Reading matters

'Oranges are Not the Only Fruit' by Jeanette Winterson

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 171 pages; 2001.

First published in 1985 by a precocious new writing talent -- Jeanette Winterson was just 24 at the time -- Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is one of those books that you know you'll get around to reading one day. Well, that one day came around for me last week although I'd had the book in my reading queue for a year or more.

Not having seen the BBC TV series of the same name, I knew surprisingly little about the storyline except that it had "something to do with lesbians". Funny how your mind catalogues unread books by such crude generalisations, isn't it?

Of course female homosexuality is one of the themes that runs through Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit but it is far from the only theme. Religion, obsession, poverty and adoption are other subjects that are central to the storyline.

'The Fifth Child' by Doris Lessing

  Fiction - paperback; Flamingo; 160 pages; 2001.

Doris Lessing is one of those authors you know you ought to read but never do. A case in point: I've had both The Golden Notebook and The Good Terrorist in my possession for more than three years and never once cracked them open. The sheer size of the books and the weight of the subjects contained within, combined with Lessing's awesome literary reputation, have made me doubt my ability to understand and enjoy her work. Easier, then, to leave well alone.

That was until I read John Self's review of The Fifth Child followed in due course by another review of the same book by Isabel from Books and Other Stuff. Maybe it was time to take the plunge? A slim book -- just 160 pages -- seemed the perfect introduction to her work.

And so this is how I came to read my first Doris Lessing last week.

The Fifth Child is billed as a horror story but it's not from the Stephen King school of horror -- it's slightly more subtle but oodles more menacing because of it.

'Losing You' by Nicci French

Fiction - paperback; Penguin Books; 293 pages; 2007.

I'm a long-time Nicci French fan, but it's been more than two years since I picked up anything written by this husband-and-wife team. Once-upon-a-time I would anxiously await each new release, sometimes even buying them in hardcover when expenses would allow, because I enjoyed reading these psychological thrillers so much.

But I found the last French book, Catch Me When I Fall, slightly disappointing. It felt like the girl-on-the-run-from-a-stranger franchise had become tired and too formulaic, or perhaps I'd simply cottoned on to the fact that Nicci French is a one-trick pony and I wanted a little more from the reading experience. Needless to say, I didn't rush out and buy the next one: I bided my time and acquired it via BookMooch a month or so ago.

Losing You, I am happy to report, is a welcome breaking of the mould. This time it's not a young woman being stalked that forms the backbone of the narrative, but a mother searching for her missing child. It's a refreshing change.

The novel -- the 10th one in the French catalogue -- is set on Sandling Island, 60 miles from London, "but, rimmed as it was by the tidal estuary and facing out to open sea, it had the feel of a different world, gripped by weather and seasons; full of wild spaces, loneliness, the strange call of sea-birds and sighing winds". It's the ideal claustrophobic and slightly creepy setting for the story that enfolds over the course of the next 290 pages.

Nina Landry, recently separated from her husband, is about to embark on a Christmas break to Florida with her new beau and her two children, 15-year-old Charlie (Charlotte) and 11-year-old Jackson. The day ahead looms large, with a million tasks to do before the family heads to Heathrow for their 6pm flight, but things go off kilter before it even gets started. First, Nina's car breaks down, then her house is swamped by people throwing a surprise 40th birthday party for her -- and all this before 11am. 

It's only when Nina notices Charlie's absence that the suspense gets ratcheted up a notch or two. When she calls the police, they assume it's simply a case of a teenager running away because she's unhappy at home. But Nina knows this isn't true.

Embarking on her own investigation, she slowly pieces together Charlie's last movements and, in doing so, learns that the relationship she has with her daughter is not as open or as trusting as she first thought. Nina slowly begins to uncover secrets within secrets, all of which lead her to believe that Charlie will turn up dead if she doesn't find her quickly...

This is typical French fare in the sense that the suspense doesn't really let up from the word go, helped in part by absolutely no chapter breaks. The prose style hurries along at an ever-quickening pace without losing the rich detail and vivid descriptions that bring the narrative to life -- you get a real sense of the people, the places and the events that occur in ways that a less-busy, tell-don't-show style would fail to deliver.

There are plenty of twists and turns in the plot, and many characters are not what they first appear to be, and all the while the story never really escalates into all-out melodrama. Indeed, it reads as quite an authentic account of a panicked mother trying to find her missing child when the rest of the world doesn't seem to take her concerns seriously enough.

Losing You is a thoroughly entertaining read, one to quicken the pulse and test your powers of deduction all the way through. I can honestly say I did not guess the ending, nor the perpetrator, which is quite rare in much of my recent reading experience.

Now, that French seems to have worked her way into my good books once again, I wonder where I can get my hands on a copy of her latest novel Until It's Over...

'A Time to Tell' by Maria Savva

  Fiction - paperback; Pen Press Publishers; 308 pages; 2006. Review copy.

I haven't read a rollicking good family-saga-cum-romance for a very long time, so I was pleased to pick up Maria Savva's second novel, A Time to Tell, for a leisurely Saturday afternoon read this past weekend. It turned out to be perfect fare for someone currently suffering from a chest infection, and I ploughed through it in one sitting.

The novel charts the course of Cara Hughes' life over a 50-year period from the early 1950s to the beginning of the 21st century. From her first doomed love affair and a failed suicide attempt, to marriage and motherhood, the book actually opens at the end of Cara's life as a 60-something widowed invalid living with the only relation that will have her -- a granddaughter caught up in an abusive marriage.

Unusually, the story does not follow a reverse chronological order as you would expect from such a starting point, but jumps backwards and forwards in time, a style that reflects Cara's memories as and when they occur to her. Through this disjointed third-person narrative we slowly learn more about Cara's long life: her joys and sorrows, her trials and tribulations, and the very many secrets she has kept hidden from her family, including the fact that the father of her first-born was not the man she married but the one for which, some 50 years later, she still harbours strong affection.

We also get introduced to a vast array of characters -- three children, one of whom has been missing for 16 years, various grandchildren, an estranged sister, and an assortment of in-laws -- so many , in fact, that it is almost impossible to keep track of who's who. Before long, the reader begins to build a picture of a large, complicated and dysfunctional family that is falling apart at the seams.

But Cara only begins to reassess her own familial values and relationships and to regret some of her past actions when she is shunted off to live with an older sister she hasn't spoken to in more than two decades. Here, in the home in which she grew up, Cara is forced to confront some of her most painful memories...

'The Iraqi' by J.A. Mulholland

Fiction - paperback; Stamford House Publishing; 399 pages; 2008. Review copy.

Although I generally prefer modern literary fiction, I pride myself on having fairly eclectic reading tastes and will happily try genres and authors I haven't read before. If a book is set in an exotic location, particularly if it’s a place that hasn’t featured in any other novel I have read before, it will immediately pique my interest.

And I am always very happy to read first-time novelists, often preferring them to more established names.

The Iraqi, by J.A. Mulholland, ticked all these boxes.

Admittedly, I had my doubts about the premise -- an English woman going on "a secret mission into occupied Iraq to save a man she has only met by email" – but felt that the Middle Eastern setting would make up for this.

'Eden' by Tim Smit

Non-fiction - paperback; Corgi; 286 pages; 2002.

The Eden Project is a series of man-made biomes built in a disused clay pit in Cornwall, England. One of the British Government's much-lauded Millennium Projects, it opened to critical acclaim in 2001 and has been on my list of places to visit for many years.

Designed to educate the public about plants and our dependence on them, it features the world's biggest conservatories, the first of which emulates a tropical environment, the second a warm temperate Mediterranean environment. Both biomes are made out of "bubbles" -- sturdy plastic, air-filled hexagons -- which interlock to form a series of gigantic greenhouses that are home to thousands of plants from across the world.

I visited the complex last month and was so in awe of its scale and beauty that I purchased this book, by the project's founder, in the souvenir shop because I was keen to learn more about the project's inception and difficult birth.

'The Scheme for Full Employment' by Magnus Mills

Fiction - hardcover; Flamingo; 255 pages; 2003.

Reading a book by Magnus Mills is a bit like stepping into a parallel universe: everything looks and feels the same but there's something a little off key that you can't quite put your finger on. The Scheme for Full Employment, Mills' fourth novel, is no exception.

The Scheme is essentially a distribution business in which goods are transported from depot to depot in a vehicle called a UniVan.

The UniVan was a glorious creation! With its distinctive gunmetal paintwork and silvery livery, its bull-nosed profile, running boards and chrome front grill, it had become a celebrated national icon, recognised and loved by all! Moreover, it represented a great idea that not only worked, but was seen to work!

Becoming an employee on The Scheme, which runs like clockwork and offers eight hours' pay for eight hours' work, is held up as a pinnacle of achievement. What better way can one earn a living than driving a van in a courteous, efficient and timely manner from depot to depot delivering unspecified goods to a rigorous and ordered schedule?

But the rigour and order with which The Scheme is renowned comes under threat by revelations that some workers aren't doing their full eight hour days -- some are being signed off for an "early swerve" on a semi-regular basis, so instead of finishing bang on 4.30pm some are going home a half-hour earlier! This authorised skiving is not approved by those employees who believe that such actions will destroy The Scheme's regimented order they love so much, and a strike -- the first in The Scheme's history -- ensues.

'A House in the Country' by Jocelyn Playfair

Fiction - paperback; Persephone Books; 264 pages; 2002.

There's nothing quite like reading a Persephone Book: the weighty feel of them in the hand, the beautiful endpapers, the creamy pages and the strangely old-fashioned Baskerville font feels like such a delicious treat. I'd been saving this one up for a special "occasion". I figured it would be perfect holiday reading, curled up by the fire in a little cottage in Cornwall, free from the usual schedules and appointments that clutter up my life. Alas, A House in the Country was not the kind of book to be read with the brain in neutral. It's a deeply philosophical story to mull over and think about. Under normal circumstances I am sure I would have loved it. As a holiday read it failed to win me over.

Set in England in 1942, during the fall of Tobruk, this is a war novel told from a women's perspective. But, more importantly, it's a war novel that does not interpret events because, as Persephone points out in its catalogue, it was written in 1944 when the outcome of the Second World War was still uncertain. So, in essence, the flavour of the book is entirely authentic, a kind of postcard from the past that describes what life was like for those in England who were far removed from the battlefields of Europe.

The central character, Cressida Chance, is 38-year-old widow who runs a grand Georgian house in the country. Here she has numerous paying house guests whom she entertains, feeds and looks after, including her formidable elderly aunt, who visits regularly from London, and Tori, a gentleman from an unidentified European country, who has fled the war with nothing more than the clothes on his back.

'The Importance of Being Earnest' by Oscar Wilde

Fiction - paperback; Penguin Popular Classics; 67 pages; 1994.

In my quest to read more work by Irish literary greats this year, I recently purchased a newly repackaged Penguin Popular Classic version of Oscar Wilde's 1895 play The Importance of Being Earnest. This edition, with its vibrant green cover and tracing-paper thin paper (all 100 per cent recycled), retails for a meagre £2 -- that's a damn cheap price for a masterpiece, in my opinion.

I don't normally read plays (as the 200-plus reviews on this blog will attest), but I decided to make an exception in this case. (Well, to be honest, I'd already read The Picture of Dorian Gray back in my early 20s and because there's a distinct lack of other novels in Mr Wilde's back catalogue I wasn't left with much choice.)

I had seen a film version of this play a couple of years ago (the 2002 version starring Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Frances O'Connor, Reese Witherspoon and Judi Dench) and I remember laughing out loud at a lot of it. But seeing the words in black-and-white print makes them seem even funnier -- if that is possible.

For those who don't know the storyline, the brief synopsis goes something like this: Country gentleman Jack Worthing invents a younger brother, Ernest, whom he pretends to be when he visits the city. This gives him free reign to pursue the beautiful Gwendolen. Meanwhile his city-based friend, Algernon Moncrieff, invents a poorly relative, Bunbury, whom he pretends to visit in the country in order that he can leave his dull city existence behind for a bit of fun and frivolity. One day Algernon pretends to be Ernest and visits Jack's pretty charge, Cecily, in the country, which leads to all kinds of confusion about identity. Obviously, Jack is not happy, but when his own deceptive behaviour is called into question, the scene is ripe for much farce and hilarity.

'The River' by Tricia Wastvedt

Fiction - paperback; Penguin; 346 pages; 2004.

The River was one of those spontaneous purchases made on the back of an Amazon recommendation. Previously I knew nothing about the book and had never heard of the author, but the storyline sounded intriguing.

It's set in an idyllic English village that is haunted by a terrible tragedy in which two children drowned in the local river. This was in 1958.

Fast forward almost 40 years and Anna, a young pregnant woman from London, arrives in the village, hoping to start a new life for herself. She meets Isabel and Robert, the couple whose children died all those years ago, and finds them living a strange existence: emotionally separated (but not divorced), with Isabel residing in the house and Robert acting as if he is her head gardener.

Weird as it might sound, Isabel invites Anna to live with her permanently. But when the baby is born, Isabel starts acting oddly. She becomes especially protective of the newborn and before long Anna realises that Isabel's intentions may not be without malice...