My Reading Month - November

I had a great reading month in November. Out of nine books, I gave five stars to four, and none received less than three, which was lovely after some disappointments in October.

Although the last few days have been very cold indeed, I've still been able to walk the lanes and paths, so I've listened to Henry James, Dick Francis and Kenneth Grahame, all via BBC Sounds. It was especially wonderful to listen to Michael Bertenshaw reading The Wind in the Willows as red kites circled over the woods and robins watched me from the hedgerows. I've read this inspiring book many times, but this year I found Kenneth Grahame's writing especially moving, and felt at one with Ratty as he spoke so eloquently about the changing of the seasons:

'Such a rich chapter it had been, when one came to look back on it...Drowsy animals, snug in their holes while wind and rain were battering at their doors, recalled still keen mornings, an hour before sunrise, when the white mist, as yet undispersed, clung closely along the surface of the water...the languorous siesta of hot midday...the boating and bathing of the afternoon, the rambles along dusty lanes and through yellow cornfields...there was plenty to talk about on those short winter days, when the animals found themselves round the fire.'

 

I've had books by Henry James on my shelves for years, but the only one I'd read till now was Daisy Miller, which I loved - the others looked long and difficult, and I knew James had a reputation for being just that. Listening to Miriam Margolyes read The Portrait of a Lady turned out, in fact, to be pure pleasure. I enjoyed this sad and thought-provoking story of a Isabel Archer, a young American heiress come to stay in England and her rel

Isabel's story reminds the reader that, in the 19th century, even a rich woman had but to make one mistake - in this case a disastrous marriage - to be trapped by social expectations. Isabel, who before her marriage is so confident and strong, can do little when her husband turns out to be a controlling brute. As always, though, James ends the book with ambiguity - having fled to England to see Ralph before he dies, is Isabel returning to Italy to comply with her husband's demands and the conventions of the time, or simply to rescue his innocent daughter Pansy and leave for good? Maybe James is easier to appreciate in this format, but I am now encouraged to read more.

I'd never even thought of reading any Dick Francis books until Proof was recommended by a fellow fan of BBC Sounds. I knew I didn't want to hear anything about injured, ill-treated or dying horses, but my friend assured me that this one was 'safe' so I gave it a go. In this 1987 adaptation Nigel Havers plays Tony Beach, a wine merchant who supplies the drinks for a party held by a wealthy stables owner and his wife. When tragedy strikes, he discovers that one of the (now deceased) guests at the party, a local restaurant owner, was somehow caught up in a scheme to sell contraband wine. He is also approached by a private detective looking into the theft of lorry-loads of whisky. As the plots thicken and converge, 

Tony uncovers a complex operation involving money-laundering, disappearing racehorses - and the stable owner's own stepson. This was a light, fast-paced mystery set in a world of which I know nothing. It wasn't one of my top reads of the month, but nevertheless I enjoyed it and would read more of Francis (though I'd still first check that nothing terrible happened to any horses...another friend told me that she'd binned the only Francis she ever started reading when things began to go badly for the animals, and I am with her on that.)

My first book in November was A Stranger on the Bars. This is the memoir of Christian Watt Mitchell, who lived her whole life in Broadsea, a tight-knit fishing community in Fraserburgh, forty miles north of Aberdeen.

Christian and her friend 'Bengie's Kirsten' in 1916

Christian's account was taken down verbatim by these two researchers, so it's occasionally slightly incoherent, and the reader doesn't always recognise the names that crop up, especially as, in true Aberdeenshire style, most have nicknames - 'Jeannie's Elsie', Jock's Mary' - but if you just keep reading, the book gives a wonderful flavour of working class life on the Broch a hundred years ago.  There are also some excellent photos. My full review of this fascinating book is here.

This is the first year that I've sorted out a stack of Christmas and/or snowy books.  My enthusiasm for the season is usually decidely lukewarm, but as we've decided not to mix with any other households this year, much of the usual work has melted away. We're also doing a family secret santa, which means only one present to buy, and I've sorted that. So Christmas reading is actually proving a pleasure this time. So far I've read Fannie Flagg's A Redbird Christmas and Stella Gibbons' Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm, and as you can see I've got plenty more to choose from before the end of the year. 

I loved A Redbird Christmas, and as it's been sitting on my shelves for years I don't know why I've waited this long to read it. Yes, it's sentimental, but it's beautifully written and set in a part of the US about which I knew nothing (a small riverside settlement in Alabama) - the descriptions of the wildlife on the river, and the sunsets over it, would make it worth reading by themselves, but this is a story about hope and love, and about doing the right thing. It's also very funny. My full review is here.

Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm turned out to be not a sequel to Stella Gibbons most famous work, but instead a collection of her short stories, all of which had previously appeared in publications like The Lady. I have to admit here and now that I never really got the jokes in Cold Comfort Farm, and the titular story in this book also left me confused, but some of the other stories were much better. Most of them are about sad single women, failing marriages, second wives struggling to cope with the unwelcome visits of first ones. I especially liked Sisters, in which a well-intentioned and rather unworldy woman tries to help a wayward girl - until her efforts backfire disastrously. The Little Christmas Tree is another well told tale, Judy, the precocious small child who comes knocking at Rhoda's country cottage on Christmas Eve with a dramatic (and wholly fictitious) tale of a wicked stepmother, being particularly entertaining.

Dana Stabenow's A Cold-Blooded Business is not about Christmas and neither is it cosy, but it has plenty of snow, ice and sub-zero conditions. In this, the fourth of Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak mysteries, Shugak is inside the Arctic Circle, working undercover as a driver at one of the remote oilfields on Prudhoe Bay. Someone is supplying hard drugs to the workforce, and Shugak's job is to find out who and how. 

As ever, Stabenow is excellent at bringing the location of the story to life - she herself worked at a similar oilfield for some time in the 1970s, when things were far less regulated than they are now, and it's clear that she's writing from personal observation. Life on this isolated base is in some ways surreal; the workers are very well fed, the management turns a blind eye to the regular visits of two sex workers ('we're here to sell magazines'!) and alcohol is freely available (whereas it is now completely banned on offshore installations.) Despite all these perks - and the big money that can be earned - the job is a hard one. For the sake of their mental health, no-one is supposed to stay too long without a break - but this is just one of many rules there to be broken for the sake of profit,  just as safety is not quite the high priority that the managers would have people think. 

Stabenow also highlights the effects of oil excavation on the local native communities. Shugak's formidable grandmother, Ekaterina, is furious to discover that Kate is working for an oil company. The oil has brought many financial benefits to the area, but there have also been cataclysmic oil spills, and little respect is paid to traditional beliefs and practices, nor to the land, wildlife and artefacts that the first nation peoples hold sacred. 

Eventually Shugak nails the drug suppliers, but as ever Stabenow leaves open many questions regarding the difficult relationship between progress and tradition. Excellent.

As part of my year long #projectplaces I read KM Peyton's Flambards. I'm fairly sure this was a set book when I was at school - which probably means I refused to read it. This time round I found the story of an orphan girl sent to live with her crippled uncle and his sons quite interesting, but predictable, and also sometimes irritating in its lack of detail. 

Christina moves from her aunt's comfortable middle class house in Wimbledon to Flambards, a dilapidated mansion in rural Essex.  The entire household revolves around horses and riding, with which bad-tempered bully Uncle Russell and his selfish elder son Mark are obsessed. She soon realises that she has been imported as a suitable wife for the headstrong, cruel Mark, to whom she takes an instant dislike. The fortune she will inherit on her 21st birthday will also come in handy to fund Flambards. Instead though, Christina befriends Mark's younger brother Will, who hates horses and is only interested in flying, and kind stableboy Dick. So far, so good, but although she can't stand her uncle (who, she discovers, was a brilliant huntsman until he was badly injured in a riding accident) or Mark , in no time at all Christina has become an expert horsewoman and spends most of her time riding at point-to-points and hunting.  

Eventually Will's dream of building and piloting a real plane starts to take shape, and despite Christina's fears for his safety (fears that may well be justified, for the year is 1913), she can't stop herself falling in love with him. I found this relationship pretty unconvincing and would rather have had her teamed up with the long-suffering Dick, who at least likes horses!  There is, for me, far too much horse talk and far too many detailed descriptions of hunts, and far too little information about day-to-day domestic life at Flambards - what do they eat? What does Christina do when she's not sitting on a horse? But I know that these books were extremely popular and were also very successfully adapted for televison (remember those Sunday afternoon series?  My favourite was Carrie's War.) I'm sure many people of my generation thought they were wonderful.

My final book of the month was Judy Blume's Are you there God? It's me, Margaret. It’s the first book I’ve ever read by this hugely popular American author and I can see why she is so acclaimed. 

Margaret has moved from New York to New Jersey so that her parents (who have brought Margaret up with no religion after their own 'mixed' marriage has caused her mother's parents to disown her) can afford a house with a garden. 

Like most 11 year old girls, Margaret worries about a lot of things - but she also discusses her worries with God:

'Suppose I hate my new school? Suppose everyone there hates me? Please help me God. Don't let New Jersey be too horrible.'

Margaret does make friends, in particular Gretchen, Janie and the bossy, hilarious Nancy, who encourages them all to do exercises to hasten their development;

'I must, I must, increase my bust!'

and decides that they will all keep and share lists of the boys they want to kiss.

I liked the way the girls were shown to have such normal pre-teen girl obsessions and worries, but also that Margaret could be serious too, with her project investgating different religions (and not finding the God she talks to privately in any of them.) I loved her New York Jewish grandmother, who plans covert outings just for the two of them, lets her take her shoes off at Lincoln Center concerts, and travels ‘all the way’ to New Jersey by train (which she hates) to bring carrier bags full of Jewish food, because she cannot believe that any good stuff can be available outside the city (or that any sane person would want to move there from New York in the first place.) And I admired the way Judy Blume was able to create parents that were both ‘normal’ and funny – despite being embarrassed by her Mum and Dad from time to time, Margaret gets on fine with them really. 

At the end of the novel, Margaret has learned some important life lessons – not everyone tells the truth, no-one is as confident as they appear, the best-looking boys are rarely the nicest – but this is all shown very subtly, there is never a preachy tone to it.  I am so pleased that the monthly book challenge Six Degrees of Separation led me to read this excellent, timeless (it was written over forty years ago) book.

So all in all, this was a good reading month. My favourite book has to be The Wind in the Willows, but A Stranger on the Bars, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and A Redbird Christmas were strong contenders. Have you read any of my November reads?  And if so, what were your thoughts? I'd love to know.