Gabe recommended your Wally Lamb pick to me during lockdown and I absolutely loved it. I mean, the topic was awful in so many ways but the writing... oooee. I see you’ve mentioned The Dictionary of Lost Words to Jacki and that’s another of my favourites from the last few years.
This isn’t quite in the same literary category but I found Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library absorbing and deep-thought-provoking. I didn’t want it to end. And it’s just occurred to me that what Gabe and I loved so much about listening to Alan Bennett reading his plays and short stories in the car was that they were a wonderful mixture of poetic prose, utterly believable dialogue, acute observation about both things and people, all washed down with his dry humour. I find myself quite besotted with him. And he is one of those rare writers whose personal life is interesting to me and relevant to my reading of his work. I want to be Alan Bennett when I grow up, I think.
Thank you! I am so delighted to have inspired this list. Some I have read (and loved - a good omen) and many I have yet to. May this be the end of my current drought. ❤️
Great list, most of those chime with me. If all else fails I read one of my Comfort Books, some of which are The River or China House by Rumer Godden, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson and Haroun & The Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie). But my most recent grab-me-by-the-throat reads were: Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver and All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Darby. Such joy!
Oh, God! Tove Jansson! The Winter Book too, and Work and Love. Argh! I just want to stop doing what I'm doing this instant and go and read one of them. I have never read Rumer Godden's books. I'm quite curious now that you recommend them. And I'll put the last two on my own list of books to get.
Gabe recommended your Wally Lamb pick to me during lockdown and I absolutely loved it. I mean, the topic was awful in so many ways but the writing... oooee. I see you’ve mentioned The Dictionary of Lost Words to Jacki and that’s another of my favourites from the last few years.
This isn’t quite in the same literary category but I found Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library absorbing and deep-thought-provoking. I didn’t want it to end. And it’s just occurred to me that what Gabe and I loved so much about listening to Alan Bennett reading his plays and short stories in the car was that they were a wonderful mixture of poetic prose, utterly believable dialogue, acute observation about both things and people, all washed down with his dry humour. I find myself quite besotted with him. And he is one of those rare writers whose personal life is interesting to me and relevant to my reading of his work. I want to be Alan Bennett when I grow up, I think.
Thank you! I am so delighted to have inspired this list. Some I have read (and loved - a good omen) and many I have yet to. May this be the end of my current drought. ❤️
Let's hold thumbs. BTW, did you ever read The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams? I think you'd like it.
Not yet. Adding it to the list! 🙌
Great list, most of those chime with me. If all else fails I read one of my Comfort Books, some of which are The River or China House by Rumer Godden, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson and Haroun & The Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie). But my most recent grab-me-by-the-throat reads were: Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver and All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Darby. Such joy!
Oh, God! Tove Jansson! The Winter Book too, and Work and Love. Argh! I just want to stop doing what I'm doing this instant and go and read one of them. I have never read Rumer Godden's books. I'm quite curious now that you recommend them. And I'll put the last two on my own list of books to get.