, but it was not. I was quickly drawn in to th ebook and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I often finish a book and vow to investigate other books by the same author. On rare occasions, I finish a book and feel excited that there is a catalogue of many more books, by the same author, awaiting my attention. This book was one of these rarities.

What I'm reading ...

I have started A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale. It was recommended and my initial impressions are very positive. Here's the blurb:

When 20-year-old Lenny Barnes, paralysed in a rugby accident, commits suicide in the presence of Barnaby Johnson, the much-loved priest of a West Cornwall parish, the tragedy's reverberations open up the fault-lines between Barnaby and his nearest and dearest. The personal stories of his wife, children and lover illuminate Barnaby's ostensibly happy life, and the gulfs of unspoken sadness that separate them all. Across this web of relations scuttles Barnaby's repellent nemesis – a man as wicked as his prey is virtuous.

Returning us to the rugged Cornish landscape of Notes from an Exhibition, Patrick Gale lays bare the lives and the thoughts of a whole community and asks us: what does it mean to be good?

A Man Called Ove - by Fredrik Backman

I really enjoyed this book. It started off rather oddly, appearing to be about a rather annoying guy called Ove. Indeed the book is about him and he would probably be annoying to be around. However, ultimately it is a love story - or a couple of intertwined love stories. And probably the most moving one that I have ever read. After the first 50 pages or so I was totally drawn in; I was very surprised by how emotional the ending made me.

My past (limited) experience of Swedish literature has always been rather dark. I assume that this was originally published in Swedish. I will check out other work by the author for sure.

What I'm reading ...

I have started reading A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. This book was recommended and sounded entertaining. Here’s the blurb:

At first sight, Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He thinks himself surrounded by idiots - neighbours who can't reverse a trailer properly, joggers, shop assistants who talk in code, and the perpetrators of the vicious coup d'etat that ousted him as Chairman of the Residents' Association. He will persist in making his daily inspection rounds of the local streets.
But isn't it rare, these days, to find such old-fashioned clarity of belief and deed? Such unswerving conviction about what the world should be, and a lifelong dedication to making it just so?
In the end, you will see, there is something about Ove that is quite irresistible...

Beautiful Ruins - by Jess Walter

This is a somewhat complex story, with multiple timelines and viewpoints. In at least one place the timelines leapfrog, so that you are aware of the result of an action before you hear about it occurring. However, none of this is confusing and I’d say the book is quite well written. Many aspects of the story are desperately unlikely, but that makes for a good tale. It is ultimately a love story, but succeeds in investigating many other aspects of human behaviour in the process. I am not sure about the technique of including a real person in a fictional story. I guess that’s a matter between the author and the celebrity’s lawyers. The name of the hotel - Adequate View - is genius. And I like th little bits of untranslated Italian, which I think give context without taking away meaning.

I liked the quality of the writing. There are a lot of “one liners”, which I enjoyed:
“What kind of wife would I be if I left your father simply because he is dead?"
“… and a map that looks like it was drawn by a ten-year-old on meth."
“A writer needs four things to achieve greatness: desire, disappointment and the sea.” “That’s only three.” “You have to do disappointment twice."
“But only if you stop wiping your ass on my language."
“Having a baby?” She looked away. “It was like shitting a hen."
He assumed that enough polite post-orgasm conversation had passed, at least it would have in America; he wasn’t sure of the British exchange rate.
“… as if his face had been sculpted in separate pieces and then assembled on-site."