Every month I take a look at the books I’ve been reading, and an article or two that I’d recommend from my travels on the internet. This month, holiday reading and a humdinger of a book.
Here’s what’s been keeping me busy since my last post.
Confessions of a Murder Suspect – James Patterson (jimmy patterson)
I read this on a weekend away, and it was perfect for that time. It’s a detective-genre novel, aimed at the teen market, and tells the story of the murder of the parents in the extremely dysfunctional Angel family. Main character Tandi (short for Tandoori) is both a suspect and an investigator, and her back story is revealed in a series of flashbacks. It’s fast-paced, gripping and entertaining – light reading at its best.
Foolish Mortals – Jennifer Johnson (Tinder Press)
An Irish family, a car accident, a messy divorce, a loss of memory, a flamboyant and fading mother – this book has a broad cast of characters, finding their way towards a family Christmas. I enjoyed it, but in the end, didn’t really believe in it. If it had been a soap opera, now that would be different. Light reading, at the bottom of the pile.
The Starless Sea – Erin Morgenstern (Vintage Publishing)
Now this is a different kettle of fish. Or rather, a different class of book altogether. It’s the tale of an underground world where stories live, and the people who live there, or who visit it. The narrative is pieced together, element by element, one story at a time. Each of those stories is beautifully written, drawing the reader into the fantasy world. There are gaming motifs and folk stories and characters who live with you a long time after you’ve finished reading. I loved it – and so did a friend of my son, who summed it up in two words: “Lovely, lovely.”
Recommended online reading
A column by the mother of a toddler, about motherhood, and writing, and heroes. It’s a long time since I was where the writer finds herself, but this sentence is still true, all these years later:
The truth is that motherhood is a hero’s journey. For most of us it’s not a journey outward, to the most fantastic and farthest-flung places, but inward, downward, to the deepest parts of your strength, to the innermost buried core of everything you are made of but didn’t know was there.
Read it if you are a mother, or a literature buff. Or if you want to understand your own mother (which is probably all of us).
Main picture: Daniele Levis Pelusi, Unsplash
The stuff that’s always at the bottom of blog posts….
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