What I'm reading ...

I have started Should We Stay or Should We Go by Lionel Shriver, a recent book by one of my favourite authors. Although I find any discussion about end of life issues uncomfortable, the concept of this book is fascinating. Here’s the blurb:

When her father dies, Kay Wilkinson can’t cry. Over ten years, Alzheimer’s had steadily eroded this erudite man. Surely one’s own father passing should never come as such a relief?

Both healthy and vital medical professionals in their early fifties, Kay and her husband Cyril have seen too many of their elderly NHS patients in similar states of decay. Determined to die with dignity, Cyril makes a modest proposal: they should agree to commit suicide together once they’ve both turned eighty. When their deal is sealed in 1991, the spouses are blithely looking forward to another three decades together.

But then they turn eighty.

By turns hilarious and touching, playful and grave, Should We Stay or Should We Go portrays twelve parallel universes, each exploring a possible future for Kay and Cyril, from a purgatorial Cuckoo’s-Nest-style retirement home to the discovery of a cure for ageing, from cryogenic preservation to the unexpected pleasures of dementia. 

Weaving in a host of contemporary issues – Brexit, mass migration, the coronavirus –  Lionel Shriver has pulled off a rollicking page-turner in which we never have to mourn deceased characters, because they’ll be alive and kicking in the very next chapter.

In Black and White: A Young Barrister's Story of Race and Class in a Broken Justice System - by Alexandra Wilson

As I hoped, this was a book that taught me a lot about worlds to which I am never normally exposed. Some of it is quite frightening, when you see how easily someone can end up in court even when they have done something very minor or even be completely innocent. The book is written in a simple way, clearly describing the events and the author’s feelings as she progressed through pupilage. By the end, I was quite clear that, if I ended up in an appropriately unfortunate situation, I’d want her on my side.

What I'm reading ...

I have started In Black and White: A Young Barrister's Story of Race and Class in a Broken Justice System by Alexandra Wilson. Time for some non-fiction and this looks like a book that I might learn from. Here’s the blurb:

Alexandra Wilson was a teenager when her dear family friend Ayo was stabbed on his way home from football. Ayo's death changed Alexandra. She felt compelled to enter the legal profession in search of answers.

As a junior criminal and family law barrister, Alexandra finds herself navigating a world and a set of rules designed by a privileged few. A world in which fellow barristers sigh with relief when a racist judge retires: 'I've got a black kid today and he would have had no hope'.

In her debut book, In Black and White, Alexandra re-creates the tense courtroom scenes, the heart-breaking meetings with teenage clients, and the moments of frustration and triumph that make up a young barrister's life.

Alexandra shows us how it feels to defend someone who hates the colour of your skin, or someone you suspect is guilty. We see what it is like for children coerced into county line drug deals and the damage that can be caused when we criminalise teenagers.

Alexandra's account of what she has witnessed as a young mixed-race barrister is in equal parts shocking, compelling, confounding and powerful.

How to Kill Your Family - by Bella Mackie

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read. There’s a good story, with a fair amount of complexity and ingenuity and quite a few surprises right up to the end. The author has a great way with words and manages to slip in the odd bit of humour. The characters are well drawn; few of them are at all likable, but that is the intention.

I hope that this author writes some more fiction - I will be on the lookout.

What I'm reading ...

I have started How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie. It was time for fiction again and apparently this is not actually a “How to” manual. 🙂 It seems to be quite popular at this time and it’s good to be current. Here’s the blurb:

Meet Grace Bernard.

Daughter, sister, colleague, friend, serial killer…

Grace has lost everything. And now she wants revenge.

How to Kill Your Family is a fierce and addictive novel about class, family, love… and murder.

Underland: A Deep Time Journey - by Robert Macfarlane

This book took a while. Apart from me being a slow reader, there was a lot to read and take in. The author has a wonderful way with language. His descriptive passages really make you feel like you’re there and also get a clear impression of his thoughts. An interesting example is the discussion of the coastline of Greenland, which was once joined to Europe. He refers to it making a “torn-page match” with the gneiss of the Outer Hebrides, which is a beautiful analogy IMHO.

He went to places that I will never go to [and many that I wouldn’t want to go to] - it is a privilege to travel there vicariously via this author.

I enjoyed the many bits of random information, for example:

• Potawatomi, a Native American language of the Great Plains region, includes the word puhpowee, which might be translated as ‘the force which causes mushrooms to push up from the earth overnight’.  Potawatomi is a language abundant with verbs: 70 per cent of its words are verbs, compared to 30 per cent in English.
• In Norway there is a tiny village called Å.
• A moulin is hole in a glacier into which meltwater pours. They make interesting sounds

I will be reading more works by this author.