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Retired teachers: Miss Garnet’s Angel & Olive Kitteridge

16/1/2021

5 Comments

 
I’m sharing my reflections on two novels, published a few years ago about retired schoolteachers who are forced to reappraise aspects of their pasts. Julia Garnet, a former history teacher in South London, has her epiphany in Venice; former maths teacher, Olive Kitteridge, stays in her home town in Maine. Both women have hidden their vulnerabilities beneath a steely shell. Both demonstrate it’s never too late to learn.

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My reading and writing goals for 2021

11/1/2021

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Did you ever get the feeling 2021 might not happen? We’d somehow be stuck in a 2020 Groundhog Day? Or were you the opposite, confident a new diary would create this worn-out world anew? Well, here we are, with some things as bad as ever – or worse: in the UK, with the new variant, hospital admissions are higher than during the first lockdown – but with the promise of life edging towards normal sometime this year.
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Meanwhile, we plod on, making the best of what freedom we have. For those of us who live primarily in our heads, the pandemic is no excuse to shirk. So, on the reasonable assumption I’ll survive to implement them, here are my goals and plans for the coming year.

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Fictional biographies: Sacred Country & The Stone Diaries

7/1/2021

4 Comments

 
Two novels that have sat on my bookshelves for a while, the first waiting to be read, and the second loved and waiting to be re-read. Written by acclaimed female novelists – the first British and the second, Canadian, now deceased – read on to see what this unacclaimed female novelist, also the author of a fictional biography, thought.

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Out with the old, in with the new (once we’re all vaccinated, of course)

31/12/2020

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See what I THOUGHT 2020 would bring

Adieu 2020, you won’t be missed! Although we won’t be fully done with you until we’ve all been vaccinated (and for we poor Remoaners, until we rejoin the EU). Nevertheless, our internal clocks insist it’s stocktaking season: the time to review our successes and failures, to measure ourselves against January’s goals. Starkly unblinkered this year, we gaze back at what seems the Age of Innocence, adjusting our aspirations for 2021. But however we’ve fared, since the pandemic makes staying alive an achievement, we can congratulate ourselves on arriving here.
 
Amid the lows and lows, I’ve made some progress with my reading, writing and promotion, with some positives that wouldn’t have happened without lockdown. Let’s have a closer look!


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Twelve novels and two non-fiction books: my favourite reads of 2020

29/12/2020

4 Comments

 
Proof, if proof were needed, we are living through strange times: I’ve selected two non-fiction books among this year’s favourite reads. But fiction still gets preferential treatment on Annethology… or could it be I’m saving the best for later?
 
I hope you’ll browse through my choices, the novels listed in the order I read them, and let me know if any chime with yours.


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Sex and the consulting room: Lying on the Couch & Portnoy’s Complaint

26/12/2020

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Two novels featuring sex and psychotherapy: can you guess which one I couldn’t finish? The other is both entertaining and educational, so put your feet up and read on.

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Belatedly cancelling Christmas is a missed opportunity for growth

20/12/2020

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How lovely to see the Prime Minister’s delusions of Churchillian grandeur cast aside as he’s forced to adopt his rightful role as Scrooge. Sadly, not because he required a twenty-three-year-old footballer to pinpoint the appropriate response to childhood hunger but, in this year of disappointment and deprivation, we must grab consolation where we can.

How distressing, however, for the millions whose hopes for Christmas gatherings are scuppered with little  time to make alternative plans. But hey – silver lining alert! – we can use it as a dress rehearsal for a no-deal Brexit, this Liar of Liars’ principal vanity project. As he didn’t say at a recent press conference: What, no croissants? Let them eat sovereignty instead!


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Strange goings-on at a house party: The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle & Earthlings

18/12/2020

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Large gatherings at country houses are common enough in fiction, but these two recent reads, both involving family secrets, couldn’t be more different. It’s not so much that the first is set in England and the second in Japan, but one’s crime and the other literary translation. But even within those genres, they’re oddballs. In a good way? Read on for my thoughts!

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Twins groomed for jihad: Home Fire & The Orange Grove

12/12/2020

4 Comments

 
A novel and a novella featuring twins pulled apart when one is targeted to be a pawn in a war they don’t fully understand: in the first, nineteen-year-old Londoners; in the second, boys in an unnamed Arab country brainwashed into self-sacrifice at only nine.


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Memorial Memoirs: Absolutely Delicious & Apprenticed to My Mother

7/12/2020

7 Comments

 
I’ve recently read these two memoirs which celebrate the fortitude of the authors’ mothers, especially in later life. Both stories are precipitated by a death: in the case of Alison Jean Lester’s memoir, it’s her mother’s confrontation with terminal cancer; for Geoff Le Pard, it’s the revelation of a new side of his mother’s character on becoming a widow. Both are touching tributes, peppered with poetry and humour.

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Dreaming of a coronavirus Christmas?

6/12/2020

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Ho Ho Ho, bah humbug! This blogger who feels a misfit each December, finds herself, in topsy-turvy 2020, miraculously on track. Or is she? (Am I?) If everyone’s having an alternative Christmas, am I once again out on a limb? If I always opt for a minimalist Christmas, then my festivities will be (unlike most people’s) little different this year to last.


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Aftermath: The Former Chief Executive & Little White Lies

29/11/2020

2 Comments

 
These two novels deal with the aftermath of situations that had caught (fictional) media attention told from the point of view of a woman who tried to do her best. In the first, a political scandal has led to the titular Chief Executive’s early retirement; in the second, an abducted girl is returned to her mother. Of course, the aftermath isn’t quite as the protagonists expect.

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Horror: Grey Bees, Witch Bottle & Faces in the Water

22/11/2020

6 Comments

 
Only one of these three recent reads is classed as a horror novel and, although not my usual genre, it turned out to be my favourite of the three. But we don’t need to evoke the supernatural to scare ourselves: there are real-life horrors in each of these stories. In the first, a translation, war has killed many and put the survivors’ lives on hold. In the second, set in rural Cumbria, the spooky happenings are extra disturbing for a man with unprocessed memories of violence from childhood, as well as his helplessness in the face of his wife’s agonising three-day labour. The third is a 1960s classic set in a horrific – but typical of its time – psychiatric hospital where the regime seems designed to make a bad situation worse.

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Avocado on toast, anyone?

17/11/2020

8 Comments

 
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I don't recall when I first tasted avocado. It might have been as a starter in the kind of restaurant that thinks it's sophisticated to use the term hors d'oeuvre. For a while, I regularly added a pack to my supermarket trolley until the millennials got a taste for avocado on toast. Although I don't object to being on trend occasionally, it makes it hard to eat ethically where we have to import them: I don't want to be responsible for the loss of rainforests to get my fix.

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Medieval maids on a mission: The Errant Hours & Divine Heretic

13/11/2020

2 Comments

 
Two recent reads set in medieval Europe, where reluctant heroines must confront obstacles both spiritual and tangible to take a chance on happiness with the man they love. The first is set in Britain and the second, two centuries later, in France. Both include St Margaret as a minor character, but I was rooting for the maids on a mission, hoping they’d save their loved ones, and themselves.

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Beat the lockdown blues with a book

10/11/2020

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As night arrives ever earlier across the northern hemisphere, and Europe returns to lockdown, there could hardly be a better time to curl up with a book. If you have a UK address, you can enter a competition to win a signed copy of one of my novels and five other novels I’ve read and enjoyed.

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No place in the American dream: Stoner & Interior Chinatown

8/11/2020

4 Comments

 
No, I'm not going to mention the election, although I read the second of these two novels as a certain world leader screamed for the count to be suspended in some states and accelerated in others. And I wouldn't want to speculate on whether the status of these fictionalised ordinary Americans might shed some light on how half the country lost its mind. But I do love a story that upends the American dream. Where is the space for those who don’t strive for success and fame? Where do the American Asians fit in the narrative? Prepare to be provoked and entertained!

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Adoption aftermaths: Helen and the Grandbees, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? & Red Dust Road

30/10/2020

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I suspect I’m drawn to adoption narratives because of the way they can make concrete a vague sense of loss and yearning some of us feel as a result of early maternal neglect. It’s one of the themes of my forthcoming novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, and its follow-up, 100 Candles, my current WIP. In fact, I read/reread the two memoirs reviewed in this post as research for the latter. The other book is a debut novel offered to me by the publisher.

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Communities set apart: Three Things about Elsie; The Pear Field; Oshibana Complex

26/10/2020

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I’m sharing my thoughts about three recent reads set in communities slightly apart from the mainstream: the first two in contemporary residential care settings and the third in a dystopian future world. In genre they’re also slightly apart from my usual fare: the first mass-market commercial fiction; the second, a translation (and therefore closest to my usual); the third, cyberpunk. Each offered something to intrigue and enjoy.

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To and from Jamaica: Mr Atkinson’s Rum Contract; Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole; Augustown

21/10/2020

2 Comments

 
When I selected my reading for Black History Month, I didn’t realise that three of the four books had a connection to Jamaica. Nor did I realise that one would obscure black history as much as it illuminates. While three books are around ninety-seven short of composing a timeline, they’re listed here in chronological order of the events they portray. Scroll down for links to my reviews of other books (mostly fiction) I’ve read in recent years.

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Enmeshed: My Devotion & Burnt Sugar

16/10/2020

8 Comments

 
I’ve recently read two novels about women whose damaging childhoods lead to adult relationships  where they can’t manage to separate psychologically from someone who fails to meet their needs. In the first, a French translation, the enmeshed relationship is with a man who is less than a partner but more than a friend. The second, set in India, centres on a toxic mother-daughter relationship, a common theme in my reading and writing, which has sparked this week’s 99-word story.

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The therapy journey and narrative structure

13/10/2020

11 Comments

 
Three years ago, I left my therapist’s consulting room for the last time. Stepping out into the street, I felt a rush of panic. What the hell had I done? My regrets at bringing an extensive therapy to a close lasted all of two minutes, or maybe three, and haven’t returned. Nor have I entertained a moment’s regret at the hours I invested in the endeavour, or the numerous cheques I signed to pay for it. A decent outcome, you might agree, but why am I telling you this? Because my reflections on my journey through therapy has a bearing on my thoughts about narrative structure.

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What are you reading for Black History Month?

6/10/2020

6 Comments

 
Black History Month comes after a summer of confronting the legacy of white interference in black history. Painful for many, from my safe distance the toppling of the statue of the flavour in Bristol has been a beacon of hope in a crazy year. It’s even altered the course of my WIP. But will we learn anything? Will we take the lessons of 2020 into the rest of the decade? Will reading – fiction and non-fiction – keep these issues where they need to be, at the forefront of our minds?


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For better or worse (or much worse): An American Marriage & Soldier Boy

29/9/2020

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These two recent reads are about marriages under severe strain. In the first, set in the southern USA, a woman turns to a mutual friend when her husband is sentenced to twelve years’ in prison for the crime of being black in the vicinity of a sexual assault. In the second, set in the UK, a family is in crisis as a result of the husband and father’s combat PTSD.

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Holidays, families and home: Summerwater & Ties

23/9/2020

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These two novels defy easy categorisation, but I’ve paired them for the combination of depth and humour, innovative structure and switching points of view. Both feature the dynamics of family and coupledom, and a holiday – the first in Scotland, the second in Italy – with destructive consequences.

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    Annecdotist is the blogging persona of Anne Goodwin: 
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